My family has never been to Universal Studios together and so much has changed! We were so excited to see Mario Land! I even went to Walmart and got matching Mario Cart shirts…. Nerdy!!
We purchased the hour early pass for Mario Land for $30 a person. We also purchased the interactive wristbands ($40 each) at the Mario store on the Universal Walk to save time that morning.
We got there at 6:45 am and we were quickly let into Universal. They then had us stand in line above the escalator to get to the lower level until 7:00 am.
It takes 15-20 minutes to get down the escalator and now it’s 7:20am!
You go into the green pipe and you are magically in the video game! The land is extremely small and when you get in everyone is standing in line for the one ride, Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge.
Going through the line was so cool! Seeing all the characters and details brought back so many memories of playing the game when I was little. The ride was good..worth waiting 2 hours for it…ehhhh. (That’s the average wait time)
Our hour was completely gone after riding the ride. The kids didn’t even get to use their interactive wristbands because the lines were so long to collect the coins. So we ended up leaving.
We were able to get on Jurassic World, The Mummy and the Tram fairly quickly. Then we went to Harry Potter Land!!
We had such a great time here! 3 out 4 of my kids have read the books and it’s so much fun seeing their reaction to all the stores and interactive places.
Each kid purchased a characters wand which came with a map. They were able to go around the land and do spells to make items move. After working up a sweat we had to get the butter beer which was delicious! ( Tasted like cream soda to me.)
We ate at the 3 Broomstick Restaurant which was a special treat. It really gave you the feel you were at Hogsmeade. They served mac and cheese, fish and chips, chicken platter and bangers & mash. All the food was delicious and of course had to chase it down with more butter beer.
Minon Land had a great water park area and good food options. We were also able to meet several characters here!
We ended the day watching the Water World show. The kids were amazed by all the stunts, boats and fire. They have never been so close to anything like that before. We ended up leaving around 1:00 because we ran out of things to do. I think the biggest downfall for us was a lot of the rides are in 3D and our family gets motion sickness. So we didn’t go on a lot.
We had a great time at Universal Studios and ready to go onto Legoland!!
Elk Grove Families 