By Brandon Hill on October 14, 2013 • ( Leave a comment )

2013: Florida Spring Break Trip 2013: Universal Studios

The next adventure in our Spring Break trip was going to Universal Studios. Unfortunately for us the Universal Studios website printed an incorrect opening time of 8am so we were there bright and early at 7:30am! When we got there no one else was around and we found out that the park opened at 9am. But, fortunately for us, they opened the gates at 8:35am and we rode 4 rides in the first hour! I would do it this way in a second, because by 11am lines were an hour long and by 2pm they were 2 to 3 hours long.

The left-hand side of this spread includes a Universal Studios laser cut that I purchased on Ebay, and a picture in front of the world-famous Universal Globe taken early in the morning trying to spend time from getting their two early. The black background behind the photograph fits with the edgy design of the page but is actually the left over cut from the laurel wreaths that I cut for the Abraham Lincoln tomb page. Look carefully at the inside of the wreaths that are on the right- and left-hand side of the pages and you will notice the reverse pattern. I very rarely through any pieces away like this, because I figure that there may be a use for them sometime.

Since the park opened early and hardly anyone was there, the boys rode the Rockit two times in a row – I skipped the ride because I knew that it would make me sick. The right hand page show cases the photograph taken during the ride, as well as the DVD, in a plastic case, that you can have made of your experience on the ride. Cameras on the roller coaster, as well as those along the track, take photographs and video of you, and then combine it with the music that you chose to listen to while on the ride, and cool animations, to create a video of your experience. After we downloaded the video to our computer I put the DVD in the scrapbook to keep it with the memories in case we ever had to find it again. Also, due to the cool graphic on the DVD it fits in color scheme as a cool piece of ephemera.

2013: Florida Spring Break Trip 2013: Universal Studios 2

Our exchange student was mesmerized by “Despicable Me” and loved the Minions and the “Its so fluffy” unicorn, so I knew that I needed to dedicate at least one page to the Minions. I chose the yellow background page color to pay homage to the minions, but it also worked well with the “Fear Factor” theme colors. By the way, we stood in line for three hours to ride the new “Despicable Me” ride and it was not worth the wait. It wasn’t that great of a ride.

The Universal Studios logo that is in the middle of the Minions is actually a patch that I bought in the souvenir store and glued on to the page.

Our exchange student wanted to get on to “Fear Factor” – an audience participation stunt show at Universal. He auditioned and out of 20 guys (no women tried out) he was selected to be one of four in the show. Unfortunately, he got knocked out in the first round – but he (and we) had a great time participating anyway.