(No) pork and beans...

We had a lazy start to the day and Keith and I opened a can of "pork" and beans we'd bought in Target yesterday for breakfast. I imagined there'd be little sausages inside the can, but there was nothing...just beans! How does that work then?

We spent the morning around the pool and had an early lunch at midday before getting ready to go to Universal. It has been very hot today as there's been little cloud cover and the sun has been really fierce.

We decided to try yet another route to the park - this time we went on the West Osceola Parkway, the same road we'd used before and we drove past BJ's (our dinner destination for this evening) and the large shopping centre called The Loop. The traffic on the West Osceola Parkway was quite light, but when we turned onto the John Young Parkway, it became a lot busier and stayed that way until we reached Universal. It was a good route but it still took us an hour.

We paid a bit more for parking today and ended up inside (in Jaws) and not that far from the attractions. The park didn't seem that busy and the wait times weren't bad at all. We wanted to do the Jimmy Fallon ride first but you do "virtual" queuing here and we decided on a time slot starting from 4pm. Having obtained a little ticket we headed for Transformers and the waiting took place inside the air-conditioned building which was good. It was a very noisy wait, though, with characters from the film scowling and growling at us all the way along!

The ride itself, I thought, was great but Keith and Mike weren't so impressed. It's very similar to Spiderman in that you sit in an enclosed car wearing 3D glasses and move around on a track with various screens opening up in front of you. The characters appear in 3D and there's the usual flames, water and other things being hurled at you!

We emerged from the ride and Sophie said she'd treat us all to a Dipping Dots ice-cream. However, we spotted a Ben and Jerry's cafe so we went inside and found a seat while Soph and Mike queued up. It took forever! Keith wandered off to watch a Blues Brothers act and when he returned, they were still queuing! I'm just so glad it was lovely and cool!

After our ice-cream we went to the Jimmy Fallon show and after a confusing start, we thoroughly enjoyed the ride as it's very similar to The Simpsons. You see some entertainment first and then you get taken through to a waiting area where you all sit in rows in theatre-like seating. A large screen opens up in front of you and Jimmy Fallon appears, saying we're going to accompany him on a ride through New York. We are then hurtled along with him and there's lots of driving through the streets, collisions with other vehicles and eventually a trip to the moon, where we returned to earth on a roller-coaster! It was thoroughly enjoyable!

Sophie and Mike went on Revenge of the Mummy next (I chickened out and Sophie said I would not have enjoyed it!) while Keith and I waited for them in the shade. It was very, very hot! We wanted to do Escape from Gringotts next,  but there was a wait time of 70 minutes and we just didn't have time so we explored Diagon Alley (fantastic!) and then made our way back to the car.

The heat was unbelievable and we find that the walk back to the car is the hottest. We had to re-trace our route of earlier to get to BJ's but of course, we got lost! However, we soon found the way and were delighted to find there wasn't a wait for the table.

Keith tried a four beer sampler (the nine beer wasn't available any more) and Sophie had a lager. Poor Mike had to stick with strawberry lemonade while I enjoyed a glass of wine.

No beer for Mike!

Sophie was asked for ID again by the very friendly waitress who chatted to us non-stop all the time she was serving us, which was great. We enjoyed boneless chicken wings in a root beer sauce to start as well as Mozzarella sticks. For mains I had Parmesan crusted chicken served with mash and broccoli, Keith had fish and chips, Sophie had a chicken noodle dish while Mike had a very expensive "build-your-own" pizza.

We certainly didn't have room for dessert (especially not after the ice-creams we'd had earlier) so we asked for the bill. It was slightly wrong - we'd been charged for a burger we didn't have and the voucher for $10 off that I'd downloaded to my phone wasn't included - but it was soon put right and after a lovely chat with the young waitress we set off for the villa. The bill had come to $126 and Mike's pizza was $25...yikes! It was a good job he took it home with him!