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When a once in a lifetime opportunity comes around, you want to make the most of it. Don’t waste the day as my Mother would say. It’s a little disheartening when your only means of transport doesn’t agree with you. Universal Studios probably opens at around 9am, but I didn’t bother to find out. I didn’t bother, because the earliest pickup from the coach was at 10am - which should get you there at 11am. By that time of the morning, the actual opening time becomes somewhat of a moot point. Rather than whining, I could have found another coach service - however the hotel was not so helpful on this point, so I went with the easier option.
Well, there is a natural silver lining - we both enjoyed the sleep in. Shame that we couldn’t follow that up with a luxurious breakfast - the scrum of people in the breakfast room making anything other than snatching a quick bite a futile exercise. The key to happiness here lies in the very cheapness of the breakfast. Because you are supplied with paper plates and Styrofoam cups - which you just throw away later - hence the staff don’t really
care if you have your breakfast to go. So, though breakfast started with a scrum and was rather hurried after that, I was still able to walk away with a coffee to enjoy.
Which brought us through to kerbside where we waited for our coach. I had a coffee to finish off - but I didn’t hurry as we had a good ten minutes before the coach was due. Ten minutes stretched to thirty and I started to grumble about a late start getting later. When the coach did turn up it took us to a depot rather than Universal. Only fair I guess as we hadn’t yet paid. It turns out though, that this is a tricky thing to do. Well, for everyone else anyway. In an effort to speed things along Cheri and I rushed off the coach and paid immediatly. Not everyone had the same idea. For nearly an hour people dripped their way in and out of the office. This wasn't sped along at all by management who shunted people off to the waiting coaches in a fairly distracted way.
Just as all good things come to an end though, all things tedious must
eventually finish. We were off and on our way to Universal Studios with nary a complaint about the delay. Well, perhaps a few. We might even have mentioned that we could enjoy the proper spirit of the country and sue someone for lost enjoyment. After all, the best strategy for places like this is to get there early and ride as many things as you can before the rest of the world turns up and lines up in big smelly, sweaty, un-deodorised queues.
You can't complain about how long it takes you to get to a place once you get there. You've just got to play the hand that you've been dealt. We dashed off to the studio tour (as recommended to us by many people) and queued. The line wasn't long, but we couldn't help but notice that there was an even shorter line which seemed to be moving rather quickly. Had we thought about this, we would have realised that we could probably have joined the short line and got onto our tour that much quicker. You see, though you have to play the hand that you've been dealt, you can always try to stack the deck
in your favour. We paid a little extra for tickets which promised to put us at the front of the queue. This doesn't help you when you don't think about it though and stand in the pleb line anyway.
This however doesn't take the shine off when the line is short, moves quickly and the tour is breath-takingly splendid. From the safety of golf-cart like tram you get taken around the working sets of Universal Studios. This includes places where current programs and movies are being filmed and of course they point out areas where famous films from the past were made. You drive right past Wisteria Lane, which is actually just down the road from Texas, Mexico, little Europe, Whoville, the Bates Motel (yes there was a vacancy) and of course Amity Island - there is a shark, his name is Greg.
By this time it was approaching mid-day, we had to leave at 7pm and frankly we had only scratched the surface. Never mind, The Simpsons ride was in front of us and according to the sign, the line was only half an hour. At this stage I boldly strode up to the ride attendant and
produced our ticket and asked how we were supposed to use the promised "front of line-ness". Easy, simply walk through Gate A. So we did. Gate A led directly to the ride. No queue! In fact, we used that same trick for the rest of the day. No Queues! Ever! You feel slightly bad for the rest of the world standing in line as you sail past - but before you feel truly bad you're seated inside a high-adrenaline ride which causes an extreme release of endorphins wiping away all traces of guilt and accountability.
The only problem with this way of life though is that you get used to it and it's quite hard to return to normal when required. We came crashing back to Earth around lunch time. There was a restaurant serving sub par food (with a long line) or a hot-dog stand (with no line). Put another way, our options were to stand in line like everyone else for sub par food or stand in no line, get gouged in the wallet and still get sub par food. We went for food on the go - you get used to not having to wait.
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