After a great sleep and long sleep-in we headed out on the metro for a day at Universal Studios. We began by heading straight to the Shrek 4D show which had us sitting innocently in theatre seats......or so we thought. What a laugh!!! Plenty of screams and squeals later we gathered our wits and headed off to a couple of shows aimed to teach us a bit about film making. The first involved tricks that are used when working with animal actors and the second taught us a bit about special effects. Both shows were very interesting and allowed us a bit of sitting time which we needed while getting used to the gorgeous hot weather......have I mentioned that it's not winter here.....oh yeah, that's right, I did!!!!

WaterWorld, a show based on the Kevin Costner movie......not the best film but WOW, what a show. Explosions, motor boats, fireworks, acrobatics, splashing and shoot outs all combined to make a fantastic spectacle which we all loved. After our enjoyment of the Shrek experience we decided to head over to Minion Mayhem which was, on paper, a similar production. The show began with us being told that we were signing up to become minions. We all waited in our respective family groups while Gru explained the process. While 'preparing' us for the training he mentioned that there was a smell in the audience and that one family obviously hadn't been using their motel showers enough and......yep, you guessed it, the spotlight stopped on us!!!!! OMG!!!! Sienna couldn't believe it, especially since we had showered and Gru knew we were in a motel with a swimming pool!! The 'ride' itself was so clever, especially since we never left our seat in the theatre. My stomach could still be floating around in there somewhere, felt like a roller coaster to me!!

While strolling through the park we came across Jurassic Park, a water adventure ending with a drop down a waterfall. Sienna and I chickened out but Talari and Wess took the plunge. After their ride they convinced Sienna and I to join them......Did we enjoy it????? Sienna seemed to but I'm still looking for my stomach.....again!!!

We also went on a tour of the studios and sets which are still in use at universal. The tour was in a covered trolley cart which stopped periodically along the way to immerse us in more 4D experiences such as an attack by dinosaurs in which King Kong saved us, Jaws and an earthquake while trapped in the subway. The tour was excellent and it really makes you rethink what you think you know about filmmaking.

We thought Universal Studios was amazing and we had a really great day. Our feet were sore from lining up, we were extremely tired and I was still hoping my stomach knew where our hotel was but we fell into bed still talking about our favourite bits.