 Today we're back in Florida as we take a look at the Holidays at Universal Orlando Resort. Both parks are decked out for the Holidays and look amazing. Let's take a look!! Written by Renée Girard Stopping by Universal Orlando this afternoon for some holiday entertainment.  The old Terminator building is all decked out for Christmas.  It’s snowing in Diagon Alley!  Christmas decorations are up in the London area outside of Diagon Alley.    The holiday additions to Diagon Alley are pretty subtle but nice.     Fast & Furious Supercharged construction progress.    It’s time for the all new Universal’s Holiday Parade featuring Macy’s.   The minions and the rest of the gang from Despicable Me kick off the Universal Holiday Parade. 
Characters from Madagascar and Shrek featured in balloons and floats for the parade.     Santa Claus comes to town for the grand finale of the Universal Holiday Parade, and the tree lights up for the evening.     I loved Puss in Boots’ Santa costume!  We didn’t make it in time for a Grinchmas show, but still took in the sights of Seuss Landing.    Oh, and the lines today? Super short to non existent. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  Took in another viewing of the holiday show on Hogwarts Castle, and it’s such a wonderful addition.   
    It’s been great to see new things for the holidays this year at Universal Orlando!  Related Updates:  Yesterday we were invited out to Universal Studios Hollywood to check out their always great Lunar New Year Event and once again it didn't disappoint at all. Back are all of the amazing character interactions, great food and beautiful backdrop. As you'll see below it was an absolutely beautiful day at the park. We'll also take a look at some of the many projects going on around the park. Written by Gregg Condon Happy Lunar New Year!!   It's the year of the Rooster  New characters this year are Tigress and Po from Kung Fun Panda. Tigress is ready to fight, Po is just Po.  For fans of the films there are a few Easter Eggs    Once again you can leave a message in one of the trees, a great touch that we did. Sadly not in Mandarin. We're a bit rusty. ;)  Mandarin Megatron is back and awesome as ever.     Sorry your store got torn down Woody (more on that below) but it's always great seeing you out in the park.  Moving on. There are no major new attractions coming to the park this year, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a plethora of smaller projects going on at the park right now. Cartooniversal has been completely removed as we showed you in our last update, but we figured we'd take a closer look this time since crowds were light.   Taking advantage of these views that we won't get to see forever.  In addition, Waterworld is closed for refurbishment.  Some cement work going on outside of Shrek  It was an absolutely beautiful day to take in the Studio Tour  From the tour you can see all the work being done to add in the 4th Starway escalator  If you haven't seen Kubo yet you really need to. It's so amazing.  Boo, no HHN maze. :(  We saw this a LOT during our Tour. This was the busiest I'd seen the lot in years. So much so that our tour really only lasted about 35-40 minutes.  Not much change in the former location of Stage 28   Production stuff  Sorry for the weird shot here, wasn't expecting Jaws to be closed, but here it is. If you look at the details you can see the shark fins and more. Looks to be a pretty extensive refurb which is odd because it just had one maybe 1 1/2 years ago?  Moving back to the park, work continues for the new Starway    Which means an update for the Mummy Lockers to make room   One last note, they are doing some work on the stage in Hogsmeade.  As always, we absolutely love seeing the characters at the park.  Bello!!  "There's nothing better than a cigar lit with a hundred dollar bill!"   It was a beautiful chilly day in the park which of course meant Hot Butterbeer!!  This was also our first chance to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey with the 2D 120 Frames Per Second and we LOVED it. Absolutely no nausea for any of us, the sets and screens blended perfectly and it was a great experience. I love that they are making little tweaks to improve an already amazing ride experience.  Out in CityWalk, work continues on Margaritaville. Do have to say, the sign is in a weird place, you really can't see it until you are right in front of it due to the iFly right next to it. But we do hope the restaurant does well.   Finally some work being done on Voodoo Donuts!!   We can't wait for this to open!!  Now that the Christmas Tree is gone we can see the full outside of the new Universal Cinema. It looks amazing!!  Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update, we hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to plan some time to check out Lunar New Year. It runs now through February 5th. You can find out more information about the event here. Related Updates:  In a world of RunDisney races (even one held last weekend in Orlando) sometimes you just want to do something a bit different, and less crowded. So with that in mind Renée took on the Universal Orlando Fun Run last weekend which from the looks of it gave the runners a pretty empty course through the two Universal Orlando parks. Check out all the fun times. Written by Renée Girard Why are we at Universal before the sun is up?    I love Disney races but this weekend we're skipping those for something different instead, the UO Fun Run!
  The UO Fun Run took us through both theme parks, starting with Universal Studios.   On to Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando where we took a lap around the entire park.     And the finish line was at CityWalk near Hard Rock Cafe.  More from the finish line at the UO Fun Run at Universal Orlando . Great race!   We were greeted by some minions after crossing the finish line.  Really enjoyed starting my day with the UO Fun Run. Thanks Universal Orlando for a great morning!  Related Updates: |
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