Super Mario Wizarding Springfield World!

All the things!

We aren’t “theme park” people (or at least we weren’t), but we LOVE Universal Studios. There is just so much crammed into a tiny little space. It’s a lot of “work” in the sense that we had to drive 1.5 hour to get there due to LA traffic (but 30 minutes back), and there were LOTS of people. You see, Super Nintendo World (the first in the US) had just open a few days before, so there were a lot of fans coming to see the new attraction. But the park is run super well (much better than Legoland) which means that we squeezed a whole lot of fun into a single 12 hour day!

First of all, Hogsmeade and Howarts are both done so well. The village feels super immersive even though it takes up very little footprint. The steam locomotive, all the little shops with floating broomsticks and magical displays all make for a very magical setting. Baby Bear had a wand we borrowed from a friend, so we went and tried all the magic wand spots, where she could make lanterns light up and locks open with a wave of the wand. She was too short to ride the Harry Potter ride, but luckily they had Child Swap, so one parent could wait with her as we took turns on the ride. We ended up using this quite a few times as we ended up riding EVERY SINGLE RIDE (almost).

The key to all this, was getting the super expensive (2x), but totally worth it, Express passes which turned 60 minute lines into 2 minute lines. There is no better feeling than to walk past hordes of people and directly onto a ride. There is no Express line for the new Bowser Mario Kart ride though. When we first arrived, the line was already 90 minutes long and skyrocketed to 240 minutes soon after. Luckily, we used this website and decided to hit the 3pm lull.

So first we hit up some other rides with our magic Express Pass. The Minion Ride was fun, and we loved dancing with virtual minions at the end. The Life of Pets ride was surprisingly fun too. It was an old school ride with no 3D visuals and lots of good old fashioned animatronics. The ride cars were “cardboard boxes” and we were supposed to be puppies up for adoption.

The studio tour was fun as always. It was Baby Bear’s first time, but super nostalgic for the adults as we relived Jaws, the San Francisco Earthquake, and the flooding town. I thought the crashed jet was the most impressive.

I remember a decade ago, Simpsons was the new hotness at Universal Studio. And it is still awesome. The town is super immersive, like Harry Potter World, but more yellow. I love the giant donuts, the Springfield shops like Moe’s Tavern and the Kwik-E-Mart. And the ride is still fun too.

Of course the (invincible) star of the show has to be Super Nintendo World (which is really Super Mario Land). Entering the area requires a reservation (or Express Pass) and is done through… a green pipe, complete with sound effects.

Once inside, you really feel like you are IN the video game. Every direction you look is layer upon layer of 2D bright green landscape with moving characters going back and forth. There’s koopas, goombas, yoshi, that annoying cactus plant, clouds, mushrooms, thwomp, and at the end of it all, Bowser’s Castle, and the Mario Kart ride. There are also several physical minigames you can play, but those required a $40 “powerband” and each had a 30+ minute line that we did not want to wait through.

We did, however, wait for the Mario Kart ride. With perfect timing, we only ended up waiting 50 minutes though. It didn’t feel too long because the line waiting area was full of amazing decorations and themes, like Bowser’s evil lab. There were cool book titles in his library like “The Care and Feeding of Piranha Plants” and “How to Spark Sibling Rivalry”.

The ride itself was worth the wait. We put on Mario hats so that we could attach an AR visor that projected images on top of the real images behind it. There was racing, picking up items, shooting shells, and a totally awesome star rush that was completely immersive and felt like I was in another universe. Total awesomeness.

Then we had to go hit all the rides. The Mummy is still an amazing thrill ride and Transformers was fun (Baby Bear skipped these). And we squeezed in the Simpsons ride and the Flight of the Hippogriff (which Baby Bear did!). It was awesome. The only ride we didn’t do was the Jurassic Park ride, though we did meet the raptor instead.

There were lots of characters to meet. We chatted with “Donkey” from Shrek, posed with Gru and a Minion, saw Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, the Scooby Doo Gang and even King Julien!

We also enjoyed the Waterworld stunt show. We loved seeing the great live stunts and feeling the explosions. Overall, an amazing day (and night - we went back to Harry Potter World for more magic and dinner). We ended up showing up shortly after opening and leaving at closing time. Big fans!