We then exited USF via the front and re-entered IOA and headed for Seuss Landing.
Cat-in-the-Hat had a 5-10 minute wait so we decided to go despite the inside queue. Of course, there was a ride issue that added another 10 min or so.
It was my first chance to observe a quantity of families with other young kids inside. Remember, according to dystopian future lady, anyone unvaccinated should mask inside. Out of about 15 families with children younger than the DS11 twins (this unvaccinated), only one besides ours had their kids masked. But the queue had few switchbacks, so we just built our distance bubble for the twins again.
Seuss Trolley had a longer wait, so we skipped that for now and headed towards Camp Jurassic. I gave DH (and anyone else) the option of getting in line for Velocicoaster instead, but the wait was 110 minutes, so he said he’d just skip it.
We figured the kids were old enough to run amok in Camp Jurassic.
However, their judgment is still a little short cited. I’d been working really hard to keep their tennies and socks dry by switching them to flip flops for potentially wet rides (or in case of downpours). Well, they found the splash pad (I hadn’t thought to caution them) and since we’d dressed everyone to get wet (they were in swimsuits) they got drenched with no regard for their footwear. I literally wring water out of one sock. Sigh. They would get stuck with their super-cheap, not-intended-for-long-wear flip flops for now. And wet masks since we packed lighter than we had for Disney.
Next we headed back to Toon Amphitheater for the daily ration of Bonus Bites. Sadly, they had full sized hamburgers instead of the better sliders that DH had really enjoyed the day before, but they were fine.
They attempted to improve the queueing system without success. The day before they had people go pizza-burger-chicken-cookie and queue up
at the pizza end. This time they reversed it but made people queue up further away. Most people were NOT taking all 3 entrees, so this just bogged things down at the front end either way. And wiped out whichever food was on the first station.
They really needed to release people to go to their top choice of any of the 4 food stations, and tell them they could then go to another one when they finished the first one (all 4 had room for their own lines and were using fresh plates). It did pass the time for DM and I to observe all this from the stands and discuss improvements.
After eating, we headed towards the wet rides, but there was another weather delay. A lot less rain than the day before but still some distant lightning.
Again, with trying to avoid long inside queues, not much we could do, so the rest of us switched into our flip flops and left our stuff with DM so we were ready to jump on Ripsaw Falls and Bilge-Rat Barges as soon as they re-opened. Practically walked on to both.
So.
Will you get wet riding Ripsaw Falls? Yes.
Will you get wet riding Bilge-Rat Barges? Also yes. Actually, very yes. “I drove my convertible through the car wash with the top down” wet.
But, we had dressed to get wet, so it was a hugely fun time. Everyone was laughing at whoever got drenched next.
However. Despite what dystopian future lady said, there was no attempt by Universal to help us keep distance between parties. And since we were outside, I didn’t push the issue because it’s hard to figure out what’s happening during the loading of a walk-on. Ripsaw Falls seats 5 per log. They split our 6 evenly between two logs along with 2 strangers each. We put a twin in the front of each log, so ok but not preferred. Especially since we took their masks off to try to keep them from getting even wetter.
That was pretty consistent for most rides, inside and out. We just placed them as far from strangers as we could.
Even though we were wearing quick-dry, the rain had cooled things down quite a bit, so we rotated everyone through a couple runs of one of the people driers to warm up a little and at least not be dripping wet. And try to dry out the twins’ socks, shoes, and masks a bit. They were still damp, but wearable, so we switched everyone out of their flip flops.