Flossbolna
Sea days are just so relaxing!
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
Special Trip Feature #3: A Day at Universal
This is the big one! It was a full and long day and we left Disney for it: It was our day at Universal!
You can read all about the announcement of this special feature here and about our plans for the day here.
And this part will be in the typical trip report style – with many pictures!!
Let's start with Part 1: How to get there...
Our plan was to make use of the Dreams Unlimited deal for 2-park 1-day tickets including transportation from WDW to Universal and while Harry Potter was the main focus, we wanted to explore the other areas as well and wanted to see the highlights of both parks. And since Katharina's DH is a great Simpsons fan, we obviously had to make sure to see that ride, too!
The trip report really has to start the evening before. Because just before I switched off the lights (Katharina was already asleep), I decided to check what the weather for the next day was supposed to be like and got a huge shock: there was a severe weather warning in place for strong showers/thunderstorms with flooding etc!! I later found out that Disney closed Typhoon Lagoon that day because of that weather forecast! Not a happy thought to go to sleep with, I was really afraid that we would be rather miserable...
Well, the next morning we had the shuttle booked to pick us up at 7:25 am, so when we got up it was still dark outside, but at least not raining, even though it was really humid. We got packed and were out in front of the hotel waiting for our shuttle by 7:10 am. And we did not wait long, at about 7:15 am a van appeared which turned out to be our shuttle. I had read reports that the shuttle in the morning is a real bus collecting people at various resorts, so I was rather pleased that we would not travel all over WDW to collect people. It turned out that we still had to make one stop at Pop Century to get some more guests. On the way there our van driver got into a rant about a jogger which was running along the road in the Epcot resort area. It did look rather dangerous and I really don't see any point to run on a road with traffic there, especially since there are several walkways in that area where you could run.
With our early start we were soon off to Universal and got taken to the “commercial parking lot” which is in the same area as the normal parking for Universal theme park guests. Once we got there the van driver insisted that he had to keep the confirmation that I had printed out. At first I was a bit concerned because how would we get our tickets which we had to collect at Will Call at Universal? But then I reread the paper as I remembered that there was something about machines and there wasn't a bar code or anything similar printed on the voucher which could be scanned. And yes, it said just to have the confirmation number and the credit card. So I gave the paper to the van driver in exchange for our return trip voucher...
By now it was about 8 am and we started to walk towards Islands of Adventure (IoA), the “second park” at the resort and home to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWoHP). From the parking there is a long covered walkway towards Citywalk, Universal's version of Downtown Disney. At the beginning of the walkway was the bag check – the only one we had to go through. We really liked the fact that once you are in the theme park area you can hop from one park to the other without going through annoying bag checks!
We found those machines for picking up tickets without any problems and got our tickets printed with the confirmation number. There was even a button to press in case you had forgotten the number, so maybe you really only need the credit card you used to purchase the tickets with?
With our tickets in hand we decided to try whether they would let us into the park. Normally IoA opens at 9am, but WWoHP opens already at 8am for guests of the Universal hotels or guests staying at “good neighbour” hotels on packages booked through Universal. So you either have to show your room key or the ticket which supposedly has a special code (at least this is what I learned from reading the threads on the Universal boards here on the DIS). Since the shuttle/ticket combo we had was actually a “package” sold by Universal Vacations, there is the suspicion that those tickets have the same code as those for the “good neighbour” hotel packages... We did not count on being able to get into the park at 8am, but we certainly wanted to try our luck. So we went to the Team Member (Universal's term for the people called Cast Member at Disney) and Katharina showed her her ticket and she waved us through to the turnstiles!!
And off we go:
and we will continue in Part 2...
This is the big one! It was a full and long day and we left Disney for it: It was our day at Universal!
You can read all about the announcement of this special feature here and about our plans for the day here.
And this part will be in the typical trip report style – with many pictures!!
Let's start with Part 1: How to get there...
Our plan was to make use of the Dreams Unlimited deal for 2-park 1-day tickets including transportation from WDW to Universal and while Harry Potter was the main focus, we wanted to explore the other areas as well and wanted to see the highlights of both parks. And since Katharina's DH is a great Simpsons fan, we obviously had to make sure to see that ride, too!
The trip report really has to start the evening before. Because just before I switched off the lights (Katharina was already asleep), I decided to check what the weather for the next day was supposed to be like and got a huge shock: there was a severe weather warning in place for strong showers/thunderstorms with flooding etc!! I later found out that Disney closed Typhoon Lagoon that day because of that weather forecast! Not a happy thought to go to sleep with, I was really afraid that we would be rather miserable...
Well, the next morning we had the shuttle booked to pick us up at 7:25 am, so when we got up it was still dark outside, but at least not raining, even though it was really humid. We got packed and were out in front of the hotel waiting for our shuttle by 7:10 am. And we did not wait long, at about 7:15 am a van appeared which turned out to be our shuttle. I had read reports that the shuttle in the morning is a real bus collecting people at various resorts, so I was rather pleased that we would not travel all over WDW to collect people. It turned out that we still had to make one stop at Pop Century to get some more guests. On the way there our van driver got into a rant about a jogger which was running along the road in the Epcot resort area. It did look rather dangerous and I really don't see any point to run on a road with traffic there, especially since there are several walkways in that area where you could run.
With our early start we were soon off to Universal and got taken to the “commercial parking lot” which is in the same area as the normal parking for Universal theme park guests. Once we got there the van driver insisted that he had to keep the confirmation that I had printed out. At first I was a bit concerned because how would we get our tickets which we had to collect at Will Call at Universal? But then I reread the paper as I remembered that there was something about machines and there wasn't a bar code or anything similar printed on the voucher which could be scanned. And yes, it said just to have the confirmation number and the credit card. So I gave the paper to the van driver in exchange for our return trip voucher...
By now it was about 8 am and we started to walk towards Islands of Adventure (IoA), the “second park” at the resort and home to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWoHP). From the parking there is a long covered walkway towards Citywalk, Universal's version of Downtown Disney. At the beginning of the walkway was the bag check – the only one we had to go through. We really liked the fact that once you are in the theme park area you can hop from one park to the other without going through annoying bag checks!
We found those machines for picking up tickets without any problems and got our tickets printed with the confirmation number. There was even a button to press in case you had forgotten the number, so maybe you really only need the credit card you used to purchase the tickets with?
With our tickets in hand we decided to try whether they would let us into the park. Normally IoA opens at 9am, but WWoHP opens already at 8am for guests of the Universal hotels or guests staying at “good neighbour” hotels on packages booked through Universal. So you either have to show your room key or the ticket which supposedly has a special code (at least this is what I learned from reading the threads on the Universal boards here on the DIS). Since the shuttle/ticket combo we had was actually a “package” sold by Universal Vacations, there is the suspicion that those tickets have the same code as those for the “good neighbour” hotel packages... We did not count on being able to get into the park at 8am, but we certainly wanted to try our luck. So we went to the Team Member (Universal's term for the people called Cast Member at Disney) and Katharina showed her her ticket and she waved us through to the turnstiles!!
And off we go:
and we will continue in Part 2...
