A little dark side, a little Disney - August 2017 TR - updated 9/27x2

[absolutmey]

Hello! Welcome to my super short (mostly) dark side PTR/TR.

A little PTR info​

Me (Megan), DS9 (Q) and my mom (Debi) will be spending one day at Universal, to experience the WWoHP and the other stuff they have there too. We'll be in FL visiting my grandparents and I talked DS and mom into a day at the park, which wasn't hard.

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August - so hot - so not looking forward to that. To combat the inevitable heat, I've purchased cooling towels and have added hats and light-colored clothing to our packing list. Frozen butterbeer and ice-cream from Florean's will be in order, for sure.

We'll get up pretty early on park day, drive from Vero Beach, and check in to Royal Pacific. We will also collect our tickets (bought online), room keys and express unlimited passes. I was originally booked at Cabana Bay, but the EP was too tempting. We only have one day, it'll be busy (crowd calendars say a 7) and it'll be hot. So I switched resorts this week so we'd get the EP for FREE.

(Thanks Google, for the gorgeous RPR picture!)​

I plan to get to the parks for early entry and tour both WWoHP lands in the morning, taking Hogwarts Express both ways before our lunch reservation at Mythos.

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This will serve us in several ways: good meal, new experience, break from touring in the AC and allow us easy access to the exit if we want a break.

I have a reservation for Raglan Road at 4:30, but may end up cancelling it. I need to discuss with the other parties, but I booked it because my mom likes places like that and she's never been. We might just want to stay close by since we'll head back into the park after dinner. We'll see.

Planning to hit headliner rides and anything else we missed in the (hopefully cooler) evening, until park close.

We have a breakfast reservation for the next morning at O'hana, which is a surprise to both of them. It'll be a new place for us all and my mom's favorite character is Stitch. She's going to freak.

So there you have it - a little dark side, a little Disney. TR/DR to come when we return!

 

[chs27]

Sounds fantastic!

 

[macraven]

i'll be waiting here for when you return....

 

[erinch]

Do you want feedback? It would be a huge time cost to eat lunch at Mythos, then leave the Dark Side parks to get TO raglan road in time for 4:30. In particular if you are then headed back to Universal. And then to Ohana the next morning.

There are a ton of great restaurants at Citiwalk. And a number of the in park ones have atmosphere, incuding Finnigans if you are looking for Irish.

 

[absolutmey]

Do you want feedback? It would be a huge time cost to eat lunch at Mythos, then leave the Dark Side parks to get TO raglan road in time for 4:30. In particular if you are then headed back to Universal. And then to Ohana the next morning.

There are a ton of great restaurants at Citiwalk. And a number of the in park ones have atmosphere, incuding Finnigans if you are looking for Irish.

Thanks. Yes, I love feedback. I thought about exactly what you mentioned. I cancelled the Raglan Road reservation and booked at Vivo.

 

[erinch]

Very smart on your part!

 

[erinch]

So what time are you leaving Vero Beach to get to parks for early entry after checking in, etc?

And I hope the Ohana reservation is as late as possible! I would be crawling after a day like yours! And it sounds like great fun.

 

[absolutmey]

and we're back. what a whirlwind. I'm working on my report and will post shortly!

 

[macraven]

I will be here waiting to read it!!!

 

[pepperandchips]

Headed over from your signature link! Looking forward to reading about your trip!

 

[absolutmey]

Promise I'm working on it, guys! I started grad school this fall and I'm in that adjustment period where my brain actually has to think in a school-type way. Probably have this TR done this weekend.

 

[pepperandchips]

No worries take your time! Good luck with classes

 

[macraven]

Take your time, no rush for us

I have seen some trip reports done over months

Hope you get all A's in your classes!

 

[absolutmey]

Ok, had a slow afternoon at work And here we go!

Monday August 14-Wednesday August 16 we were in Vero Beach visiting my grandparents. I could write an entire report about how UNfun that was. While it was nice to see them, they’re both 80 and all they talk about is their own ailments, their old friends’ ailments, who is doing what at their church and the weather in different parts of the country where our family members live. I love them but they’re a lot. My grandfather doesn’t care to watch his mouth or keep the TV shows clean around Q either. He tried to put on some HBO show while we were all in the living room one night and I had to change it, which made grandad unhappy. He hates when people try to mess with his TV. Don't we all, grandad... don't we all.

On Thursday, August 17 we got up SUPER early and drove over to Universal.

Here’s the only picture from three days of visiting: two cranes that live in their neighborhood, taken by Q.

We had an uneventful 1.5 hour drive and arrived at Royal Pacific right around 8am. Originally I’d wanted to get there and take advantage of early entry, but my mom isn’t a morning person so we scrubbed that.

We had no problems checking in or them putting us in a room with a fold out couch for Q. They were sold out of double-bed rooms when I switched from Cabana Bay to RPR so Mom and I were set to share the King. No prob.

We collected our room keys and walked over to the Concierge Desk to pick up our pre-ordered tickets. Also no problem. Everything was moving along quite smoothly, and I was happy about it. Q was happy he got a lei but was annoyed that he had both a room key AND paper ticket AND express pass. He quickly told my mom (Graggy, as she is called by the grandkids) about how much better he thought magicbands were. This kid.

The room was, of course, not yet ready. No problem – a theme of the day, as you’ll see – we left our stuff in the car. Bell services looked jacked. Like, there were honestly 22 full luggage carts sitting there when we checked in. I had Q count them to keep him busy. Hah!

We took our newly acquired keys/tickets/EPs walked down to the ferry launch. Not far at all and quite a nice walk, once we figured out where to go.

On the water ferry (such a great perk)

yeah, he's wearing a shirt that says "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good". Mine said "Mischief Managed".

My mom. She's a Harley-riding, tattooed grandma. She's also super stoked to be going to USO.

And here's me and my guy.

After the short, lovely ride we docked at City Walk and made our way over to Universal. Didn’t really matter where we started because both parks were open at this point. So, I had a plan. I like to plan – I like to Disney plan, actually. There is NONE OF THAT with USO (though I tried). You’ll see that after about an hour, I basically threw my “plan” out the window. But, I’m getting ahead of myself a little.

Up next… Where do we go first, Mom?

 

[pepperandchips]

Look at you cranking out an update!

And here's me and my guy

Your family is so cute!

So, I had a plan. I like to plan – I like to Disney plan, actually. There is NONE OF THAT with USO (though I tried)

So true! I didn't know what to do with myself trying to plan for Universal! Thankfully I had all these great trip reports to read to prepare

 

[dizneedoll]

Joining in! Off to a great start...looking forward to more!

 

[Jennasis]

Off to a great start!

 

[erinch]

Great report!

 

[macraven]

Cute son!

 

[absolutmey]

Where do we go first, Mom?


We go to the turnstiles and scanned in just fine. (The EP printer was down this morning so we were told by the nice woman who checked us in to just show our room key and ticket to anybody who asked where our EP was. They just scanned our tickets. We did that all day, with no problem. Only one TM told us to go print our EPs when we got the chance. Uh, it was already 2pm – nope.)

As my son knows, Mom probably has a plan. So he says, “where do we go first, Mom?” And he and my mom look at me like

I had already explained to him that it’s not like WDW – no bands, no FP and probably no waiting in line b/c we had EP. I think he took this to mean it’s a free-for-all. No.

First thing we did was hop on Rip Ride Rocket. Q was all gung-ho until he got strapped in and realized that it was a whole different ball park from WDW. My mom had no problem; she loves roller coasters. What a fun ride! Q enjoyed it but said he didn’t want to ride again.

Next, we were heading toward Diagon Alley but made a detour on the way at Transformers. That was fun too.

And then, this happened. I may have had a tear. It was already warm, by this point, but we were prepared and started moseying around DA. I got a frozen butter beer because HP, duh. I liked the most out of us all.

Obligatory dragon photos.

It was kind of a mob-scene behind me. I was obviously still happy.

So beautiful.

I went in feeling prepared for the locker situation, because I was carrying a sling bag. Plus we all had hats and sunglasses that would need to get stowed prior to rides. I was not prepared for the locker areas to be so stuffy – with both heat and bodies. Every single time I went in there I had to help someone figure out how to use the lockers. I’ve never been to USO, I can read letters and numbers and locate them on a metal box … it wasn’t that hard.

Next up was Escape From Gringott’s – we all LOVED this ride. We got to check out the beautiful queue some too because even with EP, there was a bit of a wait.

Upon our meandering we saw that there was NO LINE for Ollivander’s so we hoofed it in. We got queued right into a group and into the wandmaker’s room.

He came over at the start of the presentation and CHOSE Q (!!!) and another girl, probably a couple years older than him. I may have had a few tears.

My mom got a video, but it’s totally dark and you can just make our what the wandmaker said. I just loved this for me and for Q. It was amazing and special and, of course, his wand chose him. Holly, 11”, Phoenix feather (if you’re interested).

He’s my little Gryffindor. He loves his Slytherin mama.

Of course I had to get him the wand (which I hadn’t planned on) because it chose him!

Continued in next post.