John_RN
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2010
- Messages
- 78
Hello all,
I first want to thank everyone on here who has contributed tips, tricks, and their own experiences about the parks. I have learned so much before I even went and all the tips paid off and made it a wonderful trip!!! As you can tell from the title my SO of seven years and I are HUGE Harry Potter nerds! Not just the fans who see the movies, but those crazy fans who have been at every midnight book release and movie release. Heck for the midnight showings of the movies we will ask for a day off work the next day so we can see it again! hehe! We also get to the theater at 8 pm to get in line for the showings....yes see, big nerds! Here is the journey briefing :
Me (31) - Ravenclaw
The SO (30) - Slytherin
Saturday 8/7 - I am a planner by nature and I like to research a trip frontwards and backwards before going so I can learn as much as possible. I guess it's the Ravenclaw in me.
My SO on the other hand, is usually just along for the ride.
We departed Austin, Tx on a 0600 American Airlines flight. Thanks to the very generous oncologist I work for (he is a HUGE Harry Potter fan also), he used his frequent flyer miles and got us our plane tickets in first class! I have never, ever flown first class before and let me tell you, I am so spoiled now. A quick stop at DFW and then it was off to MCO! I had arranged airport transportation through a very nice guy who I had heard about on here. It was great to walk passed baggage claim and see a guy in a suit holding a sign with your name on it. He made a free stop at Publix for us and we stocked up on sodas, (they even had Big Red!!), chips, and snacks. Took us about 15 minutes. By this time, the rain had come.
When we pulled up to Royal Pacific Resort it was POURING rain! This would set the trend for the rest of the trip. It was almost 2pm so I thought I would try and see if our room was ready but I had already told the SO that I had read stories on here that some people's rooms weren't ready until after 4pm. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes I was delighted to hear our room was ready! I had called a couple weeks before to ask for a king bed and to not be put in Tower 2 with the smoking rooms and pets. Both my requests were honored and we ended up being in Tower 3 on the second floor with a "garden view" which consisted of a bunch of pretty trees. The room was nice, perfect size for just the two of us.
We relaxed a little then ventured out. I wanted to make sure I made us reservations for the hotel shuttle to Sea World since we had tickets for Sunday. I also printed our tickets from our Harry Potter park at the concierge desk. After that we made the 10 minute walk on the nice path to City Walk. WOW! This place was great! Of course we saw the Universal Store with the Harry Potter display and we both gasped! We couldn't believe we were here! We bought a few Potter merchandise items and got our commemerative tickets then ate at Margaritaville. I had the Cheeseburgers in Paradise and once again thanks to the disboards I had found a coupon for one free margarita on orlandocoupons. The meal was great and we spent the rest of the day taking in the sites and sounds of City Walk and retired for the night.
Sunday 8/8/10 - Hopped on the free shuttle to Sea World at 0955. Once we were let off the skies opened up and it started pouring rain! Made it through the ticket kiosks which were nuts!! Nobody knew how to do the fingerprint thing and there were no TM's there directing people. We ran to the nearest store to purchase our panchos. Best $7 we spent! I elected not to do the Sea World dinning plan because I knew we wouldn't be eating $60 worth of food between the two of us. We grabbed the Shamu breakfast and waited for the rain to calm down. Once it did we made our way to Manta. The SO is not a ride person but he agreed to go on it with me. Manta and Kraken were the only 2 reasons I wanted to make a side trip to Sea World. I am a huge coaster nerd! I had no idea Manta was going to be so intense! After Manta and Kraken the SO wasn't feeling so hot so we just made it through the rain seeing the different shows. I ended up riding Manta twice again by myself and loved loved loved it! We caught the shuttle back to the hotel and we grabbed some dinner at The Islands. Great food! I got the Seafood pasta dish for $18 and it was served in a HUGE bowl. I couldn't even finish half of it. We got to bed early because we knew the next morning would be a long day with our first day at WWoHP.
Monday 8/9/10 - We were up at 0600, showered and out the door to walk the path to IOA. We got to the turnstiles at 0655 and weren't let in to the park until 0730. They did have the Virgin Atlantic groups enter through a separate gate at 0700. Once in the park we were herded to the right for onsite guests and to my surprise, everyone was doing the shortcut to the left of the carousel. I kind of laughed to myself that this was not a secret anymore. We were let right in to Hogsmeade and the SO and I both just stopped and stared while everyone else did a mad rush to Forbidden Journey. Took a few pics of the Hogwarts Express then I grabbed the SO and headed to FJ. The walk through the ride was super quick and we really couldn't stop and take pics. I had been stressing so much about not fitting on this ride being 5'8" and 235 lbs that my stomach was in knots. I didn't see anyone get pulled aside for the inside test seats and I breathed a sigh of relief once I made it past those. Got on the ride and pulled down the restraint on the outside seat and got three loud clicks by myself. The restraint wasn't even snug on me. What the heck was I worried about the whole time???
The ride itself, as all of ya'll know already, was amazing. I will admit though that the first ride that day I was so happy to just be on the darn thing that it went by in a flash!! Got off the ride into Filch's and we looked around. I wanted to do Dragon Challenge before the GP were let in so I headed there while the SO was free to look around on his own. I chose Chinese Firebolt and decided to spend extra time in line for the front row because to me, it is the best seat on an inverted coaster. The ride was awesome!!! Loved it! Got off and met the SO and we did Dervish and Banges, Zonkos, and Honeydukes. Great detail in all the shops and windows. Can't say enough about them. I will point out that they had tons of Pygmy Puffs.
By this time I was ready to try Butterbeer. There was a little line at the cart but since I wanted to try frozen I headed into Hogs Head. I had read some on here say they barely saw the hog move, but let me tell ya, that thing was going off every couple of minutes. I was cracking up!!
Got our Butterbeers and was in heaven!! I loved it!! The SO liked it but thought it was too sweet. By this time the general public was being let in and the place was filling up very very fast! We left and headed to Jurassic Park. Using our express passes we waited like 5 minutes while the line for everyone else was already at 30 minutes. We both really liked the ride but perhaps the best part was seeing the big macho guy sitting in front of us scream like a girl when the raptor box was "dropped" almost on his head. The whole boat was cracking up at him.
Caught some more sites and sounds then I wanted to check out Spiderman because I had heard so many great things about it. The main line was already saying an hour wait at 0945! We got right on and to our disapointment the screens all were black right after Spiderman "lands" on your ride vehicle. Yeah the vehicle jerked us around but all the 3D screens were black so we had no idea what was going on. That was a huge let down and I assured the SO that we would try it later when it was working. We hung around some more just taking in everything and taking pictures.
We then decided to leave and go check out Universal. I hadn't been here since 1994 and was excited to see how much it had changed. Universal was great! Since the SO really isn't a coaster fan, this place was more suited to him. He is a big Simpsons fan so of course we rode that ride about 3 times. It was great!!! We couldn't believe how long the regular lines were. Over an hour for the Simpsons ride at 1300! We waited maybe 10 minutes. I am so glad we decided to spend extra to stay onsite. We headed to City Walk to eat at Margaritaville again and share the Volcano Nachos! Excellent!!
***Oh on a side note, I had read on here that everyone had recommended getting a lanyard to hold your park ticket and express pass securely around your neck. Of course we bought out respective Slytherin and Ravenclaw lanyards but of course they didn't come with the plastic pass holders. So I had read on here that someone had just gone around to the different shops and asked if they had extras lying around. Sure enough, after our third store the lady had two extras which she gave to us. This was a huge help because we never had to take out our tickets or express passes to be scanned.***
Back to Universal, everything we did was great! Revenge of the Mummy quickly became one of my favorite rides there. Around 1430 the SO got tired and wanted to go back to the room. So he did and I stayed and I wanted to check out the line for Rip, Ride, Rockit. WOW! It was 120 minutes!! No way! So I left and went back to IOA to ride The Hulk. AWESOME!!! Loved it! I then wanted to check out WWoHP again and there was no line to get back in but it was packed! I looked around again, did the single rider line on FJ and got on after like 20 minutes. The second time around was so much better because I could actually relax and enjoy the ride. AMAZING!!! Of course the skies opened up again and I made my way into Hogs Head for a butterbeer. I got my butterbeer after a short wait of 10 minutes and sat out back on the patio just enjoying my view of Hogwarts. I headed back to the room on the water taxi, showered, and we went to dinner at Jakes American Bar. It was great also!!
Tuesday 8/10/10 - Our plan was to do early entry again but once the alarm went off at 0600, we both just wanted to sleep in. Got up around 1045 and headed to Hard Rock Cafe. Food was great and we did a repeat of the things we wanted to see again. Spiderman on the second go round was actually working and was AWESOME!! We both loved it!!! We went in to WWoHP around 1800. I told the SO that we needed to wait in the LOOOOONG line for FJ so we could take everything in and get more pics. So that is what we did. It was chaos!! The line stretched out past Flight of the Hippogriff. I told the SO that I had read on the boards that this was likely due to people not knowing this was the locker line. Since we didn't have any bags we stepped to the right and got right into the castle. The TM's kept yelling at people "IF YOU HAVE A FANNY PACK YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT IT IN A LOCKER!!!" I guess they had lots of people asking about them. Took us about an hour and a half to make our way through. After the ride we wanted to do dinner at Three Broomsticks. Our breakfast reservations weren't until the next morning. So we got right in and the SO got the turkey leg dinner and I got the Fish and Chips with 2 frozen butterbeers in the souvenir mugs. I also wanted to try the strawberry and peanut butter ice cream. It was excellent!!
I had heard rumors that you could see shadows of house elves on the walls of the place but didn't know where to look. The SO caught it high up in the rafters! It was awesome! Saw a shadow of a house elf carrying tons and dishes! Just made the place so much more magical.
After dinner we caught the Durmstrang/Beauxbatons show and we lingered around for the sun to go down. This place is so beautiful at night!! The crowds had died down so it was much more tolerable.
Wednesday 8/11/10 - We did early entry again and headed straight for FJ. We ended up buying a great picture from the ride and it came with a digital download. Word of warning.....although the picture we bought just showed me and the SO the digital copy shows the whole bench. After that we hung out in the covered front of the Hogs Head and talked for about 30 minutes to a really nice TM who was in charge of telling people to go around back to get in to the Hogs Head. She told us some cool info. She said the TM's who worked the FJ ride were sorted into houses based on their sizes. For example, staff members who wore small to medium robes were automatically made Hufflepuffs and so on. The other TM's could choose whichever house affiliation they wanted. She was a Slytherin....BOOOO! hehe! She also told us that all of the employees had to attend an 8 hour Harry Potter crash course which consisted of going through the books and movies, the history of how WWoHP came to be built, the architecture, and a test at the end that you had to pass. If you didn't pass, you couldn't work in that area. We also threw around the theory that the park was based on the first four novels and movies. She said the Hogs Head wasnt shown until the 5th movie and that she had heard the stone behind the area where the Hogwarts choir performs is somehow based on the 7th book.
The rest of the day we just hung out and did more things that we wanted to see and do again at both parks. The people in the crowds were nice as were all the TM's. The only bad part was while in line for Shrek 4D we were behind a family that was just complaining about everything. When we were about to be let in the TM told them to hold on while a lady in a wheelchair was let in ahead of them and one of the ladies made a comment about how unfair it was that just because she was in a wheelchair that she shouldn't be allowed to cut in line. This rubbed both of us the wrong way and we made sure that we were nowhere near them in the show.
All in all, if your still reading this, it was an excellent trip and I owe lots of it to these boards!! Thanks for reading!!!
I first want to thank everyone on here who has contributed tips, tricks, and their own experiences about the parks. I have learned so much before I even went and all the tips paid off and made it a wonderful trip!!! As you can tell from the title my SO of seven years and I are HUGE Harry Potter nerds! Not just the fans who see the movies, but those crazy fans who have been at every midnight book release and movie release. Heck for the midnight showings of the movies we will ask for a day off work the next day so we can see it again! hehe! We also get to the theater at 8 pm to get in line for the showings....yes see, big nerds! Here is the journey briefing :
Me (31) - Ravenclaw
The SO (30) - Slytherin
Saturday 8/7 - I am a planner by nature and I like to research a trip frontwards and backwards before going so I can learn as much as possible. I guess it's the Ravenclaw in me.
My SO on the other hand, is usually just along for the ride. We departed Austin, Tx on a 0600 American Airlines flight. Thanks to the very generous oncologist I work for (he is a HUGE Harry Potter fan also), he used his frequent flyer miles and got us our plane tickets in first class! I have never, ever flown first class before and let me tell you, I am so spoiled now. A quick stop at DFW and then it was off to MCO! I had arranged airport transportation through a very nice guy who I had heard about on here. It was great to walk passed baggage claim and see a guy in a suit holding a sign with your name on it. He made a free stop at Publix for us and we stocked up on sodas, (they even had Big Red!!), chips, and snacks. Took us about 15 minutes. By this time, the rain had come.
When we pulled up to Royal Pacific Resort it was POURING rain! This would set the trend for the rest of the trip. It was almost 2pm so I thought I would try and see if our room was ready but I had already told the SO that I had read stories on here that some people's rooms weren't ready until after 4pm. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes I was delighted to hear our room was ready! I had called a couple weeks before to ask for a king bed and to not be put in Tower 2 with the smoking rooms and pets. Both my requests were honored and we ended up being in Tower 3 on the second floor with a "garden view" which consisted of a bunch of pretty trees. The room was nice, perfect size for just the two of us.
We relaxed a little then ventured out. I wanted to make sure I made us reservations for the hotel shuttle to Sea World since we had tickets for Sunday. I also printed our tickets from our Harry Potter park at the concierge desk. After that we made the 10 minute walk on the nice path to City Walk. WOW! This place was great! Of course we saw the Universal Store with the Harry Potter display and we both gasped! We couldn't believe we were here! We bought a few Potter merchandise items and got our commemerative tickets then ate at Margaritaville. I had the Cheeseburgers in Paradise and once again thanks to the disboards I had found a coupon for one free margarita on orlandocoupons. The meal was great and we spent the rest of the day taking in the sites and sounds of City Walk and retired for the night.
Sunday 8/8/10 - Hopped on the free shuttle to Sea World at 0955. Once we were let off the skies opened up and it started pouring rain! Made it through the ticket kiosks which were nuts!! Nobody knew how to do the fingerprint thing and there were no TM's there directing people. We ran to the nearest store to purchase our panchos. Best $7 we spent! I elected not to do the Sea World dinning plan because I knew we wouldn't be eating $60 worth of food between the two of us. We grabbed the Shamu breakfast and waited for the rain to calm down. Once it did we made our way to Manta. The SO is not a ride person but he agreed to go on it with me. Manta and Kraken were the only 2 reasons I wanted to make a side trip to Sea World. I am a huge coaster nerd! I had no idea Manta was going to be so intense! After Manta and Kraken the SO wasn't feeling so hot so we just made it through the rain seeing the different shows. I ended up riding Manta twice again by myself and loved loved loved it! We caught the shuttle back to the hotel and we grabbed some dinner at The Islands. Great food! I got the Seafood pasta dish for $18 and it was served in a HUGE bowl. I couldn't even finish half of it. We got to bed early because we knew the next morning would be a long day with our first day at WWoHP.
Monday 8/9/10 - We were up at 0600, showered and out the door to walk the path to IOA. We got to the turnstiles at 0655 and weren't let in to the park until 0730. They did have the Virgin Atlantic groups enter through a separate gate at 0700. Once in the park we were herded to the right for onsite guests and to my surprise, everyone was doing the shortcut to the left of the carousel. I kind of laughed to myself that this was not a secret anymore. We were let right in to Hogsmeade and the SO and I both just stopped and stared while everyone else did a mad rush to Forbidden Journey. Took a few pics of the Hogwarts Express then I grabbed the SO and headed to FJ. The walk through the ride was super quick and we really couldn't stop and take pics. I had been stressing so much about not fitting on this ride being 5'8" and 235 lbs that my stomach was in knots. I didn't see anyone get pulled aside for the inside test seats and I breathed a sigh of relief once I made it past those. Got on the ride and pulled down the restraint on the outside seat and got three loud clicks by myself. The restraint wasn't even snug on me. What the heck was I worried about the whole time???
The ride itself, as all of ya'll know already, was amazing. I will admit though that the first ride that day I was so happy to just be on the darn thing that it went by in a flash!! Got off the ride into Filch's and we looked around. I wanted to do Dragon Challenge before the GP were let in so I headed there while the SO was free to look around on his own. I chose Chinese Firebolt and decided to spend extra time in line for the front row because to me, it is the best seat on an inverted coaster. The ride was awesome!!! Loved it! Got off and met the SO and we did Dervish and Banges, Zonkos, and Honeydukes. Great detail in all the shops and windows. Can't say enough about them. I will point out that they had tons of Pygmy Puffs.
By this time I was ready to try Butterbeer. There was a little line at the cart but since I wanted to try frozen I headed into Hogs Head. I had read some on here say they barely saw the hog move, but let me tell ya, that thing was going off every couple of minutes. I was cracking up!!
Got our Butterbeers and was in heaven!! I loved it!! The SO liked it but thought it was too sweet. By this time the general public was being let in and the place was filling up very very fast! We left and headed to Jurassic Park. Using our express passes we waited like 5 minutes while the line for everyone else was already at 30 minutes. We both really liked the ride but perhaps the best part was seeing the big macho guy sitting in front of us scream like a girl when the raptor box was "dropped" almost on his head. The whole boat was cracking up at him.
Caught some more sites and sounds then I wanted to check out Spiderman because I had heard so many great things about it. The main line was already saying an hour wait at 0945! We got right on and to our disapointment the screens all were black right after Spiderman "lands" on your ride vehicle. Yeah the vehicle jerked us around but all the 3D screens were black so we had no idea what was going on. That was a huge let down and I assured the SO that we would try it later when it was working. We hung around some more just taking in everything and taking pictures.
We then decided to leave and go check out Universal. I hadn't been here since 1994 and was excited to see how much it had changed. Universal was great! Since the SO really isn't a coaster fan, this place was more suited to him. He is a big Simpsons fan so of course we rode that ride about 3 times. It was great!!! We couldn't believe how long the regular lines were. Over an hour for the Simpsons ride at 1300! We waited maybe 10 minutes. I am so glad we decided to spend extra to stay onsite. We headed to City Walk to eat at Margaritaville again and share the Volcano Nachos! Excellent!!
***Oh on a side note, I had read on here that everyone had recommended getting a lanyard to hold your park ticket and express pass securely around your neck. Of course we bought out respective Slytherin and Ravenclaw lanyards but of course they didn't come with the plastic pass holders. So I had read on here that someone had just gone around to the different shops and asked if they had extras lying around. Sure enough, after our third store the lady had two extras which she gave to us. This was a huge help because we never had to take out our tickets or express passes to be scanned.***
Back to Universal, everything we did was great! Revenge of the Mummy quickly became one of my favorite rides there. Around 1430 the SO got tired and wanted to go back to the room. So he did and I stayed and I wanted to check out the line for Rip, Ride, Rockit. WOW! It was 120 minutes!! No way! So I left and went back to IOA to ride The Hulk. AWESOME!!! Loved it! I then wanted to check out WWoHP again and there was no line to get back in but it was packed! I looked around again, did the single rider line on FJ and got on after like 20 minutes. The second time around was so much better because I could actually relax and enjoy the ride. AMAZING!!! Of course the skies opened up again and I made my way into Hogs Head for a butterbeer. I got my butterbeer after a short wait of 10 minutes and sat out back on the patio just enjoying my view of Hogwarts. I headed back to the room on the water taxi, showered, and we went to dinner at Jakes American Bar. It was great also!!
Tuesday 8/10/10 - Our plan was to do early entry again but once the alarm went off at 0600, we both just wanted to sleep in. Got up around 1045 and headed to Hard Rock Cafe. Food was great and we did a repeat of the things we wanted to see again. Spiderman on the second go round was actually working and was AWESOME!! We both loved it!!! We went in to WWoHP around 1800. I told the SO that we needed to wait in the LOOOOONG line for FJ so we could take everything in and get more pics. So that is what we did. It was chaos!! The line stretched out past Flight of the Hippogriff. I told the SO that I had read on the boards that this was likely due to people not knowing this was the locker line. Since we didn't have any bags we stepped to the right and got right into the castle. The TM's kept yelling at people "IF YOU HAVE A FANNY PACK YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT IT IN A LOCKER!!!" I guess they had lots of people asking about them. Took us about an hour and a half to make our way through. After the ride we wanted to do dinner at Three Broomsticks. Our breakfast reservations weren't until the next morning. So we got right in and the SO got the turkey leg dinner and I got the Fish and Chips with 2 frozen butterbeers in the souvenir mugs. I also wanted to try the strawberry and peanut butter ice cream. It was excellent!!
I had heard rumors that you could see shadows of house elves on the walls of the place but didn't know where to look. The SO caught it high up in the rafters! It was awesome! Saw a shadow of a house elf carrying tons and dishes! Just made the place so much more magical.
After dinner we caught the Durmstrang/Beauxbatons show and we lingered around for the sun to go down. This place is so beautiful at night!! The crowds had died down so it was much more tolerable.
Wednesday 8/11/10 - We did early entry again and headed straight for FJ. We ended up buying a great picture from the ride and it came with a digital download. Word of warning.....although the picture we bought just showed me and the SO the digital copy shows the whole bench. After that we hung out in the covered front of the Hogs Head and talked for about 30 minutes to a really nice TM who was in charge of telling people to go around back to get in to the Hogs Head. She told us some cool info. She said the TM's who worked the FJ ride were sorted into houses based on their sizes. For example, staff members who wore small to medium robes were automatically made Hufflepuffs and so on. The other TM's could choose whichever house affiliation they wanted. She was a Slytherin....BOOOO! hehe! She also told us that all of the employees had to attend an 8 hour Harry Potter crash course which consisted of going through the books and movies, the history of how WWoHP came to be built, the architecture, and a test at the end that you had to pass. If you didn't pass, you couldn't work in that area. We also threw around the theory that the park was based on the first four novels and movies. She said the Hogs Head wasnt shown until the 5th movie and that she had heard the stone behind the area where the Hogwarts choir performs is somehow based on the 7th book.
The rest of the day we just hung out and did more things that we wanted to see and do again at both parks. The people in the crowds were nice as were all the TM's. The only bad part was while in line for Shrek 4D we were behind a family that was just complaining about everything. When we were about to be let in the TM told them to hold on while a lady in a wheelchair was let in ahead of them and one of the ladies made a comment about how unfair it was that just because she was in a wheelchair that she shouldn't be allowed to cut in line. This rubbed both of us the wrong way and we made sure that we were nowhere near them in the show.
All in all, if your still reading this, it was an excellent trip and I owe lots of it to these boards!! Thanks for reading!!!
I will try to give a trip report as soon as we get back. We are heading there Sunday. Thanks again, I really appreciate the info and your time.
My sister made fun of DH and I when we did that and said she didn't have any problems. When we got off the ride that time she was minus her room key 
