I am so thankful for all of the advice I gleaned from this forum in planning our recent trip to Universal, so I'm writing a report in hopes that it helps someone else in planning. I figure even if no one reads it, it is a good way for me to remember a fun trip!
Here's the backstory: we are a family of 5- me, DH, DS14, DD11, and DD7- and we discovered on our first trip to Disney in June 2018 that we really love amusement parks! I started planning another trip for us almost as soon as we left and we ultimately scheduled an amazing trip for June of 2020...which clearly didn't happen
. In the midst of planning that trip, I considered adding in a few days at Universal, but decided against it since the cost would be MUCH greater to do both parks at the time of year we were going. But I did quite a bit of Universal research at that time and knew that we wanted to go at some point, and that I absolutely wanted to stay at a hotel that offered express passes when we went.
So...in September I started thinking that maybe this would be the year to consider a trip to Orlando for Christmas. It seemed a little crazy to consider going to a crowded place in the midst of a pandemic, and yet I thought that many of our usual holiday gatherings would be canceled and that Christmas wouldn't feel "normal" anyway. Little did I know how bad it would get by December! I looked into prices for Disney and it was OUTRAGEOUS for our family. So I started looking at Universal and found what I considered an amazing deal for RPR and the buy 2 get 2 days free for the parks. DH was a little uncertain about being gone over Christmas and visiting an amusement park during COVID, but I used my persuasive skills
to convince him that this was a deal we couldn't pass up and that this was the year to go! We booked the trip knowing that it could all be canceled and fully refunded even up until the day prior.
We felt pretty sneaky as we didn't tell anyone about the tentative trip except my parents who have a condo in FL that we planned to visit after Universal. We were a little hesitant about seeing them after taking the risk of crowds of people, but they really wanted us to come and visit despite the risk. We have been very careful throughout COVID, though DH is a teacher and I work in healthcare, so we are constantly exposed to (masked) people, and our kids have been in school since August (also all masked). As COVID numbers increased in our area in November and December, we struggled with what to do about the trip. DH felt anxious that it was irresponsible to still consider going. I agreed (a little!), but felt that we could responsibly be irresponsible, if that makes sense
! All of our holiday gatherings were indeed canceled, we did Thanksgiving alone, and no one planned to see us for Christmas except my parents. So again, using all of my persuasive skills, I convinced DH that we should go for it. I still can't believe I actually got him to agree!
Our kids were going to miss one day of school, so we told DS and DD11 a few days prior that we were going to FL (but not about Universal yet) in order for them to take tests and finish school work that they were missing. They were so surprised and excited. We didn't tell DD7 anything as I was afraid she would talk about it at school (she's the most talkative of our kids and slightly oblivious!). I was a little anxious the entire week and even the day of that I would get a phone call that one of us was being quarantined, but thankfully that didn't happen! We all went to school and work as usual on 12/17 and planned to leave for the airport as soon as the kids came home from school. When DD7 came in the door, the other kids told her we were going to FL and she said "No, we're NOT!" I'm not much for surprises, but her reaction was great, and then she was so excited!
We flew Delta and had a good experience- our flights were changed several times prior to the trip and I was able to contact them via text messaging to make additional changes since some of the changes did not work for us. Our family was seated in the same row on all flights and there were many empty seats on all of the planes. I felt reasonably safe with everyone masked, distanced as best as possible, and sanitizing wipes available. Our flight arrived into Orlando very late (11:30pm), so I had arranged for Tony Hinds to pick us up (thanks to all of the recommendations on this forum!!) so that we weren't stressed about figuring out a ride so late at night with tired kids. He was great about communicating with me prior via email and text message. Our flight was a little delayed on arrival, but he picked us up right away when I told him we were there and ready with our luggage. He had a mask on the whole time, which I appreciated
. We've had no trouble using Uber previously, but it was well worth a little extra money to know that a safe ride was pre-arranged.
We arrived at RPR a little after midnight and checked in pretty quickly. The security person took our temperature when we walked in and gave us wristbands for that day (this was a quick and easy routine every day that we stayed there). The room was nice, though pretty small for our family of 5 and very messy after a few days (which I knew it would be!). I was a little disappointed that there was no rollaway or extra bedding there as I had called the day prior to make sure that this would be ready, but I called housekeeping and this was brought to our room within ten minutes. DD7 was quite pleased with the rollaway and made a little nest on it between the bed and window. I know it seems silly, but in order to avoid a major fight between DD11 and DD7 it is best for our family to sleep with the boys in one bed, DD11 and myself in the other, and DD7 alone when we are at a hotel. I'm sure others with kids like ours understand the family dynamics
.
We went to bed right away and did not set an alarm for the next day as we figured it was best to get our sleep. The parks didn't open until 9am that day anyway, though if we knew what was awaiting us the next morning, we may have gotten up a little earlier... more to come about that!
Here's the backstory: we are a family of 5- me, DH, DS14, DD11, and DD7- and we discovered on our first trip to Disney in June 2018 that we really love amusement parks! I started planning another trip for us almost as soon as we left and we ultimately scheduled an amazing trip for June of 2020...which clearly didn't happen
. In the midst of planning that trip, I considered adding in a few days at Universal, but decided against it since the cost would be MUCH greater to do both parks at the time of year we were going. But I did quite a bit of Universal research at that time and knew that we wanted to go at some point, and that I absolutely wanted to stay at a hotel that offered express passes when we went. So...in September I started thinking that maybe this would be the year to consider a trip to Orlando for Christmas. It seemed a little crazy to consider going to a crowded place in the midst of a pandemic, and yet I thought that many of our usual holiday gatherings would be canceled and that Christmas wouldn't feel "normal" anyway. Little did I know how bad it would get by December! I looked into prices for Disney and it was OUTRAGEOUS for our family. So I started looking at Universal and found what I considered an amazing deal for RPR and the buy 2 get 2 days free for the parks. DH was a little uncertain about being gone over Christmas and visiting an amusement park during COVID, but I used my persuasive skills
to convince him that this was a deal we couldn't pass up and that this was the year to go! We booked the trip knowing that it could all be canceled and fully refunded even up until the day prior. We felt pretty sneaky as we didn't tell anyone about the tentative trip except my parents who have a condo in FL that we planned to visit after Universal. We were a little hesitant about seeing them after taking the risk of crowds of people, but they really wanted us to come and visit despite the risk. We have been very careful throughout COVID, though DH is a teacher and I work in healthcare, so we are constantly exposed to (masked) people, and our kids have been in school since August (also all masked). As COVID numbers increased in our area in November and December, we struggled with what to do about the trip. DH felt anxious that it was irresponsible to still consider going. I agreed (a little!), but felt that we could responsibly be irresponsible, if that makes sense
! All of our holiday gatherings were indeed canceled, we did Thanksgiving alone, and no one planned to see us for Christmas except my parents. So again, using all of my persuasive skills, I convinced DH that we should go for it. I still can't believe I actually got him to agree!Our kids were going to miss one day of school, so we told DS and DD11 a few days prior that we were going to FL (but not about Universal yet) in order for them to take tests and finish school work that they were missing. They were so surprised and excited. We didn't tell DD7 anything as I was afraid she would talk about it at school (she's the most talkative of our kids and slightly oblivious!). I was a little anxious the entire week and even the day of that I would get a phone call that one of us was being quarantined, but thankfully that didn't happen! We all went to school and work as usual on 12/17 and planned to leave for the airport as soon as the kids came home from school. When DD7 came in the door, the other kids told her we were going to FL and she said "No, we're NOT!" I'm not much for surprises, but her reaction was great, and then she was so excited!
We flew Delta and had a good experience- our flights were changed several times prior to the trip and I was able to contact them via text messaging to make additional changes since some of the changes did not work for us. Our family was seated in the same row on all flights and there were many empty seats on all of the planes. I felt reasonably safe with everyone masked, distanced as best as possible, and sanitizing wipes available. Our flight arrived into Orlando very late (11:30pm), so I had arranged for Tony Hinds to pick us up (thanks to all of the recommendations on this forum!!) so that we weren't stressed about figuring out a ride so late at night with tired kids. He was great about communicating with me prior via email and text message. Our flight was a little delayed on arrival, but he picked us up right away when I told him we were there and ready with our luggage. He had a mask on the whole time, which I appreciated
. We've had no trouble using Uber previously, but it was well worth a little extra money to know that a safe ride was pre-arranged. We arrived at RPR a little after midnight and checked in pretty quickly. The security person took our temperature when we walked in and gave us wristbands for that day (this was a quick and easy routine every day that we stayed there). The room was nice, though pretty small for our family of 5 and very messy after a few days (which I knew it would be!). I was a little disappointed that there was no rollaway or extra bedding there as I had called the day prior to make sure that this would be ready, but I called housekeeping and this was brought to our room within ten minutes. DD7 was quite pleased with the rollaway and made a little nest on it between the bed and window. I know it seems silly, but in order to avoid a major fight between DD11 and DD7 it is best for our family to sleep with the boys in one bed, DD11 and myself in the other, and DD7 alone when we are at a hotel. I'm sure others with kids like ours understand the family dynamics
.We went to bed right away and did not set an alarm for the next day as we figured it was best to get our sleep. The parks didn't open until 9am that day anyway, though if we knew what was awaiting us the next morning, we may have gotten up a little earlier... more to come about that!
. I think it was around 8:50am when we started waiting in this line. Both parks were supposed to open at 9am with IOA having 9am early entry. I had a vague idea of starting in IOA and trying to get to Hagrid's before it went virtual, but this was in the end a terrible idea as there were literally thousands of people ahead of us in line! I'm not sure how long it took us just to enter CityWalk, but it was at least 20 minutes and by then the lines for both IOA and UO wrapped WAY out to the middle of CityWalk. It was at this moment that my heart sank and I knew DH was seriously regretting our decision to do this- surrounded by thousands of other mask-wearing people just waiting in line TO GET IN to the park. (Never fear, this was the low point of the trip- after this I promise that we really got in our groove!). 
, but I think they were intrigued by others doing the spells and also the idea of having an authentic looking wand. I told them that if they were to get wands, now was the time to do it so that they still had some time to do the spells before we left Universal. So, we spent some time this morning looking at wands and DS14 struggled with whether he should get one or if it was a babyish thing to do. He always takes a while to decide on spending his money. DD7 was pretty surprised that her older brother and sister were now interested in the wands, and was feeling a little upset that she had spent her money on a unicorn instead. They each had some Christmas money though, so she had some extra as well. The girls ended up buying their wands then and DS decided to save his money (for the moment). The girls walked out of the store and immediately tried to use their wands, which was actually pretty frustrating at first until a team member came to help us. So my advice is to ask for help right away as I think the girls were despairing that they had indeed wasted their money! In our experience, some of the spells were very easy and others were pretty tricky. After DS saw how much fun the girls were having, he decided he DID actually want a wand, so now we have 3 wands 
fanny pack that I didn't have to take off for anything except the Hulk, and we didn't bring anything else with us. But we did need the lockers a few times for the wands and this seemed quick and easy the few times we used them. Anyway, DD7 declared that the Mummy was not scary, except for the parts with fire, and was happy that she rode it. She really wanted to do Gringott's one more time, but when we got there the line for the express pass went all the way back to the lockers, so we told her we'd come back later. The kids did a few spells and then we headed to the Crepe stand. DH and I shared a brisket crepe and strawberry hazelnut crepe, DD11 had the strawberry hazelnut as well, and the other kids had the Oreo crepe. Not exactly a healthy dinner, but we liked all of them, though we definitely shouldn't have gotten so many dessert crepes- the kids could have easily shared theirs as they were very rich and sweet. The crepes took quite a while to make, so if the line is long you may be in for a long wait! 
