August 4-11 US/Disney Springs/MK report

[Mary Diehl]

Just thought I'd share some things good/bad about our family trip last week. Let me start off by saying that we used Tony Hinds for our transportation as suggested here on the Disboards. He DID NOT disappoint. He was great! Twice we had asked for him to come pick us up at an earlier time and he was there within the hour. Stopped at a Publix for us twice within the week too. He was so nice. I would recommend him to anyone. Our family stayed at the Royal Pacific Resort. We have stayed here 2X before and have never been disappointed. Very friendly staff and clean room. Our maid made a comment that she wished she'd get to clean our room every day since we tipped her. Does not everyone do this anymore? On the other hand, 4 out of the 7 nights we stayed there, I repeatedly asked for more Q-tips. Never got any and even approached one of the maids and a cart in which she showed me she had no more left. Is there a shortage of Q-tips in Florida My husband and I ate at Islands for breakfast one morning. Had a very nice waiter and the buffet was good and lots to choose from. My 6 yr old grandson loved US/IOA. I say this because we all went to MK for one day and he hated it. He said it was too crowded and didn't like the rides and having to wait in the long lines. This was a downfall of choosing to do MK towards the end of our vacation. He was spoiled by not having to wait in lines at US. He likes the more high thrilled rides and loves the Superheroes. There just wasn't anything like that for him at MK. I picked that particular park thinking it would offer more of a selection to choose from than the other 3 parks. He did, however, like Splash Mtn. We, personally, couldn't understand the hype of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Throughout the day, the ride maintained at least a 90 min wait or more. It was a short ride and felt BTMRR was alot better(was closed while there but have ridden it in the past) We all ate at the Beast's Castle. The meal was delicious and had a very nice cashier check in our order and gave us suggestions on food. We also ate at Sanaa at the AKV for dinner. We had eaten here before and again, the food was delicious. Back to US/IOA, I am not a HP fan, haven't read the books, but I LOVED Escape to Gringotts and the Flight of the Hippogriff. Just the atmosphere at both HP parks were amazing. Also, we may be in the minority but none of us were impressed with the Kong ride. It was short and again, a simulator type ride which tends to be the trend at US. We all had a great time though, enjoyed the rides, and you can't beat Express. Don't understand why they can't link the Express to the room key. The picture taken for the Express was a joke. You can't even see the picture. Plus, we got our tickets through AAA which was printed out on an 8 1/2 X 11 paper. Who wants to carry that around all day. Well, we did as so did others we saw when going through the turnstiles. Attendants were having problems with them(they said they get smeared after awhile) We didn't have any problems other than one morning the attendant just couldn't get my one son's to work and just waved him through. Our day at Disney Springs was o.k. It was hard to check out the shops with a 6 yr old. He loved the Lego store. We at at the T-Rex restaurant which was one of my favorite meals. It rained off and on this day so we had Tony Hinds pick us up earlier. I am a Disney fanatic but have to admit that I am seriously considering focusing on just US/IOA next trip. It was more relaxed and didn't have to make reservations for any restaurants and we had 6 in our party each time. We ate at Hard Rock Hotel, Margaritaville, NBC Sports Grille, Mythos, Mel's, Bubba Gumps, Sal's at Portifino, Antijitos, and had the Butter beer which was delicious. So, all in all, it was a great vacation. The bad was that we flew on Frontier and the day we left, they didn't have us on the flight that my daughter-in-law knew she booked us on. It was a flight scheduled for 12 hours later. They made her pay $600 more to change it. She is looking into it and thinks Frontier changed it on her but never gave her details.

 

[schumigirl]

Glad you enjoyed your time at Universal Orlando and RPR

Room keys used to be your EP but to cut out on folks cheating the system and giving or selling their room key to others after they had checked, out they changed it to the photo EP. It works apparently. Pictures may not be digital quality but it works.

Don't know about others but we tip every day of our stay........always appreciated by housekeeping.

You should have called star services on your phone if housekeeping didn't have q tips. They will arrange for you to get anything you need for your stay that you need.

 

[Mary Diehl]

The Q-tip thing wasn't that big of a deal. I just found it funny that every day they didn't have any. Also, I made a mistake when saying I loved Flight of the Hippogriff. I never rode that. It was the Forbidden Journey that I loved. It was my favorite ride. I also wanted to make a comment that the locker situation was horrible. It was total gridlock at every location. The area is not big enough to handle that vast amount of people. I'm sure I read on here that others find it a problem as well. Stores at the HP locations were too small too.

 

[schumigirl]

Unfortunately the stores in Hogsmeade are to JK Rowlings specifications exactly.

I'm sure Universal would have loved to have made them bigger, but she wanted them specifically as they were imagined in her books. And there were no negotiations in that and all her other stipulations of how she wanted the Potter areas.

You can buy a lot of the same things in the Universal Stores that are bigger.

The lockers can get busy, most of us don't find it a problem. Usually heading to the back of them there's usually not many folks there. They can get congested when folks don't do that.

Love FJ.......glad you enjoyed it.......