MrsSparrow..
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Messages
- 3,163
If this would be more appropriate in the Trip Reports section, I apologise!
Got back yesterday from a two week trip in Orlando. Wow - the best trip I've ever had. Crowds were low and managed to plan the days well in order to minimise the crowd levels further. I'll just stick to a brief summary of UO.
This year, Universal Studios seemed to be my favourite park of the two - which is strange as IOA has always been my number one. This year the atmosphere at US seemed to be so much better than in previous years (also helped by the fact that the last visit to US on Monday, had ridiculously short lines). Anyway, some highs and lows.
Highs
Crowds - Very low. On Monday, Rip Ride was posting a 20/30 minute wait for most of the day, I went on the ride at around 3pm with a less than 15 minute wait. Earlier in the holiday, the shortest this queue reached was about 30 minutes, being over 50 the majority of the time.
TMs - TM's are always excellent at Universal in my experience. Particularly those at ROTM, who had some brilliant TMs entertaining those waiting in line. Though the ride ops don't seem to be doing that 'thumbs down' thing as you pass them on the ride any more, am I the only one that remembers them doing this?
Ollivander's - Yes.. we were lucky! We were first in line for the whole day, and my step-sister got chosen
She was completely in awe and was beaming for the rest of the day. However, I wouldn't wait for this show again.. not worth the long queueing that I witnessed later in the day!
Virgin Holidays Early Entry - Those who book with Virgin, get early entry to Harry Potter with a free breakfast in the Three Broomsticks (see lows for more info!!). We were in WWOHP well before 7.30, (we were let in earlier than the on-site guests, have lots of awesome footage of an empty park) and in line for Ollivander's by 7.45, hence being at the front of the queue. Due to early entry, we got to take some great photos of an empty WWOHP. This land really filled up with on-site and other early entry guests around 8am, so it was great to beat the crowds. Well worth doing it if you are going with Virgin Holidays, the 6am start to the day did make us tired very quickly!
Blue's Brothers - Really enjoyed the show this year, so much so that we saw it twice! Elwood and I had a little dance - love the atmosphere of this show.
Rip Ride and Rock It - I know a lot of Universal fans detest this ride, but I love it. Back in '09, some of the features weren't working properly or the music would keep cutting out, however, it seemed to be a lot more efficient this year.
Mythos - Another great meal! Made the reservation on the day which was lucky as it seemed to be pretty busy. Couldn't recommend this restaurant enough.
Lows
Virgin Early Entry Breakfast - The 'breakfast' is pastries and toast, which isn't served up quickly enough or in large enough quantities, meaning queues start to form for a bit of bread! A big disappointment as we were hoping to have a good breakfast to prepare us for a long day. This really needs to be organised a lot better.
Abuse of the Child Swap - As my step-sister is at the sweet age of 8 and 47 inches (highly frustrating as most of the rides seemed to have a 48" requirement!), we used the child swap a lot which is awesome for us, as one person got to ride the attraction twice. However, on many rides I witnessed people using the child swap as a 're-entry' or sometimes people just came through the exit and straight through to the ride. No questions by TM's or those that did had no choice but to let them on. One day at Rip Ride and Rock It, TMs gave us a receipt to hand in to the TM at the top in order to qualify for Child Swap. This was the only time at this attraction and the only attraction that used a receipt. The party we were in the Child Swap with, rode the attraction at least 3 times using different combinations and no receipt. The TMs of-course don't see this misuse of the Child Swap happening but this is an issue Universal really should address. (The worst abuse of the Child Swap was happening at Forbidden Journey where people would come off the ride and simply run back round again...)
And the biggest low of all - Coming home...
Major Orlando blues right now. I'm looking to do the summer International College Programme at Disney in 2012, however, would much rather do it at Universal although their careers website has limited information and when I e-mailed them, they redirected me to the same page I'd already seen. Has anyone done this at Universal? If you have and wouldn't mind being asked a few questions, please let me know.
Thanks all for helping me plan another successful trip
Got back yesterday from a two week trip in Orlando. Wow - the best trip I've ever had. Crowds were low and managed to plan the days well in order to minimise the crowd levels further. I'll just stick to a brief summary of UO.
This year, Universal Studios seemed to be my favourite park of the two - which is strange as IOA has always been my number one. This year the atmosphere at US seemed to be so much better than in previous years (also helped by the fact that the last visit to US on Monday, had ridiculously short lines). Anyway, some highs and lows.
Highs
Crowds - Very low. On Monday, Rip Ride was posting a 20/30 minute wait for most of the day, I went on the ride at around 3pm with a less than 15 minute wait. Earlier in the holiday, the shortest this queue reached was about 30 minutes, being over 50 the majority of the time.
TMs - TM's are always excellent at Universal in my experience. Particularly those at ROTM, who had some brilliant TMs entertaining those waiting in line. Though the ride ops don't seem to be doing that 'thumbs down' thing as you pass them on the ride any more, am I the only one that remembers them doing this?
Ollivander's - Yes.. we were lucky! We were first in line for the whole day, and my step-sister got chosen
She was completely in awe and was beaming for the rest of the day. However, I wouldn't wait for this show again.. not worth the long queueing that I witnessed later in the day!Virgin Holidays Early Entry - Those who book with Virgin, get early entry to Harry Potter with a free breakfast in the Three Broomsticks (see lows for more info!!). We were in WWOHP well before 7.30, (we were let in earlier than the on-site guests, have lots of awesome footage of an empty park) and in line for Ollivander's by 7.45, hence being at the front of the queue. Due to early entry, we got to take some great photos of an empty WWOHP. This land really filled up with on-site and other early entry guests around 8am, so it was great to beat the crowds. Well worth doing it if you are going with Virgin Holidays, the 6am start to the day did make us tired very quickly!
Blue's Brothers - Really enjoyed the show this year, so much so that we saw it twice! Elwood and I had a little dance - love the atmosphere of this show.
Rip Ride and Rock It - I know a lot of Universal fans detest this ride, but I love it. Back in '09, some of the features weren't working properly or the music would keep cutting out, however, it seemed to be a lot more efficient this year.
Mythos - Another great meal! Made the reservation on the day which was lucky as it seemed to be pretty busy. Couldn't recommend this restaurant enough.
Lows
Virgin Early Entry Breakfast - The 'breakfast' is pastries and toast, which isn't served up quickly enough or in large enough quantities, meaning queues start to form for a bit of bread! A big disappointment as we were hoping to have a good breakfast to prepare us for a long day. This really needs to be organised a lot better.
Abuse of the Child Swap - As my step-sister is at the sweet age of 8 and 47 inches (highly frustrating as most of the rides seemed to have a 48" requirement!), we used the child swap a lot which is awesome for us, as one person got to ride the attraction twice. However, on many rides I witnessed people using the child swap as a 're-entry' or sometimes people just came through the exit and straight through to the ride. No questions by TM's or those that did had no choice but to let them on. One day at Rip Ride and Rock It, TMs gave us a receipt to hand in to the TM at the top in order to qualify for Child Swap. This was the only time at this attraction and the only attraction that used a receipt. The party we were in the Child Swap with, rode the attraction at least 3 times using different combinations and no receipt. The TMs of-course don't see this misuse of the Child Swap happening but this is an issue Universal really should address. (The worst abuse of the Child Swap was happening at Forbidden Journey where people would come off the ride and simply run back round again...)
And the biggest low of all - Coming home...
Major Orlando blues right now. I'm looking to do the summer International College Programme at Disney in 2012, however, would much rather do it at Universal although their careers website has limited information and when I e-mailed them, they redirected me to the same page I'd already seen. Has anyone done this at Universal? If you have and wouldn't mind being asked a few questions, please let me know.
Thanks all for helping me plan another successful trip
Thanks for sharing. Glad you had a great time.
