boogienights
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2012
- Messages
- 125
My family and I concluded a 7 day cruise (Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas out of San Juan) with two days at Universal before flying home on Christmas Eve.
No doubt the parks were crowded. Having only ever travelled to Orlando during slow times, I was nervous about the crowds and decided to stay onsite this time around. We've always rented a car and house so being onsite was new to us.
Royal Pacific Resort
Checked in on Dec 21. Long line for check in and only 4 employees working the desk. Public areas of the hotel were beautiful but the room (1st floor, Tower 1, handicapped accessible) was shabby and badly in need if an update. Can't speak about any other rooms as we did not see them. Definitely NOT my idea of a deluxe hotel. None of us has a disability either so hotel must have been really full for us to have been assigned to that room. There were also noise issues. The walls are paper thin and we could hear every conversation around us. No need for an alarm clock as the noise woke us up well before the wake up call.
All in all, we loved the convenience of being onsite ( especially the EP) and would stay there again during peak times. The extra expense is not with it during slow times (in my opinion) and I much prefer the freedom of renting a car and having separate bedrooms and a private pool/hot tub in a rental home.
Food
A meal at Bubba Gump is tradition and we went there soon after checking in on Dec 21. Had dinner at NBA late on Dec 23 only because we were all exhausted and wanted to sit down somewhere cool and relativy quiet. Apart from that we nibbled during the day on this and that from the various fast service counters. Dinner in Dec 23 was a tub of popcorn in the theatre - Hobbit 3D
All of our meals were good and we had no complaints.
As mentioned above, we normally rent a house and have breakfast and dinner at "home". I like this much better than eating those meals in restaurants. It's much more economical, healthy and restful.
Crowds
On previous trips, the parks have been virtual ghost towns ( with exception of HP area) and all of the rides were walk ons or 10 min waits. This trip was a whole different kettle of fish. By noon the parks were cheek to jowl and lines for the popular rides were daunting. I didn't keep tack of actual wait times, however, because we had EP. We did not wait longer than 15 minutes for any ride. Typically, no longer than 10 min. Only exception was DM which had an EP wait time of 30 min at 8pm on dec 23. We were anle to do all of pur faves miltiple times. We hit HPFJ during early entry on Dec 22.
We arrived at the ride at exactly 8am and were off by 8:20.
Rides
My favourites (from most to least) rides we did this time around:
Mummy x 10
Transformers x 4
Spider-Man x 4
Dragons X3
Hulk x 4
Simpsons x 3
Barges x1
Jurassic x1
MIB x3
Disaster x1
Despicable x 1
HPFJ x1
Hippogriff x1
Weather
Hot, hot, hot! As northerners, were hoping for cool weather and ended up sweltering. After a week of Caribbean sun, it was almost overwhelming.
All in all we had a great trip.
Questions? I'll do my best to answer!
No doubt the parks were crowded. Having only ever travelled to Orlando during slow times, I was nervous about the crowds and decided to stay onsite this time around. We've always rented a car and house so being onsite was new to us.
Royal Pacific Resort
Checked in on Dec 21. Long line for check in and only 4 employees working the desk. Public areas of the hotel were beautiful but the room (1st floor, Tower 1, handicapped accessible) was shabby and badly in need if an update. Can't speak about any other rooms as we did not see them. Definitely NOT my idea of a deluxe hotel. None of us has a disability either so hotel must have been really full for us to have been assigned to that room. There were also noise issues. The walls are paper thin and we could hear every conversation around us. No need for an alarm clock as the noise woke us up well before the wake up call.
All in all, we loved the convenience of being onsite ( especially the EP) and would stay there again during peak times. The extra expense is not with it during slow times (in my opinion) and I much prefer the freedom of renting a car and having separate bedrooms and a private pool/hot tub in a rental home.
Food
A meal at Bubba Gump is tradition and we went there soon after checking in on Dec 21. Had dinner at NBA late on Dec 23 only because we were all exhausted and wanted to sit down somewhere cool and relativy quiet. Apart from that we nibbled during the day on this and that from the various fast service counters. Dinner in Dec 23 was a tub of popcorn in the theatre - Hobbit 3D
All of our meals were good and we had no complaints.
As mentioned above, we normally rent a house and have breakfast and dinner at "home". I like this much better than eating those meals in restaurants. It's much more economical, healthy and restful.
Crowds
On previous trips, the parks have been virtual ghost towns ( with exception of HP area) and all of the rides were walk ons or 10 min waits. This trip was a whole different kettle of fish. By noon the parks were cheek to jowl and lines for the popular rides were daunting. I didn't keep tack of actual wait times, however, because we had EP. We did not wait longer than 15 minutes for any ride. Typically, no longer than 10 min. Only exception was DM which had an EP wait time of 30 min at 8pm on dec 23. We were anle to do all of pur faves miltiple times. We hit HPFJ during early entry on Dec 22.
We arrived at the ride at exactly 8am and were off by 8:20.
Rides
My favourites (from most to least) rides we did this time around:
Mummy x 10
Transformers x 4
Spider-Man x 4
Dragons X3
Hulk x 4
Simpsons x 3
Barges x1
Jurassic x1
MIB x3
Disaster x1
Despicable x 1
HPFJ x1
Hippogriff x1
Weather
Hot, hot, hot! As northerners, were hoping for cool weather and ended up sweltering. After a week of Caribbean sun, it was almost overwhelming.
All in all we had a great trip.
Questions? I'll do my best to answer!
