elaine amj
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2012
- Messages
- 6,180
We were at Universal Orlando from May 16-18 for our first family trip to Universal Orlando. We are big Disney geeks but decided to grab the opportunity to visit The Dark Side when I got a $100 off a stay at Hard Rock Hotel (Orbitz ran a deal on Cyber Monday that lasted a few hours). It ended up being $214 + taxes (so about $250) for a Saturday night stay on May 16 2015. I watched APH prices but it never dropped much for the Saturday night (and the resorts pretty much filled up that day). There did end up being a $199 deal for the Sunday night stay but I decided to save $$ and stay offsite (I had a free room with my Hilton points at the Doubletree across the street). I figured since Saturday was "busy" and Sunday & Monday were "slow", the Sat night stay was more important.
At first I planned to buy 2-3 day tickets and make this a one time visit. During the months leading up to my trip, I stumbled across ticketing discussions on the Dis where people pointed out that upgrading a 2/3 day ticket to an AP was very cheap. I ended up buying discounted 4 day tickets (more than I needed, but I was hoping for price bridging) from Cheaptickets. (By the way, price bridging worked like a charm so paying $70 more than I needed up front ended up being very worth it. I only had to pay another $30 to upgrade to Power Passes. For ALL 4 of us.)
From a dining perspective, we ate pretty much all our meals onsite. We wanted to enjoy our meals but I was also trying really hard to stick to a tight food budget so lots of sharing meals and deal hunting. I didn't take photos of everything so I might supplement with photos taken from the internet.
During the planning stages, I got a little concerned about how my family would like Universal. My daughter is terrified of creepy things and my son is only marginally better (we don't do haunted houses, horror movies, etc). It gives them nightmares. When I showed them pics and videos, my DD in particular freaked out about many of the scenes from the rides/shows. My son doesn't do anything with large drops and my DH doesn't do coasters and gets nauseous if he does too many motion simulators. None of us had even watched any of the Potter movies, although we did end up watching the series in the months leading up to the trip. (It helped a lot to know a bit of the story line). My DH and DS only watched bits and pieces with us since neither care for the movies much.
Would we like Universal??!
CHAPTERS:
Day 1 - Can we get there already?
Day 2 - How long can we keep going?
Day 3 - Last day...we don't want to go home!
Was the Dining Plan Worth It? Let's crunch those numbers.
The battle continues...Disney vs Universal
Other Observations and Things I Learned
Saturday May 16, 2015
We left the house at 4am (*yawwwwnnnnn*) to make it for our 6am flight to Orlando. We are NOT good at early mornings so this was a bit of a struggle for us. The family did their best and we survived. I would have liked to Uber it directly from Orlando airport ($18-24 on avg) but they are not allowed to pick up at MCO. After exploring a variety of options, I ended up with an OK deal to rent a car from Budget for 3 hours for $33.
Lunch:
I ended up scoring 2 Living Social coupons for BOGO for Cici's Pizza buffet on top of 16% cashback from ebates a couple of days before we left. So under $12 for all 4 of us to gorge. The pizza quality is just OK - but my kids love the endless stream of pizzas with a large variety of choices. Their breadsticks are particularly good and I am crazy about their cinnamon rolls (prob because they are not as heavily glazed and overly sweet as most. BTW, I don't like Cinnabons).
Lunch over, we finally head to the Hard Rock Hotel, very excited to check in. The valet seemed taken aback when we said we did NOT want to park the car but just needed a few minutes to check in. They took our key anyway and we went on in. Got checked in and managed to secretly whisper to the clerk that we would like a Fender guitar waiting in our room as a surprise for our son. (the $1000 refundable deposit made us pause, but we decided it was worth it).
We changed to our crocs since the plan was to hit the water rides to get soaking wet, then head for the pool. We then stored everything at the luggage desk for us to pick up later when our room was ready. Express Passes in hand, we were ready to hit the parks!
Oh, we had a detour since we had to return the car to the Budget counter (which was at the Holiday Inn across the street). It was a bit of a hassle, but the savings was worth it (Hertz - which had a return at the Hard Rock Hotel, was quoting $70-80 for the same rental we got for $33 from Budget). The kids were so impatient since the return took about 10-15 minutes. On top of that, another 15 minute walk to the parks.
Finally we were outside Islands of Adventure!! But we couldn't go in yet...one more stop at the Group Sales booth to redeem our Cheaptickets vouchers. Thankfully, there was no line at this time (2pm) and very shortly, we had set up our fingerprint scans and were INSIDE THE PARK!
First up, we HAD to do an exciting ride. My kids had been as patient as possible, but it had been a lot of waiting around all day. So we headed straight for Spiderman and pulled out our cool new Express passes. The ride was amazing, mind blowing, and really set us up for the incredible technology Universal parks offer. However,my DD was stressed throughout waiting for the creepy scenes and did have to close her eyes a few times. Plus, my DH was a little dizzy when he got off. No more motion simulators for a little while, please!
DD was salivating about big coasters and since I had forced her to walk past Hulk in the beginning, we now had to return to it. My DH and DS headed to the arcade next door where they ended up dropping $10. (They only wanted to spend a few bucks but it turns out $10 is the minimum you can spend - boo).
DD enjoyed Hulk and I really enjoyed breezing past the afternoon line with our Express Passes. I personally found Hulk a little too rattly and while I will re-ride it, I won't go out of my way (we never returned this trip).
Next up, WATER RIDES!! I dragged my protesting family to Jurassic Park River Adventures. My DS was very nervous about the drop (he doesn't like drops and is so-so about Splash Mountain) and DD was terrified of the TRex (when she was little she got nearly hysterical at the dinosaur exhibit in a Natural History Museum. *sigh* She's much better now, but still...). Anyway, I wanted to ride (and while my darn kids will object to rides, they don't like sitting out even more) so all trooped on behind me, neither child too happy about it.
I really, really liked this one!! The theming was pretty fabulous. I would love to return and relax more to enjoy the boat ride. Sadly, we never had time. The drop was fine for my son thankfully and my DD kept her eyes tightly shut through the whole TRex scene ( a good thing, because it lasted a LONG time and he comes really close). We got wet but shoes stayed dry (EPs were absolutely necessary this hot afternoon).
Now it was a choice between Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls and Popeye & Bluto's Bilge Rate Barges (what's with the super long, hard to remember names anyway?). DS was nervous about the drop at Ripsaw Falls so we chose the Barges. What a trip!!!!! We had a blast and this is the absolute best river rapids ride we have ever been on, ANYWHERE. We loved that you get completely soaked!! The theming was soooo much fun, definitely Disney-worthy (even though my kids did not know the storyline). We then went back on, and then on again. 3 times total wooohooo!!! My DS wanted to ride again, but the clock was ticking and I knew we still had lots more planned for the day.
Time for Ripsaw Falls! It was fun, but the theming was not as well done. The kids knew nothing about Dudley and you could see a lot of gaps between story elements. The ride was worn out and badly needs a fresh paint job. We liked it all right. (although I love the theming around the drop - so bright and colorful!)
My kids did not know any of the characters in Toon Lagoon. That said, they sure set up some fun photo ops there!
Snack:
We started off our Universal food adventures by buying a refillable popcorn bucket ($5.99 + tax with $1.29 refills). We ended up refilling this at least 4 times over the weekend so it was worth it. We brought home a full bucket for treats at home. My son loved that we were fine refilling his bucket pretty much whenever he asked. I like that I can bring the bucket back next trip
Dripping wet with our new popcorn bucket in hand, we now had to head back to the hotel for some pool time. My DD was particularly excited for the underwater pool speakers. We found the walk to the hotel short and very prettily landscaped. Nice job!
DH went to get our bags to the room while I took the kids straight to the pool. (While in the room, he also called down to remind them to send up the Fender guitar since it wasn't there yet). This is definitely a lounging pool. We enjoyed having live music (although my DD thought the underwater speaker thing way less impressive than she had anticipated. Too much hype in her head lol!).
We were thinking of staying a little longer (since the app said IOA closed at 8pm) but I saw the pool sign said that Universal would close at 8:30pm and IOA would close at 7pm. Trusting that (note to self: do NOT trust pool signs), I hauled my kids out of the pool before 5pm so we could shower and head back to the parks since I really wanted to do Hogsmeade this evening.
We walked in the room and my DS immediately saw the cases for the Fender guitar!! His jaw dropped, asking if he was really allowed to play with it. It was the highlight of his stay at the Hard Rock Hotel!! Very, very, very cool and I'm so thrilled we actually managed to pull it off as a surprise. (I still haven't told him we specially requested it).
Time for our first look at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I've read countless trip reports and was super excited.
It was crowded as expected and I was duly impressed with its immersive theming.
Forbidden Journey's line seemed pretty short - the sign said 30 minutes so we decided to get in line at 5:30pm. It ended up being about 15 minutes (pretty much a walk on) - the line started just before the greenhouse section was over. Perfect - enough time to enjoy a tour of Hogwarts! My DD was extremely nervous, worried there would be a dragon/other creepy scenes lurking in the castle. We survived seeing nothing too bad, and quickly boarded. I held her hand and would squeeze it when creepy scenes came up, and tap her hand when it was safe to open her eyes again.
The ride had some super incredible special effects and the theming was mind-blowing. It did end up having way more creepy scenes than I expected...I would say about 75% of the ride is creepy. If you like horror houses, you'll be fine. For our family, it was a little much. Still, we were very impressed with the immersion and my son said he would like to ride it again. Even DH was impressed and wasn't too queasy afterwords.
Dinner:
It was now time for dinner at the Three Broomsticks. The 4 of us decided to share 2 Quick Service Dining Plans. We ordered a Ribs Platter and a Ribs & Chicken Platter. For drinks, we were told we could choose: apple or pear cider, pumpkin fizz, pumpkin juice, ice teas, Gilly Water and a few other things I don't remember. We had to use at least 1 beverage entitlement with each meal ordered. We chose a pumpkin fizz and a bottle of Gilly Water (plain bottled water).
The ribs were decent and very tender. The Roast Chicken was much better than I expected. Very tender and tasty. I was surprised we got Gilly Water (since they charge a fortune for it in Diagon Alley). I LOVED the pumpkin fizz (I do love pumpkin pie). My DH and DS don't like pumpkin pie and did not like the flavor of the drink. My DD likes pumpkin pie, but complained about the aftertaste.
It was now 5 minutes to 7pm and thinking the park closed at 7pm, I hustled the family to the Hogwarts Express hoping to make it before they closed the ride. It was about a 15 min wait and we finally boarded. I had heard that there was a Dementor scene at one point so my DD was tense and kept a close eye out the whole time. Thankfully, the whole ride passed without incident. It was pretty cool to see all the scenes in the windows and I enjoyed the trip over. Overall, I think it's "cute". Certainly not a huge deal for non-Potter fans but an amusing enough way to go back and forth.
Diagon Alley was really cool theming but the boys really didn't care much. My DD and I checked out a couple of cool shops but DH was super bored and dragged us out quickly. DD enjoyed watching a couple of the magic tricks performed with the interactive wand and DS thought it would be cool to mess around with a wand (Not $50 cool in my book!). Overall the "magic" was saw looked very very similar to what we have done (for free) with Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom and Agent P's World Showcase Adventure in Epcot. Very cool for Potter fans though (and $50 pp brilliant money printer for Universal!).
After dinner treat:
We picked up a Butterbeer in Diagon Alley (just because we have to). The lines an hour before closing at Florean Fortescue's was nuts so we went to the Fountain of Fair Fortune (next door). Still had a longish line of 5 mins or so but soon, we redeemed a snack credit for a frozen butterbeer.
First taste.
It's a hit! It was sweet, but we enjoyed the frozen slush (our family is obsessed with slushies). That said, the next day when I offered my son another butterbeer, he begged and begged and begged for a lemon slush instead (which happened not to be anywhere available in the back half of the park - sigh. And not a single staff we asked had any clue where one might be).
We walked out and strolled over to Men in Black, still thinking the park closed at 8:30. Even with Express Passes, we were stuck in line a looonnnngggg time and were super confused, wondering if we were in the right line. We watched streams of people zoom past us. Eventually we realized they were all wearing bright yellow lanyards so that must be the private party - who were all given preference over our Express Passes.
Eventually we got to ride. It was fun - but somehow, not as fun as I thought it would be. We liked it, but nobody requested a re-ride. I had fully expected us to ride this again and again and again since the boys love shoot-em-up games. DH didn't complain, but the spinning may have been a bit much for him.
DD saw the doggy and insisted on waiting in line for a pic. DH took the opportunity to mess with the poor character.
When we got off, it was now 8pm and Universal was closing. At this point, we talked to a staff and were told that unlike what the resort said, Universal closed at 8pm that day for a private party. He also told me IOA closed at 8pm that day (GRRRR...we would have stayed longer in the pool and then just stayed in IOA until 8pm like I had wanted). All food outlets were firmly closed to anyone not wearing yellow lanyards (we had wanted to pick up something on the way out) although we were allowed to shop in the gift store.
Bedtime snacks:
We tried to walk in with our kids to The Kitchen at about 9pm (it was a Saturday night). We had seen signs in the elevator saying that after 9pm, select appetizers were half off. A late night snack sounded good to us, so we walked up...lots of empty tables around.
The hostess had no idea of any 1/2 off app promo. Asked someone else who confirmed the promo existed. She then proceeded to tell us they had no tables for 45 mins. We asked and she said we could do takeout from the bar. We went to the bar, waited a while to get the bartender's attention. He was more knowledgeable but told us unless we could find an empty table since the kids could not be at the bar itself (no tables available), we could not get the 1/2 off promo - definitely not available for takeout. He explained which apps were covered. We were tired out and getting annoyed at getting shuffled around - with 3 people hanging out at the hostess table not being very helpful.
Long story short, I got on Open Table (btw, wifi is very crappy in the restaurant) and promptly booked us a table (all times, including that minute, was fully available). Kids were pretty grumpy by this point so we got them an ice cream from Emack and Bolio's next door (3 scoops for $5 - whattadeal!) and sent them up to the room to chill.
We returned to the front with our Open Table reservation and were promptly seated. Turns out one of the apps the bartender told us was available (chicken wings), wasn't part of the 1/2 off promo. Our nice waited ended up giving it to us for 1/2 off anyway. We had spinach dip and chicken wings. The chicken wings were fine (very meaty and huge but a little overcooked). The Spinach dip was oddly watery but tasted OK. It came with just nacho chips (menu said flatbread and nacho chips) which someone took a sea salt shaker to...and shook really hard. We were tapping off the salt before eating each chip. We took the leftovers back to the kids and they refused to eat it (chips is one of their favorite food groups!) because it was so nastily salty. The bread service was the best part....really good cornbread in a skillet and pretzel breadsticks.
The atmosphere at The Kitchen was nice. The weather was great so we sat out on the patio and enjoyed the night. Unfortunately we were disappointed with the food so doubt we would return. That said, the promo is pretty cheap and location convenient so we don't regret it. We paid about $14 for the food and left a $6 tip.
While we had been enjoying our "snack", my DS and DD were in the room having fun with the Fender guitar. Since we had another packed day planned ahead, I knew this was their one chance to play with it so we gave them an hour or so to mess around. Neither know how to play the guitar but they were able to pick out a tune or two and the amp made it all sound really, really cool.
At 11pm, after a very very long exhausting day that started at 4am, we finally hit the sack.
At first I planned to buy 2-3 day tickets and make this a one time visit. During the months leading up to my trip, I stumbled across ticketing discussions on the Dis where people pointed out that upgrading a 2/3 day ticket to an AP was very cheap. I ended up buying discounted 4 day tickets (more than I needed, but I was hoping for price bridging) from Cheaptickets. (By the way, price bridging worked like a charm so paying $70 more than I needed up front ended up being very worth it. I only had to pay another $30 to upgrade to Power Passes. For ALL 4 of us.)
From a dining perspective, we ate pretty much all our meals onsite. We wanted to enjoy our meals but I was also trying really hard to stick to a tight food budget so lots of sharing meals and deal hunting. I didn't take photos of everything so I might supplement with photos taken from the internet.
During the planning stages, I got a little concerned about how my family would like Universal. My daughter is terrified of creepy things and my son is only marginally better (we don't do haunted houses, horror movies, etc). It gives them nightmares. When I showed them pics and videos, my DD in particular freaked out about many of the scenes from the rides/shows. My son doesn't do anything with large drops and my DH doesn't do coasters and gets nauseous if he does too many motion simulators. None of us had even watched any of the Potter movies, although we did end up watching the series in the months leading up to the trip. (It helped a lot to know a bit of the story line). My DH and DS only watched bits and pieces with us since neither care for the movies much.
Would we like Universal??!
CHAPTERS:
Day 1 - Can we get there already?
Day 2 - How long can we keep going?
Day 3 - Last day...we don't want to go home!
Was the Dining Plan Worth It? Let's crunch those numbers.
The battle continues...Disney vs Universal
Other Observations and Things I Learned
Saturday May 16, 2015
We left the house at 4am (*yawwwwnnnnn*) to make it for our 6am flight to Orlando. We are NOT good at early mornings so this was a bit of a struggle for us. The family did their best and we survived. I would have liked to Uber it directly from Orlando airport ($18-24 on avg) but they are not allowed to pick up at MCO. After exploring a variety of options, I ended up with an OK deal to rent a car from Budget for 3 hours for $33.
Lunch:
I ended up scoring 2 Living Social coupons for BOGO for Cici's Pizza buffet on top of 16% cashback from ebates a couple of days before we left. So under $12 for all 4 of us to gorge. The pizza quality is just OK - but my kids love the endless stream of pizzas with a large variety of choices. Their breadsticks are particularly good and I am crazy about their cinnamon rolls (prob because they are not as heavily glazed and overly sweet as most. BTW, I don't like Cinnabons).
Lunch over, we finally head to the Hard Rock Hotel, very excited to check in. The valet seemed taken aback when we said we did NOT want to park the car but just needed a few minutes to check in. They took our key anyway and we went on in. Got checked in and managed to secretly whisper to the clerk that we would like a Fender guitar waiting in our room as a surprise for our son. (the $1000 refundable deposit made us pause, but we decided it was worth it).
We changed to our crocs since the plan was to hit the water rides to get soaking wet, then head for the pool. We then stored everything at the luggage desk for us to pick up later when our room was ready. Express Passes in hand, we were ready to hit the parks!
Oh, we had a detour since we had to return the car to the Budget counter (which was at the Holiday Inn across the street). It was a bit of a hassle, but the savings was worth it (Hertz - which had a return at the Hard Rock Hotel, was quoting $70-80 for the same rental we got for $33 from Budget). The kids were so impatient since the return took about 10-15 minutes. On top of that, another 15 minute walk to the parks.
Finally we were outside Islands of Adventure!! But we couldn't go in yet...one more stop at the Group Sales booth to redeem our Cheaptickets vouchers. Thankfully, there was no line at this time (2pm) and very shortly, we had set up our fingerprint scans and were INSIDE THE PARK!
First up, we HAD to do an exciting ride. My kids had been as patient as possible, but it had been a lot of waiting around all day. So we headed straight for Spiderman and pulled out our cool new Express passes. The ride was amazing, mind blowing, and really set us up for the incredible technology Universal parks offer. However,my DD was stressed throughout waiting for the creepy scenes and did have to close her eyes a few times. Plus, my DH was a little dizzy when he got off. No more motion simulators for a little while, please!
DD was salivating about big coasters and since I had forced her to walk past Hulk in the beginning, we now had to return to it. My DH and DS headed to the arcade next door where they ended up dropping $10. (They only wanted to spend a few bucks but it turns out $10 is the minimum you can spend - boo).
DD enjoyed Hulk and I really enjoyed breezing past the afternoon line with our Express Passes. I personally found Hulk a little too rattly and while I will re-ride it, I won't go out of my way (we never returned this trip).
Next up, WATER RIDES!! I dragged my protesting family to Jurassic Park River Adventures. My DS was very nervous about the drop (he doesn't like drops and is so-so about Splash Mountain) and DD was terrified of the TRex (when she was little she got nearly hysterical at the dinosaur exhibit in a Natural History Museum. *sigh* She's much better now, but still...). Anyway, I wanted to ride (and while my darn kids will object to rides, they don't like sitting out even more) so all trooped on behind me, neither child too happy about it.
I really, really liked this one!! The theming was pretty fabulous. I would love to return and relax more to enjoy the boat ride. Sadly, we never had time. The drop was fine for my son thankfully and my DD kept her eyes tightly shut through the whole TRex scene ( a good thing, because it lasted a LONG time and he comes really close). We got wet but shoes stayed dry (EPs were absolutely necessary this hot afternoon).
Now it was a choice between Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls and Popeye & Bluto's Bilge Rate Barges (what's with the super long, hard to remember names anyway?). DS was nervous about the drop at Ripsaw Falls so we chose the Barges. What a trip!!!!! We had a blast and this is the absolute best river rapids ride we have ever been on, ANYWHERE. We loved that you get completely soaked!! The theming was soooo much fun, definitely Disney-worthy (even though my kids did not know the storyline). We then went back on, and then on again. 3 times total wooohooo!!! My DS wanted to ride again, but the clock was ticking and I knew we still had lots more planned for the day.
Time for Ripsaw Falls! It was fun, but the theming was not as well done. The kids knew nothing about Dudley and you could see a lot of gaps between story elements. The ride was worn out and badly needs a fresh paint job. We liked it all right. (although I love the theming around the drop - so bright and colorful!)
My kids did not know any of the characters in Toon Lagoon. That said, they sure set up some fun photo ops there!
Snack:
We started off our Universal food adventures by buying a refillable popcorn bucket ($5.99 + tax with $1.29 refills). We ended up refilling this at least 4 times over the weekend so it was worth it. We brought home a full bucket for treats at home. My son loved that we were fine refilling his bucket pretty much whenever he asked. I like that I can bring the bucket back next trip
Dripping wet with our new popcorn bucket in hand, we now had to head back to the hotel for some pool time. My DD was particularly excited for the underwater pool speakers. We found the walk to the hotel short and very prettily landscaped. Nice job!
DH went to get our bags to the room while I took the kids straight to the pool. (While in the room, he also called down to remind them to send up the Fender guitar since it wasn't there yet). This is definitely a lounging pool. We enjoyed having live music (although my DD thought the underwater speaker thing way less impressive than she had anticipated. Too much hype in her head lol!).
We were thinking of staying a little longer (since the app said IOA closed at 8pm) but I saw the pool sign said that Universal would close at 8:30pm and IOA would close at 7pm. Trusting that (note to self: do NOT trust pool signs), I hauled my kids out of the pool before 5pm so we could shower and head back to the parks since I really wanted to do Hogsmeade this evening.
We walked in the room and my DS immediately saw the cases for the Fender guitar!! His jaw dropped, asking if he was really allowed to play with it. It was the highlight of his stay at the Hard Rock Hotel!! Very, very, very cool and I'm so thrilled we actually managed to pull it off as a surprise. (I still haven't told him we specially requested it).
Time for our first look at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I've read countless trip reports and was super excited.
It was crowded as expected and I was duly impressed with its immersive theming.
Forbidden Journey's line seemed pretty short - the sign said 30 minutes so we decided to get in line at 5:30pm. It ended up being about 15 minutes (pretty much a walk on) - the line started just before the greenhouse section was over. Perfect - enough time to enjoy a tour of Hogwarts! My DD was extremely nervous, worried there would be a dragon/other creepy scenes lurking in the castle. We survived seeing nothing too bad, and quickly boarded. I held her hand and would squeeze it when creepy scenes came up, and tap her hand when it was safe to open her eyes again.
The ride had some super incredible special effects and the theming was mind-blowing. It did end up having way more creepy scenes than I expected...I would say about 75% of the ride is creepy. If you like horror houses, you'll be fine. For our family, it was a little much. Still, we were very impressed with the immersion and my son said he would like to ride it again. Even DH was impressed and wasn't too queasy afterwords.
Dinner:
It was now time for dinner at the Three Broomsticks. The 4 of us decided to share 2 Quick Service Dining Plans. We ordered a Ribs Platter and a Ribs & Chicken Platter. For drinks, we were told we could choose: apple or pear cider, pumpkin fizz, pumpkin juice, ice teas, Gilly Water and a few other things I don't remember. We had to use at least 1 beverage entitlement with each meal ordered. We chose a pumpkin fizz and a bottle of Gilly Water (plain bottled water).
The ribs were decent and very tender. The Roast Chicken was much better than I expected. Very tender and tasty. I was surprised we got Gilly Water (since they charge a fortune for it in Diagon Alley). I LOVED the pumpkin fizz (I do love pumpkin pie). My DH and DS don't like pumpkin pie and did not like the flavor of the drink. My DD likes pumpkin pie, but complained about the aftertaste.
It was now 5 minutes to 7pm and thinking the park closed at 7pm, I hustled the family to the Hogwarts Express hoping to make it before they closed the ride. It was about a 15 min wait and we finally boarded. I had heard that there was a Dementor scene at one point so my DD was tense and kept a close eye out the whole time. Thankfully, the whole ride passed without incident. It was pretty cool to see all the scenes in the windows and I enjoyed the trip over. Overall, I think it's "cute". Certainly not a huge deal for non-Potter fans but an amusing enough way to go back and forth.
Diagon Alley was really cool theming but the boys really didn't care much. My DD and I checked out a couple of cool shops but DH was super bored and dragged us out quickly. DD enjoyed watching a couple of the magic tricks performed with the interactive wand and DS thought it would be cool to mess around with a wand (Not $50 cool in my book!). Overall the "magic" was saw looked very very similar to what we have done (for free) with Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom and Agent P's World Showcase Adventure in Epcot. Very cool for Potter fans though (and $50 pp brilliant money printer for Universal!).
After dinner treat:
We picked up a Butterbeer in Diagon Alley (just because we have to). The lines an hour before closing at Florean Fortescue's was nuts so we went to the Fountain of Fair Fortune (next door). Still had a longish line of 5 mins or so but soon, we redeemed a snack credit for a frozen butterbeer.
First taste.
It's a hit! It was sweet, but we enjoyed the frozen slush (our family is obsessed with slushies). That said, the next day when I offered my son another butterbeer, he begged and begged and begged for a lemon slush instead (which happened not to be anywhere available in the back half of the park - sigh. And not a single staff we asked had any clue where one might be).
We walked out and strolled over to Men in Black, still thinking the park closed at 8:30. Even with Express Passes, we were stuck in line a looonnnngggg time and were super confused, wondering if we were in the right line. We watched streams of people zoom past us. Eventually we realized they were all wearing bright yellow lanyards so that must be the private party - who were all given preference over our Express Passes.
Eventually we got to ride. It was fun - but somehow, not as fun as I thought it would be. We liked it, but nobody requested a re-ride. I had fully expected us to ride this again and again and again since the boys love shoot-em-up games. DH didn't complain, but the spinning may have been a bit much for him.
DD saw the doggy and insisted on waiting in line for a pic. DH took the opportunity to mess with the poor character.
When we got off, it was now 8pm and Universal was closing. At this point, we talked to a staff and were told that unlike what the resort said, Universal closed at 8pm that day for a private party. He also told me IOA closed at 8pm that day (GRRRR...we would have stayed longer in the pool and then just stayed in IOA until 8pm like I had wanted). All food outlets were firmly closed to anyone not wearing yellow lanyards (we had wanted to pick up something on the way out) although we were allowed to shop in the gift store.
Bedtime snacks:
We tried to walk in with our kids to The Kitchen at about 9pm (it was a Saturday night). We had seen signs in the elevator saying that after 9pm, select appetizers were half off. A late night snack sounded good to us, so we walked up...lots of empty tables around.
The hostess had no idea of any 1/2 off app promo. Asked someone else who confirmed the promo existed. She then proceeded to tell us they had no tables for 45 mins. We asked and she said we could do takeout from the bar. We went to the bar, waited a while to get the bartender's attention. He was more knowledgeable but told us unless we could find an empty table since the kids could not be at the bar itself (no tables available), we could not get the 1/2 off promo - definitely not available for takeout. He explained which apps were covered. We were tired out and getting annoyed at getting shuffled around - with 3 people hanging out at the hostess table not being very helpful.
Long story short, I got on Open Table (btw, wifi is very crappy in the restaurant) and promptly booked us a table (all times, including that minute, was fully available). Kids were pretty grumpy by this point so we got them an ice cream from Emack and Bolio's next door (3 scoops for $5 - whattadeal!) and sent them up to the room to chill.
We returned to the front with our Open Table reservation and were promptly seated. Turns out one of the apps the bartender told us was available (chicken wings), wasn't part of the 1/2 off promo. Our nice waited ended up giving it to us for 1/2 off anyway. We had spinach dip and chicken wings. The chicken wings were fine (very meaty and huge but a little overcooked). The Spinach dip was oddly watery but tasted OK. It came with just nacho chips (menu said flatbread and nacho chips) which someone took a sea salt shaker to...and shook really hard. We were tapping off the salt before eating each chip. We took the leftovers back to the kids and they refused to eat it (chips is one of their favorite food groups!) because it was so nastily salty. The bread service was the best part....really good cornbread in a skillet and pretzel breadsticks.
The atmosphere at The Kitchen was nice. The weather was great so we sat out on the patio and enjoyed the night. Unfortunately we were disappointed with the food so doubt we would return. That said, the promo is pretty cheap and location convenient so we don't regret it. We paid about $14 for the food and left a $6 tip.
While we had been enjoying our "snack", my DS and DD were in the room having fun with the Fender guitar. Since we had another packed day planned ahead, I knew this was their one chance to play with it so we gave them an hour or so to mess around. Neither know how to play the guitar but they were able to pick out a tune or two and the amp made it all sound really, really cool.
At 11pm, after a very very long exhausting day that started at 4am, we finally hit the sack.
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, can't wait to hear more. Might just be my computer, but I can't see any of the pictures! 
I'll keep fiddling with it to see if I can get it to work.
Glad you are enjoying it 
. And you guys has leftovers!!!
