Encore Trip! (The one we took because California was still closed and Hawaii was too complicated)

[Jaina]

Hi, me again. One of those west-coasters who have been locked out of "our" park for way too long. I thought my last Walt Disney World trip (October 2020) was a mostly-one-time thing, but apparently not. DH and I qualified for a Southwest companion ticket in 2021, and we were going to go to Hawaii (had everything booked), but the extra expense and unknowns of having that negative covid test at just the right time scared us off. So when we were on another little getaway to Utah (we're from AZ) so we could see how DH did on a plane with a mask (he has somewhat overcome a lot of physically apparent anxiety while wearing on over the last year) we started talking about it, and he mentioned Florida. We have always talked about taking a trip together where we were gone for like a week, and did both the Disney Parks and Universal Studios (our whole family is full of HP fans) but we thought it would be several years in the future, since we still have 5 young kids (age 4 to 14) and it's hard to leave them for that long. (And hard to PAY to take them anywhere so many expensive tickets are involved) But he said he saw my eyes light up, and he lost me, because I immediately began trying to figure out our trip. This was late January, and our trip window (where we had childcare set up - yay Grandma!!) was in the second week of March, during spring break. 6 weeks from then. This would NOT have been very doable before Covid, but there were plenty of good hotel deals, park reservations available, and even some dining reservations to be had. So I started planning....

#005253 Trebuchet

 

[Jaina]

For my "history" with WDW, see this post in my trip report from October! Basically, I had only been one time before, and it was in 1998 when I was 15. Then because Florida was open and California was so, so closed, and I was sad, I planned a trip in October 2020 with a friend/my FIL's fiance, haha. It was great, and I loved it, but definitely didn't think I'd be back anytime soon.

Yet, here we were, planning a last minute trip to Florida, primarily to do Universal Studios Florida, and trying to figure out how to fit in a few Disney days (but which parks??) too.

This is us. My husband is a chiropractor, and I have mostly been a mom, but have also been guiding a microschool in my home the last few years. (Which has been crazy, but mostly win-win for having my littles home with me, especially in a pandemic, and also funding my Disney obsession) This is from our most recent trip together to DLR in January 2020.

DH likes Disney, and we have a long history of some great experiences at DLR, but he struggles with people and crowds and super-expensive-yet-somehow-commando-so-he's-exhausted trips at our age. He'd rather visit somewhere like NYC and take in all the architecture and history than plan yet another trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth." (He got to finally do NYC last January, before everything shut down, so that was awesome!) But he's a trooper, and he likes me to be happy, and that's how we ended up planning this trip. Also, he loves Harry Potter. He visited Universal Orlando for like half a day while at a conference back in (I want to say) 2008, and loved it. He's wanted to go back and also share it with me since. His favorite Disney attraction has historically been the Tower of Terror though, and he's been a little sad ever since it was rethemed in California, so he was really looking forward to riding that again in Florida!

I grew up going to Disneyland (the first time was in 1986 when I was almost 4) and later California Adventure, and got re-obsessed with it in 2005, shortly after I graduated college and we got married. My job was pretty boring most of the time, and I spent a lot of time on Virtual Magic Kingdom, which was a really awesome multiplayer game set in Disneyland. My character was named "Jaina," (after Han and Leia Solo's daughter from Star Wars book canon) and some questions about that game are what led to me joining the DIS back then, so I joined with that name. Now, I have a daughter with that name, but I'm actually Sara. Anyway, I've gone as much as we could figure out and afford to while bringing 5 kiddos into the world and moving all over the country, and have gotten really serious about my visits in the last few years (when things calmed down and we also weren't so financially iffy). It is definitely one of my happy places, and it's been hard to not be able to go when so many other things in life have also been hard the last year or so. First world problems, but still. As many of you felt the same way, I'm sure, it doesn't seem to strange to express that here. Usually when things seemed kind of hard, it helped me feel more cheerful to have a Disney trip to think about and plan for.

My favorite ride are the Guardians of the Galaxy and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And maybe the carousel. I'm kind of a guerilla tourist, but that style is best suited to 1-2 days at DLR, packing in as many steps and attractions as we can. My sister and I did 35k steps one day and did almost 30 attractions during one park hopping day in December a few years ago. WDW is hard to do that way. You'll run out of steam! Add in Universal as well, masks, and being "old," and we had to take it a little slower.

I started stalking these boards again to see what the current state of affairs was, and we tried to pin down what we were planning to do. I thought we'd do 3 days at WDW, and wanted to maybe do Epcot, even with all the construction, just because I hadn't been there before. The more I looked into it though, and after chatting with DH, we decided to save Epcot for some future trip when it wasn't so torn up. We also decided to only do two WDW days, because our Universal Tickets (through the frog place) were buy 2 - get 2 and it made more sense to spend an extra day there for no extra money rather than spending $200+ more on one more WDW day. Also because of that, we decided to stay close to Universal instead of WDW, to lower our rideshare costs, and have the walking-into-the-park option when we wanted it there. So we bought our tickets (ironically, my AP refund came that day, and pretty much covered our theme park tickets for Florida, which was nice!) reserved days at Hollywood Studios and at Magic Kingdom. He was excited to take some pictures there, and see some of the differences and similarities. He is really not an animal or a zoo person, so we didn't consider AK really, even though I know he'd love FOP and the beautiful plant life there.

We were able to get reservations at the Skipper Canteen and at the Brown Derby (always lunch. That's when we are usually ready for a sit down break!) and I had booked meals at the Grand Floridian and one of the nice restaurants around the Boardwalk too, not knowing what our plans would be for our flex time. (Would we want to use all 4 admissions at Universal? Would we want to come explore the resorts a little? I just wasn't sure!)

 

[Jaina]

Travel Day (Friday, March 6th)

It's a bit of a long haul from Phoenix to Orlando, especially with a layover. We were flying Southwest on points, and with a companion pass, and were (sadly) to the point where the middle seats were no longer open. We had checked in right on time though and were early in the B boarding group. We got to Sky Harbor around 10:30 for a noon flight and made our way to our gate and found something to eat. Things were markedly different from the last time I had flown in October, and I saw very little actual social distancing in the airport. We are not Covid-anxious, and I only wear a mask because of regulations and when I'm in other peoples' space and am being polite, but it was still surprising for some reason how "normal" it all looked other than the mask-wearing.

Our flight was decent, and DH did pretty well with his mask other than a couple 3-4 minute periods where he needed some distraction to avoid hyperventilating. Poor guy! He has seriously come so far from full on panic attacks when he even tried wearing them back in last March. I think I layover was in Houston, but don't quote me on that. A lot has happened since then! We made a friend on the last leg of our flight and enjoyed visiting with her. We got to Orlando about 8:30 local time (6:30 for us) and got all of our luggage successfully. Here I am (outside the terminal) waiting for our Lyft driver. It was much better to do just do rideshare than have to wait in those crazy rental car lines again, and worry about navigating and tolls. I think DH might have preferred driving anyway, but it worked out for us to just use Lyft all week, and we got to meet some neat people. A large percentage of our drivers were either from Jamaica or had ties there, which was fun.

We had decided to stay right across the street from Universal, at the Doubletree. It got good reviews, and the location was great. We have talked about it, and if we ever go back, it would be worth it to us to stay a night or two at one of the Deluxe resorts there, just because the Express Pass would have been that wonderful with how crowded Universal ended up being... But the Doubletree was decent, and more or less clean, and the beds were comfortable. We opted to stay on the second floor, since I had read there were only two elevators, and that they got busy sometimes. We were happy with that choice, as we opted to take the stairs as often as not. (Sometimes because my DH was so ready to rip his mask off at that point, and he could do it in an empty stairwell vs in the elevator.) The crowd was a little interesting there, and it was windy/late enough that we never ended up trying out the pool. We're not big pool people though.

We decided to walk over to get a look at Universal at least, also to stretch our legs since we'd been traveling all day. We didn't walk too far, but got a look at the corner of the property. We tried the pedestrian overpass they built, but it added a decent amount of walking, and we didn't mind just waiting for the crosswalk light at future crossings. We tried to get to bed early-ish (for us, with our 2 hour difference) so we could be fresh for Hollywood Studios the next day!

(Awkward picture of me never knowing where to look on a selfie...)

 

[footballmouse]

 

[Jaina]

Saturday, March 7th (Hollywood Studios Day)

I was up bright and early before my 6:45 alarm, which is pretty normal for the first Disney day of a trip. Which meant it was actually like 4:30 am my time... (I promise I'll stop with the time comparisons; it's just always a little trippy at first.) We had scheduled our Lyft ride the night before for 7:15-7:30. (A great idea when you know it's going to be a busy time, and therefore more expensive)

I had my Apple watch set to be able to see the second hand and had the app ready to go while getting my makeup on, and scored this little beauty! I was grateful for the advice on this board about checking different signals for speed, because there was a big disparity between our room wifi and my cell signal! DH was excited, because he'd only ridden ROTR twice in Disneyland, and with the limited ride offerings at HS, he was hoping to get on that one.

Our driver was there 10 minutes early! It stressed me a little, because we weren't quite ready, but I don't think it was a big deal, and I was able to message him that we'd be down directly. The drive from Universal to Hollywood Studios at 7:15 am wasn't bad. 15-20 minutes, with smooth traffic. We had asked to be dropped at the Swan/Dolphin instead of the gas station this time, and that was less stressful for me, with a slightly prettier walk. Also, since I stayed at the Dolphin at my first trip in 1998, it's always nice to say hello! We arrived at the Swan just after 7:30, took a few minutes to find and use a bathroom and fill up our water bottles, and were in line for security at HS at 7:55 AM. Some pictures from our walk over.

They let us through security about 8:10 AM I think, and it took a hot minute for an extra security search (DH's battery back up) and to exchange our tickets. Our priority was the Tower of Terror though, since I'd seen consistently long waits for that in the app, and since we could possibly want to ride it more than once. Such a pretty building! We walked on at 8:23 AM.

DH really enjoyed riding it again, and seeing the extra little journey that WDW's takes, but we did NOT end up riding it again that day! (Much to my surprise) It was a little much for his stomach, and though he was interested in riding it later, we didn't want to badly enough to do the hour wait. (DH also had his Canon DSLR parts of our trip, so he was able to get some shots unobtrusively that would have been harder to capture with our iphones.)

We were right by the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, and the line was only 5 minutes, so he wanted to try that one. I was hesitant, since it hurt my neck the last trip, but we decided to wait for the front row (and extra 2-3 minutes) to see if that was more enjoyable. It definitely was, but even with that and with advice on neck placement from DH, I still got a little tweaked by it. Nothing that bothered me later in the day, but it hurt for a bit! We were on that one by 8:42

I wanted to make it on Slinky Dog if possible, so we headed that direction. The weather was SO nice early in the day (and that day, a Saturday, actually had a lot of rain forecast, that thankfully didn't materialize) and such a difference from how sticky it felt at almost the same temperatures in October. At 8:53 (7 minutes before official opening) this is where the line was,

but we were on at 9:22, so almost 30 minutes. I think the theming of that ride is so cute, but DH wasn't overly impressed for how long we waited. Glad it was only 30 instead of 60 minutes!

Well, our stomachs said it was about breakfast time, and we were ready to sit down and take our masks off for a few minutes, but they had started calling boarding groups, so we didn't want to go far. We had enough experience with ROTR breaking down already to know we wanted to use a bathroom and eat something before jumping in THAT line, just in case. We headed over into Galaxy's Edge and found a likely-looking table and had a snack!

 

[disneycat321]

I love your husband's shirt! So funny.

I'm curious to see how your Universal experience was! We've never been there (not even in Hollywood, and we used to live 20 minutes from that one...oops), but the Orlando parks are definitely on the "someday" list.

That weather looks so nice! We've only been to WDW in May, June, and July (hot, hot, and hot), and I still dream of a cooler trip. Definitely also on the "someday" list, ha!

 

[KPeterso]

Joining in! I was there 3/5 - 3/12. And I am pretty sure I was in Hollywood Studios that day too. My boarding group was in the 60s as I recall. It did not start boarding right away and there was a slight glitch that morning on the app with it saying that I was not in the park at 7 AM (nor was anyone else, lol), but I went back out and in and got a group.

 

[Jaina]

I love your husband's shirt! So funny.

I'm curious to see how your Universal experience was! We've never been there (not even in Hollywood, and we used to live 20 minutes from that one...oops), but the Orlando parks are definitely on the "someday" list.

That weather looks so nice! We've only been to WDW in May, June, and July (hot, hot, and hot), and I still dream of a cooler trip. Definitely also on the "someday" list, ha!

It still got warm, but that day was especially nice, and it was quite a bit nicer (for us dry heat people) to have quite a bit less humidity than my trip in October. The time I went 20+ years ago was also early July, and in so many pictures my 90's bangs were sad, melted-to-my-forehead little stragglers... I have also been to Universal Hollywood (in 2000 and just a few years ago), so I'll try to make a few comparisons!

Joining in! I was there 3/5 - 3/12. And I am pretty sure I was in Hollywood Studios that day too. My boarding group was in the 60s as I recall. It did not start boarding right away and there was a slight glitch that morning on the app with it saying that I was not in the park at 7 AM (nor was anyone else, lol), but I went back out and in and got a group.

That's awesome!! I do remember that it wasn't boarding right away, but I didn't get an error message. That would have freaked me out, haha! I'm so glad you go in anyway. It really wasn't too crowded that day compared to what I'd been seeing. I think the threat of rain scared some people off.

 

[Jaina]

It was time for our turn on ROTR. (I think it took a while to get going that day, as @KPeterso helped me remember, above!) We got in line about 9:43 and were in the first part of the experience by 9:54, which was definitely a personal record for shortest line for us! Boarding Group 2 + no breakdowns is the way to go! I always look forward to what kinds of CM interaction people will have in there, and always low-key hope I'm not involved, because I never know how to act... We had a good run with no glitches that I noticed!

At about 10:20 we got in line for MMRR. I had been in October, but was excited to share its coolness (and the theater itself, which I knew he'd enjoy) with DH! That line is the trippiest thing. Just all over the place and looks like a random crowd standing around, all 6 feet from each other. Here is DH showing the beautiful clouds (we're from AZ; any clouds that block the sun and look like rain are beautiful to me!) and a whole bunch of strollers, haha! The wait was about 40 minutes and we were on just after 11 AM. You guys, I haven't waited in these 40-75 minute lines for SOOOO long and I miss MaxPass!

DH was super ready for a snack, a break from his mask, and to put his DSLR in a locker, so we headed up to the lockers and then over to the Star Wars Launch Bay for a mask break. On the way we got to see these cuties playing around in one of the fenced grass areas. I have to say that I enjoy seeing characters more this way than I do meeting them. I like to have pictures with them, but I'm so awkward, and they're so fun to see interact and play! (Don't tell Dale, but Chip is my favorite...)

The rest area was honestly kinda depressing. So empty and, other than some artwork, pretty boring. The benches weren't too comfy, but since we were literally the only people there, I took a moment to stretch out on one. The CM's looked pretty bored, but were trying to be cheerful.

At 12:10 the lines were all long-ish and we didn't want to jump in any of them, so we checked out the Walt Disney Presents Gallery and Video. I had enjoyed that one before, but never got a chance to finish looking at the exhibits, so I was glad for a little more time this time. A lot of it reminded us of when we visited the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco about 6 years ago, which I highly recommend if you enjoy that sort of thing.

At 12:49 we got in line for TSMM, which ended up being wrapped way around the building by the Incredibles-themed area, and was about 30 minutes. That was much longer than I waited twice in October. Probably just poor timing, because I never saw it that long again that day! The theming for the queue is so much cooler than the one at DLR, but the ride is just the same, so we only rode once. (On at 11:20) At DLR I can usually beat DH at Buzz, but he always smokes me in TSMM...

We walked Galaxy's Edge again, and checked out the awesomeness that it is. It was harder to explore though, with lots of roped off areas and one-way thoroughfares. We considered riding MFSR but don't love it enough to wait that long (45-55 minutes) and we knew we could ride it anytime "at home." We also caught my favorite calvalcade there, the one with the Fab 5 and their cute cars.

It was 2 PM and our stomachs were saying it was lunchtime. We had actually cancelled our Brown Derby reservation the day before because DH wasn't excited about anything on the menu (He is also GF, egg free, and avoids dairy and nuts, which is exciting) and we ended up with a same day reservation at Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano at 2:30. I wasn't that thrilled with how long it took our reservation to be called. I checked in right when we were allowed to, and we weren't seated for like 30 minutes. But we did get a chance to see a few "back alley" areas and details we might have missed otherwise. I loved all the theming over in that area. Just super cool.

Would we enjoy our meal enough to make up for the extra wait?

 

[Jaina]

Thankfully, we did enjoy our meal! it wasn't busy in there (because of limits on numbers, I'm guessing, since it took us so long to get seated), and service was good. DH ordered some allergy friendly spaghetti and didn't overly enjoy it, but he really enjoyed the GF bread and oil/spices for dipping. My meal (charred strip steak w 4 cheese macaroni) was delicious, and since I was pretty hungry, just the right amount. Overall, we enjoyed the atmosphere, the food, and the chance to sit down and rest while drinking lots of water.

We weren't sure if there was anything else we wanted to do, but I kind of wanted to ride MMRR again (since it will be a while until it opens at Disneyland). DH was tired and needed to rest his feet a little longer, so I parked him on a bench near the halfway point (?) in the line and told him to join me when I passed him. He amused himself by taking pictures until he joined me (there's me standing all alone in the line). Such an entertaining little ride! The line was about 40 minutes, and we boarded at 4:10 PM.

Now it was time to visit one of my favoritely-themed things, this cute restroom in Toy Story Land!

And we took a spin on the Swirling Saucers. I like it that one, and it's couterpart back west. It's so bright and fun, and the wait was super short. We rode at 4:35 PM.

So, it was about 5 PM, and we were really feeling that time difference with it's extra early morning. If I was all by myself I'm sure I would have jumped in another couple lines to re-ride something, or ride the Millennium Falcon. (I can't get over how few rides are there!) But I was trying not to kill off my husband, so we decided it was time to leave, and take a ride on the Skyliner, which was another don't-miss for us this trip! So this is me, leaving a Disney park at 5 PM. Almost blasphemous!

Look how empty the parking lot is! We rode the Skyliner all the way to Epcot, and looked around at the gate there, before walking around the Boardwalk and taking in the sites of the resorts there as we ended up at the Swan/Dolphin and called for a Lyft back to our hotel. We were pretty worn out! We got picked up about 5:50 PM, and actually had our Lyft driver drop us at Whole Foods and next to a few little restaurant places she we could get some snacks and some dinner. Then we took another Lyft the rest of the way to the Doubletree. All of that added up, but was still cheaper than it would have been to rent/park a car all week.

We weren't back to our room until like 7:15, and I got ready for bed, because I thought we'd watch a little TV, prepare for the next day, and then sleep. Ha. That didn't happen.
#005253 Trebuchet

 

[Jaina]

Saturday, Take 2

I thought we were getting settled in, but after determining there was nothing on tv, DH started saying something about how it was a shame that we were only going to be using 3 of the 4 days we technically had at Universal... It was only 7:40, and Universal didn't close until 10 that night. And the app's wait times didn't look bad...

So yeah, instead of getting to bed, I put clothes back on, and we got our stuff together, and called a Lyft (even though it's pretty close, our feet were tired!) to take us up to Universal.

We were walking in on the giant moving sidewalks by 8 PM, and made it into Universal Studios Florida (our passes were for both parks, so we could ride the Hogwarts Express) by 8:15. The Mardi Gras celebration was going on. We were never in the front of the park when anything actually happened event-wise, but saw the floats at night several times.

It was interesting to see the security differences between Universal and Disney. Actually, we did better at Disney, because Universal had mandatory sanitizer before boarding each attraction, which we had to use a work around for. DH has really sensitive skin (and his body is just sensitive in general, with several food allergies and whatnot) and he doesn't react well to many sanitizers. At work he just prefers to wash his hands after each patient, and doesn't use sanitizer much at all. I contacted Universal about this (and asked some questions here on the boards) and they said he was allowed to wear cotton gloves instead (and leave them on during the whole ride) of using the sanitizer. Which was no problem. I ordered a 10 pack of stretchy cotton gloves online, and he wore them on every ride. I wore them most of the time too, both because I kinda hate sanitizer as well, and for solidarity, so he felt slightly less anxious visibly being the odd man out. Most of the team members were fine with it, but a few challenged us and got a little antagonistic, and had to check with their lead. That wasn't fun. So, helpful policy exemption, but not universal (haha) training.

ANYWAY. Some of the lines were long-ish, but really (especially after we saw the possible crowds the next few days) it was pretty empty that night. The same threat of all day might have caused some people to change their plans, and it was rather late for some people? We walked all the way through USF and went on the Men in Black Alien Attack ride (which was fun, and walk-on, 8:24) then went over into Diagon Alley to check out the awesome HP theming. So, so cool! Bravo. We didn't spend too much time checking it out, because we knew closing would be happening soon, and we wanted to maximize our time while the weather was nice and it wasn't too crowded. The queue for Escape from Gringotts was amazing! The animatronic goblins, the scale of the bank, everything! We moved through it pretty quickly for the most part, and rode about 8:55 I think. Super awesome ride. Probably our second favorite. But also, definitely made me feel a touch queasy. All that 3-D motion simulator stuff is not my cup of tea. But dragons and Harry Potter are.

After that we got in line for the Hogwarts Express. THAT was really cool! It was pretty much the shortest line we ever waited in for that - About 20 minutes. The King's Cross Station (and 12 Grimmauld Place outside that) was so awesome though! You can see from the picture what my hair thought of a busy, slightly rainy day in Florida, haha. Riding the Hogwarts Express was an exciting moment for my husband, who is a much bigger HP fan than even I am. He likes Disney, but we've done it a lot, and he was quite a bit more excited about the Universal part of our trip.

It was fun to see Hogsmeade as well, even though much of it was similar to Universal Hollywood's version. I can't remember if there was a late evening drop for Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure or if they were allowing standby riders at that point in the day, but we went on that at 9:50 (after about 20 min in line). You guys, one of the funnest roller coasters/attractions I've ever been on! We were both slightly obsessed with it, both experience-wise and theming. Just so cool. Totally lived up to the hype, and I think we rode it 9-10 times over our 4-ish days at Universal! I loved the variety and the deatils in the queue as well, especially the wall of creature eggs!

We got off Hagrid's with just a couple minutes to spare before 10 PM and hightailed it to ride the last "headliner," Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey! We got in line at 9:58. We were so glad we had opted to just wear waist packs that night, since having to stash our backpacks so often on the other days was a royal pain. Disney has a big advantage in that area!! HPatFJ is cool too (and I remember being amazed the first time I rode it at Univ Hollywood several years ago, but that's one that definitely makes me a little sick, too. We basically walked onto it, and were among the last few parties to board!

Man were we tired. We are at 34,689 steps, almost reaching my previous record from when my sister and I park-hopped till we dropped in December at DLR a few years ago. If we had walked in or out instead of taking Lyft, we would have had it! ;-) But I'm a little heavier and little older than I was then, and I was wiped out! We decided to sleep in the next morning and start our Universal day late-ish.