Fall-ing in love with a Universal/Disney COVID adjusted trip (sept 24-oct 4)

FeetOffTheTable

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 28, 2018
Good morning everyone! We are a week away from out trip, so I figure this is as good a time as any to start our (pre) trip report. This was originiall scheduled way before COVID and we had to make some adjustments. There was concern that my work wouldnt allow me to go either, but after a meeting with my boss late last month where we came up with a plan for after my return, she gave me the OK to go and I was officially allowed to get excited.

Some background: Our family consists of me (37 yo female, actually might as well make that 38) and my husband (who we will refer to as "G", 43) and our son ("B", 4). We are passholders at Universal, but given our sons age we have included short Disney trips with that as well. This trip was supposed to be our "Big" one, spending multiple days at disney because I feel hes at a great age for it. But alas plans got changed, so we not going quite as all out as we originally planned but still planning to have a good trip! My parents are also joining us for the Disney part (and second universal leg) and they are both in their mid 60s

Heres the schedule we have:
Thursday Sept 24th- Flying AA to MCO from VA. Uber to Cabana bay where we will stay in a family suite until the 28th. We will get in too late to enjoy the parks thursday, but will have the next three days.

Friday sept 25th- Sunday sept 27th - Universal/ Islands of adventure. This weekend is the test for the halloween festivities, and presumably they will be happening next weekend based on the extended park hours. We are NOT HHN fans so wont be checking out the houses at all and were a bit disappointed when they announced them, knowing it woult lead to more crowds. But they extended the hours and added a couple things for kids (trick or treating if thats not just this weekend, and the scarecrow hunt), so now im excited again. Plus being passholders there, we have seen it all before

Monday Sept 28th - check out of Cabana bay and Uber to Caribbean Beach resort. We were originally booked at Art of Animation but were moved as it wont be open. Im looking forward to the pool here and the skyliner! We are hoping to get over to the resort and checked in/ bags dropped off by 9 so that we can head over to Hollywood studios for the day and possibily get a boarding group. If we dont, it wont ruin the trip. But we're going to try. My son was scared of alot of rides when we last went in December but he says he wants to do slinky dog and star wars this time, so those are a priority for us. We have dinner reservations at Sci- Fi at 4:05. Early, even for us, but hopefully will give us time to enjoy the park after a bit still

Tuesday Sept 29th - Magic Kingdom day. We have breakfast reservations at Chef Mickeys at 8:25 and the park opens at 9. Im thinking we might have to uber to the Contemporary as it seems to tight to try to bus to magic kingdom then take the monorail to contemporary. I dont want to be late and miss the reservation! There are tons of rides we want to do here and I've never manged to two seven dwarves. We dont really have a "plan" for this park, but hopefully wait times will be low and we can just move through the different lands and hit things as we go, rather than rushing completely across the park to hit fast passes. No more dining reservations for this day, but saw some halloween treats we might try. I'm hoping to witness some of the cavalclades too! Between HS and MK, i expect these to be our busier days

Wednesday Sept 30th - Epcot day. I originally had booked Toppolino's terrace for breakfast, but canceled it after some reviews. It just didnt seem worth it for the price/ interaction right now. Plus we're going to food and wine today! Thats our plan for food for the day, with no dining reservations. There are quite a few yummy snacks we want to check out (i'm looking at you, nitro cake pops). Epcot is probably G and I's favorite park. B, maybe not so much. But he has been watching youtube videos and wants to do test track, so we will see. It is nice that he is 40" (technically 41") now so he can do more if he wishes. We'll definitely try to hit up frozen and soarin too without too much of a wait. This is a day where we might even go back to the hotel in the afternoon for a bit since the park opens at 11 and stay open until 7. Might try to avoid some of the heat after eating and drinking at world showcase by taking some time at the pool

Thursday Oct 1- check out of CBR and head back to Cabana bay. But first, Animal Kingdom! We always skip AK actually; G & B have never been and I havent since college so I know its quite different. I think B will really like the safari and we want to try flight of passage and navi river since those are new. B is too small for flight of passage, so child swap it is. I would also like to try Everest and Dinosaur, so perhaps my mom will be willing to take B for a bit to do something while G, my dad and I do those. We have a lunch reservation at rainforest cafe, which I know is a chain and all but we dont have one near us. I mainly did it for a mid afternoon AC break and thought B would enjoy the atmosphere. I am assuming we will stay here all day until park close, so most likely we wont get back over to universal to enjoy the parks there at all on the 1st

Friday Oct 2- Sunday Oct 4: This leg of our trip was actually supposed to be a cruise until monday, but obviously that isn't happening. So once I got the OK from my boss we met with my parents and decided to go back to universal for a few more days. They bought season passes because with the room discount it was actually $250 cheaper than buying a multi day park ticket and hotel. Plus this way they can go back if they want. We switched our flights from monday to sunday, just to save a little money on hotels and it only cost $10 total to do, which is great!


So stay tuned! This report is going on the Disney trip reports, so I will only be sharing my experience with Disney (as well as flying) here, but will link to the Universal report for those interested! Universal trip report can be found by clicking this link. This post is similar there, but focuses on Universal vs Disney and all subsequent posts will be Disney specific here and Universal there
 
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Your plans sound great! We will be at WDW with a four year old in November, so I am looking forward to reading how your DS enjoyed the rides! Have a great time at both parks! :cool1:
 


Ok guys, we are back! It was overall a good trip and I'll try to be as detailed as possible.

Monday Sept 28th, part 1

I, as usual, woke up before everyone but tried to remain quiet to let everyone get a bit more sleep. My goal was to try to be out of Cabana Bay (our Universal Hotel) around 8 so that we could get to Disney by 9ish and hopefully get into at least one of our rooms and drop bags off before heading to Hollywood studios. I was hoping to get there before 10 to try for a boarding pass, but it also wasn't something that would ruin my trip if we missed it.

Around 7 B woke up, and shortly after I allowed him to wake up the rest of the family (my parents and G). Since my parents had only arrived the night before, they hadn't unpacked much of anything and I made a point to pack up most things the night before so this morning all we really needed to do was gather the food items and toiletries. We all ate breakfast in the room and my dad went downstairs to get a luggage cart while I literally walked a mile back and forth to the ice machine to fill up our cooler bags. We had two small cooler backs to hold the milk, cheese, lunchmeat, and a few other things. Again, I was hoping we would be able to get into our rooms right away, but just in case I wanted to make sure nothing would spoil.

Our timing worked out great and we loaded up our cart and were downstairs in the lobby ordering an UBER around 7:55. This is where we hit a hiccup. We were searching for an UberXL as there were 5 of us, but somehow when we confirmed the order and it showed the vehicle picking us up, it was only a passenger car! We quick canceled it and booked the correct size which was there fairly quickly. Our next concern was being able to fit everything in! We all had carry on size suitcases, plus the grocery bags and B's umbrella stroller. We said if it all didn't fit, we would just take two cars. but we managed to get it all in the trunk after he folded down one of the seats. We could have held things on our labs or put on the floor as there was space there, but as this was what the driver seemed to want to do, we let him. This did mean that someone rode in the front seat with him, so keep that in mind. Both Uber and Lyft say this is currently not allowed, but we ended up doing it 3 times total on our trips.

The Uber ride was quick and dropped us off right at Old Port Royale at Caribbean Beach Resort where we were able to put all our bags onto a luggage cart and take them into the lobby with us. I had done online checkin and we had not gotten a notification that our rooms were ready, but we decided to ask at the desk just in case as when we did our last trip in December the room was ready despite not receiving the notification. The gentleman at the front desk informed us that the rooms were not ready yet, but he checked and confirmed that we did get connecting rooms as we requested. We should have thought to check on our room location, but we didn't think to ask about that at that time. With no room to drop our bags in, we headed back to the lobby entrance and had bell services take our bags. I was pleased to hear that their intention was to just leave it all on the luggage cart; made it easier when we came back later! They told us the best way to get to the skyline and off we went. Its a pretty long walk from Old Port Royale!

We got to the skyline probably right around 9, though I didn't actually check my watch. The skyline itself was running, but people were not on it. The line was well back into the road area, but there were social distance markers everywhere to show people where to stand. Shortly after we got in line, right about the time they actually started putting people on the skyliner, a man came to stand at the back of the line with a sign telling people where the line started . The line moved fairly quickly for about 5-10 minutes then seemed to stop. We waited a few minutes without moving at all, and then the line started moving again right about the time we started to see people come down the walkway from getting off the skyliner. I'm not sure, but what I think happened was this: they started loading our skyline station, as well as the ones at riviera and pop all around the same time. This let quite a few gondolas leave CBR before any guests from other places arrived. Once they began arriving and disembarking at CBR, it seems loading for CBR guests was paused for a few minutes to let these arriving guests get directly onto the gondolas. Then after a few minutes of that, they changed things up and made guests arriving from rivera/pop get off and go to the back of the CBR line. Thats the only thing I can think of that makes sense considering 1) our line stopped moving for at least 5 minutes and 2) you could see gondolas arriving with guests coming from Riviera, but they never came away from the skyliner station. I don't know if this is normal protocol or something got messed up, but people seemed really unhappy to have to go to the end of the CBR line after getting on at Riviera or Pop. So my suggestion to anyone staying here- if you are closer to the Riviera station, you are better off going to the CBR one so that you don't have to transfer and risk getting into a long line.

531989

We actually got on our gondola around 9:20, and had a quick ride over to Hollywood studios. Temperature and bag check are quick, and I never saw anyone have to get their temp rechecked, though it was early in the morning. We were in the park around 9:30 and the line for Runaway Railway was already supposedly at an hour wait

B had told us several times before the trip that he wanted to do Slinky Dog Dash, so we headed there first. The ride was not going just yet, and we got in line right at the big sign with Woody that says Toy Story Land at 9:40. A few minutes later we started to see the ride vehicle going by and it took about 3 times with people on it before our line started to move. We were in the actual queue closer to the ride as 10 approached and we were a little worried that we might actually be on the ride at 10. It didn't matter, I couldn't get us a boarding pass. I had the screen to select your party and click join, but once i clicked join it froze up and kicked me out. I had a moment of excitement when I clicked join, but sadly it didn't work out. There was quick a mix of excitement and disappointment around us, but it did seem more people got boarding groups than didn't, so that's nice. We'll be back someday and will do it then.

We got on Slinky Dog at 10:12 and....it did not go well. I videoed B on it and about halfway through he started crying and saying he didn't like it. Poor thing. I held him close and told him it was ok and almost over. Afterwards we tried to cheer him up by making the coaster seem silly or funny, but it didn't quite work. Ultimately we told him we were proud of him for trying it and he never had to do it again if he didn't want to. Its a mantra we ended up repeating a lot through the week. But really I did think the ride was wilder and faster than what I envision as a kid coaster.

Next B, G and I decided to do alien swirling saucers, while my parents took care of putting in a mobile food order for PizzaRizzo for lunch. We were getting hungry already from having such an early breakfast! I thought the swirling saucers was pretty fun, enjoyable music and different than the teacup type ride that i thought it would be. It reminds me of a ride called "The Whip" that I would do on the boardwalk every summer as a kid.

Our lunch pickup time was around 11:30-12, but since our wait for saucers wasn't bad we decided try and do Midway mania first. The line for this was all the way out before the entrance to toy story land, but i think only listed as a 30 minute wait and we were on in more like 15. In any case the time stamp on my saucers photo i took was 10:38 and I have a photo of us eating lunch at 11:42, so it took us less than an hour to get off saucers, get in line for midway mania, wait in line, ride it, and walk all the way to pizzarizzo. I always enjoy midway mania. G and I rode together while B rode with my parents. B and my mom played and they said he really enjoyed it, despite telling us in line he didn't want to ride it.

At PizzaRizzo they would not let you into the building until it said your mobile order was ready. My dad and I got in line (behind one other person) to pick up the order, while my mom, G and B went to get a table. The whole mobile order and pickup went very smooth. Lunch was good and we also got B one of the special seasonal drinks, a frozen apple cider with a poison apple glow cup. I don't believe it said so in the description, but it has green boba in it. The light is of course the best part, as the slushy just tasted like apple juice. B enjoyed the boba though!

531991

While we were eating I checked MDE and saw that my parents room was ready, but mine was still not. Unfortunately it was in Martinique, which was not what we requested. So my dad decided to try to call the hotel and see if they could move us to another location. The whole thing was frustrating for everyone. It was loud in there, so my dad couldn't hear well and I'm pretty sure it was a call center and not the actual hotel. I was annoyed that we were wasting our limited park time trying to sort this out and kept trying to get him to hang up. Eventually that's what we he did, and we decided that we would go back to the hotel and try to sort it out in person and then come back in a couple hours. But first, Galaxy's edge!

We're casual Star Wars fans, have seen all the movies and all but are not die hard. however we did want to see what they did with Galaxy's edge and it was really cool. We're being Harry Potter fans and that section of Universal is really immersive, so it was nice to see Galaxy's edge was the same. There were lines to get into most places so we didn't go into the shops or anything, but as it was mid day its no surprise things were crowded at this point in time.

From about 12:30 to 3 we were back at the hotel or traveling to/from it. Again my dad and I tried to see about moving our rooms to where we had requested, which they could do but since non were ready, we stuck with what we had. Ultimately after being there a day or two we decided we liked the location of our rooms. My hang up on it was the skyliner for Hollywood studios as Martinique is the furthest building from the skyliner station. Its right by the Riviera station though, which works out for going to epcot and was fine for us for HS that afternoon. However if you're in Martinique and trying to get to HS for a boarding pass first thing you have a long walk to get to the CBR skyliner. In any case, we all went to my parents room and unloaded things and just relaxed for a bit. We had a small hiccup at one point, as after talking to the front desk, the next time i opened MDE the room number was blank for my parents room. A woman with a tablet was able to help us look it up though and she also put in a note for my room to be cleaned ASAP. As we knew our room was next door/connecting to my parents it was easy to tell which one it was and when walking by could tell that it had not been cleaned yet. I thought I read somewhere that rooms were vacated, cleaned, and left for at least 24 hours before the next party goes in, but that must not be the case. We received at text while at dinner that night that my room was ready (after 5 pm).

I'm going to take a break for now, but will hopefully finish the rest of our HS day here in a bit!
 
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