First time US/ HRH 7/10-7/15 Loved It !

[JMCDAD]

We had a great time

The cast
Me - DH 40
DW - 38 and 9/10
DD - 13
DD - 10 (turned 10 on our trip)
DS - 8

Drove down from NY, made good time
Checked in about 5pm on 5/10. Checkin was smooth, front desk woman, I think her name was Rachel was great. HRH was beautiful. I mentioned about my daughter Birthday when I made the ressies, I was pleasantly surprised that Rachel says I see its someone's birthday. She gave her a small HRH tin with chocolate inside, which was very nice (more on that later )
We went to the room, and really liked it, it was close to the elevators and the ice and it had a nice pool and park view.
We unpacked and the plan was to check out the hotel, go get our etickets, and then eat dinner. Then in the morning we would hit US.
We take the short walk to US from HRH which is great, and find the eticket machine right away. One minute later out pop my 5 tickets. piece of cake.
My wife, who is not a big ride person, surprises me and says "why don't we just go on some rides now" wow, really, ok
We go on Shrek,Jimmy N, and Twister. All fun and I get my first taste of FOTL. And its sweet. I love FOTL.
Then its getting late and none of us were really hungry so we decided to just grab something quick at the Monsters cafe, since I wanted to eat there at some point on the trip. Cool looking inside , average/pricey food.
We walked back home to HRH (we started calling it that right away, pretty cool)
We did much more than I thought we would on arrival day.
A great start and tomorrow we would be back at US for the day.

 

[JMCDAD]

Day 2 Wed 7/11

Today was US day
We decided to eat breakfast at the Kitchen, they have a breakfast buffet, but you can also order off the menu. The buffet seemed a bit pricey, so we ordered off the menu. This was a mistake cause the food took a really long time and it ended up costing about the same as the buffet. (We ordered the buffet later in the week). On to US.
Had a great time, the highlights...(I am doing this mostly from memory so bear with me)
The Mummy is awesome, me and DD 13 went on it about 4 times in total.
FOTL is awesome, I was worried after reading some conflicting reports here and it worked great we literally walked on most rides, the only times we had to wait a little were for some of the shows/3D movies like T2 and Shrek but we were at the front of the line just had to wait for the next show.
I think JAWS was one of our longer waits and it was maybe 10-15 minutes.
I was happy not to see alot of line cutting into express either, on most of the popular rides they were checking at the front and then again inside.
There was only one incident that really pissed me off the whole trip, I will mention it later, but otherwise no problems

The kids were dying to check out the HRH pool so we went back to the room to change. When we walk in to the room what do we see, but a beautiful movie basket for my DD 10 Birthday. popcorn candy, water, soda and a free in room movie voucher. How nice is that , what was even nicer was the card that our front desk friend Rachel wrote. It wasn't just Happy Birthday it was a personal note to her like she knew her for a long time. Good stuff

We head down to the pool, very warm and relaxing, the slide was great
Since it was getting late the wife and I decided to just eat at the pool instead of going to Citywalk for dinner like originally planned. We got burgers and such at the beach club it was good but a little expensive. Our server was really nice I don't remember his name but I called him dudeman. I have to say the staff at HRH in general was very friendly, nice, and cool

Great full first day, did I mention I love FOTL

 

[JMCDAD]

Oops forgot to mention that we also did get our welcome gift when we arrived, mike and cookies , yum

just wanted to mention cause I know you crazy people (me too) like to keep track of that type of stuff

 

[xmattodx]

I'm glad you had a good time. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Cass]

Hi JMCDAD, welcome back - glad that you had fun and I'm looking forward to reading more

How were the crowds? what was the average wait for FOTL?

 

[clm3]

How were the crowds? what was the average wait for FOTL?

I would also like to know. We're planning around the same time for next year. Thanks for posting ..... you have me very excited

 

[bubba's mom]

Off to an excellent start JMCDAD

Sounds like a wonderful trip...and you're only on Day 2! From what i have read so far, sounds like ole Dad was the hero for this trip!

Looking forward to more.....and to pictures!

 

[damo]

Keep it coming. Sounds like everything went smoothly!

 

[fishhead]

After reading all these posts Damo Mcraven Bubba's Mom Phamton and on and on and on.
You people are great. We are going 8\20-24 RPR 24-27 HRH just because of all these posts.
Thank you all for all the info. Did I mention that you people are great
DW and DS 13 and DS12 are all looking forward also to Sea World and a hopfully morbid trip to Gatorland.
I will most likley thank you all again before I go. I will try to give a good trip report
Bye for now. Will try not to talk to everyone I know that we're going to US/IOA and that we will miss them

 

[bubba's mom]

After reading all these posts Damo Mcraven Bubba's Mom Phamton and on and on and on.
You people are great. We are going 8\20-24 RPR 24-27 HRH just because of all these posts.
Thank you all for all the info. Did I mention that you people are great
DW and DS 13 and DS12 are all looking forward also to Sea World and a hopfully morbid trip to Gatorland.
I will most likley thank you all again before I go. I will try to give a good trip report
Bye for now. Will try not to talk to everyone I know that we're going to US/IOA and that we will miss them

I'm sure you will have a wonderful trip if you have been researching on the DIS

We all ALWAYS look forward to TR's (w/ pictures....cuz "they're easy to read")

 

[damo]

After reading all these posts Damo Mcraven Bubba's Mom Phamton and on and on and on.
You people are great. We are going 8\20-24 RPR 24-27 HRH just because of all these posts.
Thank you all for all the info. Did I mention that you people are great
DW and DS 13 and DS12 are all looking forward also to Sea World and a hopfully morbid trip to Gatorland.
I will most likley thank you all again before I go. I will try to give a good trip report
Bye for now. Will try not to talk to everyone I know that we're going to US/IOA and that we will miss them

Your kids are an excellent age of USF. I'm sure you will have a ball. It is such a fun, relaxing place and you will soon feel like you can't wait for your next vacation and next vacation, etc. etc. etc.

 

[JMCDAD]

Thank you all for your replies
As far as the crowds and FOTL.
It was crowded (and hot) in the parks but I never felt like people were on top of me, there was always areas to get away, sit down and relax a little.
FOTL worked great, average wait for rides I would say 5-10 minutes. (The regular waits were looooong.
The only rides we didn't do were Hulk and DD cause my kids are not big roller coasters fans.
But Mummy and Spiderman the 2 best rides IMHO, were literally either walkons or 5 min waits everytime (4 times each)
Jaws was a little longer 10-15 min
Posedion was a little longer 10-15
Popeye was a walkon both times
Jurassic Park 10 min
ET 5-10 min
MIB walkon to 5 min
Dudley 10 min ]

You can't beat it !!

 

[tlinus]

can't wait to read more MCDAD!!!!!!

and fishhead - read mine too(linked in my siggie) - it slipped to page two I think, but when you are done that read more tr's - hoping you will have a great time!!!!

 

[JMCDAD]

Thursday -Day 3 IOA day

Today we decided on a lighter breakfast so we went to the snack place at HRH, coffee /bagels/doughuts and such. I wish they had more places to sit, they only have a couple of tables. So I say follow me and guide them to the lobby sitting area, where they have tables and chairs and couches. We huddled around a small table, I thought it was pretty clever, but my DW and DD's were embarassed since no one else was eating breakfast there

We head over to IOA and do Spiderman first (walk on ) , now I know why most people say its the best ride in FL, its awesome, so we do it again.
We proceed along our merry way, enjoying the park, the rides, each other , and the wonderful FOTL.
I stop at Mythos and make reservations for dinner.
We do the water rides, Dudley, Popeye, JPRA. Great fun
We didn't like the que line for Dudley its this long narrow hot hallway, the ride was great, and we didn't wait long, my DD 10, who is the least adventurous of my 3 kids, was psyched out by the drop, and was a wreck the whole ride in anticipation. It was pretty funny, but between my wife not liking the claustrophobic hallway and my DD10 vowing to never go on Dudley again, we only went on once. I would have like to go on a couple more times. (make note to self for next time )
We head back home to the room to shower and change and relax and we go back to IOA to eat at Mythos. Easily my favorite restaurant of the trip. It was terrific, its beautiful inside and the food was great, even the kids meals were really good. And to my surprise one of our more reasonable meals.
Highly recommend it.
We do a few more rides and then go check out Citywalk, do some shopping, fun place, the bands that play are really good.
We head back to get some sleep
Tomorrow is SeaWorld day, and the question is, can we survive a day without FOTL..........

 

[JMCDAD]

Day 4 Fri 7/13 SeaWorld Day
And the answer to the question I left you with
"Can we survive without FOTL at SeaWorld" is..........barely, seriously.

I was debating whether to drive or take the shuttle to SW, we decided on the shuttle, it was fine but took longer by the time they stop at the other hotels and stuff.

We get to SW and grab a quick breakfast and try to make a gameplan as I didn't do as much reserach on SW as I did for US/IOA. The star Shamu's show Believe was starting in like 15 min so we figured we would do that first.
It was really nice
Couple comments about SW, First the park is very spread out, more than I thought , so there is alot of long walking, second, maybe it was just me but I kept getting turned around and upside down, for some reason I had a hard time navigating around SW, third, it was really hot, worse than at US/IOA, maybe it was just warmer that day but it was the hottest we were in a park the whole trip. Don't get me wrong we had a nice time, and the kids really liked the animals. The polar bears were really cute and playful. All the animals were really cool. We were spoiled by FOTL though,as we had to wait for like -30 minitues for the polar expedition ride, and it felt like forever.

We ate at the shark grill. If you would like to eat here, you should definetly make ressies early in the day. It was really nice, food was good, a little pricey but good overall.

Next we went to feed the dolphins, the kids were really looking forward to this, it was really cool being that close to them and petting them.
We left SW, really tired, but had a great time overall.
We went back to the HRH, got some snacks to add to the free movie snacks that we were under direct orders from DD 10 that were not to be touched until we watched the movie, and used the free movie voucher and chilled in the room.

Tomorrow we changed it up a bit and hit the HRH pool during the day.

 

[ATAfamily]

JMCDAD,
Great trip report I am really enjoying it and looking forward to hearing more about your trip. BTW, how did you like FOTL?!?!??! I don't believe you took the time to mention it (JK)

 

[JMCDAD]

Deanne, So you noticed I was very fond of FOTL
Seriously it was one of my favorite things of the trip, I bought a lanyard at the HRH and held all five of the room keys in it. Felt like a VIP
Between me and you I kissed them a couple times as we were walking on a ride with a 60min wait

Seriously thanks for reading and replying

 

[bubba's mom]

So, when's your next trip?

 

[JMCDAD]

SAT 7/14

So we decided to change it up a bit and enjoy the HRH pool for the day and realx. We go back to the kitchen for the Breakfast buffet , we have a nice breakfast a little pricey, but really good.
Then we hit the pool, the pool is really nice, we went up and down the side about 100 time
But really just took it easy.
It started to rain later on so we showered and then hit US later in the day, to do A few of our favorite rides again.
This is the one and only time we encountered some line cutting that really annoyed me, on the Jimmy N express line.
This group of girls in front of us probably had 2 express passes for the 5 of them, and were passing them to each other, then the ring leader purposely distracted the staff member asking her questions while another girl snuck on.
If that wasn't bad enough, we get up to the front and they are first for the next ride, we are second, the ringleader goes back out of the line saying excuse me, and comes back with another 5 people and brings them to the front, and to top it off, a man comes around to the front and ducks in. So now they have about 12 people. I was so hoping that the attendant would check their passes but he didn't, I was so close to saying something but didn't want a big negative scene in front of the kids to mess up our day.
But like I said I that was the only time I saw this and the attendants did a really good job overall, and I feel bad that they have to deal with people like this.
We took a walk over to Bubba Gumps for dinner, this is the first time we are eating at citywalk, which was surprising to me cause I thought we would be eating here most of the time. The citywalk restaurants get really crowded, there was a 30-40 min wait, and the room key didn't seem to work,probably because it was a weekend. It was pretty good.
We walked around, listened to the great band , shopped a little and then called it a night.
Tomorrow was DD 10 birthday and our last day at Universal, so a bittersweet day

 

[Cass]

I am loving your report you are making me so excited for my trip next week!

Sorry about those pesky line cutters, they put a damper on things. Sounds like the rainy weather didn't hold you back from enjoying your day.

I kept getting turned around at Sea World too, and having to check the map lol, feeding the dolphins is a big highlight for us too. Can you tell me about the shuttle to SW, when did it leave?