Heads Up for Friday, 5/13 & 5/20!

[RedSox68]

Just found out that Universal Studios is hosting a Gradventure Event for Middle School youth. I called and they expect thousands of participants. Here's the link:

http://www.universalorlando.com/Ove....html&expID=13-11215&contentID=13-11263&seq=1

When I looked at it last week, it said Universal Studios. Suddenly today I see it says 2-park party! The party is supposed to be 7 p.m. to Midnight, AFTER the parks close, but the flyer says they get early admission at 4 p.m.! We have Blue Man tickets that night, so I think we'll get outta dodge by 4 and just go have dinner somewhere. Geez, I hope none of these large groups are staying on site

 

[nytimez]

I imagine this will be a big event among locals, so it might not have a big impact on the hotels. In any case, the on-site hotels are generally a little pricey for school groups. There's no Pop Century or All-Stars "value" type hotels on site.

Sounds like a great event for the kids, really, and great that they are keeping it (mostly) separate from regular park hours -- but yeah, I wouldn't want to be in the parks when they start streaming in!

 

[Metro West]

Yup...this event happens every year...early entry is new I think.

 

[RedSox68]

Just called and made our dinner reservations at 5:30 p.m. -- leave the park at 4 and go back to RPR to freshen up. That way we'll be somewhat distant. Hope Citywalk isn't also involved in this!

 

[Metro West]

Just called and made our dinner reservations at 5:30 p.m. -- leave the park at 4 and go back to RPR to freshen up. That way we'll be somewhat distant. Hope Citywalk isn't also involved in this!

Supposedly there will be pre-parties somewhere at CityWalk but I don't know where. In any event...CW will be jammed that night.

 

[Dolby1000]

When I saw the closing times of 5PM on the 13th and 20, I suspected something else was up.

This is why I am going on the 19th.

 

[xApril]

The high schoolers didn't get early entry. But we did get to stay till 2am.

 

[tarrbear]

The high schoolers didn't get early entry. But we did get to stay till 2am.

No but we did get the pre-parties, I guess that was a benefit there lol

 

[RedSox68]

We saw dozens and dozens of school groups, however, on both Thursday and Friday, visiting both parks. Except for their language and rudeness, they didn't get in our way and we don't frequent the same rides they do. We were out of the parks by 3 p.m. on Friday 5/20. Didn't see any crowds coming in. Hotel didn't give us our wake-up call from our nap, so we missed our dinner ressie at Latin Quarter. We went to the Blue Man Group show at 8 p.m. and didn't see a single group of teens. When we left the show at 10:30 p.m., we walked back to the hotel and again, didn't see any teens. In fact, when we walked past the gates of IOA I wondered if anyone was in there at all. We heard music, but no voices or yells or anything.