My family arrived home last night from our trip to Disney and Universal and we had an amazing time! I really don't have any complaints about anything. I wanted to share a little bit about the Universal part of our trip since everyone here was so helpful.
I really liked Universal much more than I thought I would! We absolutely loved Sapphire Falls. We had gone back and forth for so long about staying at SF or CB and I'm glad we picked SF. That said, we never got over to CB to check it out like I had hoped to, so maybe I would've liked it there, too.
We enjoyed every single ride we rode. I had no idea what to expect on any of them as we did not watch any videos on them first, but every one of them was great! It was kind of fun to experience everything for the first time! The Harry Potter rides were awesome! I especially loved Hagrids and the Forbidden Journey. As far as Hagrids, we were able to ride once on Sunday evening and once on Monday evening. Both evenings we waited no more than 40 minutes so I'm glad we waited to ride it later in the day rather than rope dropping it. My other favorite ride was the Revenge of the Mummy, but again, they were all good. We had Express Pass on Monday and Tuesday and I'm glad we did. I really don't think we would have needed them for a longer visit, but they came in handy for only two days in the parks. It enabled us to get on several rides more than once.
I cannot say enough good things about Volcano Bay! We all think it is the best waterpark we ever visited. We arrived at the security line by 7:30 on Sunday morning and were at the front of the line to get in once we got through security. It was really full, but we were able to get so much done the first few hours and by using the virtual queues through the Tapu Tapu. We got to ride a lot of the slides several times, but our very favorite was the raging river. Wow! I have never done anything like that and it was so much fun!
We only ate quick service during our time at Universal. Some places we ate included Bread Box, Red Oven Pizza, Three Broomsticks, Drhum Club Kantine, and some others I can't remember, but we enjoyed everything we ate. We also got a few butter beers, jacket potatoes (so good) and ice cream at Florean Fortescue's (butter beer of course). The refillable mugs were perfect and we were always filling them up with icees or water. We wanted to eat at Cafe La Bamba but both days we walked by it was closed, so that was a bummer.
We had great interactions with the workers but there were a few things that caught me off guard and reminded me that I wasn't in Disney anymore. On our first night we were on the ferry back to SF and it had just finished raining so the seats were wet. There was a man at the front of the boat that was sitting on top of the seat back and the ferry driver said to him and I quote "If you don't put your butt in the seat, I'm kicking you off." Obviously, he needed to be sitting on the seat, but the tone of the ferry worker and what he said caught me off guard. The other two times both happened in the Velocicoaster line. Twice a worker came on the intercom and made an announcement to stop sitting on the railings or you'll be kicked out of the park. Again, I realize that was for everyone's safety, but it's just nothing I ever hear at Disney.
I'm still a Disney girl at heart and don't see us replacing our Disney trips with trips to Universal, but I know we'll visit again. Thanks for all your help in making our first trip a success!
