ruthies12
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2011
- Messages
- 1,844
Meant to post this last week but got busy at work. Stayed at RPR, just me and my sister for a girls weekend.
Parks were very crowded imo. I expected it Sat & Sun, but I thought it would empty out Mon through Wed, that did not happen. We had poor timing on heading to the parks and hit some of the longest security and entry lines I've personally ever seen. Sunday morning we walked the path and got to security at the entry to Citywalk and got routed up the walkway by the street. I'll post a pic. It moved fairly quickly though. After that day we took the boat. The boat security line was perfectly normal each day. One morning trying to enter Islands we were routed all the way up by the entrance from the parking garages, it was nuts and took forever to get in. Regular opening on the US side wasn't much better the other mornings. I knew better than to go AT opening but didn't think it would be as bad as it was. Definitely either line up for entry super early OR wait at least a half hour after opening to avoid the entry lines. Don't go AT opening time like I did.
Hotel was nice. No issues. They were full that weekend but we were still able to check in early at 11 am on Saturday and had our room ready which was really nice. Received a room in tower 3 as I had requested. No issues with room or service. Room was clean. Did have a funny mishap with housekeeping. I left them a note requesting that they not make our beds, we're just weird like that and don't like our beds made. We came back to find the beds made and they had taken my note. I was a little flabbergasted at first, wondering why they would want to do extra work that wasn't wanted. So then I re-wrote the request in both English and Spanish and once I did that the request was honored and they left the beds alone lol. So if you have any housekeeping requests you might want to leave it in both languages. Pool was nicely heated, we went in it in the evening when it was a bit cool out and it was quite warm in the water.
Park crowds weren't as bad as my last trip MLK weekend in January and there was less rudeness overall but still some. The line cutting wasn't as bad but was still happening. Bathroom lines weren't too terrible in most areas of the park. Food lines were hit and miss, mainly due to staffing. Waited in a long line for leaky cauldron our last morning on that Wednesday because they only had 3 cashiers working and they didn't have anybody making the drinks so the cashiers had to ring up and get the drinks ready on the tray by themselves. Tons of tables open but ordering took forever and when the food did arrive it was cold. Tried to eat at Three Broomsticks at an off time of 3 pm but it still took quite awhile because all the tables were full and we had to wait for a table to open up. But we ate at Mythos with a reservation and at Lombards with no reservation and were seated quickly and served right away with no problems. Didn't have to wait long at the crepe stand either.
There were apparently a lot of careless people at the parks. Not to toot my own horn but I did a lot of good deeds on this trip lol. Someone left a really nice kate spade purse hanging on a hook in a bathroom stall. I held the purse in front of me out in front of the bathroom for several minutes to see if anyone came looking for it but no one did so I turned it in to lost and found. Lady in front of me at the makeup show left her phone on her seat and I caught her just before she got out of the building, she was very grateful. Found an earring in the lobby at RPR and when I turned it in it turned out to the worker's that i handed it to. She was grateful too. Walking out after park close one evening I saw an olivanders bag sitting on a table outside of Louies. I opened it and it had a wand box with the wand and the receipt all still in the bag. I took that to lost and found too. Hope whoever lost that went looking for it there and the employees don't just stick it back on the shelf lol. I also helped a kid who was having a hard time with a spell spot and a mom and her family who couldn't find the entrance to diagon alley. I should have some good karma coming my way! I kinda wanted to keep the wand I found but I would have felt bad not knowing if it was a kids so I didn't.
The free wand with $300 gift card was still going on and I did it. In the past when I did this I was given a regular gift card and was able to use it for food. This time it was a special orange gift card that specifically said merchandise card on it and I was not able to use it at food places. I did buy a big pink donut with it at the shop at the front of the park. But when I tried to buy a big pink at the actual donut stand in the simpsons area they were not able to take the card. So keep that in mind if you are wanting to do that, it will not work at food places and I did have some cashiers who tried to swipe it and it wouldn't go through if it was a food place. I will try to post a pic of the wand choices I was shown.
New minion ride was fun but i can't for the life of me figure out the scoring. I'm really good at MIB but I can't figure out what you're supposed to hit on villaincon. My sister doesn't do great on MIB cause she has some weird bifocal type contact lenses so she has a hard time aiming but she did great on villaincon and beat me every time. So I guess close your eyes and you score better idk. The minion cafe food was pretty good. didn't care for the freeze pops personally. The frozen part was fine but the decor on the front of them is nasty, think they might be wax, maybe we weren't supposed to eat that part but it looked like you were supposed to?
The most exciting thing to happen on this trip was my sister got picked to be on stage at the horror makeup show. I thought they always picked a foreign lady from the middle section but my sister is a middle aged white woman with blond hair and we were sitting in the second row off to the right. She did not want to go up there, they really do have a knack for picking the one person who doesn't want to go lol. She did great though!
I have one more trip next month for the orlando informer meetup with my kids and then I think I'm letting this seasonal pass expire and taking some time off from universal. I wasn't keen to go back after the January mishaps but my sister talked me into this one and since our passes were still good I decided to give it another try. I don't know how the employees put up with some of that crap. Had one employee at velocicoaster threatening to kick some people out if they didn't stop banging on the metal wall. Another poor worker was cleaning lockers non-stop because people kept putting things in there with liquids still in them. Had several trips on the train and in forbidden journey and a few other rides with people talking non-stop in other languages all during the ride. I still love the parks but my tolerance for people is at an end.
Parks were very crowded imo. I expected it Sat & Sun, but I thought it would empty out Mon through Wed, that did not happen. We had poor timing on heading to the parks and hit some of the longest security and entry lines I've personally ever seen. Sunday morning we walked the path and got to security at the entry to Citywalk and got routed up the walkway by the street. I'll post a pic. It moved fairly quickly though. After that day we took the boat. The boat security line was perfectly normal each day. One morning trying to enter Islands we were routed all the way up by the entrance from the parking garages, it was nuts and took forever to get in. Regular opening on the US side wasn't much better the other mornings. I knew better than to go AT opening but didn't think it would be as bad as it was. Definitely either line up for entry super early OR wait at least a half hour after opening to avoid the entry lines. Don't go AT opening time like I did.
Hotel was nice. No issues. They were full that weekend but we were still able to check in early at 11 am on Saturday and had our room ready which was really nice. Received a room in tower 3 as I had requested. No issues with room or service. Room was clean. Did have a funny mishap with housekeeping. I left them a note requesting that they not make our beds, we're just weird like that and don't like our beds made. We came back to find the beds made and they had taken my note. I was a little flabbergasted at first, wondering why they would want to do extra work that wasn't wanted. So then I re-wrote the request in both English and Spanish and once I did that the request was honored and they left the beds alone lol. So if you have any housekeeping requests you might want to leave it in both languages. Pool was nicely heated, we went in it in the evening when it was a bit cool out and it was quite warm in the water.
Park crowds weren't as bad as my last trip MLK weekend in January and there was less rudeness overall but still some. The line cutting wasn't as bad but was still happening. Bathroom lines weren't too terrible in most areas of the park. Food lines were hit and miss, mainly due to staffing. Waited in a long line for leaky cauldron our last morning on that Wednesday because they only had 3 cashiers working and they didn't have anybody making the drinks so the cashiers had to ring up and get the drinks ready on the tray by themselves. Tons of tables open but ordering took forever and when the food did arrive it was cold. Tried to eat at Three Broomsticks at an off time of 3 pm but it still took quite awhile because all the tables were full and we had to wait for a table to open up. But we ate at Mythos with a reservation and at Lombards with no reservation and were seated quickly and served right away with no problems. Didn't have to wait long at the crepe stand either.
There were apparently a lot of careless people at the parks. Not to toot my own horn but I did a lot of good deeds on this trip lol. Someone left a really nice kate spade purse hanging on a hook in a bathroom stall. I held the purse in front of me out in front of the bathroom for several minutes to see if anyone came looking for it but no one did so I turned it in to lost and found. Lady in front of me at the makeup show left her phone on her seat and I caught her just before she got out of the building, she was very grateful. Found an earring in the lobby at RPR and when I turned it in it turned out to the worker's that i handed it to. She was grateful too. Walking out after park close one evening I saw an olivanders bag sitting on a table outside of Louies. I opened it and it had a wand box with the wand and the receipt all still in the bag. I took that to lost and found too. Hope whoever lost that went looking for it there and the employees don't just stick it back on the shelf lol. I also helped a kid who was having a hard time with a spell spot and a mom and her family who couldn't find the entrance to diagon alley. I should have some good karma coming my way! I kinda wanted to keep the wand I found but I would have felt bad not knowing if it was a kids so I didn't.
The free wand with $300 gift card was still going on and I did it. In the past when I did this I was given a regular gift card and was able to use it for food. This time it was a special orange gift card that specifically said merchandise card on it and I was not able to use it at food places. I did buy a big pink donut with it at the shop at the front of the park. But when I tried to buy a big pink at the actual donut stand in the simpsons area they were not able to take the card. So keep that in mind if you are wanting to do that, it will not work at food places and I did have some cashiers who tried to swipe it and it wouldn't go through if it was a food place. I will try to post a pic of the wand choices I was shown.
New minion ride was fun but i can't for the life of me figure out the scoring. I'm really good at MIB but I can't figure out what you're supposed to hit on villaincon. My sister doesn't do great on MIB cause she has some weird bifocal type contact lenses so she has a hard time aiming but she did great on villaincon and beat me every time. So I guess close your eyes and you score better idk. The minion cafe food was pretty good. didn't care for the freeze pops personally. The frozen part was fine but the decor on the front of them is nasty, think they might be wax, maybe we weren't supposed to eat that part but it looked like you were supposed to?
The most exciting thing to happen on this trip was my sister got picked to be on stage at the horror makeup show. I thought they always picked a foreign lady from the middle section but my sister is a middle aged white woman with blond hair and we were sitting in the second row off to the right. She did not want to go up there, they really do have a knack for picking the one person who doesn't want to go lol. She did great though!
I have one more trip next month for the orlando informer meetup with my kids and then I think I'm letting this seasonal pass expire and taking some time off from universal. I wasn't keen to go back after the January mishaps but my sister talked me into this one and since our passes were still good I decided to give it another try. I don't know how the employees put up with some of that crap. Had one employee at velocicoaster threatening to kick some people out if they didn't stop banging on the metal wall. Another poor worker was cleaning lockers non-stop because people kept putting things in there with liquids still in them. Had several trips on the train and in forbidden journey and a few other rides with people talking non-stop in other languages all during the ride. I still love the parks but my tolerance for people is at an end.
After everybody got done laughing we all clapped for the maintenance guys. I watched the next two trains come in but didn't see anybody get off who looked like it belonged to them so I don't know who's it was. That was an expensive loss on somebody's part! They tell you to take off hats so I'm not sure why some lady didn't think that rule applied to her hairpiece lol
