My Muggle Report - May 2010: Hogwarts Here We Come!

[crmom7054]

Ok everyone, I know I have been crawling these boards for months in search of the following about Universal:

1. How many things can my three year old do? How about my six year old?
2. What restaurants and snacks are a must? I'll warn you now that I'm not a big table service fan on vacation just because I can't keep the kids occupied that long and they are ready to go before we get started!
3. WWHOP - ANYTHING!!!

So, I'm on my way to the Royal Pacific Resort as I type and hope to give you a daily, or almost daily, update on our trip and the answers I figured out about the things above. So if these interest you -- stay tuned!!

Me, my DH, and DD (3) and DS (6) check in to RPH today staying through Monday. We got our reservation in before the WWOHP announcement so I am guaranteed some sort of preview. We are super excited about this and having express passes. I've been to Universal twice (before kids) and never stayed onsite with express pass, so Woo hoo!

Monday night we are staying a night at Nick Hotel -- my six year is so excited about the bunk beds, so hopefully I won't cry too much as I go from the 4-star RPH to a kid crazy motel. LOL But I'll let you about that hotel too -- it has so many mixed reviews! I can deal with about anything for one night, so we'll find out.

On our way home we are going to go by way of the Tampa Zoo -- rated #1 zoo for kids by Parent Magazine.

So stay tuned if any of this interest you. I'll try to include some pics -- especially if we are allowed to take pics in WWOHP!

 

[nmartin]

Very interested! Have a wonderful vacation.

 

[KerriK85]

1. How many things can my three year old do? How about my six year old?
2. What restaurants and snacks are a must? I'll warn you now that I'm not a big table service fan on vacation just because I can't keep the kids occupied that long and they are ready to go before we get started!
3. WWHOP - ANYTHING!!!

I have a 3 year old too, and we have a half day at IOA for Suess Landing. they have some rides over there (carrousel, fish ride like dumbo in disney, train ride, cat in the hat ride), a playground area (animals hide and you press buttons to make them appear) a storytime show, a quick service restaurant, and the Hop On Pop Ice Cream Shop!- my daughter LOVES the hop on pop book. They also have Seuss character meet and greets. Certain mornings they also have a character breakfast, check the universal site for details, i know you need to make reservations.

Also in IOA they have the spiderman ride, which is amazing, I think a 6 year old would like it if they are into Spidey...the 3 year old i wouldnt suggest it even if they are at the ok height. There are also character meet and greets here.


in the marvel area is marvel super hero island dining. Italian eatery serving Pizza, Spaghetti & Meatballs, Fettuccini, Meatball Subs, and Chicken Caesar Salads

A lot of both parks have quick service areas, so finding a quick bite isnt hard.Also, both parks have playground areas like the above mentioned, some where you can get really wet or soaked, so bring a bathing suit and or change of clothes.

If your 6 year old is just the right height for Jurassic park ride, i would not recommend it. or make sure they are right in the front no where else. i went on that and the girl sitting behind me hit her head on the hand rest on the drop and lost most of her teeth, it was a bloody mess. (they were baby teeth so the dad wasnt so worried)

Universal now! ET both children can ride, jimmy neutron maybe, depends on the height of your 3 year old. there is also a barney show, im taking my daughter to see this one shes a huge fan, plus you can meet them after! There are scooby doo, spongebob, and dora meet and greets so thats fun too. There is an animal show, they both would enjoy that. jaws the 6 year old may like, it really depends on what that one is into. the shrek 4d show, simpsons, MIB alien attack

i dont know how this one is, but near "disaster" the earthquake ride, there is a burger place called richters i think? what kid doesnt like that!

Dining in universal, they may like woody woodpeckers kids zone pizza company, classic monsters cafe- counterservice not a sit down and order cafe. mels drive in might be the best: Hamburgers, fries, chicken sandwiches, chicken fingers, onion rings, root beer floats and frosty milk shakes

 

[snoopypharmd]

Yea to vaca!! Let us live vicariously through you Is it August yet?

 

[Claire-Bear]

1. How many things can my three year old do? How about my six year old?
Some rides have height restrictions, especially at Islands of Adventure which is the more thrilling park. Here is the newest brochure which states under the rides if they have height restrictions and what they are: http://www.universalorlandovacations.com/pdf/2010_UNI_brochure.PDF

2. What restaurants and snacks are a must? I'll warn you now that I'm not a big table service fan on vacation just because I can't keep the kids occupied that long and they are ready to go before we get started!
They will probably really enjoy the Circus McGurkus (counter service) as its a colourful restaurant done out as a marquee. You see the Seuss Trolley go by inside the marquee as well. Comic Strip Cafe is again a colourful counter service place. I really enjoy Thunder Terrace Falls (in Jurassic Park area) since you have views of the ride and are close to JP activities in the discovery center.

3. WWHOP - ANYTHING!!!
You can see where WWOHP is in the brochure I posted above. There are three rides in the area (two are refurbs of previous rides).
There is Forbidden Journey (48" restriction and does throw you around a bit) the brand new ride. Even if you can't ride it, you are allowed to queue up and bail out through the stairs at the loading area. It'll be very much worth seeing the queue since they have re-created a lot of rooms from the HP books.
There is Dragon Challenge - this is a dueling roller coaster (so likely not appropriate!). But if any of you want to go on it, you also get to see the Triwizard cup and Weezley's car along with dragon eggs etc. in the queue.
Finally there is Flight of the Hippogriff. This is a much milder coaster (height restriction 36"). Hagrid teaches you how to approach hippogriffs in the queue and you get to pass by his hut. Once you go up the first hill in the ride, you will see an animatronic moving hippogriff on the ground!
There is one other experience - Ollivanders. In this wand shop, a group of you go in. Now, it may only be the case that one or two out of a group of 25 in the shop are chosen for the experience, but everyone else can still see. The rep gives those chosen different wands to try, which do different things inside the shop. You can also buy wands next door.
The area has several shops with clothing, sweets, plushies and other bits and pieces from HP. Very exciting!!!
Oh yeah, and don't be afraid to try butterbeer! Both normal and frozen! It's non-alcoholic they also have pumpkin juice and do serve an alcoholic HP drink, Hogs Head Ale, in the Hogs Head pub.

WARNING: The last thing we saw was that onsite guests can enter the WWOHP area, but it's not 100% guaranteed to happen before Grand Opening. You will (hopefully) be let into the area, but you may not have access to Forbidden Journey, although hopefully can still see the queue area. Noone is sure at the moment how things will play out.

But yes, PLEASE OH PLEASE TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS!!!!! I really want to see lots of pics before we arrive there

 

[crmom7054]

First off, thanks to everyone for some great tips! I very much appreciate them.

We went to Universal Studios after arriving at our hotel yesterday, but I'm going to fill you in on that later because I want to the interesting stuff first that you are all waiting for!

Day Two - WWOHP & the rest of Islands of Adventure
Ok, we had a GREAT day today. What day would not be great starting at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? We got in maybe five after 8:00 a.m. and were told we would have until 10:00 a.m. That upset me at first, but it turned out to be enough time for most things -- especially since you could stay longer to shop. They want their money of course.

So, where to start. We walked in and started toward the castle, but they said it wasn't going to be open until 9 am, so we went to Ollivanders to get a wand for DS. We had to wait until about 3 sets of 25 people went in before we got to go. They really cram you in there, but it wasn't too bad. Try to go to the right when you go in so you can see well and easily go into the Owl Post after.

The wandkeeper was great and picked a little girl that looked about 8 to get her wand. She tried two wands before the wand chose her on the third one. After that he sent us to the owl post -- so only one chosen in 25, not two or three

The owl post was SO crowded. Everyone from the other groups are still checking out all the wands in the TINY area where the wands are so it is tight. We decided to come back and get our wand so we would have to carry it around. Next we came out to see the Frog Chorus singing and you could get pictures with them after, and then the Durmstrang Institute and Beauxtan Academy performers came out -- VERY COOL! All the live performances are awesome. You can get pictures with these guys after too.

Then we rode the FOHG. Very cool ride too, very fun but not too scary or fast. Both my three year old and six year old loved it. We'll be doing that one over and over tomorrow I am sure.

But we had to go off to get in the LONG line for the Forbidden Journey. My son was like 2 inches too short to ride and my daughter more like 10 inches too short, but they told us to go on through and do the child swap at the end. The queu is definitely very long, but very fun. My favorite parts?

1. Defense Against the Dark Arts room with Ron, Hermoine, and Harry. Very neat to see them like 10 feet away from you and they look very real. They don't photograph well though.

2. Dumbledore's Office. VERY neat to see him too.

3. The talking portraits. They are in several places throughout the ride, often talking about the crazy muggles (and then commenting that they guess it will be ok since we are Dumbledore's guests).

Ok, so the ride itself????? Well, I would love to tell you how amazing it is, but guess what? We got through the child swap area, very easy and a room right off the loading area. I got in line to ride alone first and I was two groups of 4 away from getting on when it "experienced technical difficulties", so we waited, and waited, and waited. And finally I couldn't hold going to the bathroom anymore and the kids were going crazy. So we left. I think it was another 30 minutes after that before the people "trapped" on the ride in different places and at different angles got off.

But it was still great and this was to be expected. We'll try again tomorrow. The queue was still fun and worth seeing again.

We then got my son's wand and some stamps at the Owl Post and headed into Honeydukes. We got like 5 things and spent $50!! Crazy expensive -- I'll warn you going in there with kids is dangerous. We got a chocolate frog, Peppermint toads, Bertie Bott Beans, a HoneyDukes Chocolate Bar, and Pumpkin Juice. The chocolate frog ($10) was good, but we were dissappointed that there was not a wizard card in it. That is half of my we bought it! The frog isn't very detailed looking (I'll post my pic later) and it was ok, but far from the best chocolate ever. Definitely buy it for the experience and share it, not for the quality or taste. The rest of the candy was good too -- the toads were my favorite. They are dark chocolate mint and are small, about the size of a thumbnail and you get several in a little box. We haven't tried the beans yet, we will later.

Then we were ROASTING at 10:30 a.m. So butterbeer anyone? YES, we got a frozen one and a regular one. The frozen was in the mug and SO good. I could drink that all day in the sun. The regular -- while good, was not as good as frozen to me. It didn't taste cold AT ALL was part of it. It's not just not frozen, it's not cold.

Oh forgot to mention the pumpkin juice, the bottles are WAY cute with a little pumpkin lid and it's resealable so that was nice. But it took some getting used to and definitely needs to be shaken up first. It taste kind of like pumpkin pie. It tastes like you may think it would. A mix of apple cider and pumpkin juices to me. It was good, but not as refreshing and "easy" to drink as the butterbeer.

We think made a visit to the Hogwarts Express and talked to the very nice conductor. Everyone, including the conductor stayed very much in character. While waiting for the Forbidden Journey to start back, one of the wizards running the ride talked to us a lot, all "in character" asking us what classes we would sign up for, if we enjoyed our tour of the castle, and then since my DH had a muggle shirt on, he asked if he could ask a muggle question. We said yes and he asked us the purpose of a rubber duck and was very interested that it really had no purpose besides floating in a tub and used for games sometimes with a number on the bottom.

So we left there about 11 am through a SWARM of universal staff that blocked off the entire entrance to the back of the Lost Continent area. I took a picture because I couldn't believe how many people they had "guarding it".

Ok, I'll finish out my day two report later. The kids nap is over and I NEED DINNER! I'll try to post pics at least later tonight.

Hope you enjoy this!

 

[Maves Wife]

great report - I think it will be frozen butterbeers all round!

 

[crmom7054]

Yes, you want it cold when it's 90+ degrees outside.

Here are a few of the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crmom7054/4648801630/in/set-72157624032426861/

 

[pamcarey]

Awesome!! I hope that you make it onto HP and the FJ tomorrow. I am DYING to hear details about that ride.

 

[Disney_Lover06]

Thank you for the photos!!! Harry, ron and Hermione look real. I can't even picture what they must look like up close.

 

[KerriK85]

thanks for the photos! they looks amazingly real

 

[Claire-Bear]

Glad you enjoyed your trip! I'm a little worried about how the queues will be when we arrive Monday after grand opening offsite, but hopefully it'll still be a nice experience without being too crammed :

Looking forward to seeing day one!

 

[czycropper]

Loved the photos!

So did you get to ride FJ?

 

[tfoster]

Sounds like you're having a great time! Thanks so much for taking the time to post so we can all pretend we're there with you!

 

[WaltD4Me]

Thanks for the pics! Wow, I bet those performers are HOT, the guys had on black coats with fur! Hope they get a frozen Butter Beer after the show!

 

[Worfiedoodles]

Enjoying your report! Thanks for taking the time to post and give us details!

Maria

 

[Coach81]

Cool report!

My big question for you:

How much of the Potter rides are "simulators" like the Simpsons & Spidey.. I suffer from motion sickness and I'm hoping that I can enjoy HP.. as I cannot do the Simpsons...

Please let me know your opinion.