Not the best showing by Universal

[Bentoch]

So I just got back from a 4 day trip to Orlando and planned on spending 1 day at Universal trying out the new Potter ride and some of the other attractions I had not tried yet. We booked a room on Saturday night at the Royal Pacific to take advantage of the 1 hour early access to maybe try and ride the new Potter ride a couple times before it got crazy. As soon as we got into the park we were informed that the ride was not operational and they were hoping it would be running by 8am. So at that point I'm already unhappy, the only reason I stayed onsite was to get that extra hour and now it was basically pointless. We waited around the area for awhile just looking at the various shops and enjoying the amount of detail but at 8am the ride still was not operational and they were saying it could be another hour or two. We do some other things and finally when we come back around 11 it's working but it's a 120 min wait of course. Later on in the day as we try and ride the train, we are the next people to board and of course it breaks down, that's after it had already been down earlier in the day. Maybe I just got them on a bad day but if you can't keep you main attractions operational, that's a pretty serious issue and will make me question if I want to spend my time and money at the park in the future.

 

[Lynne G]

Sorry that was your first? experience. Don't feel bad, I woke up early to do Toy Story Mania and it was not working and nothing else was working during early entry, but Disney did open the gift shop for us. Yeah right.

I say, try again. Remember, you went when everything is just new. Rides do break down in every park.

When we went in August, some of the rides broke down too. In fact, I got stuck in Gringotts for almost an hour. Not fun sitting in that ride vehicle for that long. However, I'd much rather have had that then be stuck on Rip Red Rocket like some were a while ago.

You just had bad luck that day.

 

[cgattis]

On our first trip to Universal, we had the same thing happen--FJ was down the whole "extra" hour. No kind of paper "Fastpasses" for a later return. And this trip, we arrived very late and found the EP kiosks down. Tried to tell us we'd have to wait until guest services inside the park opened the next morning, again thereby wasting our early entry. No way of giving us something temporary to use. At Disney, you'd get a No Strings Attached or something. At Universal, you get "oh, sorry." The only exceptional CMs (whatever they call them) we've encountered in three Uni trips are the ones in the HP areas. Will I go back? Sure. I love the HP sections and a few of the other rides, the convenience of the hotels, and--above all--the Express Passes!!