Hi floridafam... I tried to PM you this but it was too long!!
So here it is now....Re: Universal
Well to start at the beginning... I have always gone to Disney and I did not know a thing about Universal, what it was?, where it was?.. I didn't have a clue.
Then when I was taking my daughter for the first time to Disney... she said she wanted to go on the "Jaws" ride at Disney.. she said she saw it on TV.
I didn't remember a Jaws ride at Disney so I started checking on the internet and found out it was at Universal Studios...
I assumend this was a park and that I would still stay at Disney and just go there for the day.
When I went to Universal website - I saw that they had hotels and very reasonably priced as well. Then I learned about Front of the line access and decided it was too go to be true - I had to try it.
So I made a booking for 99.00 a night at the Royal Pacific - this included park passes, front of the line access, Seaworld admission, dinner or Wet and Wild and a movie passes... we stayed 5 nights and it was just over 580.00 for everything.
Even the day I arrived - I had no idea what to expect... when we pulled up to the lobby of this fabulous newly opened resort hotel - I could not beleive it... the place is gorgeous with large sweeping views of rice patties, streams, orchids, glorious flower gardens etc...
Check in was a breeze and even though we arrived at 12:00noon our room was ready.. it was just a standard room but had a view of the roller coaster at Islands of Adventure.... I also had no idea about Islands of adventure.. this is a whole other park - I didn't even know it was there...
Well we were starving so we decided to go to the park... a short walk to the water taxis that run about ever 10 - 15 minutes between the hotel and parks... we jumped on one and it took us to City Walk.
City walk is the area in between the two parks... is is built on either side of the water canal and is filled with restaurants, clubs, shopping and the big movie theatre.... right away I spotted Margaritaville and it looked cool so we went there for lunch and it was great.. they had a kids menu that was 3.99 for all entres, including a drink and ice cream.. my daughter loved it and we ended up eating here 3 times.
Then we decided to try Islands of adventure first... this park is beautifully themed and layed out around a lake.. Noel loved the dinosaur area with rides and a discovery centre where you hatch dino eggs etc.... The first ride we tried was Jurassic Park River adventure... the wait was 45 minutes - but then I saw the "Express" lane for Front of the line access and went through the gate... we were on the ride in 2 minutes... in fact we came off and did it again and again and again and kept passing this same family in the regular line... .. they were scowling at us when we went passed them for the 4th time and they had not been on the ride yet...LOL
The next day we tried Universal and it was just as great except the rides are more based on movies...... we LOVED Jaws, ET, Men In Black, Back to the Future, Earthquake, Twister, Terminator and King Kong... we just had an excellent time
The hotel is modelled after a south pacific island.... our room was lovely and comforatble, the pool is huge and has a play area themed like the bridge of a ship with water cannons and fountains to play with.
The hot tubs were nice too... the pool bar had great drinks and burgers/sandwiches... they did not have the luau at that time - the hotel had just opened.. also there was still construction on the convention area and Emeril's restaurant was being built.
We had breakfast at the Islands restaurant a few times and it was just your normal modern hotel breakfast... expensive but good...
We used our free meal at the Hard Rock Cafe and it was great... we used out free theatre tickets to see "SIgns" it ws so scary LOL we had the creeps walking through the hotel grounds afterwards in the dark with all the rustling of the palms... my daughter was practcally running to the lobby...
This year we are going for 6 nights on the club level at Hard Rock... we wanted the extra day to try sea world.. last year we did discovery cove which was wonderful...
I don't know if you saw my photos on my website
http://www.casshew.com
It shows the Royal Pacific, photos from the parks and Discovery Cove...
Hope this info helps...
>>^..^<<
So here it is now....Re: Universal
Well to start at the beginning... I have always gone to Disney and I did not know a thing about Universal, what it was?, where it was?.. I didn't have a clue.
Then when I was taking my daughter for the first time to Disney... she said she wanted to go on the "Jaws" ride at Disney.. she said she saw it on TV.
I didn't remember a Jaws ride at Disney so I started checking on the internet and found out it was at Universal Studios...
I assumend this was a park and that I would still stay at Disney and just go there for the day.
When I went to Universal website - I saw that they had hotels and very reasonably priced as well. Then I learned about Front of the line access and decided it was too go to be true - I had to try it.
So I made a booking for 99.00 a night at the Royal Pacific - this included park passes, front of the line access, Seaworld admission, dinner or Wet and Wild and a movie passes... we stayed 5 nights and it was just over 580.00 for everything.
Even the day I arrived - I had no idea what to expect... when we pulled up to the lobby of this fabulous newly opened resort hotel - I could not beleive it... the place is gorgeous with large sweeping views of rice patties, streams, orchids, glorious flower gardens etc...
Check in was a breeze and even though we arrived at 12:00noon our room was ready.. it was just a standard room but had a view of the roller coaster at Islands of Adventure.... I also had no idea about Islands of adventure.. this is a whole other park - I didn't even know it was there...
Well we were starving so we decided to go to the park... a short walk to the water taxis that run about ever 10 - 15 minutes between the hotel and parks... we jumped on one and it took us to City Walk.
City walk is the area in between the two parks... is is built on either side of the water canal and is filled with restaurants, clubs, shopping and the big movie theatre.... right away I spotted Margaritaville and it looked cool so we went there for lunch and it was great.. they had a kids menu that was 3.99 for all entres, including a drink and ice cream.. my daughter loved it and we ended up eating here 3 times.
Then we decided to try Islands of adventure first... this park is beautifully themed and layed out around a lake.. Noel loved the dinosaur area with rides and a discovery centre where you hatch dino eggs etc.... The first ride we tried was Jurassic Park River adventure... the wait was 45 minutes - but then I saw the "Express" lane for Front of the line access and went through the gate... we were on the ride in 2 minutes... in fact we came off and did it again and again and again and kept passing this same family in the regular line... .. they were scowling at us when we went passed them for the 4th time and they had not been on the ride yet...LOL
The next day we tried Universal and it was just as great except the rides are more based on movies...... we LOVED Jaws, ET, Men In Black, Back to the Future, Earthquake, Twister, Terminator and King Kong... we just had an excellent time
The hotel is modelled after a south pacific island.... our room was lovely and comforatble, the pool is huge and has a play area themed like the bridge of a ship with water cannons and fountains to play with.
The hot tubs were nice too... the pool bar had great drinks and burgers/sandwiches... they did not have the luau at that time - the hotel had just opened.. also there was still construction on the convention area and Emeril's restaurant was being built.
We had breakfast at the Islands restaurant a few times and it was just your normal modern hotel breakfast... expensive but good...
We used our free meal at the Hard Rock Cafe and it was great... we used out free theatre tickets to see "SIgns" it ws so scary LOL we had the creeps walking through the hotel grounds afterwards in the dark with all the rustling of the palms... my daughter was practcally running to the lobby...
This year we are going for 6 nights on the club level at Hard Rock... we wanted the extra day to try sea world.. last year we did discovery cove which was wonderful...
I don't know if you saw my photos on my website
http://www.casshew.com
It shows the Royal Pacific, photos from the parks and Discovery Cove...
Hope this info helps...
>>^..^<<
