Spring Break 2017 - Universal Orlando

[thevolcanogod]

Part 1 - Drive and Day 1

This is my first trip report - I'm going to try and keep this brief and to the point. I'm sure there are a lot of other reports out there covering everything in a lot more detail. I'm going to give my opinions on some things.

First my background: I am traveling with my wife and two daughters (4 and 7) from the Chicago area by car. I've been to Disney World maybe 15 times and Universal Orlando maybe 5 times so I'm very familiar with theme parks. I'm also going to throw this out there: I make good money so I'm not afraid to spend it but I'm also very thrifty. I like to make sure my money is well-spent. I love good deals and I hate things that feel like rip offs. So without futher ado...

Drive Chicago to Orlando

We left Friday after school which means about 3:15 CST - getting on the road and through the city before traffic got heavy. This drive was accomplished over 2 days - the first day we made it to about an hour north of Nashville. Traffic I'd say was heavier than normal. Lots of spring break traffic. Altogether not bad tho. The stretch between Louisville and Nashville was bad last year - lots of nasty construction - but it wasn't too bad this year. It seems to have cleared up a bit. One funny thing - we planned on staying right around Cave City and stopped at an exit with a few hotels. They were completely booked up - all of them. This was completely unexpected - so my wife had to get on the phone and call several places ahead to even get a place. We ended up staying at a Super 8 which smelled like an ashtray but did the job in letting us get 6 hours of sleep.

We rolled into Orlando around 8:30PM EST and decided to hit Pollo Tropical since we were all a bit hungry and I love sweet plantains. We encountered our first real snafu - Yelp lists a Polo Tropical right near the intersection of I4 and Universal Blvd. There isn't one there. But what we did do is get into a huge traffic mess that took us 20 mins to get out of. Thanks for nothing Yelp. We found a Pollo Tropical a couple miles away and found a large line of guests ahead of us. Since we had already wasted maybe 30 minutes on this endeavor I was not about to turn around empty handed. So we waited patiently and my Fried Yucca and plantains were eaten with great gusto.

We rolled into our hotel around 11:00EST - the Best Western Orlando Gateway. Nice place - clean - easy to find - check in was a breeze. I wanted to be up the next day for rope drop so we all got to bed early.

Day 1 - Islands of Adventure 3/26

We decided to head in for rope drop and then work on eating breakfast in the park. Getting in the park was a breeze and we headed to Forbidden Journey to ride that first. I think we waited maybe 30 mins but mostly because the ride had some technical difficulties. Afterwards, we basically walked on Flight of the Griffon. Since the little ones were hungry, I wanted to try the Three Broomsticks for breakfast. Let me say, this was one of the best breakfasts I've had on a vacation lately. Not that the food was spectacular - it was decent, don't get me wrong - but The Three Broomsticks was almost empty and we had a seat by the back door and there was a nice breeze coming it. It was just one of those relaxing moments where you can sit back and just take it all in.

This leads me to a big observation about the day. This park was packed! Wall to wall people. If the crowd calculators go from 1-10, this was an 11! In fact, if you are planning on coming to Universal this week, it would be better if you stayed home. Actually, I'm completely kidding. I've been to the parks in the summer when the crowds were rated at a 9 - based on this, I'd say today's crowds were a 6-7. We waited a max of maybe 40 mins and rode most of the major rides without express passes. Weather was perfect - 81 and sunny.

Some of my favorite things: the "fastpass" tickets for Pteradon Flyers was extremely nice. We got tickets for 30 minutes from when we grabbed them, then my girls got to play around while we waited. Staff was keeping out gests who were not with children so this area was fairly empty and easy to keep an eye on the kids. When it was our time, we got into the queue and basically walked right on. Very nice way to do things!

I really wanted to try The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium so we decided to do an early dinner around 3PM. To be honest, the entire encounter was a disaster. We waited 30 minutes for a table then when we were seated, we sat there for 20 minutes before we were even noticed and brought water. Our waitress apologized for the delay and offered a free appetizer for the wait (I didn't say anything to prompt this which was nice). I'm a pretty laid-back guy so I wasn't sweating it and felt it was a nice way to make up for the extra wait. Unfortunately things kept going downhill. I ordered a bowl of French Onion and a bowl of Broccoli Cheddar soup but with an extra bowl so I could split it for my daughters. They brought out cups instead. I told the waitress it was no biggie but please bring out an empty bowl so I could split the cup. She was gracious enough to bring out a full additional cup of soup for my other daughter free of charge and told me she would adjust mine on the bill so I was just charged for a cup. Anyways, I felt the food was mediocre. We got the totchos and Brussel sprouts for appetizers. The sprouts were good but the totchos just didn't have much flavor. They should go with regular bacon instead of the fancy pork belly and dump some cheese on it or something. I got the pork chop which came out perfectly cooked to today's standards (a little pink inside) and my wife got a flatbread that she felt was too salty. My chop was good - the potatoes that came with it were overcooked sludge. After we finished I asked for the bill so we could get back to the park. When she brought the check, I noticed my bowl was not adjusted to cup. But since it was only $1 I didn't want to waste time getting it revised.

We headed back into the park and finished out a few more rides. Around 7PM we headed out - I wanted to try a milkshake at Toothsome. My daughters got the Red Velvet while I got the Hazelnut and my wife got a This May Contain Nuts. Overall it was decent deserts - for $6 - not for $12. I did not feel like we got a good value for the price. So after dinner and desert at Toothsome here's my recommendation: check it out inside but go elsewhere to eat. They have some serious issues with dinner mechanics and the food isn't worth the price.

 

[thevolcanogod]

Day 2 - Universal Studios

We got up a little late and had breakfast at the Best Western Orlando Gateway. It was 9.99 per adult but the kids were free. I felt like it was a very good breakfast - hot foods such as eggs, bacon sausage, biscuits and gravy etc. plus a selection of cold foods like cereal, fruit etc. After loading up we set out for a day in the Studios.

We got to the park around 9:30 and parked in the general parking lot again. I think I've said this several times this week, but the annual pass at Universal is one of the best deals I've seen. Parking was only $10 for being a Power Passholder. Today, since we were later, we parked up on the 3rd level. I learned that level 1 of the garage fills up first, then they go to level 3. Level 2 is for preferred parking. I'm not sure why someone would pay an extra $10 for preferred parking. It saves you an extra escalator ride and that's about all I can think of since it was an easy out at night from either the 1st or 3rd level. Anyways..

Since we were there later after park opening, Minions was already at 50 and Shrek was maybe 35 so we took a leisurely walk past Terminator and were heading for ET (one of my and my wife's favorite rides). We got there at 9:40ish and had to kill a few minutes because that area didn't open until 10. We re-activated our refillable mug and the lady I think hit the activation button twice because our mug said it didn't expire until 2 days later.

At 10, we were in the first group for ET. Afterwards, we walked over to Simpsons and rode that with about a 10 minute wait and hit Men In Black with maybe a 15 minute wait. Continuing into Diagon Alley, we headed to Gringott's. Despite it being mid-morning, we were still able to get on the ride after about a 40 minute wait.

Overall, crowd levels were slightly higher than the day before - maybe a 7. We picked our rides carefully and our max wait was 40 minutes for Gringott's. We did ride Jimmy Fallon - the virtual queue worked perfectly - almost too well. We got our callback ticket at around 1:30 and it was for 2-3. We went and rode Mummy at about a 15 minute wait and then came back around 2:15. We went in and got our yellow card. With barely enough time to look at all the displays in the first area, our color was called. I thought you would then proceed up the stairs and wait again for your color to be called but upstairs, they were already on yellow so we didn't get to see the singers or panda. We just went right in and were seated. The whole ride took maybe 20 minutes from check in to exit.

For lunch, we hit The Cowfish. We all love the Cowfish - I tried the Black and Brie Burger - it wasn't my favorite - and the girls had fun designing fish. Afterwards, we went back in and rode a few rides but left the park around 7PM and headed to Margaritaville.

Someone asked what you do with your kids while you're at the Citywalk for drinks - the answer for many will be bring them with you. And that's no problem. More than half the tables had families at them. My wife and I ordered two drinks a piece and we had the Volcano Nachos and Pretzel Sticks while we waited for the alcohol to work itself out.

 

[thevolcanogod]

Day 3 - Islands of Adventure

This was a fairly relaxing day. We had already rode nearly all the rides the first day so we didn't feel rushed. We got to the park fairly early - 8:30ish while they were still doing early entry. I hadn't had a Cinnabon in years so I decided to get a 6-pack for the family and we got coffee at Starbucks. Unfortunately the Cinnabon in IoA didn't open until 9 so we had to cool our heels until then. One funny situation: I was standing there at the counter waiting for the place to open and there was literally 3 feet between me and the window. A guy and his son walked up and squeezed themselves between me and the counter. Now I'm not a shy guy so I spoke up and said, "yea, I'm here waiting for them to open so your spot is behind me". The guy turns around with fake surprise and says, "oh, I'm just seeing if they're open...". Most of the week people were very respectful of lines and we didn't see many shenanigans but this was one of them.

After I got our rolls, we sat and ate them while watching people stream in. Afterwards, we swung through Super Hero Island hoping to ride Spider Man but it was a delayed start (this was the day for ride closures it seems). We made our way back and rode Kong with a 10 minute wait even though I really didn't want to. We then got on Pteradon Flyers. They didn't have the virtual queue up yet so we got in the line and it took around 20 minutes to ride. Afterwards, we looked at Jurassic River Adventure but the line was 35 mins - nope - so we headed to the Dragon Challenge. My wife and I haven't rode this since it was Dueling Dragons and we mostly wanted to see the theming. We thought that since we were doing child swap, we could take our stuff in and have the person waiting with the kids hold the other's stuff but they said everyone had to remove everything and put them in the lockers even non-riders.

After this, we headed to Suess Land and rode a few of those. We had dinner reservations off site at Sanaa in Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge so we grabbed a small bite to eat at Fireeaters - kabobs and hummus. Afterwards, we jumped the train over to Universal thinking to ride a couple rides over there. When we arrived, we found that both Gringott's and MIB were down and as a consequence, most of the other rides were up to 40-70 minutes. Crowds were also heavier today - I'd say maybe a solid 7 if the day before was between a 6 and 7. Since we weren't into waits, we headed out early back to the room to rest before heading to dinner.

Sanaa is an excellent restaurant - one of our favorites - and we had a great time.

 

[thevolcanogod]

Day 4 - Universal Studios

We got here at rope drop determined to ride Minions. We were successful and basically walked on. Afterwards, we headed back to Diagon Alley and had breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron - no wait, restaurant half full. When we got out, Gringott's was at 40 minutes so we headed out and rode MIB twice with sub-10 minute waits, walked onto Kang and Kodo's, went over and rode ET twice - walking on both times then let our girls play in the Fivel play area a bit. Crowds were lighter today - maybe a 5 or 6. Some rides were higher wait times but we just avoided those or did them early (Minions).

After my girls were done with Fivel, we got virtual tickets for Jimmy Fallon - they let us book a 2PM return time at 12:45 so we went over and rode the Mummy twice with sub-10 minute waits then we walked back and did Gringott's with a 30 minute wait. Returning, we rode Jimmy Fallon before lunch. I learned that when you get your card, you can immediately proceed up the stairs before your color is called. We did that and this time got to spend some time looking around and messing around with the panda. It was still only 10 minutes or so before our color was called and we went in for the ride.

Lunch again at The Cowfish. I got the Truffle Fries as an app and The Cowfish Has Officially Left the Building as a burger (didn't finish). Afterwards, we headed back to the park, hit Mummy again - walked right on this time, ET - walked on, MIB again - walked on then went into Diagon for the rest of the evening. We spent a lot of time just looking around - got a Pumpkin Juice and Fishy Green Ale. We watched the singing group and I got called up as the guy that gets the feather boa. Since I've lost 30 lbs or so and I was wearing shorts that were fairly loose, my pants almost fell down during the chorus line kicks section.

Right around dusk we got on Gringotts with maybe a 15 minute wait - we walked right through all the way to the hallway before the elevator. We finished out the night in Diagon Alley with some icecream.

One thing I noticed today - most of the rides only had one side open - MIB, ET, Mummy for one of our visits. It didn't matter today because ride times were still very short but they did that yesterday and caused some rides like River Adventure to back up to 35 minutes.

 

[thevolcanogod]

reserved 4

 

[thevolcanogod]

Day 6 and Drive

 

[macraven]

Loving your report
Will be back as you continue it

Btw, I drive 3 times from chgo north side to Orlando and dreaded it ....

Switched to flying from ohare and worth every penny to me

 

[ChipDale]

Great start! Thanks for the info on Toothsome - we are planning to try it next month and I'm trying to read about as many experiences as possible. Sounds like you're having a really fun and productive vacation so far - thanks for sharing!