The first trip of a lifetime trip report - day 2

[jothp]

Day 2 - Thursday 13th August Universal Studios - part 1

After an early night both DH and I were woken at about 11.30pm to a huge disturbance outside in the corridor. I have no idea what was going on but there was lots of shouting and screaming. Luckily we fell back to sleep quickly but I was wide awake again at 3am. I dozed on and off until 4 but couldn't get back to sleep so just browsed the internet on my phone while waiting for everyone else to wake up. Harriet and Evie were up about 4.30, Olie at 5 and Robyn had a long lay in until 5.30am. We got ourselves ready in a leisurely fashion and went up to the club room for breakfast as soon as it opened at 7am.

The breakfast selection was well worth the extra money we paid to stay club. There were croissants, various other pastries and muffins, melon and pineapple, several different meats, boiled eggs, orange and apple juice, tea and coffee and bread to make toast. Unfortunately I realised I had left the email for our prepaid photo connect in the room so we had to pop back to collect it making us a little later than I wanted getting on the water taxi. We were on our way by 7.45 and arrived at the studios soon after. We went straight to Harry Potter to find a 20 minute posted wait for Gringotts. The queue passed quickly as we spent the time chatting with a lovely English family with two boys who were nearly at the end of their holiday. Hello if you are out there. I felt that Gringotts was very clever and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Evie wasn't so keen though as she didn't like the images of the baddies. She did agree to ride again another day for mummy though.



After Gringotts we popped into a nearly empty Ollivanders to see a wand choose a girl and then carried on through to the shop so that Hattie and Evie could choose their new interactive wands. At this point Robyn was still convinced that she didn't want one so we all happily left the shop with two shiny new wands.





Evie was by now desperate to get on the minion ride so we decided to walk back in that direction, stopping off at Rip Ride Rockit on the way. Olie, Hattie and Robyn went on once. The girls loved it but Olie hated it so we let the girls go back on as the express queue was short. After this we made it to minion mayhem and waited about 20 minutes in the express queue. This was one of our favourites from the trip. By now it was about 10.30 and we were all feeling tired from our early morning and thirsty so we decided to head back to the hotel and grab a drink from the club room.

 

[dixonsontour]

Club sounds good.

Early wake up first few days is inevitable I think

 

[chocolateMinnie]

enjoying so far - looking forward to the rest.

 

[jothp]

Club sounds good.

Early wake up first few days is inevitable I think

Thanks, we thought the club was really worthwhile. We paid an extra £200 for 4 nights for the 5 of us but we had 4 breakfasts plus loads of drinks and snacks so definitely a bargain.

enjoying so far - looking forward to the rest.

Thanks - I'm enjoying writing it.

 

[jothp]

Part 2

The girls were desperate to get into the pool so after a cool down and drinks in the club room we got ourselves changed and spent over an hour in the pool before popping to the club room once more for more drinks and snacks. By now it was about 1pm and was raining hard. We waited around until about 2.30pm for the rain to stop before heading back out to Universal Studios. Olie took Robyn and Hattie on the revenge of the mummy but Evie wasn't tall enough. We tried to repeat minion mayhem but the queue was so long even with express that we decided not to bother and shared a frozen lemonade whilst waiting instead. After this we did Shrek. The express queue looked short but it seemed to take forever, we did however enjoy it once we got on. By the time we came out the heavens had opened again. We sheltered by the exit for a while before making a dash to Mel's Diner. This restaurant wasn't on our list of places to try and we only went there because it was nearby and dry. We shared 3 meals between the 5 of us and it cost $45. The food was ok but it isn't somewhere I would go out of my way to eat at again - there are so many better places. After eating we headed over to try out Men in Black as it was spitting about again. Olie won by miles and even the older two girls beat me . Next it was back to Diagon Alley to shop in Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes as it was all Robyn had wanted to do all day since we walked past it first thing.



What seemed like a very long time later we left armed with one pink pygmy puff named poofy, one purple pygmy puff named angel, a jar of u no poo sweets and some bertie botts every flavour beans. As we came out of the shop it was around 6.30pm and the sky was looking very dark. We were all tired after our early wake up so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.
I have to apologise here as I seem to have only a few pictures from our time at universal - it does get a bit better over the next few days.

 

[bex7583]

i need to look in to this club level sounds great , love a good breakfast and find we spend a lot less through the day when had one

 

[jothp]

We loved club level and only bought one meal a day the whole time we were there. The breakfast was always fresh and things were replenished quickly when they ran out. Drinks were available all day 7am-9 or 10pm. Across lunchtime there were crisps/fruit/cereal bars out - I think we were only there for that one day and tended to make lunch the meal we bought. Later on across dinner time they served one salad, one main course some carrot/pepper sticks etc and a selection of crackers everyday. Even our fussy daughter managed to fill herself up on crackers! After this later in the evening they served sweets - two different miniature cakes and a selection of cookies. We didn't take any pictures of the club lounge but if you go onto the universal boards on here there is a thread about club level with some pictures of the food offerings.