I’m going to start off with this: I had no preconceived notions that Universal is no Disney, you know. I was giving them a chance. I was excited to experience this place. I got a great deal on park passes and I thought, a great deal on dining. Arriving at Universal, my first impressions were not very good. The first thing I noticed was, wow; look at the lines of cars trying to get to the parking garage. Then, a long walk to get to the park, not all that bad, but still a very long way to go and along the way, I was hit up for a Univeral Visa card.
Traffic in:
I had bought our passes online and all I needed to do was get in line at an automated kiosk to retrieve the tickets. 3 of them were down so it took a little bit longer than I expected.
Outside the Hard Rock Café:
Once in the park, we were going to go right on to Shrek 4D since it was right there. The wait time was posted at 70 minutes, so we decided to keep going to see what was available. Jimmy Neutron? Keep moving, also 70 minutes. Ok, Twister, more manageable, not too bad at 20 minutes. What was bad was the queue. It took you outside into the bright and very hot sun. No relief in this line, no misters, umbrellas, you name it. We did enjoy the show though, it was well done, a little dated, but still good enough.
We passed by Shrek again and saw that Shrek and Fiona were available for photos. Donkey was greeting all of the kids too. He is voiced by someone out of sight and he was hilarious. I was laughing so hard at some of his quick witted comments, I had tears in my eyes. There were a couple of souvenirs for sale and one in particular caught my attention:
As the day progressed, the lines were horrendous. Does Universal have a Fastpass? We were looking for it. There are ads all over the park prompting you to convert your pass to an Express Pass. I found that this is the Universal version of Fastpass, but it costs $38 per person!!! I’m not kidding, and I was beginning to get not so happy thoughts.
We went over to ET and it had broken down, so we decided to go over to the Simpsons. Wait time on that one? 90 minutes, and I think it’s redlined at 90. It can’t go more. I heard from a number of people that 90 minutes usually means, 2 and a half hours!
Over to Men in Black. We rode this one in only 30 minutes going the single rider way. This was also a good ride. Over to Jaws next; 70 minutes. The Mummy was down too. Back over to ET. Maria and Alex got in line, while I waited for Emily to hit the bathroom. Maria and Alex made into the 2nd queue, where you give your name before the ride was shut down again. We had to wait to find out where they were and then hook up with them again. I asked information from some of the folks working out in front of ET and they didn’t seem to have the same attitude as Disney cast members. They didn’t seem to care so much.
We did finally ride ET and it was a fun ride and very clever with using your names.
We complained to a very nice employee and she was very responsive and asked which ride we wanted to ride the most. So she escorted us up the exit to the Simpsons and we rode without having to wait in the stated 90 minute line.
We decided to head over to Islands of America because we found the Studios not so exciting – all the lines and rides out of commission, etc.
I had heard that the ride not be missed was Spiderman. I was so overexcited for this ride I thought for sure it would be a downer, you know how things usually are when they are overhyped? Well, we tried it. It was by far the best ride at Universal. By far. I mean this ride was awesome. If there is any reason to come to Universal, this is it.
The queue wasn’t too bad, 20 minutes it said. After 10 minutes in line, Maria and Alex left for a potty break. Terrible timing on Alex’s part, but he had to go. They decided to try the single rider line when they returned so as not to wait in the whole queue again. I was looking for them the entire time, waiting for them to come back through the line to where we were. Emily and I got on the ride when we thought that maybe they decided not to ride. It turns out that they had already been on the ride and thought that maybe we went through again. After this we all used the single rider line and we were through in no time. We did this a few times and for the most part, we were on the same ride, but we did get split up eventually.
Alex and I continued through the park, it was nearing closing and the lines were all but empty now. We rode Jurassic Park twice and he loved it. The Pteryandon Flyers had a posted wait of 60 minutes, even as the park was about to close! Alex really wanted to ride this one, but it was not to be.
I really didn’t mention the food situation, but we had bought the all you can eat deal from the web site. The problem for us was that we just couldn’t eat that much of the park food. The burgers, fries and so on were just adequate. It was just really filling somehow. In the end it was not a very good deal for us, none of us were able to eat the value of the plan. If you can eat 4 meals – not including soft drinks (separate plan for drinks) at $7 each, then you would pay for the plan.
We left just as the park closed – 10:00 and got stuck in the garage traffic jam. It didn’t take that long to get out and in no time we were on the highway back home. We would come back tomorrow, if only for a little while.
Traffic out:
Great Report on Cocoa Beach, I have been curious about how far
Can't wait for the next installment !
