This is Magical, this is Horrific, and this is Epic! TR 8/27-9/7/25

[disneyAndi14]

Hello There!

My name is Caroline and I love traveling to central Florida to visit WDW and USO! I am a Disney and Universal AP holder. I have made many trips since 2009! I have traveled with family, friends, and most recently solo! I love all my trips!

This will be a trip with my daughter Andi. Andi and I have made many mother and daughter trips over the years! We started doing yearly trips in 2009. Andi was 9 years old when we started. She is now 25 Time sure does fly!

We both love the theme parks and Halloween! This trip will focus on WDW, HHN, USO, and the new theme park Epic!

The first part of the trip is 7 nights at WDW onsite at the YC resort. We also did a HHN event on 8/28 during our Disney portion. I will review that and the Universal/Epic portion of our stay in this report!

For those of you new to my TRs, I love the Dinosaur ride at Disney and so does Andi! I do see the closing date for the ride has been set for 2/2/26, very sad I will miss it!

Keep reading if you want to learn about new to us experiences, 3 different hotel stays, visiting a brand new theme park, and our thoughts on the HHN this year! Plus many rides on Dinosaur and our daily step count, which when added up for the whole vacation is crazy It is no wonder why I have been tired this first week back from our trip!



Let’s get started, shall we?

Our trip started on Wednesday 8/27, our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:20pm. The flight was on time and soon we were in the Minneapolis airport waiting for our flight to Orlando. We had enough time to get some snacks before we boarded the flight. We had comfort plus seats with free drinks We each had a drink and watched a movie. I watched Jaws (a favorite of mine), Andi watched Wicked. The flight was uneventful and we landed at 10:45pm. Picked up our luggage and ordered a Lyft. We were on our way to the YC. I didn’t get the room assignment until we landed. The room number was 4240. I had requested 4151 on TP.

We arrived around midnight, went to the room and unfortunately it was a king bed room, why? It was a nice corner room but nothing I requested. Down to the lobby we went and explained we needed 2 queen beds and that is the type of room I requested. The CM did see my request for 4151 but this was not available. He was able to give us room 4237. It was the opposite side I requested but it was fine. We had a pool and peek a boo view of Crescent Lake.

It was a nice room and we were happy it didn’t take long to get the new room.

Here are room pictures. I didn’t realize YC had a room refurbishment since my last stay in April 2024.




I love the wallpaper!

The balcony view!

New rug in the room now, I wonder if people complained of slipping?

Cute art work

The bed was comfy and the room was clean and quiet! This room was far from the ice machine and elevator which was a little bit of a negative.

It was time to turn in for the night.

Follow me to the next post…….

 

[SaraSpringsIsHome]

Can’t wait to follow along!!!

 

[disneyAndi14]

We had a good night We did try to sleep in some. We got up around 9am. My plan was to order Mickey Waffles for breakfast. We did a mobile order and enjoyed our breakfast on our balcony. It was a great start to our trip!


I placed a grocery order with Shipt to be delivered in the afternoon. I ordered the staples we like, breakfast bars, bananas, chips, dip, iced coffee, creamer, blueberry muffins and a 12 pack of beer.

Today we planned on spending some time in Epcot on the first day of F&W. We walked to Epcot, such a nice perk staying at YC.

We started in France at Remy’s ride, we had FP$ so a minimal wait. It was fun to be touring with Andi again, it had been a year!

I was able to make a Frozen FP$ for 1pm, this was perfect since we planned to leave the park by 2pm.

We went into the land and rode LwtL, Soarin, Nemo, Figment and the updated TT in the single rider line. It was okay but nothing much changed. The queue is different and you no longer build a car. We didn’t miss this part.

Seinfeld fans always see Puddy, haha

Fabio haha Silly Dory

We did GotG next with our fancy FP$. Our song was one way or another. We still have not had the song September.

Did I tell you it was hot and for the first time I felt overheated after the ride. My face was really red and I didn’t feel very good. We cooled off in the Connection’s Cafe. I drank several cups of water and started to feel better. The heat is no joke and Disney’s air conditioning is not like it used to be in attractions. Andi told me she read this summer at Disney heat related problems was the highest it has ever been. Universal Studios did not have as many heat related problems and honestly the air conditioning at Universal was way better than Disney. Once I cooled down some, we headed out and the F&W booths were very busy so we did the Mexico QS. We shared the kids empanadas with chips and guacamole. We sat in the restaurant Hacienda. I made sure I drank more water before heading out. The CMs at the QS window were awesome.

We also had to ride a favorite of ours The Gran Fiesta

We rode Frozen before leaving for the day. We didn’t get our Frozen or TT pictures today

It was time to rest before our Premium Scream night.

Our room was nice and cool and we chilled out for a couple hours. We also got our groceries delivered around 3pm.
We worried the pool noise would be loud in the afternoon but not bad at all! It was fun checking out all the people in the pool each afternoon. People soup, haha

The next post will be about the HHN event at Universal Studios. See you soon.

 

[rdkeim]

Following!

 

[disneyseniors]

Hi DisneyAndi:
We are from Minnesota and fly into Mpls airport from up North. I hope I don't jinx myself by saying we have never had a problem with any flights out of Mpls. My grown daughter and I took a mother/daughter trip 2 years ago and had a blast. We are going again next May. It's so much fun to go with your daughter! I am following along and enjoying the TR,

 

[mickey916]

I love the wallpaper!

Me too (and the steamboat Willie lamp shade!)

We still have not had the song September.

Wow! I have September more often than not. I finally got Conga on my last trip.

The heat is no joke and Disney’s air conditioning is not like it used to be in attractions. Andi told me she read this summer at Disney heat related problems was the highest it has ever been.

Wow! That's not cool! (get it?)

People soup, haha

Too funny!

 

[happily single]

followi

 

[pkondz]

We had enough time to get some snacks before we boarded the flight.

I watched Jaws (a favorite of mine)

Knew that.

The flight was uneventful

Better than the alternative.

He was able to give us room 4237. It was the opposite side I requested but it was fine. We had a pool and peek a boo view of Crescent Lake.

Sounds not too bad at all.

I love the wallpaper!

I don't know why, but it reminds me of this:

(Presume you're familiar with The Matrix)

The balcony view!

Nice view!

We got up around 9am.

That's really sleeping in, for Disney.

I ordered the staples we like, breakfast bars, bananas, chips, dip, iced coffee, creamer, blueberry muffins and a 12 pack of beer.

Love how you consider a 12 pack of beer a "staple".

It was fun to be touring with Andi again, it had been a year!

TT in the single rider line. It was okay but nothing much changed.

Really? I thought it was all different. Huh.

Seinfeld fans always see Puddy, haha

Did I tell you it was hot and for the first time I felt overheated after the ride.

Did you get hot while on the ride? Or after, while exiting and/or after exiting?

My face was really red and I didn’t feel very good. We cooled off in the Connection’s Cafe. I drank several cups of water and started to feel better.

Good call. Glad you felt better.

The heat is no joke and Disney’s air conditioning is not like it used to be in attractions. Andi told me she read this summer at Disney heat related problems was the highest it has ever been. Universal Studios did not have as many heat related problems and honestly the air conditioning at Universal was way better than Disney.

Really! Huh. Maybe they'll wise up and turn the air up a bit.

We didn’t get our Frozen or TT pictures today

That's too bad. I always scan, just in case... but I don't know where you'd scan for Frozen, though. Not that I recall at least.

People soup, haha

The next post will be about the HHN event at Universal Studios. See you soon.

 

[disneyAndi14]

Tonight was the HHN Premium Scream Event. I had read about the one last year, which was the first one US did and thought it would be amazing to do this. It happened to work out for our dates so I bought the tickets soon as they became available. The Premium Scream was advertised as a one night event with low crowds to tour all the houses, do the shows, and walk through the scare zones. The food all night was included in the ticket cost. The description stated people would be pulsed through the houses at a slower pace. This was a perk we really wanted to see since the regular nights you tour the houses rather quickly.

Last year,this event did not sell out and it was capped at 5000 people, this year it did sell out and was capped at 7500, so definitely was going to be more people than the previous year. We still knew it would be way less people than a regular HHN.

We took a Lyft from the YC to the Hard Rock Hotel (HRH)

HRH is the closest to the Universal entrance with a wonderful walkway right to the park. The skies were dark and it did look like it was going to rain soon, spoiler it does!

Another plus to being dropped off at HRH is the security is right on the path and never very busy.

There had been only one media/TM night for HHN a few nights before this so we did not know the lay out at all. We did know the houses this year and a little synopsis of each one.

Universal usually does 5 IP houses which are based on a movie, series, video game etc and the other 5 houses are original to Universal’s creative teams. I will talk about our night in general here and in the next post rate the houses and use the synopsis from Universal’s website.

We got to the entrance and checked in and were given a lanyard with a card on it for the event. The lanyard was nice and reusable.

Entrance area this year




We started going in houses as soon as it started. It did start raining waiting for the first house but not too bad.

Unfortunately the rain did turn into a monsoon rain event for about 2 hours. We were able to be under some tarps at times but overall our feet got soaked, ugh so uncomfortable with wet shoes and socks.

We did find some inconsistencies with the pulsing at the different houses, sometime the wait was like 30+ minutes if they were pulsing and at other ones the wait was around 15-20 minutes. We did find it wasn’t walk on by any means and it did take us until 12:30 to do all the houses, walk around the scare zones, and stop for food a couple times. The food booths specifically for the houses had long lines.

We did stop at Richter burger for Andi to get a veggie burger and fries. We could get all the soda we wanted from the Coke Freestyle machines or actual bottles of Coke and Diet Coke. We tried the churros with three sauces at one booth and not very good, the sauces were good. I tried the spaghetti and meatball pizza from 5 Nights at Freddie’s and the cupcake from the franchise. Both were really good. The cupcake was huge and we shared it. It was chocolate with a really good strawberry buttercream and a raspberry/vanilla cream center.

We watched some of the water show, it was really cool.

Pictures with a few characters, the girl is from the dollhouse house and the artist from El Artista



Mel’s Die In, they had zombie wait staff on rollerblades with body parts on their trays! Andi and I joked they were probably afraid of me taking off my wet socks and putting dry ones on, my feet will even scare a zombie haha


We stayed until 12:45 and walked back to the HRH to get a Lyft back to the YC.

Overall this was a great event, of course the 2nd year it is more crowded and sold out but way less people than a regular night. I don’t think we would do it again, mostly because we couldn’t eat/drink enough to make the ticket worth it. It was $350 a person with my AP discount and a regular night with my AP discount and the Express Pass is $230, this does not include food but we definitely did not each eat $120 worth of food. We are glad we did it, we just wouldn’t do again.

I need to give a shout out to the YC night staff, both nights we were in the lobby around 1am and they are so friendly and wanted to hear all about our night. Plus the staff outside were excellent, the front entrance of YC is under construction so the ride share and private vehicles have this little area to come and go from, and the YC staff out there are wonderful at all hours!

Follow me to the next post….

 

[disneyAndi14]

Here are the pictures with the little synopsis of each house and how we ranked the houses this first night. We will have one more night at HHN later on in the trip.





#1 El Artisa A Spanish Haunting, this was amazing and an original US house

#2 Galkin Monsters of the North, another amazing original house with large puppets and a beautiful set.

#3 Terrifier, this is a movie franchise I have never seen. The clown Art in the house was crazy scary and funny at the same time. This was a gory house with many jump scares!

#4 Graves of Flesh, very creepy original US House, you descend deep into the catacombs of a graveyard!

#5 Five Nights at Freddie’s, based on a video game and movie, I saw the movie before this trip and I thought it was just meh, the house was really cool with the actual animatronics from the movie set and puppets from Jim Henson’s company.

#6 Jason Universe, based on all the Friday the 13th movies so many jump scares in this one.

#7 Hatchet and Chains Demon Bounty Hunters, this is an original house with a cool western set, a train and a lot of jump scares!

#8 Dolls Let’s Play Dead, an original house where we our doll size and this naughty girl does terrible things to her dolls, like a R rated Sid from Toy Story!

#9 Fallout, this is based on the Amazon Prime series post nuclear war, I watched the series to get ready for the house. I really liked the series, the house was not that great, it wasn’t really scary I thought it could have been better based on the show.

#10 The Horror of the Wyatt Sicks, this was based on the professional franchise in the WWE smack down brand. Like fun house characters based on Bray Wyatt who is now dead. I thought the house was cool with big huge scare actors but I didn’t know anything about it. I think it was better than Fallout for a House but I gave 9 to Fallout because I knew more about the series.

All in all great houses this year. The scare zones were good but they have been better in the past. The cat lady on crooked lane was the best scare zone this year in my opinion. The toxic twenties and masquerade dance with death were the other ones we enjoyed walking through. Some scare zone pictures.







Here are the step stats from this day 31,754!

Stay tuned for a MK day coming up soon!

 

[Steppesister]

I’m here!!!

 

[Wood Nymph]

The bed was comfy and the room was clean and quiet! This room was far from the ice machine and elevator which was a little bit of a negative.

I really like the YC rooms. They have the best showers. I like your room view. But they shouldn't have given you a king bedroom when you specifically asked for two queens. At least they could move you, but I bet you just wanted to get into your room as soon as possible.

Today we planned on spending some time in Epcot on the first day of F&W. We walked to Epcot, such a nice perk staying at YC.

That's the biggest selling point when staying at the YC/BC/BW. I love being able to quickly go into Epcot for fireworks at night.

Did I tell you it was hot and for the first time I felt overheated after the ride. My face was really red and I didn’t feel very good.

The summer heat is brutal in WDW. They don't have enough shade. The concrete holds the heat, too. My husband got overheated like you did during our June trip. Luckily, we had a lunch reservation at The Plaza and all of us felt better after being in AC for over an hour.

Unfortunately the rain did turn into a monsoon rain event for about 2 hours. We were able to be under some tarps at times but overall our feet got soaked, ugh so uncomfortable with wet shoes and socks.

I hate wearing soaking wet shoes. I bought some disposable shoe covers are that designed for theme park use. I haven't had to use them yet, but I think it is a matter of time before I do.

I need to give a shout out to the YC night staff, both nights we were in the lobby around 1am and they are so friendly and wanted to hear all about our night.

That was a nice end to your evening.

You must have been exhausted by then.