Trip Planning for May - Suggestions Please!

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

We have a trip coming up and I would LOVE suggestions and tips on my plans. We have been to many theme parks across the country but never to Universal. We are looking for things that are unique to Universal.


My mom, 8 year old daughter, and almost 3 year old daughter will be staying in a RP club room for four nights at the end of May with a 3 day park-to-park ticket (only buying 2 tickets - 2 year old doesn't need one and Mom doesn't care for the parks). I plan to get up early and do the parks for a couple of hours by myself for the bigger rides, then I will pick up the girls and take them for a few hours for the shows and the playgrounds before my little one's nap. I will take her back to the hotel for a nap with my mom, then I will take the older one back to the parks for more rides (that is my plan, anyway. If you have suggestions, please let me know). My older daughter is 49" tall, but she does not like scary things.

We have decided that things we MUST do are:

Food and Drink:
Butterbeer
Hot Butterbeer (I love hot beverages)
Butterbeer ice cream
Goose juice
Krusty Burger
Chicken and waffle sandwich
Candy from Honeyduke's (thinking Fizzing Whizzbees)

Shows:
All shows (the kids love shows - probably not do some of the scarier ones with the little one - my older one loves theater and makeup so I might do the horror make up show with her - but is it really scary?)


Rides:
Hogwarts Express (all of us)
Gringott's (just me)
HP (just me)
All kids rides (hopefully the little one will be 36" by then. She is 35" now)
Rip Ride Rocket (me)
The Mummy (me)
The Hulk (me)
Jurassic Park River Adventure (me)
Despicable Me (older one and me)
Shrek 4-D (all of us)
Men in Black (older one and me)
The Simpsons Ride (older one and me)
Bilge Rat Barges (older one and me)


Other:
All kids playground areas
Hogwarts castle tour

Souvenirs:
Something from joke shop (older one loves jokes - any ideas for a good one?)



I think we will have time to get all of those in with 3 park days.

Up in the air:
Dragon Challenge (is this one interesting and unique?)
Storm Force Accelatron
Ripsaw Falls (older daughter loved Splash Mountain. Is this similar, or is it scarier?)
Spiderman (how scary is this?)
Twister (heard bad reviews about this... would it scare a little girl?)
Transformers (how scary is this? Good enough for me to do alone?)
Disaster (how scary is this?)
Ollivander's (older one does not know HP very well - would this still be exciting for her and worth the wait? I love HP, but not a fan of paying $40 for a stick - is the "show" really interesting?)

Thanks so much!

 

[damo]

There won't be hot butterbeer by then. It is only a Christmas break thing.

The Ollivanders show is very cute even for people not really familiar with it.

You'll have lots of time to do everything so no real need for a touring plan. You might want to try Pteranadon Flyers with the kids though.

 

[HarleyGirl514]

We have a trip coming up and I would LOVE suggestions and tips on my plans. We have been to many theme parks across the country but never to Universal. We are looking for things that are unique to Universal.


My mom, 8 year old daughter, and almost 3 year old daughter will be staying in a RP club room for four nights at the end of May with a 3 day park-to-park ticket (only buying 2 tickets - 2 year old doesn't need one and Mom doesn't care for the parks). I plan to get up early and do the parks for a couple of hours by myself for the bigger rides, then I will pick up the girls and take them for a few hours for the shows and the playgrounds before my little one's nap. I will take her back to the hotel for a nap with my mom, then I will take the older one back to the parks for more rides (that is my plan, anyway. If you have suggestions, please let me know). My older daughter is 49" tall, but she does not like scary things.

We have decided that things we MUST do are:

Food and Drink:
Butterbeer
Hot Butterbeer (I love hot beverages)
Butterbeer ice cream
Goose juice
Krusty Burger
Chicken and waffle sandwich
Candy from Honeyduke's (thinking Fizzing Whizzbees)

Shows:
All shows (the kids love shows - probably not do some of the scarier ones with the little one - my older one loves theater and makeup so I might do the horror make up show with her - but is it really scary?)


Rides:
Hogwarts Express (all of us)
Gringott's (just me)
HP (just me)
All kids rides (hopefully the little one will be 36" by then. She is 35" now)
Rip Ride Rocket (me)
The Mummy (me)
The Hulk (me)
Jurassic Park River Adventure (me)
Despicable Me (older one and me)
Shrek 4-D (all of us)
Men in Black (older one and me)
The Simpsons Ride (older one and me)
Bilge Rat Barges (older one and me)


Other:
All kids playground areas
Hogwarts castle tour

Souvenirs:
Something from joke shop (older one loves jokes - any ideas for a good one?)



I think we will have time to get all of those in with 3 park days.

Up in the air:
Dragon Challenge (is this one interesting and unique?)
Storm Force Accelatron
Ripsaw Falls (older daughter loved Splash Mountain. Is this similar, or is it scarier?)
Spiderman (how scary is this?)
Twister (heard bad reviews about this... would it scare a little girl?)
Transformers (how scary is this? Good enough for me to do alone?)
Disaster (how scary is this?)
Ollivander's (older one does not know HP very well - would this still be exciting for her and worth the wait? I love HP, but not a fan of paying $40 for a stick - is the "show" really interesting?)

Thanks so much!

We took our 7-1/2 year old DD on Twister and my hubbie had to leave me with our other 4 and take her outside-it was way too intense for her and she's a roller coaster junkie. It may have just touched a nerve though, being from Oklahoma and we have been through plenty of real ones.
Despicable Me, however, was a HUGE hit for all of my kiddos-even the 4 year old! It's hilarious. If the movement of the ride is too much, they have a section of seats off to the side that doesn't move but you can still enjoy the ride.

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

There won't be hot butterbeer by then. It is only a Christmas break thing.

The Ollivanders show is very cute even for people not really familiar with it.

You'll have lots of time to do everything so no real need for a touring plan. You might want to try Pteranadon Flyers with the kids though.

I was afraid of that hot butter beer issue. Boo.

Probably try Ollivanders , then, and the Flyers, if my little one will grow an inch between now and then. We'd better feed her lots of protein and spinach!

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

We took our 7-1/2 year old DD on Twister and my hubbie had to leave me with our other 4 and take her outside-it was way too intense for her and she's a roller coaster junkie. It may have just touched a nerve though, being from Oklahoma and we have been through plenty of real ones.
Despicable Me, however, was a HUGE hit for all of my kiddos-even the 4 year old! It's hilarious. If the movement of the ride is too much, they have a section of seats off to the side that doesn't move but you can still enjoy the ride.

Makes sense to me. Probably skip Twister. I wasn't very excited about it anyway. The older one and I will definitely do Despicable Me. She loves those movies and we hope to meet the characters, too.

By the way, I used to travel to Oklahoma City often for business. Great state!

 

[HarleyGirl514]

Makes sense to me. Probably skip Twister. I wasn't very excited about it anyway. The older one and I will definitely do Despicable Me. She loves those movies and we hope to meet the characters, too.

By the way, I used to travel to Oklahoma City often for business. Great state!

Why thanks so much! We are pretty fond of it! We live just south of OKC.

I mentioned the Twister ride fiasco to my DD 13 and my DS 11 and they were both like "UGH!!! Adison totally FREAKED out on that ride!" Haha! And then they went on to rant about how lame and totally unrealistic it was.
But Despicable Me and Mummy we rode more times than I can count! Also-as far as water rides go the Bilge-Rat barges was hands down my families overall favorite! (my big kids loved Jurassic Park but it scared the little guy a bit!)

 

[dizneyjill]

Disaster is presented as making a movie.they pick people to play the parts.you get to see how they use green screens.you move from place to place.the final scene is being on the bart train.there is rushing water,trucks falling through the roof.fire.it is part of the movie.on the reset on the train you get to see the movie they made with all the extras.the train is the only thing a little scary

 

[Imagineer5]

Hi! I just visited Universal and stayed onsite for a couple nights at RPR in August of last year, with my 2.5 year old (she turns 3 next week!). She was 37" at the time, and the Pteranodon flyers were a HUGE hit with her!! That and the Flight of the Hippogriph! She loves roller coasters and is fearless on them - that being said, we actually had to leave Ollivanders during the show, as she was too frightened by the loud noises inside. You don't have to purchase a wand to do the show, though, but I did buy a wand and we had a lot of fun doing the special wand movements around the HP areas.

The Seuss area was a lot of fun, and the Woody Woodpecker area was awesome - I plan to spend more time there on our next trip (in May) than I did previously as she really enjoyed them. Just plan for the kids to get WET.