We stayed at the Swan for our Disney portion of the trip so we ended up leaving there around 8:00 and taking an Uber to Cabana Bay. When we arrived we really liked the look of the hotel. It is cute with a definite retro vibe. There is a bar near the entrance, a diner type quick service restaurant, and a bowling alley upstairs that also serves food.
We checked in and checked our bags which was an easy process. There were only a few people at the check in desk at that time. We had bought an Express Pass for Friday so today was our wander around Islands of Adventure and Studios and get our bearings day. We took the bus to Citiwalk and walked through there to the entrance of Islands. We had been walking between 18,000 and 20,000 steps every day for the last 4 days so this seemed like a pretty long walk, mostly the part through the Citiwalk/restaurant area. I always stayed at the Royal Pacific in years past and realized that boat ride to the front of the parks is an amazing feature. But lots more money so we had to work with what we have.
Because we purchased the Express Pass we decided we would look around the parks today, stopping if lines were reasonable, but not waiting for long times. We walked into the park and immediately detoured to Croissant Moon Bakery for a coffee and quick breakfast. It's such a cute little place and the food is always good. We got a breakfast empanada and breakfast croissant and split them. Perfect amount and very good.
We started walking through the Marvel area and decided no high drop and no spinning today so skipped over FearFall or Storm Force. Hulk had a 60 min wait so we got in line for Spiderman with only a 25 min wait. We did spend that long in line but thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I'm sure it's been refurbished since the last time a rode and the 3D and blend of animatronics and screens was amazing. We both loved this one.
We continued to walk and came to Toon Lagoon. Now you have to realize that the temperatures were in the 40's that week so we couldn't bring ourselves to do the water rides that morning. We did go in and out of some shops and really wanted to use the sprayers to spray riders from both the rafts and Dudley coming by but were afraid of the sketchy credit card machines. We didn't want our info stolen lol. So we just watched the brave ones come down the big drop and the people go into those big people dryers.
We kept walking into Skull Island. Kong had a 45 min wait so we skipped it. One thing we were starting to notice is that Universal has so many more food and drinks stops than Disney. When it was really crowded at Disney we had such a hard time mobile ordering or finding a walk up without a long line. Here we felt like we walked around a corner and there was always something to choose from. Since it was now around noon we decided to have a drink. We stopped at a walk up booth and got a High Noon. We sat on the rock ledge near there and did some people watching.
After a few minutes we moved into the Jurassic area. The River Adventure was closed for refurbishment which was a bummer. We walked through the Camp Jurassic which is super cute. Velociraptor had a 90 min wait so we skipped that too. We were putting a lot of stock in using that Express Pass on a different day!
We kept walking into Harry Potter. It's so beautiful when you cross the bridge and see the huge buildings. We stopped to watch the acapella show. The kids are so talented, it was fun to see! At this point the Harry Potter ride had a 60 min wait and Hagrid was way longer so we decided to get another drink instead
. We got a beer at Hogshead, I can't remember which one. We walked through all the stores then we sat and watched people cast spells and enjoyed the atmosphere. This is something we loved to do in all the Potter areas, wander around and find a good spot and take it all in. We decided we would go do some rides in Seussland since they weren't long and then take the train across to the other park.
Stay tuned for the second half of our day....!!
