We just got back from Orlando last week, and while we had slated 2 days for Universal, we only needed 1, and we were able to hit all of the big rides. We were in Universal on 09/29. Here's how we did it:
- Arranged for Mears pickup at 8:30am from our disney resort.
- Arrived at Universal at around 9:15am
- We wanted to do the Studios first so we headed there. Everyone else seemed to be rushing into Islands of Adventure.
- We bought our tickets at some automated kiosk, which didn't give you all the options for ticket buying, so we just got 2 two-park/two-day passes, which includes a free third day, for $105 each.
- Proceeded into the Studios, and noticed some of the rides/shows didn't open until 10am or 10:30, but that's okay. We headed back to E.T. where it was just us and about 5 others. It was about 9:40 at this time and the park was near empty.
- Did E.T., Back to the Future, and Men in Black, all with zero lines. Had to figure out the free locker thing for MIB since you can't bring in bags or backpacks.
- Headed leisurely towards Jaws - which is currently CLOSED! - and posed with the big shark.
- Did Earthquake with zero line.
- Came to the Mummy's Revenge - this ride turned out to be our favorite of all the parks, it is just THE BEST. Put our stuff in the lockers, rode it twice with about 5 minute waits each time, and got our stuff from the lockers.
- Headed to Twister, which took about a half hour to do because it's a 'show' with the initial wait, the pre-movie, the next-movie, and then the twister experience. It gets very hot waiting outside for this one, which took about 10 minutes.
- After Twister, we headed to the Richter create-your-own-burger place for lunch. It was really not as good as i thought it would be but for a burger it was fine. Lots of napkins.
- After lunch, we went to Shrek 4-D. About a 15 minute wait to get in the door. But do not miss this one, it is fantastic. And I've never even seen Shrek. (i know, i know...)
- Went to Terminator, had about a 20 minute wait until the next showing, so we just lounged around for a few minutes, got a drink, and headed into the theater, which was half empty. it was around 1:30pm at this point.
So at 2pm, we figured we were done with the Studios. We had done all of our rides, and we had taken time to appreciate the nice surroundings and NY style streets.
We headed towards Islands of Adventure, and noticed at the ticket gate that you could get a 1-day, 2-park pass for $69. So we tried to downgrade our tickets and get some money back, and they said no at first. But we went to guest services, explained that the machine didn't give us that option for the $69 ticket (I don't know if it did or not, but we just played dumb) and the nice woman refunded us $75 and converted the ticket, no problem. This was GREAT!
We went into Islands, got a beer, and then did Spiderman twice with about 5 minute wait. This ride is our second favorite now. Just awesome. Then:
- Made our way to Jurassic Park. They said we couldn't go on the flyers because we didn't have a small child. So i guess that's just for kids? They never mention that in the brochure. The other Jurassic ride - everyone getting off was completely drenched, so we didn't do that. I hear it's underwhelming anyway, although they could have made something really cool out of it. So Jurassic park looked nice, but was otherwise useless. a bit disappointed.
- Popeye land was boring
- Suess land was kids stuff and actually hurts your eyes to look at.
- We were confused and disoriented by the park's layout. everything is around this big lake and you can't tell how to get anywhere so we did a lot of backtracking and guessing. It started getting frustrating.
- Did Hulk with about 15 minute wait. Our ride stopped halfway through for about 5 minutes and we were stuck up there with no explanation. But it is a fantastic ride. We would have done it again but we thought they were shutting it off.
- Headed towards Dueling Dragons, it takes a while to get there. On the way was Poseidon's adventure, but this was also closed for refurbishment.
- Dueling Dragons is great, we rode it 2 times - once on each track and they're both good. The blue and red trains get pretty close to each other and it is a unique experience, because they launch both trains at the same time.
- After that we got a turkey leg and a beer, and in the process had to deal with Universal employees - rude, telling me my ID looked fake, lazy (4 people standing around and no one can even take your food off the hot plate and put it on a tray and hand it to you. We had to ask them to do that.) These people are not disney employees, they are younger, don't smile, don't look like they care about making your vacation special. You truly can notice the difference, and thankfully one day off disney property was all we needed to do both parks. I don't think that Islands is making money, it wasn't crowded, restaurants were empty, and people just didn't look like they were having a great time. There are a couple of good coasters, a couple of good rides like spiderman, but otherwise there isn't much to it. Oh and we did that Dr. Doom free fall thing, which lasts about 10 seconds. Very underwhelming.
The Studios were definitely our favorite, and we did both by about 6pm, and caught the 6:30pm mears shuttle back to our resort. Mears charges $14 per person round trip, and is very easy with good service.
We didn't really have a plan for Universal, but it ended up working out great, just get there early, get the right ticket, and enjoy yourselves.
