10 Days at Universal/Sea World - Our Trip Report

[rowan555]

I'm going to have to do this in parts, and instead of focusing on what we did throughout each day, I'm going to post my thoughts on the highlights and lowlights of each park, etc. To start, though, I'll list a brief outline of our trip in case that might be helpful to anyone.

Day 1- 13 hour drive, spent 2 hours at Universal Studios as soon as we got to town.
Days 2-4: Universal/Islands of Adventure all day
Day 5: penny collecting at Islands of Adventure, sick kid, so we left and checked into our Sea World hotel. Spent afternoon shopping.
Day 6: Aquatica
Day 7: 3 hours in the morning at Sea World, Afternoon/Evening at Disney Quest and Downtown Disney Marketplace
Day 8: Fun Spot
Day 9: Sea World
Day 10: Drive Home


I'll start with our thoughts on Universal Studios...

Express passes: TOTALLY worth it and necessary, even after school has started in FL. The parks were packed and the lines were insane.

Royal Pacific Resort: We hated everything about it. Since there were just two of us, it would have been cheaper to stay off site and just buy the express passes. In the future, that's what we'll do. My daughter didn't like the pool area as much as I thought she would, and we hated that it was a 5 minute walk just to get from the hotel room to the pool. When we were exhausted from a long park day, it just seemed like the resort was far too huge for our liking. We stayed the first night in town at Hampton Inn for $55, and we actually found it more comfortable an inviting there, and we appreciated the fridge in the room and the free breakfast, which was actually quite nice. Next time, we'll just stay somewhere like that and buy the express passes.

Meal Deal: Total rip-off. We tried it one day at my daughter's request, and the selections were pretty gross. By the end of the day after eating 2.5 meals at the parks, we both felt bad, and the next day we ended up missing our entire last day at Universal because she had a terrible stomach ache. We would never do this again. After seeing what Sea World's meal deal is like (more on that later), I'm even more offended and disgusted by Universal's offerings. I was warned to avoid this, and I should have listened!

Photo Connect Star Card: SO worth it, particularly if you plan to ride a lot of the rides which take your photo, and particularly if you are not traveling with a big group. It was just the two of us, so having the ability to just get photos of the two of us throughout the park was a great benefit and a good bargain at $50. I do think there should be more photo connect staff circulating throughout the park. Most of them seemed to be clustered at the entrance, and we only encountered 3 photo connect people in the rest of the areas of the park during our time there.

Islands of Adventure Highlights: So many! Where to start...
The Hulk - great coaster which we probably rode a dozen times. I finally had to stop and just let her go alone, though, because it was jostling my head around a bit too much. I wish I'd gone one more time, though!

Spiderman - we LOVED this ride and probably did it five times. It was my daughter's favorite non-coaster ride at the park. We actually preferred it over Transformers, which we rode only once.

Dragon Challenge - we thought both coasters were tremendously fun, and we loved the little "Secret" shortcut to get back in line without walking to the entrance. We rode it five times in a row one day and three or four times another day. We couldn't decide which one we liked better - they were both great.

Suess area - we loved the whole thing - all of the rides were cute and whimsical, and a real delight.

Low points of Islands of Adventure:
Sinbad show - it was so bad, we left after five minutes. They could do something much better with this area.

Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls: Cute ride, but the express line needs to be improved upon. We waited 45 minutes to ride this ride, and the regular line wasn't much longer than that.

Harry Potter Forbidden Journey: Opinions will vary wildly on this...but as non Potterheads, the 60 minute wait at 8:15 AM was simply NOT worth it for us. We wouldn't ride it again. We both agreed that our time would have been much better spent riding Dragon Challenge over and over


I'll type up my thoughts on Universal Studios a bit later...time to get some laundry done!

 

[rowan555]

Universal Studios - Highlights
We really enjoyed this park, so the highlights list will be long. These were the things we REALLY loved and would do again next time we visit.

Revenge of the Mummy - I don't know what it is about this ride, but it was our very favorite ride at the park. I think we did it fifteen or more times, and I was sad we didn't get to ride it more. We just loved it. It's not high on the motion sickness scale, so for those of you who are motion-simulator averse and skip a lot of Universal's rides, this is a great one to try.

Rip Ride Rockit - that initial climb scared me half to death our first go on this ride. But after that, it's just FUN. We only rode it three times, and I wish we'd done a few more. It was a unique "twist" on traditional coaster fun.

Despicable Me - while not something I'd wait in line for to do twice in one trip, it was a VERY well done attraction, and heartwarming to boot. Don't miss it.

Disaster - cheesy as hell, but it's meant to be! I wish we'd done this one twice just to see how different it is each time with different volunteers. And Christopher Walken - how could you NOT love him?

Monster Makeup Show - wonderful cast with great improv skills made this one a real delight. Again, I wish we'd done this one twice. We laughed so hard our cheeks hurt. I expected something more "Educational", but the entertainment factor more than made up for the lack of actual monster makeup demonstration.

Simpson's ride - WOW, I've never felt sick on a motion simulator ride in my life, but this one made me feel a bit nauseated - in a good way, haha! I loved it. The lines were long when we tried to ride again, even with express passes, so we only rode once - but it was a blast.

Lard Boy Big Pink Donut - I just had to include this. My daughter begged to get one, and while I try to avoid sugar, I couldn't say no. We ate the whole thing, and she was on a sugar high for HOURS. It was pretty tasty, and considering the prices for food at the parks, it was one of the better deals for a sweet treat.


Universal Studios Low Points -
Twister - This was the second thing we did at Universal, and my daughter was afraid the entire park would be this lame. Are they serious with this? The intro video was so bad (Bill Paxton is probably praying the whole ride and every copy of that footage goes up in flames), and the actual "attraction" was pointless. We kept waiting for the exciting part, and then it was over. We were baffled that this thing is still in existence.

Men in Black - the ride could be cute, but the guns don't work AT ALL. It's like going to a really great laser tag place, only to find out the guns have zero accuracy. Frustrating and pointless. They need to get new guns that work or scrap the whole ride. The Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney (which we rode 7 or so years ago) still stands out in our minds as a really fun ride, and in comparison, it's ten times better than this.

Terminator 2 - OMG. Tragic. This attraction is so very obsolete that it's shocking they still have it open. The 3D movie is terrible - at one time, 3D was "cutting edge" enough for this to stand on its own, but today you can watch more impressive 3D at home, or on a handheld game device. Hell, my old smartphone had better 3D than this movie. The live action parts were equally cringeworthy. I actually felt angry to have wasted precious park time on this atrocity. This seems the easiest attraction to repurpose into something more modern, and I hope they do. Don't get me wrong, I'm a T2 fan! But this made me almost hate the movie I have always loved! Not cool!


The "Meh" of Universal:
Sadly, Transformers. The mechanics felt like an exact duplicate of Spiderman, but the "Story" wasn't nearly as engaging. We love Transformers, but we just didn't love this ride. It was fun, and we're glad we experienced it, but we had no desire to ride it again. We loved Spiderman and could have ridden it again and again all day. I was hoping we'd like this one just as much, or more, and we were a bit disappointed because of that.


I think that's it for my trip report of Universal/IoA - I'll type up our thoughts on Sea World and Aquatica next!

 

[RMulieri]

We were there over the same time fram and I agree about the crowds..Insane..We preferred spiderman far more than Transformers too.It didnt help that 3 out of 3 early entry mornings Transformers was down and not functioning, which made crowds at the studios worse and wasted alot of our time..We love Forbidden journey, but we only hit it first thing for early entry or last thing before park close.I wouldnt wait more than 20 mins for it .Kind of like the cheesy-ness of Twister tho..i didnt get to do as much as planned or re-try the Horror makeup show( we hated it last year but apparently it was not the norm) and only got to do disaster once ( I broke my fingers on it ) so we left early.Great report! Sorry you didn't like onsite..We love it and won't go without staying onsite.We are hoping to do a do-over when my hand is healed

 

[rowan555]

I just read your post about being injured - I'm so sorry that happened! I remember my daughter felt a bit "unsecured" on the train part of disaster. Reading your post made me realize how correct she might have been! I hope you feel better soon, and I hope you are adequately compensated for that very unfortunate situation. Fortunately, our only "injury" was a stomach-ache that caused us to miss day four of the parks. I still shudder thinking about the meatloaf at Monsters Cafe, lol.

 

[RMulieri]

I just read your post about being injured - I'm so sorry that happened! I remember my daughter felt a bit "unsecured" on the train part of disaster. Reading your post made me realize how correct she might have been! I hope you feel better soon, and I hope you are adequately compensated for that very unfortunate situation. Fortunately, our only "injury" was a stomach-ache that caused us to miss day four of the parks. I still shudder thinking about the meatloaf at Monsters Cafe, lol.

I wanted to try the meatloaf at Monsters Cafe!! Glad we steered clear.

 

[rowan555]

I wanted to try the meatloaf at Monsters Cafe!! Glad we steered clear.

Trust me, you missed nothing. I actually like meatloaf quite a lot but very rarely indulge, so I thought it would be a treat. HA! Gross, gross, gross.

 

[rowan555]

Okay, on to our Aquatica Day...

We got to the park about half an hour before opening, thanks to the shuttle schedule at our hotel. Not the best way to start a day for my daughter, who is neither a morning person nor a good-at-waiting person, heh. Once the park opened, though, we grabbed what seemed like prime lounge chairs, and we hit each of the waterslide "types" before it got too crowded. I was exhausted by the time we completed all the slides, so we took a break to go get our wristbands at the Banana Beach Cookout (we had free dining with our package). We had some Diet Coke, then we hit Roa's Rapids. This is where we spent the next 4 hours, with intermittent restroom and eating/drinking breaks. We found the "rapids" so relaxing that we really had no interest in braving the lines and stairs to ride the slides any more - we thought we'd save that for the end of the day. Unfortunately, inclement weather (which never materialized) caused everything to shut down at 3 PM, and by 4 PM we were tired of sitting on the lounge chairs waiting to get back in the water, so we returned to the hotel. We heard they reopened things around 4:30, and the people still there had the park to themselves. I was a bit sad we'd left early, but we had 6 hours at the park, so I was satisfied with our day.

The Banana Beach Cookout, IMO, is well worth the $17.99 price tag. It's not gourmet food by any stretch of the imagination, but who expects that at a water park? The pizza and chicken were surprisingly tasty, and the desserts were decent as well. The unlimited soda was GREAT on a hot day. We had the free dining, but I'd gladly have paid for the wristband. It did get crowded at times, but we never waited more than 5 minutes. They had 2 of the 4 serving lines open, and I imagine all 4 are open in the summertime.

One thing I LOVED about this water park was the little water sprayers located at the edge of all the walkways. It kept the sidewalks wet and cool and spared our feet the normal burns and pain we experience when we go to the water park near our house. What a great idea! We also loved how lush the landscaping was. It was nice to have trees and plants situated on either side of the rapids, it provided much-needed shade, and it also made for a pleasant appearance compared to the all-concrete parks we're used to.

After Aquatica we hit the outlet mall so Syd could trade pins at the Disney store. She loved getting to do that since we did not have any Disney park days planned for this trip.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[rowan555]

Following along!

Thanks! I was worried I was talking to myself, lol!

 

[zebsterama]

Thanks for your report! Very helpful for our family's trip next summer.

Cheers,
Zebsterama

 

[rowan555]

On to Sea World!

We went to Sea World for 8:30 AM the day after Aquatica, but within an hour my daughter was complaining of a headache, so we rode a few things and then took the first shuttle back to the hotel at 12:10 PM. We went back two days later and stayed all day, but it rained much of the day, which prevented us from doing all the things we'd planned to do. We missed the Sea Lion show and also didn't get to re-ride the coasters more than once, so we hope to return sometime in the future and do those things! Here are my thoughts on Sea World...

Dining Plan - THE BEST DEAL EVER. Compared to Universal's Dining Plan, Sea World's is simply amazing. Drinks are included, and the entree and side selections are far superior to the options at Universal. In addition, the desserts are to die for, and make Universal's cookie or anemic looking muffin options seem like a total joke. We enjoyed the most delicious carrot cake I've had in years, and later I had strawberry shortcake that was absolutely delicious. There are quite a few restaurants to choose from, so you're never far from a place to stop for a bite to eat, a soda, or a bottle of water. Even the beverage station in Shamu's theater was included. Amazing!

Attraction Highlights
The two coasters, Manta and Kraken, rival anything at Universal. In fact, I think Manta is the most fun coaster I've ever been on. We rode it 7 times in the two days we were there, and I wish we'd gotten to ride it a bunch more. Kraken is similar to the Hulk ride at Islands of Adventure, but it didn't bang my head around nearly as much. On both rides, we found it was more fun being in the last row then towards the front.

Blue Horizons
This show gave me chills. I loved the dolphins, and some of the "stunts" were quite extraordinary. Well worth taking the time to see this one

Pets Ahoy
Our favorite show of the trip - I wish we'd seen it twice! This was an unexpected delight, and it's so well done that any animal lover would enjoy seeing it. As a bonus, it's INSIDE - catch it in the afternoon when it's hot or raining - we made the mistake of attending the first showing when the weather was nice and we should have been hitting the coasters.

One Ocean
I know this show is apparently not as good now that the trainers can't get in the water, but it was still quite awe-inspiring, and we enjoyed it. I made my daughter sit in the splash zone with me, and let me tell you, that water is COLD! It made the show more fun, though, and we enjoyed it.

Seafire Inn
Great menu options for breakfast as well as lunch/dinner. If you only eat once during your time at Sea World, I recommend this restaurant!

Gift Shops
Great prices compared to the other parks, and we spent more money here than in our 4 days at Universal! Definitely take the time to stroll through the shops at the Waterfront. And if you're staying at a partner hotel, be sure to ask for the benefits card that grants you 10% off purchases of $50 or more. All the shops (5, I think) are connected, so you can shop each one and pay for everything at once, which makes reaching $50 pretty easy!


Low Points

Antarctica
Really? All this is is the Cat in the Hat ride, but less fun and with penguins at the end. What a waste. We waited in line 20 minutes b/c we went early, and I still felt we waited too long. Unless you are obsessed with penguins, this ride is simply a waste of time.

Turtle Trek
This attraction is reallllllly outdated. Movie "technology" like this seemed cutting edge 30 years ago, but today it's laughable. My daughter was bored to tears and hated every second of it, and I found it boring as well.

Wild Arctic
It was nice to walk through and see the animals, but the "helicopter ride" portion is a joke. It jostles you around a lot, but the simulation aspect is pretty sad.

Voyager's Smokehouse
The desserts were great, but the two entrees we had were not too good. The ribs were tough and dry and the bbq chicken salad was too soaked with ice cold bbq sauce to be enjoyable. Fortunately, since we had the dining plan, we simply walked over to Seafire Inn and had a delightful meal there AFTER enjoying our cake from Voyager!

Journey to Atlantis
This flume ride is actually "okay", but it's kind of cheesy and needs updating. My main problem was that we were in the last row, and a man in the front row had on a baseball cap which the attendant did not tell him to remove. At the base of the drop, it flew off and hit me in the nose, leaving my nose and the side of my face swollen for an hour or two. I never knew a hat could hurt that badly! I must admit, once I saw the hat in my lap and realized what had hit me, I stuffed it underneath the seat in front of me. He didn't deserve to get it back. I'm not proud of that, but at the time I was hurting and not terribly pleased with that guy, lol.


All in all, we really enjoyed our Sea World visit despite the rain and the LOOOONG lines for the rides after they re-opened. We'd definitely return.

 

[Eureka]

I felt the same way about Transformers. I got tired of robots trying to crush me. Spiderman had much more of a story; it was awesome!

 

[vacation_junkie]

It was 60 min with Early entry for HP ...OH MY!!!!!

 

[vacation_junkie]

So glad to hear you guys had a great trip. I have a tonne of questions ..maybe I’ll break them up into different posts so its easier to answer.
Sad to hear you did not enjoy the 1st hotel.

That is my concern for Hard Rock. I’m just going to book a standard room.
The only reason we are going to book HRH is for the early entry for Harry Potter.
I know we can buy the express passes if we choose to if we would stay offsite.

How did early entry work? Where did you have to go? And did it make much of a difference going early?

One of the many other ideas I’ve tossed around just staying at Springhill for the whole time, buying the express pass and just heading to the park at rope drop.
So how did you life Spring Hill? Breakfast was good?

 

[vacation_junkie]

Activities
Under perfect weather conditions
Did you find that there would have been enough to keep you occupied within the 4 parks for the whole time?

My concern is buying the Flex pass and having enough to do to keep us busy for 8 days. We are going in January so the parks won’t be overly busy.
I don’t want to hear the dreaded “I’m bored we should have went to Disney”

I have pondered just doing 2 nights at HRH & spend a day in each park then checking into a Disney hotel (By passing SH) and doing 3 days at Disney and pop over to Seaworld for a day.

Since we are big Disney fans and go every year I’m not confident by passing the world completely would be a good idea. Thoughts?

 

[rowan555]

So glad to hear you guys had a great trip. I have a tonne of questions ..maybe I’ll break them up into different posts so its easier to answer.
Sad to hear you did not enjoy the 1st hotel.

That is my concern for Hard Rock. I’m just going to book a standard room.
The only reason we are going to book HRH is for the early entry for Harry Potter.
I know we can buy the express passes if we choose to if we would stay offsite.

How did early entry work? Where did you have to go? And did it make much of a difference going early?

One of the many other ideas I’ve tossed around just staying at Springhill for the whole time, buying the express pass and just heading to the park at rope drop.
So how did you life Spring Hill? Breakfast was good?

Early entry is easy - there are signs directing you where to go, make sure everyone in your party has their hotel key (you need all of them to get in). It's PACKED during early entry and everyone is going to the same place. We only did this one day, for HP, the other days we made it right at 9.

We LOVED Springhill. LOVED IT. The room was amazing, the beds comfortable, NO hallway noise at all, the bathroom setup took some getting used to but was really convenient. Staff are all very friendly, and the breakfast was excellent each morning. If we did this again, we'd stay there the whole time and just buy express passes.

In terms of staying onsite, if you do, don't worry too much about the room being too small, etc. They actually gave us a ONE bed room, instead of two, and I was miffed. But we were in the parks for 12 or so hours a day, and by the time the day was over and she swam a bit, we just crashed. We didn't watch tv, we didn't "hang out" in the room at all. Just slept, then got up and rushed to the parks the next morning. That being said, it was one MORE reason we'd stay OFF site next time. I thought we'd take pool or nap breaks each day, but once we walked through the heat and gotten to the parks, we stayed ALLLLL day until park closing at 9 PM. There was no benefit to having a room/pool on site. We'd have done just as well parking in the garage and having a more shaded walk to the parks...

 

[rowan555]

Activities
Under perfect weather conditions
Did you find that there would have been enough to keep you occupied within the 4 parks for the whole time?

My concern is buying the Flex pass and having enough to do to keep us busy for 8 days. We are going in January so the parks won’t be overly busy.
I don’t want to hear the dreaded “I’m bored we should have went to Disney”

I have pondered just doing 2 nights at HRH & spend a day in each park then checking into a Disney hotel (By passing SH) and doing 3 days at Disney and pop over to Seaworld for a day.

Since we are big Disney fans and go every year I’m not confident by passing the world completely would be a good idea. Thoughts?

We spent 3 ENTIRE days from park opening to park closing at Universal/IoA, and we'd have spent most of the day on day 4 if Syd hadn't been sick. There were a few attractions we actually MISSED in those 3 full days that I regret missing, and there were many things we intended and really wanted to re-do on day 4. I had NO idea we'd do so much and keep having fun visiting the same parks - but it was true, for a first visit, 4 full days would have been PERFECT for us. If you and your family don't do coasters, though, I'd say 3 days tops should do it - much of what we did again and again were the coasters. Sea World can be done in one full park day, but if you enjoy the coasters, I'd devote a full day and a second morning to it. Aquatica is easily a full day if the weather is good for it.

Honestly, with the Flex pass I think you'll have plenty to do. And I hadn't yet included this, but we spent a full day at Fun Spot in Orlando, and it was a highlight of our trip - we were there from 10 am until almost 10 pm with a lunch/shopping break mid day, and I wasn't ready to leave! Syd begged to go because she was worn out. So if you need a backup plan for a filler day, Fun Spot is GREAT. We had Wonderworks as another backup plan, but we never had time to even think about it.

 

[rowan555]

Also, I have to say, my child never ONCE felt bored or complained of boredom - this was the most jam-packed vacation I've ever taken in my LIFE, we were constantly on the go and doing things. We never once had to wonder what to do.

 

[vacation_junkie]

Also, I have to say, my child never ONCE felt bored or complained of boredom - this was the most jam-packed vacation I've ever taken in my LIFE, we were constantly on the go and doing things. We never once had to wonder what to do.

Since we will be going in January the park hours are a lot shorter as well. Sea world is only open til 5 or 6 and US & IOA I think til 7pm. So wont have as much time each day to do stuff in the parks.

I think I'm just leery because were use to the over planning and over analyzing that comes with a Disney trip.

 

[vacation_junkie]

Early entry is easy - there are signs directing you where to go, make sure everyone in your party has their hotel key (you need all of them to get in). It's PACKED during early entry and everyone is going to the same place. We only did this one day, for HP, the other days we made it right at 9.

We LOVED Springhill. LOVED IT. The room was amazing, the beds comfortable, NO hallway noise at all, the bathroom setup took some getting used to but was really convenient. Staff are all very friendly, and the breakfast was excellent each morning. If we did this again, we'd stay there the whole time and just buy express passes.

In terms of staying onsite, if you do, don't worry too much about the room being too small, etc. They actually gave us a ONE bed room, instead of two, and I was miffed. But we were in the parks for 12 or so hours a day, and by the time the day was over and she swam a bit, we just crashed. We didn't watch tv, we didn't "hang out" in the room at all. Just slept, then got up and rushed to the parks the next morning. That being said, it was one MORE reason we'd stay OFF site next time. I thought we'd take pool or nap breaks each day, but once we walked through the heat and gotten to the parks, we stayed ALLLLL day until park closing at 9 PM. There was no benefit to having a room/pool on site. We'd have done just as well parking in the garage and having a more shaded walk to the parks...

Glad to hear you loved SpringHill. was it within walking distance to AQ or SW?