bobbyseal
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2013
We just got back from a 3 days in the parks trip over Easter weekend and wanted to share.
We flew down on 4/14/2022 on Spirit airlines. Spirit airlines motto should be "We rob you of yours." But in this case it wasn't too bad. We had about a 2 hour flight and although I'm 6'4" I was able to shoe horn myself into the seat. Flights were on time and luggage came out without too much delay.
We took a taxi over to Cabana Bay Resort. The driver was very nice and moved right along to get us to our resort. A beautiful blue Porsche Panamera was parked in front in the valet line. And that's where the good times ended! The line to check in was incredibly packed. I figured this was a poor omen for our future weekend in the attraction lines. DW and DD timed the average interaction between staff member and guest to get checked in and it was about 5-10 minutes. Very painful. It probably took us 3 minutes to get our keys and on our way. Ugh. It was right around 10:30pm. We ended up getting a family suite which worked out well for the 4 of us.
On 4/15/2022 I was up at 05:45 getting ready to hit that oh so sweet, early park admission. Family was a little slow to get moving, and we got on a 6:45am bus to Citywalk. This is probably the one part that irritated me about Universal. I just wish I could get dropped off right by the resorts and not have to walk all this distance through the shops, etc to get to the park entrance. Anyway, I digress. We visited with a ticket agent to get our tickets and express passes printed out. Into the lanyards they went and we were off to the park.
So, we hoof it over to Hagrid's and the announcement is that the ride is currently down and they don't know when it's going to start up. This was a common theme this weekend. Hagrid's, velocicoaster, hulk, Gringot's, rip ride rocket all had down times this weekend. It seemed excessive.
Since we didn't want to wait yet for Hagrid's we did the Forbidden journey. I really liked this ride. It was fun and well done.
After this we had a yummy breakfast at the 3 broomsticks. I didn't get any pictures of the food. I think everyone knows what the pancake breakfast looks like! This fueled us up for the walk to Velocicoaster. My family bailed on me at the entrance. So, I did the single rider line. This was one of the most fun roller coasters I've ridden. What a blast! After this we did Reign of Kong, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, the Fish ride, and then a long wait for Flight of the Hippogriff. They only had one coaster going. It was all of 45 minutes even with express pass.
Lunch was at Burger Digs with a large beer. I definitely needed that by then!
My son and I went on the Bilge Rat barges. We got excessively soaked. My family bailed on me and then I rode Hulk by myself. Again, an awesome ride. Back to the hotel for some rest and then back out for dinner at Bigfire. I was pretty ho-hum on this meal. I got the strip steak, but it was pretty underwhelming. It had a nice woodsmoke flavor to it, but it was such a skinny steak. I was really hoping for a nice 1.5-2" thick cut. Oh well. The Old Fashioned was weak, too. We opted to head back into the park. I took the kids on the accelertron and we all rode the Seuss trolley train.
Dessert was at Toothsome Chocolate. The desserts came out quick, but they were definitely understaffed/staff didn't care as the tables weren't getting bussed/cleaned. Again, we made do. After toothsome, we had to get some breakfast for the next day - so here comes Voodoo doughnuts!
So, Saturday we got the ball rolling again, and made it in for early park admission. Right to Hagrids and we got in line, but it broke down when were about 30 minutes into line. We had about a 45 minute ride closure to wait through and then another 30 minute wait to get on the ride. It was about 2 hours total from when we got into line to when we left the attraction. But, I got to say, that was as great ride. Awesome themes, acceleration, characters, etc. I loved every second of it.
We did Forbidden Journey again, and got some butterbeer
.
I tried to get DS to ride Velocicoaster (c'mon last chance), but he wasn't having it. So, we regrouped and then took the Hogwarts Express over to USF.
It was just a whirlwind from there. We rode Gringotts (which had about a 30 minute breakdown while we were in line), had lunch in Simpsons land. Got a duff draft at Moes. Then we did the Simpsons ride, Men in black,
ET, Woody woodpecker coaster, Transformers, Fast and Furious, and Jimmy Fallon. DD and I did Rip ride rocket, and finally as a family we finished with Minions
Dinner was at Pat O'Brian's. I really love a good piano bar and it showed on the tab based upon the number of cocktails I had - Old Fashioned, a Hurricane, and a few beers! My son however was done with the forced march through Universal.
I'll tackle our last day in response!
We flew down on 4/14/2022 on Spirit airlines. Spirit airlines motto should be "We rob you of yours." But in this case it wasn't too bad. We had about a 2 hour flight and although I'm 6'4" I was able to shoe horn myself into the seat. Flights were on time and luggage came out without too much delay.
We took a taxi over to Cabana Bay Resort. The driver was very nice and moved right along to get us to our resort. A beautiful blue Porsche Panamera was parked in front in the valet line. And that's where the good times ended! The line to check in was incredibly packed. I figured this was a poor omen for our future weekend in the attraction lines. DW and DD timed the average interaction between staff member and guest to get checked in and it was about 5-10 minutes. Very painful. It probably took us 3 minutes to get our keys and on our way. Ugh. It was right around 10:30pm. We ended up getting a family suite which worked out well for the 4 of us.
On 4/15/2022 I was up at 05:45 getting ready to hit that oh so sweet, early park admission. Family was a little slow to get moving, and we got on a 6:45am bus to Citywalk. This is probably the one part that irritated me about Universal. I just wish I could get dropped off right by the resorts and not have to walk all this distance through the shops, etc to get to the park entrance. Anyway, I digress. We visited with a ticket agent to get our tickets and express passes printed out. Into the lanyards they went and we were off to the park.
So, we hoof it over to Hagrid's and the announcement is that the ride is currently down and they don't know when it's going to start up. This was a common theme this weekend. Hagrid's, velocicoaster, hulk, Gringot's, rip ride rocket all had down times this weekend. It seemed excessive.
Since we didn't want to wait yet for Hagrid's we did the Forbidden journey. I really liked this ride. It was fun and well done.
After this we had a yummy breakfast at the 3 broomsticks. I didn't get any pictures of the food. I think everyone knows what the pancake breakfast looks like! This fueled us up for the walk to Velocicoaster. My family bailed on me at the entrance. So, I did the single rider line. This was one of the most fun roller coasters I've ridden. What a blast! After this we did Reign of Kong, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, the Fish ride, and then a long wait for Flight of the Hippogriff. They only had one coaster going. It was all of 45 minutes even with express pass.
Lunch was at Burger Digs with a large beer. I definitely needed that by then!
My son and I went on the Bilge Rat barges. We got excessively soaked. My family bailed on me and then I rode Hulk by myself. Again, an awesome ride. Back to the hotel for some rest and then back out for dinner at Bigfire. I was pretty ho-hum on this meal. I got the strip steak, but it was pretty underwhelming. It had a nice woodsmoke flavor to it, but it was such a skinny steak. I was really hoping for a nice 1.5-2" thick cut. Oh well. The Old Fashioned was weak, too. We opted to head back into the park. I took the kids on the accelertron and we all rode the Seuss trolley train.
Dessert was at Toothsome Chocolate. The desserts came out quick, but they were definitely understaffed/staff didn't care as the tables weren't getting bussed/cleaned. Again, we made do. After toothsome, we had to get some breakfast for the next day - so here comes Voodoo doughnuts!
So, Saturday we got the ball rolling again, and made it in for early park admission. Right to Hagrids and we got in line, but it broke down when were about 30 minutes into line. We had about a 45 minute ride closure to wait through and then another 30 minute wait to get on the ride. It was about 2 hours total from when we got into line to when we left the attraction. But, I got to say, that was as great ride. Awesome themes, acceleration, characters, etc. I loved every second of it.
We did Forbidden Journey again, and got some butterbeer
.
I tried to get DS to ride Velocicoaster (c'mon last chance), but he wasn't having it. So, we regrouped and then took the Hogwarts Express over to USF.
It was just a whirlwind from there. We rode Gringotts (which had about a 30 minute breakdown while we were in line), had lunch in Simpsons land. Got a duff draft at Moes. Then we did the Simpsons ride, Men in black,
ET, Woody woodpecker coaster, Transformers, Fast and Furious, and Jimmy Fallon. DD and I did Rip ride rocket, and finally as a family we finished with Minions
Dinner was at Pat O'Brian's. I really love a good piano bar and it showed on the tab based upon the number of cocktails I had - Old Fashioned, a Hurricane, and a few beers! My son however was done with the forced march through Universal.
I'll tackle our last day in response!
