Robo56
Look into my eyes
- Joined
- May 8, 2015
Welcome friends to my trip up to Universal for Mardi Gras.
I’m a retired RN who loves to vacation at Universal. Universal has been the favorite destination for vacations with my grandchildren over the years and continues to be my favorite place to visit for vacation. When
If I’am not vacationing with the grandchildren at Universal I do go solo at times. My wonderful husband does not care much for the parks anymore, but he understands my need to be a kid and enjoy my park time.
He is the love of my life and today we have been married 34 years.
I was excited to see what Universal was going to do for Mardi Gras, but truth be told I was just excited to be going to my happy place again.
Monday February 8th
Yippee........up early this morning and suitcase in the SUV and off I went. I’am about an hour and 45 minutes south of Orlando so a quick trip. I wanted to get up to the Resort and check in and then head over to Universal. I wanted to make the best use of the day as Universal closed at 5 pm all 3 days I was there.
I decided to stay at Royal Pacific Resort again. I stayed there at end of September last year. I wrote a trip report below about my trip. This is beautiful Resort that has very well thought out Covid precautions in place. I was so impressed with all they were doing to make their guests stay with them safe and secure that I wanted to come back again.
Before you can enter the lobby there is someone stationed at the door to check your temperature and give you a colored bracelet to wear. Everyday you need to have your temperature checked and you will be given the bracelet color for that day.
When I was there in September there were no bellmen, but there was someone there this trip to assist you if needed.
You can pull up and check in and unload your bags on a trolley and take your bags to your room if your room is ready. You can stow your luggage at the bell desk if needed. Someone is there to help you with that. The rooms are usually not ready until 4 pm.
After stopping for the temperature check and my bracelet I headed to the check-in line. There are markings on the floor to make sure you stay 6 feet apart. There is plexiglass between you and the Resort check-in Staff. There is plenty of Hand sanitizer everywhere to use. I was greeted by the nicest young man Daniel. He was very helpful with all the information I needed for my stay. My room was not ready so I put my room key which is your Unlimited Express Pass in my lanyard. Daniel let me know they would text me when my room was ready.
So I was off to catch the water taxi. They had installed plexiglass between the seats on the water taxi seats. This was new from when I left in the fall. Another nice touch by Universal to help with Covid precautions.
Yeah!!!!
I stopped at the Universal Store and picked up a map for the Krewe Crawl. I was told by the TM that the Mardi Gras floats would be on display throughout the park. At 11 am the Mardi Gras costumed TM’s would through beads from the floats.
Also the food booths from the various Countries would be open at 11 am.
I asked about the AP tasting lanyard. It’s was
$ 65.00 for 15 choices. I had never purchased one of these before and decided to buy it. The fact that it does not expire made it more attractive as I knew I would not be able to use all the choices. The Tasting Lanyards are available for purchase at all the food booths.
The map was $ 7.99 plus tax. With map in hand off I went on my treasure hunt. It was about 9:45 am so I decided to treasure hunt and take pictures of the floats.
One of my favorite floats was the first I saw.
A couple of years ago I had the best time riding the Gator float and throwing beads.
to be continued
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