Universal Studios for Disney People

We are Disney people.  To know our family is to know this one fact.  But in a rare break from character, as a graduation trip for Caleb, the two of us headed to Universal Studios for four days, primarily to experience the Wizarding World.  Because we are also Harry Potter people, which came as a surprise…

My bank statement is hilarious, this morning…

Fountain of Fair Fortune (show me the butterbeer), Gringott’s (wizard money), Honeydukes (chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties), Fountain of Fair Fortune (more butterbeer), Ollivander’s (a couple of magic wands), Three Broomsticks (because food), Fountain of Fair Fortune (just give me *all* the butterbeer)… 

As a newly ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene, let me be abundantly clear that butterbeer is non-alcoholic!  Now, with that out of the way, let me also be clear that it is delicious.  I drank regular butterbeer.  Caleb and I drank multiple frozen butterbeers.  We ate butterbeer ice cream and butterbeer fudge.  I need to learn how to make butterbeer.  Perhaps the funniest moment of our entire trip came when I spilled just a little bit of frozen butterbeer, and then Caleb spilled a lot of frozen butterbeer, and he turned to me and held it out, so that he could get some napkins.  I immediately said, “Just say it…” to which Caleb responded, “Say what?” and I replied, “Hold me beer…”  He laughed.  He realized I was serious and said, “Hold my beer.”  We both laughed.  And then he cleaned up the mess.

As far as food goes, Universal is sub-par to Disney but basically gourmet compared to Six Flags.  Here’s a rundown of our meals:

Voodoo Donuts: Realistically, I had been to Voodoo in Portland (OR) several years ago, and it was delicious then, so I thought we should certainly enjoy a Voodoo donut upon our arrival at Universal.  I had a Mango Tango donut, which was very good.  The best part was the mango sprinkles, which is a little weird, because I’m usually not all that into sprinkles.  Caleb had a bacon maple bar, which he said was also good.  I had planned to go back for a voodoo doll donut but we never did, much to Caleb’s relief, as he found the voodoo doll donuts to be fairly creepy.

The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen: This was our one sit down reservation for dinner.  I discovered pretty early on in the trip planning that dining reservations at Universal are vastly different than at Disney.  If you want to eat at a sit-down restaurant at Universal, you can basically walk in and wait.  Even if you have a reservation, you might have to wait (as we did).  By the time we arrived here, we were miserably hot (more on that later), so we stared by drinking glasses upon glasses of water. I ordered Fettuccine Alfredo, which I realize is boring.  It was alright.  Caleb ordered the “May Contain Bacon” burger, which he thought was pretty good.  He also liked the fries, which is a big deal, because Caleb is very particular about fries.  We shared the “May Contain Nuts” sundae.  It was gigantic.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  Like the rest of the food, it was good but not exceptional.  I’m glad we had this experience, but I probably would not go back.  Our waitress was really great, though!

The Three Broomsticks (breakfast and dinner):  We had a breakfast voucher as part of our package.  Both of us ate the “American Breakfast” with pumpkin juice.  It was standard theme park breakfast fare.  The croissant was fresh and delicious.  The sausage was quite good.  It’s always a plus to start the day with protein.  We both enjoyed the pumpkin juice, which tasted like pumpkin pie spice.  We didn’t like it enough to order it more than once, though.  The dinner we had was quite good.  I had fish and chips, and Caleb had the ½ rotisserie chicken with corn and potatoes.  He raved about the potatoes, but he definitely cleaned his entire plate.  The fish and chips was good, but not Epcot good.  To be fair, I could eat Epcot fish and chips every day of my life, so this didn’t stand a chance.  The theming was great, but there was no access to the second floor.

The Leaky Cauldron:  We also had a breakfast voucher here.  We both had the “Pancake Breakfast.”  Same story about standard theme park breakfast fare.  Same story about theming.

Now, here’s the real kicker…  We ate breakfast once and dinner twice at our value resort (Endless Summer Surfside) food court, and it was really good: For breakfast we both had a chicken and bacon waffle sandwich.  I liked it more than Caleb did, but we both ate the whole thing.  I might have preferred it without the powdered sugar.  For our first dinner there, we both had lasagna, which was… unbelievably… the best lasagna I have ever had (Caleb said it was the best lasagna he had ever had at a restaurant… he remains partial to Grandma’s lasagna… please be advised, my lasagna is about the worst dish I make.  My kids called it “the lasagna of death” for years, so…). We also had peanut butter brownies, but by the time I ate the lasagna and breadstick, I was too full for the brownie.  I took it back up to the room, flew it home, and ate it days later.  It was still good.  Our second dinner there was spontaneous, because our flight was delayed, but we didn’t know that until we had already left the park for the day, so we decided to just hang out at the hotel for a couple of extra hours.  Caleb had a meatlovers pizza, which was exceptionally good for a value resort food court.  I had a bacon cheddar burger and fries, which were OK.  We also had the pumpkin pasties and butterbeer fudge we had picked up at Honeyduke’s.  I think I could have just eaten pumpkin pasties all week and been alright.          

We also consumed a couple of frozen slushies each from the walkway to Citiwalk because the heat was unbearable.  I had two lemonade slushies.  Caleb had a cherry slushie and a grape slushie.  He liked them both but the cherry one was better.  Obviously, I loved the lemonade one, since I got a second one.  We took refillable, collapsible water bottles, which Caleb was much better at actually refilling than I was.  There are water fountains throughout the parks, but not as many as I had imagined, based on reviews.  It might just be that we drink an excessive amount of water.  Had other children of mine been on this trip, we may have invested in the Coca-Cola freestyle refillable cups, but Caleb and I are not pop drinkers, for the most part, so we didn’t think it would be a very good value.  We bought juice at the trolley stand in King’s Cross Station.  We were terribly disappointed that the pasties available there were not pumpkin pasties, because of course we had hoped to eat pumpkin pasties on the Hogwart’s Express.

Regarding the Universal Photo Pass, I went into this knowing that it was not going to be even relatively comparable to Disney’s Photo Pass.  I reiterate, it is not relatively comparable to Disney’s Photo Pass!  The photographers who offer to take your picture at the park entrances do not frame the picture in any sort of reasonable way… forget about artistic.  We’re talking mid-late 90s snapshots with half the entrance message cut off, and maybe one or more person is blinking!  There are no opportunities for Universal photographers to take your picture at other iconic places (you would think there would be someone at Hogwarts, but no…).  However, here’s the thing…  if you are going to be there for multiple days and want your ride photos, it’s still worth the cost.  We ended up with 24 photos total and 3 videos.  The two videos from Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure made it worthwhile for me (again… more on that later).  If you want a really fun video and some decent pictures, go to Shutterbutton’s in Diagon Alley.  It’s a greenscreen deal, but the finished product is super fun.  This is not included in the Photo Pass, but it was included in our package.  

If you know me, you also know I usually take thousands of pictures on vacation (literally thousands, this is not hyperbole).  However, for this trip I decided to mostly just soak in the experience, so I took only my phone camera.  I took exactly 251 photos and 3 videos.  Caleb said, “Mom!  I thought you weren’t going to take many pictures.”  I said, “I didn’t.”  then we laughed really loudly, because we were exhausted.

Something that I had some concern over before going on the trip was the possibility that I might have to do the fat person walk of shame.  This is a little bit difficult to write about, but I have a certain degree of body dysmorphia, and it can go either way for me… so sometimes I think I look like I weigh 300lbs. and sometimes I think I look like I weigh 120lbs. and the reality is that I am not even remotely close to either of those numbers!  I am definitely overweight, and I am definitely out of shape, so I joined a Facebook group for people who are overweight and traveling to Universal to try to get some information about the sizes of the rides ahead of time.  The truth is that I had no trouble fitting on any ride, and there was never a moment where anyone asked me to try a test seat.  In fact, there was one situation where the people behind us couldn’t fit on a ride, and the ride operator asked us to trade rows with them, because we had apparently sat in a modified row for larger people.  I fit just fine in the regular row.  That said, I don’t think I would ride Dudley Do-right’s Ripsaw Falls again.  It wasn’t so much a size thing as a coordination thing.  Every person has to enter the ride vehicle by slipping their feet forward and basically wrapping their legs around the person in front of them.  I found this wildly awkward with a stranger in front of me.  Unloading the vehicle is just as bad, and I accidentally stepped on Caleb while slipping on the wet floor.  Super… embarrassing…

The rest of the rides were fairly epic.  Although we went for the Wizarding World, we are also coaster enthusiasts, so we spent some time in the Muggle World, as well.  The first thing we rode was Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket.  We bought the video, and I’m glad we did.  It was unique and tons of fun.  The Hulk was a great coaster but it gave me a headache, because I apparently didn’t have my head against the back of the seat, which resulted in a lot of movement and banging my head on the restraint over and over again.  VelociCoaster was just unbelievable!  It was one of the best coasters we have ever ridden, and there was a lot of airtime.  There was one terrifying moment when I thought I might fall right out into the lake, but of course that’s unreasonable!

We spent a portion of our first day in Suess Landing.  I would like to publicly acknowledge how great Caleb is, because I know a lot of people have children who are embarrassed by them and who might not even be willing to spend the day riding cool stuff with their moms, but Caleb never even batted an eyelash about getting on Cat in the Hat, the Caro-Suess-el, or One Fish, Two Fish.  He did arrange for One Fish, Two Fish to hit us with every… single… fountain (which was fine… we were hot).  Please note: Caleb was wearing a Horton Hears a Who T-shirt that day, because he is just that fantastic!  

Some logistical notes…  The wait times were very long.  We used the Universal app to decide where to go at what times, but it took us the entire four days to get a handle on which rides had better wait times at specific times throughout the day.  If we went back, we would be better prepared with a ride schedule.  I wasn’t willing to pay the premium for a four-day express pass.  It was expensive.  However, if I was going for just one day, I probably would, because otherwise it would be difficult to ride much of anything.  The roller coasters are also not glasses friendly!  I wore contacts for about half of the trip, but I had my glasses on when we went to ride VelociCoaster.  I had to leave them in a locker, and I could not see (my eyesight is very poor without my glasses/contacts).  I had to ask Caleb if there was a seatbelt!  Thankfully, there was only a bar restraint, so I didn’t have to fumble around looking for a buckle.  Caleb (whose eyesight is also not great) took good care of me, and we both breathed a sigh of relief when we were reunited with our glasses!    

Of course, we made the decision to go during the hottest, most crowded time of the year!  Caleb and I are the most miserable people ever in the heat and sun.  We prefer our rooms to be air-conditioned to around 65 degrees (Caleb would go colder), and walking miles and miles in 90+ degree Florida heat is not something that anyone in their right mind would choose to do with us (I have other children who like the heat much better, but Caleb and I are just dark, cold, gloomy weather people, and snow is a plus).  Every day when we got off the shuttle, I looked at Caleb and said, “It feels like Florida!”  What I meant by that is that it was terribly hot and we were basically wet all day long.  Looking around, this was also the case for everyone else in the parks.

Volcano Bay was a welcome retreat from the heat one afternoon.  The wave pool had extraordinarily long stretches of waves, and both the lazy river and action river were lovely (minus the part where I took a whole chunk of skin off my big toe in the action river, but I don’t think that’s a typical experience for people)!  We also enjoyed several raft slides (we had to ride combined with other parties, because even though they say 2-5 riders, you really have to have more than two people to weight enough) and a tube slide.  I was most disappointed in the Photo Pass situation at Volcano Bay, because I thought we would get a lot of photos there.  Part of the issue was that only certain slides have cameras, but even the ones that did didn’t always capture the picture at the right time.  I loved the queue system, because you tapped your wristband for a time to return to the slides, which meant we didn’t have to stand for hours in the heat.  We could wait in the wave pool for our slide times!  The one drawback to this system was that arriving in the mid-afternoon, all of the times for the water coaster were already full, so we didn’t get to ride it at all (there is no stand-by line).

Of course, the real draw for us was the Wizarding World.  We were walking through Universal Studios, looking for Diagon Alley, when we caught sight of the Knight Bus.  At that point we looked around and were both starting to feel underwhelmed and disappointed, but neither of us mentioned this until later.  I saw a passage that looked like it might lead to bathrooms and a water fountain, so we stepped into it, and wow, oh, wow, were we ever surprised at what awaited us on the other side!  We had accidentally stepped into Diagon Alley through the exit, and it was spectacular!  I wish there was a hidden camera there, because both of our mouths dropped!  The first thing I saw was Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, and I am something of a Weasley super fan, so that was pretty special.  The fire breathing dragon on Gringott’s is, of course, magical.  We walked by Gregorovich’s and spoke of the absurdity of buying a wand there when Ollivander’s was available...  I think I forgot this was a fictional world for a moment…  Knockturn Alley really hit me, because it is this hidden cove of darkness in the midst of so much magic.  However, it is also probably the coolest place in the whole park, so it was a great reprieve from the heat!                

One of the challenges we dealt with on this trip was that the Hogwart’s Express closed for refurbishment halfway through our time there.  I discovered this would be the case last week, so it was not surprising, but it was still disappointing.  We made sure to ride on the first day, just in case it closed early.  It didn’t, so we also got to ride on the second day.  Overall, the ride wasn’t as spectacular as we had hoped, but there is nothing like walking through that wall at platform 9 ¾!  It took us a couple of times to get this shot:

As far as the Wizarding Rides go, we rode Forbidden Journey three times and Escape from Gringott’s twice.  Both of these combined simulators and ride elements.  I tend to get a little motion sick on simulators, but I did fine on these.  Caleb liked Forbidden Journey better, and I gave the edge to Gringott’s, but they were both excellent!  We rode Flight of the Hippogriff twice, as well.  It is a small coaster, very kid friendly, but fun for adults, too, especially if the wait time is short.  We discovered that Forbidden Journey and Flight of the Hippogriff have very short wait times during early entry, and Gringott’s has the shortest wait time at regular entry time.  We really came for Hagrid’s Motorbike adventure, though!  At early entry, the wait time was 100-120 minutes!  This seemed excessive.  We kind of lucked out both times we rode, because we waited for the Florida rain to end and then got in line.  The first time was at park closing.  They will allow anyone who is in line at closing to ride, so we rode after closing but only waited an hour.  The second time, we took a chance that the line would move faster than the 120 minute posted wait, and we also got on in about an hour.  This is, by far, the best themed ride I have ever been on, and it was a pretty great coaster, overall, as well.  The elements of surprise were exceptionally well executed (backwards portions of the ride, a part where the entire track drops), and it was just so fun!  There is an extra added piece for us, though, because when Caleb was about four years old he decided that he was going to live next door to me forever and that he would own a motorcycle with a side car to take me everywhere I needed to go.  The exception was that he would have a car in case we needed to go to Disney World.  So… it was pretty special for Caleb to ride the motorcycle and for me to ride in the sidecar.  We also posed for pictures at the stationary motorbike, because that’s who we are…

Will we go back?  I mean, probably someday.  Ian is just now reading the Harry Potter series, and Miah won’t be too far behind.  Overall, Universal wouldn’t be a vacation destination for us without the Wizarding World, because even though there are a few good coasters, there is not much outside the Wizarding World that appeals.  Universal Studios, itself, only had Diagon Alley and Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket for us.  Islands of Adventure had much more for us to enjoy, but of course you have to have the Park-to-Park tickets to ride the Hogwarts’ Express between the two Harry Potter lands.  What made this trip priceless, though, was four days celebrating Caleb and his graduation from High School.  We had such a wonderful time being together, taking it all in at whatever pace we wanted and just relaxing for a little bit.  I loved every single minute of that!

L.