Universal Orlando Resort

Saturday, November 5, 2022

In August, a friend was texting me questions as he navigated his family’s vacation here. It put it in my mind that we haven’t been there for quite a while. I mentioned it to Keith. He said we had a Delta free companion ticket that we needed to use. So we are here.

We are staying at my favorite hotel – The Royal Pacific, a Loews hotel. You know that it is a Loews hotel, because that it is how it is written on everything. What does that even mean? I mean, I assume that means the parent company is Loews, but who would actually care? I have never heard of them and I have been staying here for 25 years. Anyway, when you get here, there is a bridge over a pretty little river and it is just our favorite place. It is actually nothing that special, but man, we must have had some really, really good times here, because we all just love it so much.

A little detail that has maintained through all these years, is that they have Figi (pronounced by us as figgy) water on the counter in the room, for $7 (I swear it used to be $8. It went down in price. Weird) you can buy bottled water in your room. This is an expensive hotel and they are so utterly tacky that they want you to pay for bottled water in your room. I always told the kids when they were little to make sure NOT to drink that water. We were talking about how ridiculous it was that it is there one time, and Benjamin piped up with, “And it’s warm.” We are never going to forget that – a great life moment.

We stayed at an affordable hotel last night, since we were getting there about midnight. We arrived here about 8:30 this morning (our affordable La Quinta GAVE us a bottle of water and some Famous Amos cookies when we checked in. THAT is the way to do it), store our luggage, and headed to the park by 9:30. Our first stop was the Spiderman ride, because it is the best.

Next we wandered along, looking and reminiscing. It suddenly turned dark and started to rain. Obviously, it’s Florida. We dashed into the Jurassic Park Discovery building and played with some dinosaur information. Next we went on the new Velocicoaster. TOTAL WIN. What a great coaster. It just has a lap restraint, but has a ton of inversions, so you feel really out there. It was so smooth, and had a boost in the middle, and velociraptors ready to eat us if we fell out of the coaster. TOTAL WIN! I don’t think it is the best coaster I’ve ever been on, but it is in the top 3 (I’m looking at you Superman and X). I grabbed the picture of the day as we headed away from the coaster toward Hogsmeade and all that is Hogwarts.

We have unlimited special access passes because we are staying at the Royal Pacific, a Loews hotel. That means except for the two big new coasters, we get to go in a short cut line. I stopped to ask how much it is to purchase (one time per ride) special access passes – $135 each per day. I wish we could have talked someone into joining us – more people (I’m looking at you Alexander, or Daniel and Amanda, or Maren) getting the special bits included in staying at the Royal Pacific, a Loews hotel. I thought we wouldn’t need special access, because maybe this is a quiet time at Universal, but no, tons of people here and we were very happy to skip some long lines. They make you put all of your stuff in lockers in order to ride the thrill rides here. It’s free, but a bit of a bother, but a bit of a great thing that you don’t have to worry about anything falling out and disappearing. We lockered our stuff and headed toward the Hogwarts ride and I asked where the access cards were. In the locker. Keith went back. He opened the locker. He took everything out. He tested to see if he could relock the locker. He could. He walked back to me. I asked where the special access cards were. In the locker. He went back. He took out his wallet and got them this time, and we rode the ride.

It was so crowded in Hogsmeade, I suggested we take the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley in the other park – a terrific connection between the two parks (universal Studios and Islands of Adventure). We wandered around Diagon Alley and went on the Gringotts ride. They have a gazillion motion simulator rides here, so you are often wearing 3D glasses. Their new 3D glasses are awful. They are very soft and flexible and on Gringotts mine went flying off my face TWICE. I caught them as they tumbled into my lap both times, but what a drag. I was trying to hold them on with one hand and hold onto the ride with the other hand and that is just not a thing. Bad.

OH! I forgot! We got a refillable soda cup. It was HOT and thirsty today and our cup was fantastic. You can get soda from the Coke freestyle machine, OR Icees. We had Mr. Pibb with cherry, because there is never enough cherry, and we had Sprite zero with grape – what a treat for the grape soda man. We had a cherry Icee (never enough cherry), a banana (BANANA!) Icee, and a lemonade Icee. Treats treats treats.

Men in Black was down and then it wasn’t and we rode three times. My middle game was decent (440,000 points), but my other two were dismal. Didn’t matter – it’s always fun. We rode the Simpsons motion simulator and the Transformers motion simulator and the Jimmy Fallon motion simulator and the Minions motion simulator and I was able to keep my eyes open (almost) the whole time on all of them. Usually the motion simulators make me nauseated, so I was doing really well.

We ended the evening at the Gringotts ride again. We came out exactly at 8:00 – when they close. The guy let us dash in again, even though the chains were across the lines. He even let us in special access – the ONLY ones in that line against the regular line that said 40 minutes. We were ON THE RIDE by 8:05. Then we didn’t move, because a woman in the car ahead of us was throwing some kind of fit. One of the men in her party couldn’t ride because he couldn’t get the restraint to close. He didn’t seem upset; he just got off and went to wait. (There are sample seats outside of all of the thrill rides, so you can check. I make Keith check because he is tummyfull. We had several occurrences today where people were just sitting in those seats as somewhere to sit and we had to ask them to move, so we could use them for what they were intended. One woman said, “What? What are you saying? I can’t hear you. I don’t know what you are talking about.” Another woman sitting in the other of the trial seats rolled her eyes and swore about having to move, but did move. What is wrong with people?) Anyway, at first it seemed fine that this man would wait for his family and no big deal, but then the woman stood up and started yelling. She yelled at her family members and told them to get off. They looked confused, but started to leave. Then she said sit down. Then she just stood there and was yelling. We couldn’t hear what she was saying, unfortunately. We were already in the car and were stuck. They emptied all the people waiting out of the lines to board the cars and moved them to the other track. We sat for 5-6-7-ish minutes while several employees tried to talk to her. Then suddenly she sat down and grabbed her restraint and told them to stop wasting her time. And we went. People are so selfish.

We left the park about 8:40 (after refilling our soda even AFTER THE PARK WAS CLOSED!) CityWalk is right outside the gates – restaurants and stores and whatnot. We went to a place called Sandwiches R Us or something and mobile ordered. And waited. And waited. It was CROWDED, because two them parks just emptied out. Then a lady came and told us that one of their oven went out and it even though we had been waiting 30 minutes already, it would be another 45 minutes. We said please cancel that order. We went to a Mexican fast food place and waited another half hour and got a yummy burrito and yummy queso (and a quesadilla that I didn’t like).

Then we walked home. I slept about 3-4 hours each of the last two nights. I was going to just write we went to Universal. Rides were good. Food took long. But I don’t seem to have done that. I am super tired. We have to be out and about before 7:30 tomorrow to get on Hagrid’s coaster before a two hour line forms. I gotta sleep!

GREAT NEWS! It’s fall back your clock night!!!!!!!