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View Full Version : Universal Long Memorial Day Weekend - Day 2



MizMissy
06-10-2011, 02:17 PM
Saturday, May 27th – Plans today: US at opening. Hard Rock Café for dinner with the group.

We had a few friends in the group who were going to be at early park opening at IOA for Forbidden Journey again. However, after the very long day yesterday, I needed some rest and I feared a mutiny from my crew if I tried to have them dressed and out the door by 7:30 a.m. I actually slept until 7:30 (or stayed in bed until 7:30) and our plans were to meet the rest of the group for park opening of US. We kept passing by the “red ride” (Rip Ride Rock It) at US and the kids were chomping at the bit to experience it. However, there is no express pass for this ride, so we knew we would have to hit it at park opening. Another big plus about HRH: there is a quick serve breakfast place (and they serve ice cream and other snacks too) downstairs next to the pool entrance … and they have Starbucks coffee; and, the rooms have Keurig coffee makers, so while it wasn’t my very dark local coffee from home, it was a pretty good substitute. So, the hotel has several morning pick me up options. They also have a sit down restaurant with breakfast (maybe even a character breakfast?) but we were taking off too quickly in the mornings to look around much.

My crew was up, dressed and at the gates of US by 8:45 a.m. However, they were already letting people through the gates when we walked up. This was a continuing theme while we were there – at both US and IOA, the gates opened at least 15 minutes (if not more) than park opening. At IOA, they kept everyone in line to feed them slowly to Harry Potter, but at US, people were free to walk in and get in line for the rides. We went straight to the “Red Ride.” Maybe a 10 minute wait time. I was a little nervous about the ride since I seemed to have not handled thrill rides very well yesterday, but I was determined to experience it at least once. Poor DH. He loves thrill rides, but wanted to start the days off on less intense rides – with Forbidden Journey and Rock It having no express pass, he didn’t have much choice. This ride was INCREDIBLE. Oh my goodness. So much fun. It was very smooth. If you can get past going straight up in the air for multiple stories, the “drop” was not so steep. Also, what I really liked about the ride was it had “breaks” in the middle. Parts where the ride slowed down on the track before it took off again – allowing me to catch my breath.  Hulk, Dueling Dragons were just go, go, go and no break. We all rode this ride again. A tip: front seats are the best seats in the house. Not sure if the front seats are more intense or less intense, but they made for an incredible and very smooth ride. The adults met up outside the ride and the kids rode again. DH was hungry and purchased a pretzel to keep him going until lunch break (I think the kids had a pop tart in the room before we left).

Next, we headed to Mummy. Another great ride. A dark, roller coaster ride. Once again, the kids loved it. DH and I may have ridden twice, but the kids rode it at least 5 or 6 times before we moved on to the next ride. I really liked US. It was clean with wide open streets and not crowded at all. I’m not sure if it wasn’t crowded or if it was so spread out that it did not feel crowded….maybe all the crowds were still at Harry Potter World. We moved on to the Jaws ride. Once again, a really fun experience. At this point, everyone was starving but it wasn’t quite 11:00 a.m. We all kind of sat around chatting while waiting for the food places to open. Everyone in my group had Nathan’s hot dogs and fries. Others picked from hot dogs, chicken and burgers. I really did not get a good look at all the food options. The hot dogs and toppings were really good, but the bread was too big (I’ve been low carbing it since January and I had carb overload on this trip).

We had a very relaxing lunch next to the water (other than the game vendors hawking a little too loudly over their microphones). Once again, I really liked the themeing at US. This area moves from “San Francisco wharf” area to the Town of Amity and is very clean and nicely done. Men In Black ride was next. DH and the kids rode the ride with others in our group. I sat this one out because I was not interested in spinning around after lunch. From all reports, my kids loved the ride (Maybe my kids are pretty easy to please). Once again, there were long lines for the attraction, but our kids rode multiple times using Express Pass. Then, the kids hit the Simpsons. DH and I and several of the adults in the group sat this one out also. I really enjoyed the times visiting with our friends while the kids rode the rides over and over. After a few pictures next to the water, the kids wanted to ride Woody Woodpecker’s ride (think Goofy’s Barnstormer and Hippogriff ride). Thankfully, at this time, they did not know about Curious George’s playground and ball house or we would have been there a while (like we were on Monday). Lastly, everyone rode ET before we headed out of the park for a break. ET was a great ride, a nice dark, flying ride similar to Peter Pan. A lot of the rides at Universal are similar to Disney rides but with just a little more intensity added. Of course, my kids loved pointing out which rides were similar to Disney rides. As I mentioned before, I think Disney holds a special place in their hearts, but given a choice … Universal wins hands down.

The group headed back to HRH … but just to change into swimsuits and head right back to IOA for water rides. A big group of us planned to eat at Hard Rock Café early evening (around 5:30 or 6) so instead of any downtime or pool time, we went straight back to IOA. Of course, DH thought that was a crazy idea. We left him to hang out in the room or at the pool with others in the group. BFF wore her bathing suit under a pair of dri fit shorts and a tshirt, but I had not changed clothes. I sat out Bluto’s Barges, but wanted to ride Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. I love flume rides and hoped I would not get absolutely soaked … although we did get pretty wet, wetter than Splash Mountain. Dudley’s Falls was a cute ride. This is where I noticed the lack of details that Disney does so well (in general, the themeing of the ride was no where near as complete as Disney can do and there was a dirt patch area under the bridge after the drop that really could have used at least some landscaping), but my kids really never noticed the lack of details. We rode this one twice. On the way out, the kids may have ridden Hulk (NOT ME, I learned my lesson) and the tea cups. I am trying to remember, but I think IOA was extremely busy today. Long wait times on all the rides (over an hour for Ripsaw Falls, but we waited less than 10 min. each time, most of the time spent walking through the queue).

We changed and enjoyed an early dinner at Hard Rock Café. The food wasn’t great, but the service was very good (especially considering we had 18 between an adult table and a kids table) and the company was excellent. After dinner, the kids wanted to ride Rip Rock It again. We had hopes that close to park closing the ride would be short enough to handle a standby wait time (yes, we are very spoiled at this time). However, the ride was not running. The kids were disappointed, but riding Mummy multiple times in a row helped. We checked on Rip Rock It again before we left, but it still wasn’t working. We hoped it would be fixed by the next day. Back to the hotel, we chatted with others for a little while by the pool then headed to bed because tomorrow was going to be another early entry day at Harry Potter.

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buzznwoodysmom
06-10-2011, 08:31 PM
You guys are sure getting tons done. We love WDW, and I can't imagine we'd ever feel the same way about Universal, but I am loving how everything sounds so close. You can just pop in and out of each park and back to the room much quicker than in WDW, at least that's how it seems when reading your report.

NJGIRL
06-14-2011, 11:11 AM
I am loving how everything sounds so close. You can just pop in and out of each park and back to the room much quicker than in WDW, at least that's how it seems when reading your report.

There is no comparison in that respect. No buses or monorails to deal with. The walk from the HRH to the Studio is 5 mins. with no streets to cross or traffic to deal with.:cloud9: