I don't know if I'll ever have time for a full trip report, but I at least wanted to post some of the major likes and dislikes of Universal for my family with some contrast to Disney. It was myself and my wife and DS 9 and DD 7
For starters my family is not a fan of Voodoo doughnuts. My wife and son got the oreo topped raised yeast one and both didn't care for them. My daughter and I got the chocolate frosted one like you would get at Dunkin Donuts. It was fine, but so is the one at Dunkin Donuts. We also got a Voodoo doll to share. I tried it, its not bad, my son didn't care for it and he likes jelly doughnuts at Dunkin. I was going to get the big Texas glazed doughnut but 9.99 was more than I wanted to spend on a doughnut.
We stayed at Portofino Bay. No issues with the hotel and I'd say the room was a bit better than your Deluxe Disney room. We had the Deluxe room with the tub and shower. The room was definitely roomy, but the kids missed the balcony. The pool was nice enough and the slide was nice, I'd say not as nice as the nicer Disney pools but they got the job done. My kids didn't like how the activities aren't catered as much towards kids and my 7 year old was not interested in a smoothie as a prize. She likes her Duckies from Disney. They were nice and gave her a ducky as a prize instead. We also tried to go over to the Hard Rock pool as well, but unfortunately the slide as broken that day so we ended up going back to our pool. I did notice how people say the Hard Rock pool is very shallow.
We took the boats a number of times from Portofino to CityWalk and back and it was a bit aggravating how out of 9 times I think we made the boat that was waiting once. Going how at night was nuts, I waited longer for a boat then I did for a bus at Disney and it honestly felt like they didn't run them any quicker at closing time than they did during the day. About the 5th night we tried walking since we ate at the Kitchen at the Hard Rock and that was much easier. I posted in another thread that the walk for me was about 10 minutes and definitely was a better walk than walking to Hollywood Studios. It was a no brainer at closing time for sure.
We had express pass obviously staying at Portofino Bay and of course it was nice, but seemed to suffer the same problem as Disney has where they seem to have a set system instead of trying to clear the fastpass or express lines. At Disney though the fastpass system is free. I could see someone paying 100 dollars for a fast pass for a day getting aggravated when the fast pass line is still 30 minutes long. It appeared that the system was we take some fast pass people, then we take twice as many regular people, then we take some fast pass people. So if a ride has an 80 minute wait, you are pretty much guaranteed to wait 30 minutes or so even with express. I actually had one time where the wait was the same or longer than the normal line because of the system they use. The normal line was 10 minutes and we waited at least 10 minutes because of the every other system that is used. I think both Disney and Universal could improve that.
The photopass or whatever universal calls it was miles behind Disney. It wasn't bad and we certainly got our monies worth, but it is much more complicated than Disney. Some rides you have to go to the counter and its frustrating when you just want to scan your card and move on while the one person working the counter is tending to the family that is taking 10 minutes to decide if they want to buy the overpriced photo. Even the rides that have self scanners frequently would take 3 tries before I could get it to scan and then find the photo. You constantly have to pull the card out of the lanyard for the photographers too. I will say that we were impressed that the photographers were willing to take pics of basically anything which we haven't experienced at Disney as much. Rip ride rocket was the worst for photos. They have a self serve scanner but that doesn't work for the digital package. You have to go to the counter, get a stupidly long number and then add it into your account on the website. And if you want that picture printed later, you better keep those pieces of paper. Luckily one of the numbers was still in my phone as my son wanted a rip ride rocket picture as one of the two pictures you get printed with the photo package. One tip we were told is rip ride rocket doesn't have scanners so while they printed the picture for us as part of the package, they said we still had another picture we could use.
Volcano bay the kids loved. We only got one day there because my older one developed a bad cough which by the time we left it seemed most employees at the park had and both kids also scraped their knees up nicely on the orange kiddie slide of all places. We got there for the 8am early entry and there was no wait for anything. We went on the 125 foot drop plunge which me and my son felt was much scarier before you do it, the actual ride the worst part was water in your face at the end. We did pretty much every slide except the two tame large raft slides. Each of the large raft slides has a tame and more adventurous one. We like the large raft slides and everyone enjoyed the aquacoaster. My son and I did the ohno slide and got nice pictures from that. We did the green drop slide in the volcano later in the day and both my son and I said we wouldn't go on it again. It was too fast and we both banged our heads. The best part truthfully was the fearless river, we spent hours on that. As others have said, after about 10, the lines for the many of the rides were 90 minutes plus, the aqua coaster and the plunge slide were over 3 hours.
We had fun with the interactive wands and while all of them would fit in the lockers including the long skull one my son got, even he said he wished he had got a smaller one as it was quite long. Speaking of lockers it was a bit confusing when you have different types of lockers between the two parks. I think they should all be standardized. Some use fingerprint, some use park ticket.
We went on the 3 water rides at IOA. I loved the Popeye raft ride. We always do the one at AK, but its really short compared to this one and you don't get very wet most of the time. About the only bad thing about the Popeye one is you get completely soaked. No way around it, you are getting really wet. We brought a change of clothes the second time so we could go on the rides and then change. It was not lost on us that Universal had the space to put personal dryers for profit, but couldn't put a little extra space in the bathrooms for people to change.
I think that is about it for now. I'd say the kids loved Universal Studios more than IOA. My son couldnt go on the Hulk so that is part of it, but it was also frustrating when there are only a few rides open every time it rains. The Studios is much less affected by that. We saw 3 shows while we were there. Sinbad at IOA and the makeup show and Fear Factor at the studios. The kids like all 3 shows and I was picked to be in the beginning of the Sinbad show much to my son's delight. The favorite was the makeup show for my son. He wanted to go see every showing, but I explained they would all be the same.
For starters my family is not a fan of Voodoo doughnuts. My wife and son got the oreo topped raised yeast one and both didn't care for them. My daughter and I got the chocolate frosted one like you would get at Dunkin Donuts. It was fine, but so is the one at Dunkin Donuts. We also got a Voodoo doll to share. I tried it, its not bad, my son didn't care for it and he likes jelly doughnuts at Dunkin. I was going to get the big Texas glazed doughnut but 9.99 was more than I wanted to spend on a doughnut.
We stayed at Portofino Bay. No issues with the hotel and I'd say the room was a bit better than your Deluxe Disney room. We had the Deluxe room with the tub and shower. The room was definitely roomy, but the kids missed the balcony. The pool was nice enough and the slide was nice, I'd say not as nice as the nicer Disney pools but they got the job done. My kids didn't like how the activities aren't catered as much towards kids and my 7 year old was not interested in a smoothie as a prize. She likes her Duckies from Disney. They were nice and gave her a ducky as a prize instead. We also tried to go over to the Hard Rock pool as well, but unfortunately the slide as broken that day so we ended up going back to our pool. I did notice how people say the Hard Rock pool is very shallow.
We took the boats a number of times from Portofino to CityWalk and back and it was a bit aggravating how out of 9 times I think we made the boat that was waiting once. Going how at night was nuts, I waited longer for a boat then I did for a bus at Disney and it honestly felt like they didn't run them any quicker at closing time than they did during the day. About the 5th night we tried walking since we ate at the Kitchen at the Hard Rock and that was much easier. I posted in another thread that the walk for me was about 10 minutes and definitely was a better walk than walking to Hollywood Studios. It was a no brainer at closing time for sure.
We had express pass obviously staying at Portofino Bay and of course it was nice, but seemed to suffer the same problem as Disney has where they seem to have a set system instead of trying to clear the fastpass or express lines. At Disney though the fastpass system is free. I could see someone paying 100 dollars for a fast pass for a day getting aggravated when the fast pass line is still 30 minutes long. It appeared that the system was we take some fast pass people, then we take twice as many regular people, then we take some fast pass people. So if a ride has an 80 minute wait, you are pretty much guaranteed to wait 30 minutes or so even with express. I actually had one time where the wait was the same or longer than the normal line because of the system they use. The normal line was 10 minutes and we waited at least 10 minutes because of the every other system that is used. I think both Disney and Universal could improve that.
The photopass or whatever universal calls it was miles behind Disney. It wasn't bad and we certainly got our monies worth, but it is much more complicated than Disney. Some rides you have to go to the counter and its frustrating when you just want to scan your card and move on while the one person working the counter is tending to the family that is taking 10 minutes to decide if they want to buy the overpriced photo. Even the rides that have self scanners frequently would take 3 tries before I could get it to scan and then find the photo. You constantly have to pull the card out of the lanyard for the photographers too. I will say that we were impressed that the photographers were willing to take pics of basically anything which we haven't experienced at Disney as much. Rip ride rocket was the worst for photos. They have a self serve scanner but that doesn't work for the digital package. You have to go to the counter, get a stupidly long number and then add it into your account on the website. And if you want that picture printed later, you better keep those pieces of paper. Luckily one of the numbers was still in my phone as my son wanted a rip ride rocket picture as one of the two pictures you get printed with the photo package. One tip we were told is rip ride rocket doesn't have scanners so while they printed the picture for us as part of the package, they said we still had another picture we could use.
Volcano bay the kids loved. We only got one day there because my older one developed a bad cough which by the time we left it seemed most employees at the park had and both kids also scraped their knees up nicely on the orange kiddie slide of all places. We got there for the 8am early entry and there was no wait for anything. We went on the 125 foot drop plunge which me and my son felt was much scarier before you do it, the actual ride the worst part was water in your face at the end. We did pretty much every slide except the two tame large raft slides. Each of the large raft slides has a tame and more adventurous one. We like the large raft slides and everyone enjoyed the aquacoaster. My son and I did the ohno slide and got nice pictures from that. We did the green drop slide in the volcano later in the day and both my son and I said we wouldn't go on it again. It was too fast and we both banged our heads. The best part truthfully was the fearless river, we spent hours on that. As others have said, after about 10, the lines for the many of the rides were 90 minutes plus, the aqua coaster and the plunge slide were over 3 hours.
We had fun with the interactive wands and while all of them would fit in the lockers including the long skull one my son got, even he said he wished he had got a smaller one as it was quite long. Speaking of lockers it was a bit confusing when you have different types of lockers between the two parks. I think they should all be standardized. Some use fingerprint, some use park ticket.
We went on the 3 water rides at IOA. I loved the Popeye raft ride. We always do the one at AK, but its really short compared to this one and you don't get very wet most of the time. About the only bad thing about the Popeye one is you get completely soaked. No way around it, you are getting really wet. We brought a change of clothes the second time so we could go on the rides and then change. It was not lost on us that Universal had the space to put personal dryers for profit, but couldn't put a little extra space in the bathrooms for people to change.
I think that is about it for now. I'd say the kids loved Universal Studios more than IOA. My son couldnt go on the Hulk so that is part of it, but it was also frustrating when there are only a few rides open every time it rains. The Studios is much less affected by that. We saw 3 shows while we were there. Sinbad at IOA and the makeup show and Fear Factor at the studios. The kids like all 3 shows and I was picked to be in the beginning of the Sinbad show much to my son's delight. The favorite was the makeup show for my son. He wanted to go see every showing, but I explained they would all be the same.
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