This is the first excursion day and our ship docked at Port Canaveral, Florida, early in the morning. Shortly thereafter, we disembarked and got on a bus which whisked us away to Universal's Islands of Adventure, in Orlando. We entered the park and headed right to the Harry Potter world, their new and star attraction. The map suggests that many people go there early and to save it for last, post 3pm, to avoid lines. All of the lines for the other rides were around a 5-10 minute ride. Since we needed to be on the bus back to the ship around 5pm, we couldn't risk this as the Harry Potter world was what we came for. We waited in line for around two hours and then went on the main attraction, where you walk through a recreation of Hogwarts Castle and then go on a 3D immersion ride, where you go flying around with Harry and company through Hogwarts and then into a Quidditch match. The lines outside the castle were long and you waited for a really long time. Then, once you got into the castle, it was not very crowded and they rushed you through the castle and we did not get very much time to look at all of the recreations, which were all well done. Would it not be better to have longer lines in the castle and not rush people through the entire attraction? Poor execution. The ride itself was a lot of fun and a lot of the flying reminded me of Soarin' at Epcot, which is an amazing ride. So, while the execution of the walking through the castle part was not done very well, the entire thing is awesome and the ride is quite worth the wait. After the castle, we went on the Dragon Challenge roller coaster, which is a repurposed ride with a Harry Potter branding applied to it; it's still a good roller coaster. Then, we went into Ollivander's Wand Shop and Cin bought a wand that was selected for her. You can wait in the much longer front line where they let in small groups of four or so and then the wand master does a show and picks a wand for one person in the group, or you can go in another line and just go in to the shop, skipping the show, which was still a long wait and led into a horribly crowded shop. Still fun. We then waited in line (can you see a pattern?) for butterbeer, which we eventually got and was, surprisingly, quite good. It was like a really good creme soda. After that, we left the Harry Potter area, having spent over half our day there.
Then, on to the rest of Universal. I was quite disappointed. We spent much of the afternoon in line, including a 42 minute wait for "lunch," which was chicken tenders and soda. There were three groups of folks in front of us when we got in line and it took 42 minutes. Unbelievable. After eating, we went on the Spider-Man 3D ride, which has another hour wait; the ride was really good, however. We then tried to go the Hulk roller coaster and found that temporarily closed. So, we went on the Doctor Seuss Sneetches ride, where we waiting for another hour or so for a ride that was really lame. At that point…we left. We had about an hour until we needed to board the buses to head back to the ship and the Hulk, now reopened, had a 45min wait, which was cutting it too close. So, we left and went to Margharitaville for a snack and drinks. We met up with some friends from home who had driven down for a vacation and were headed in to Universal for a while, and then got back on the bus, where we drove through a lot of rain to get back to the ship.
This was my first trip to Universal and I was quite disappointed. I loved the Harry Potter area and understand the lines there. Everything else was ridiculous. We were at that park for eight hours and rode four (four!) rides. Unacceptable. The insane wait for quick take-out food was unacceptable. Having been to parks that have much bigger crowds and handle everything sooooo much better (Disney), it is easy to see why Universal is a second rate park in this area and always will be.
One thing that really bothered me was the Universal ExpressPass. Both Disney and Universal offer guests the opportunity to get passes that allow one to bypass most of the line on the major attractions. With Disney, you go to the ride and get a ticket that has a return on indicated on it, based on how long the line currently is. So, basically the ticket holds your spot in line and you can go do other things. It's free, available to anyone, and seems like a fair and equitable approach. With Universal, you can buy the pass. That's the option. This, in effect, creates two classes of guests, the "normal" ones and the "elite" ones that get to skip the lines. While this is capitalism at its finest, it seems very unappealing and nasty to me. What's next, a third tier where you get to kick other people off the ride right now so you don't have to wait at all? The approach Universal is using here is very unappealing and it really bothers me. So, while the rides we went on were quite good (except the Dr. Seuss ride, which was lame), the waits and overall logistics ruined the entire experience. Really bad showing, Universal. Really bad.
After we got back to the ship, we cleaned up and went to dinner. The rest of our party spent the evening at the steakhouse for dinner, so we were on our own, which ended up making dinner much quicker. During the dinner, all of the wait staff (and that's a lot of people) danced to a song from the Slumdog Millionaire movie and all (well, most) of the women in the dining hall got up and danced too. Cin did a really good job. :) After dinner, we went to the casino and ended up spending the entire evening, until around 1am, playing roulette. I ended up about $220 up and Cin was up a more modest amount. The casino was very lively and there were two elderly women who kept dancing to all of the music being played, which was hilarious. At that late hour, we headed back to the room and slept. And slept well.
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