Universal Orlando and arrival at Art of Animation

In October we flew to Florida to take the kids on their first trip to Disney World. Our flight arrived a bit early, and we were able to get to our hotel stress free. Even though we went to Florida mainly for Disney World, we spent our first day at Universal Studios Orlando. Oscar gets a sweet work perk of one day at any Universal theme park for him and up to three other people once every calendar year, which works out nicely for our family of 4. That evening we checked into out hotel near Universal and walked over to the nearby Denny's for dinner. My expectations were pretty low for Denny's, so I was delightfully surprised by their pumpkin praline pancakes with delicious caramel sauce. 

That evening I tried to get the kids down at a reasonable hour knowing how early we'd have to get up the next day and how it would feel even 2 hours earlier due to the time change. Allison managed reasonably well. Tyler not so much. 

Their website had said the parks would open at 8:00am, but apparently that's just for Universal hotel guests. We got there close to 8:00, but ended up hanging around in the shopping areas waiting for the park to open to all guests. Thankfully we were able to get Allison an attractions assistance pass for the day due to her destructive hand picking habits when she's bored. She still picked at her hands in the lines, but at least our lines were significantly reduced. If a line had say, an hour wait, we would get a return time to come back in the express lane one hour later. If it was less than 30 minutes, we could hop right in the express lane. 

Since we had some extra time we went into the gift shop and purchased a couple fidget key chains for the kids. They kept Allison's hands busy when she could use them, but we kept having to put our stuff in lockers, so they weren't as useful as we would have liked. 

I wanted to head over to the popular rides quickly while it was early, but Allison insisted we stop for a ride on the Carouseussel. We'd read several Dr Seuss books before this trip, and she was delighted by all of Seuss Landing. It's too bad the "If I Ran the Zoo" splash area was closed. All day thunderstorms had been predicted for this day all week long, but when the day came it just ended up being gray and a little rainy, but still plenty warm (mid 80's).

We then went to Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure to get a return time with our attractions assistance pass. The wait was already about two hours (since all the resort guests were able to get in it before us), so we had to kill some time before we could come back. Tyler wanted to use his wand at Hogsmeade, but Allison got bored and started picking at her hands.  I took her over to Velocicoaster to see if she was tall enough for it, figuring I'd let her play in the Jurassic play area if she wasn't. The people at the start of the line said she was just tall enough (though she looked a little bit under to me). The ride queue is really interesting, and the wait was only about 20 minutes at that point. I told her not to be too disappointed if we got up and they said she was too short, and she said "that's okay because we'll still have been able to see this amazing enclosure." I was proud of her for having such a good attitude. When we got to the boarding area, they measured her again, one person said he wasn't sure, but another said "yes, she's okay." Allison was thrilled! She loved everything about it. 

Afterwards I let her play in the Jurassic Discovery Center for awhile before Oscar and Tyler met up with us. We tried to ride again, but this time they told her she was too short, which just crushed her. She broke down in tears saying "my heart is broken!" The wait had been longer this time (about 45 minutes), and she'd spent the whole time telling us about how much she'd loved it the first time and getting super excited to go again. As we waited in the parent swap I told one of the employees "we knew she was borderline on height, but you've got to be able to give us a definitive "yes" or "no" at the beginning of the line, not once we've waited in it." Before the park opened I'd asked at guest services if there was a way to measure her there (6 Flags does this type of thing. They give kids a wristband at guest services with a color that corresponds to their height so they don't have to be measured for every ride). The employee I talked to agreed, and he compensated us by giving us 8 individual express line ride tickets. Those were better than our attractions assistance pass since they let us get right in the express line without having to wait for a return time.

After that we took the kids to play in the Jurassic Park play area. They could have happily run around in there all day. It's GIANT! These pictures above are just the splash area.

Finally we were able to go back to Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. There are always huge lines. Even though they cut off a good chunk of the line for us with the attractions assistance pass, it was still about a 30 minute wait, and we got so lucky to be able to ride it at all. Since there's so much going on with the multiple launches, it breaks down a lot, and Florida gets regular thunderstorms, so it often closes for that too. The kids insisted on being on the motorbike side while Oscar and and I were in the side cars. Tyler and I were in the front row. It's super fun, but at the end of our ride only half of our train made it back where the covered ride queue was due to a mechanical issue. Since it was our half we were able to get out, but everyone else had to stay on in the rain until they could fix it. And since heavy rain was coming down and lightning had been spotted, it and all other outdoor rides were shut down for the next hour.

After that we grabbed some lunch while we waited on our return time for Kong. Allison needed to wear her rain poncho in the ride queue for Kong since it was air conditioned and she was freezing from getting soaked in the splash area. Tyler had brought his Hogwarts robe, which kept him warm enough. 

We then went back into the Jurassic area and rode the Pteranodon Flyers, which Allison loved. From there we hopped on the Hogwarts express to head over to the Universal Studios side. I was hoping to be able to take the train back to Hogsmeade later since it's different that direction, but we ran out of time.

Tyler took off his glasses and posed as Ron in front of his older brothers' joke shop. We then used four of our skip the line passes to ride "Escape from Gringotts" since it had an hour wait.  

Tyler whined about waiting in line to meet Spongebob and Patrick (though the line was short with only 2 families in front of us), then he was totally star struck and gave Patrick a big hug.

The kids wanted to see the Animal Actors show. I left them there while I walked over to get a return time for "The Mummy" ride afterwards. When I came back I saw Allison up on stage! She'd been chosen as "animal trainer of the day."

We then rode the Mummy, ET, and the new Villain Con just before heading back to Islands of Adventure. The Studios side closed early for Halloween Horror Night, while Islands of Adventure stayed open until 8. I wasn't super impressed with Villain Con since you can't sit down. My legs were too tired for standing on a moving platform. 

On our way out of one park before going back into the other, Tyler wanted to leave. I told him this was our one day at this park so we needed to make the most of it, but I could give them a break. We took them over to the Me Ship Olive play area while I grabbed them some sunchips and ICEE. 

After they'd had some food I took Allison on Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges. Oscar and Tyler didn't want to go, but they did go up on the Me Ship Olive so Tyler could shoot us with water and Oscar could take pictures.

I have to say this is by far the best raft water ride I've ever done anywhere. It's nice and long with great rapids and dips. You will get soaked. Even with rain ponchos on we still got plenty wet, but not soaked.

From there we walked back into the Harry Potter area to do the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride and the Buckbeak coaster. We grabbed a tasty frozen butterbeer then walked over to Seuss Landing to Ride the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley train ride.

We still had express passes left, which allowed Oscar and Tyler to ride the Incredible Hulk coaster twice in the express lane. It was Tyler's first 54 inch ride. They got in the ride queue the second time maybe a minute before closing. He LOVED it, especially being able to ride with Oscar in the dark. Allison and I got a Seuss character cupcake that was gorgeous but looked better than it tasted. We then went on the Cat in the Hat ride where Allison was just a bundle of joy. She'd just read the book before we came and was absolutely fascinated by seeing it come to life. We finished up on "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, then went over to find Oscar and Tyler.

The next day we slept in until about 9:00am Florida time. We walked over to the nearby Ihop then went back to the hotel to grab our stuff and check out. We saw little gators at the Congo River mini golf we passed on our way back. I went to take a picture of Allison then realized I'd left my phone at the restaurant, so I had to walk back for it. On the way Allison made a joke "what's Florida's favorite drink? ----- Gatorade!"

After getting chekced in we met Jenny for some mini golf. The wait was 45 minutes for one course and 20 for the other, so we took the shorter wait. Unfortunately the course was pretty difficult and didn't have any fun Disney designs like the one with a longer wait. The kids were getting hot and frustrated, so we left after 9 holes and took an Uber over to Typhoon Lagoon. The kids and I enjoyed the massive waves in their wave pool, the water coasters, and the Miss Adventure Falls family slide. We only had a couple hours before they closed, but we had plenty of fun. We tried to take an Uber back, but our driver said we couldn't be get in the car wet, so we had to take two Disney buses back to our hotels. After unpacking, Oscar stayed with the kids while they played on their tablets and I met up with Jenny at the Polynesian for dinner. There was a bit of confusion trying to figure out how to meet her there, but eventually we found each other. We had a yummy dinner then went out on the beach to watch the Mickey's No So Scary Halloween Party fireworks at 10:15pm.

We'd decided to stay on Disney property to make it easier for the kids to take breaks in the middle of our long days. I picked the Art of Animation hotel since it really screams Disney characters and has access to the Skyliner. They were really impressive visually, but they're huge and there's no transportation around them. Jenny and I both agreed that it wasn't worth the extra premium we paid to stay on property. Even an Uber would only drop us back to the front of our hotel, not take us the extra 1/3rd of a mile back to our buildings. If I'd realized how easy it was to get a relatively inexpensive Uber in Orlando, I would have booked us a less expensive hotel and just Ubered around whenever we needed to.

Here's our Little Mermaid themed room.

So much Little Mermaid! 

Here's Crush and the Big Blue Pool area. We went swimming there on Sunday when we took a day off of the parks. 

And the Lion King area. There was also an area that was "Cars"themed, but it was out of our way and I didn't take any pictures of it. We walked regularly through both the Finding Nemo and Lion King areas on our way to and from the skyliner and the busses.