 We quickly walked
over to Islands of Adventure and found all the
people. It was very busy, and we headed back for an Express pass
for
Hulk. Silly me.... The Hulk express passes had sold out for
the
entire day by 10:30am. Uh-oh... Run to Spidey. Same
deal. Express
passes all gone... Grrrr... I was NOT very happy (and poor
Kristen
had to listen to it the rest of the day!) Universal has pushed
our
family right out of their parks. They can give front of the line
to
resort guests. They can sell front of the line tickets for $25 a
person. They can give express access to those that pay for a tour
guide. They can even give out express tickets in Kodak boxes if
you
can find them (not in our area – I looked). But if you JUST
pay to go
to the park then too bad for you. Sorry – all sold out.
 As I later told
guest services, we won’t be back until we either stay
on property or this ridiculous selling out of passes by 10:30 is
fixed. I think I’m the MOST upset that they sell the passes for
$25 a
pop in little booklets. I don’t mind the resort guest perk, since
those people are staying on property, and their aren’t THAT many
rooms. But selling the passes in books just seems really money
grubbing to me. DISNEY loves getting extra money for special
perks,
but they don’t give resort guests any special Fast Pass privileges and
they DON’T sell Fast Passes.
And while I’m on the money thing, Universal is very expensive – even
compared to Disney. They have a small water bottle (smaller then
Disney’s) for $2.50, and a bigger one for $3.50. Lunch in the
Enchanted Oak for four was over $50 bucks with kids meals of Mac and
Cheese priced at $5.99 withOUT a drink (Another couple bucks
each).
Parking is $8.00 vs Disney’s $7.00. And this trend
continued. I found
most everything was more expensive at Universal than the equivalent
product was at Disney. BUT you could get a 10% discount with
either a
AAA card or the Universal Mastercard. It helped a little at
certain
stores and restaurants.
 OK, rant over. We just left
for Suess Land and hit the express pass
machines there. Got passes for Cat in the Hat, and the park
worker
made the mistake of asking how it was going. I was still upset,
and
went off a bit about Hulk and Spidey. No Express passes left by
10:30am with wait times between 1 and 2 hours! No way with two
little
kids. He was super nice and understanding and told us to complain
to
guest services. He gave us two more sets of Express Passes (which
–
I’m sure – FURTHER taxed an already messed up system, but we used them
anyway)
(which I did when we left – she kept trying to give us something
(a
special pass for today or a later day – she didn’t seem to understand I
just wanted to let her know that Universal needs to FIX the problem,
but just give out extra passes to those that complain!) Anyway –
we
ended up with passes for Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, and the
Sinbad show. After our time for the first one came up, we got
some for
Dueling Dragons as well. We ate at the Enchanted Oak – very neat
inside and nice and cool. (It was a hot one today)
Then on to the
rides. Cat in the Hat is always great. Shopped for a bit,
and then
rode One Fish, Two Fish. Still a 15 – 20 minute wait with an
Express
Pass. Takes a LONG time to load. More shopping and walking
and then
dueling Dragons was up. We had gotten a later pass for
Sinbad. One
nice thing about the Universal Express Passes is that you can pick from
a few return times.
 Dueling Dragons was great and we used two sets of
Express Passes to
ride both the red and blue sides. The line for this coaster was
only
about 10 minutes anyway. Not sure why, its a great
coaster! We got
Express Passes for the Unicorn Coaster and headed off to Jurassic
Park. We did the Discovery Center and then headed back for the
Sinbad
show. It wasn’t even full, but we all really liked it. Time
for the
Unicorn Coaster and then on around the park. The wait times for
all
the Toon rides, Spidey and Hulk were at LEAST 1 – 2 hours. No
way. We
decided to head out.
Stopped at Guest Services to complain of what appeared to be deaf
ears. Sigh... They just wanted to give us express passes
for Spidey
and/or Hulk. Didn’t understand the concept of us not WANTING
anything
special, just for them to rethink this selling of passes. It
really
screws up the system.
Back to the resort just as the daily downpour let loose. Glad we
weren’t still in the parks. We were going to go swimming, but the
rain
and lightening continued for hours. So we packed up the room and
ordered room service. It was fun to eat in the room, but very
expensive. An infrequent luxury to be sure! :-) At
least we stayed
dry today! :-)
We got everything packed and ready to check out the next day. We
had
to leave early to make the Annual Passholder “Christmas in July” event
at Downtown Disney. Starts at 7:30am and runs until 9:30am.
Sounds
like fun. Off to bed! |
|
Up and at ‘em bright
and early for our Universal Day. A bit too early it turns
out! :-) We arrived at the entrance to the parking ramps
just before 7:30am... Problem was that they didn’t open the gates for
parking until 8:00am! Too bad I didn’t find this tiny tidbit of
info before we sat there for about 40 minutes! :-) At least
we were first in line... and it was Air conditioned... and we were
sitting down! :-) 
They finally let us in a bit after 8am, and we got a
primo spot in the parking garage. Right next to the escalator and
elevators – one level up from the main path to City Walk. We
headed on in, and went to Universal first. We’d be doing both
parks today, since we only had one day scheduled at Universal this
trip. We had been told that Shrek and Jimmy Neutron sell out of
fast passes really early (Thanks Ddoll!) There was almost NO line
to get in to Universal (everyone was headed for Islands of
Adventure). Again – we were first in line. They opened the
gates right at 8:30am, and Kristen zipped over to grab a stroller – The
gate attendant said to get them early, the lines get long later, and
they sell out early. Turned out great, because the system wasn’t
up yet, and they gave Kristen the stroller for free! :-) We
figured it would be a long day, so Brinn got a ride all day
today. We have a stroller with us for Maddy. Down to
Shrek, and in for the first show. 
Shrek was
great! The pre-show is great and the show is wonderful.
They really did an excellent job. I’ll leave out all the
spoilers, but I highly recommend this show. It’s great fun.
On to Jimmy
Neutron, and we only had about a 10 minute wait. Shrek was
already a 30-minute wait as we entered Jimmy Neutron. Jimmy was
great, and while an updated version of the old Hanna Barbara ride, it
was really great fun. The girls loved it. As we exited we
saw that Shrek was now a 55-minute wait with a huge line! Glad we
hit that first thing. 
Headed off to Men in Black and rode twice in a row with
only a 10-minute wait each time. We all love this attraction, and
had a great couple of rides. Next we headed right over for a ride
on Woody Woodpecker’s rollercoaster. The kids LOVE this ride, so
it was a must do. 
After
this one we headed for ET, but it had a 30 minute wait so we decided to
just head on over to Islands of Adventure now. It was about
10:30. On the way out we ran into Jimmy Neutron, Woody Woodpecker
and his girlfriend, Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat, and
Scooby and Shaggy. The girls were excited to see all these
characters! :-)