Wife and I went down last week with two - 17yr old girls, one 7yr old girl, and one 4yr old boy. Stayed at Cabana Bay for roughly $150/night for our party of 6. (Priced Disney as well for 1 room for our party of 6 and I believe All Star Music family suite was the most affordable option at $325 or so per night)
We had booked our trip before the Potter opening date announcement of July 8th. We had never been to Universal but to Disney 5 times since 2006.
Overall thoughts are more enjoyable for me personally to read from other trips so this is what springs to mind from our trip last week:
1. We kind of just walked into the soft opening of Diagon Alley last Monday afternoon. It was a fantastic experience and completely unexpected. We were not sure of the layout of the park at all so strolled up to the new area which was roped off but that told us to go right on in. Blown away by the execution of the development and build by UNI. Starting Tuesday, the 2nd day of our trip, the wait to enter Diagon Alley approached 4 hours or more each day so we didn't attempt to go back. We expected this though so were not put off by this scenario.
2. I know there are greater plans for the interactive wands (more spells, more areas, etc) but there is a bit of a disconnect between people successfully casting spells and the system efficiently recognizing the spellcasting action. Our 7yr old was generally getting a spell to work (while being aided by a UNI employee at each window) on about 1 out of every 8-10 times she did the hand motion. The employees try their best to guide the person but there is a bit of magic lost after the 6th or 7th time a spell doesn't work. Hope they get this ironed out moving forward as the potential for this is just incredible beyond the scope of store windows.
3. There was enough for our smaller children to do which was a concern heading down there. I've read a fairly black and white view in a lot of threads about if you have young kids go to Disney if you have older kids/teens go to Universal. I can see the reasoning in this but at this point in the life-cycles of both parks it is too broad a brush to paint with moving forward. Young kids aren't insatiably trying to ride every single ride available as some older kids and adults tend to do to justify ticket price. Our 4yr old was fine riding a few rides in Seuss Landing and looking at stuff in the parks then going back to swim for a while. There really is something for all levels/ages of people regarding ride experiences. Its not as binary a viewpoint as I read about before going down there.
4. Express Pass isn't a complete must for first-time visitors like we were. I've read a lot of people that wouldn't go to the parks without it. If you get there first thing in the morning then most all the rides are walk-ons from 7 (early entry for resort guests) until 9:30 or so. We also went back to the parks later in the night around 7 until 10 pm and the lines were very manageable. If the majority of the park touring is done during midday for your group then your experience will be different than ours as far as lines go. I can't see any future at Disney where they won't charge for either additional fast passes or flat front-of-the-line access as well. People want it so it will be an option.
5. There were quite a few tour groups in the parks during our stay. We also had part of one in the room directly next to ours. I saw no rude or obnoxious behavior out of them. We didn't hear them in the adjacent room. They are large groups of people so can be a tad intimidating just in sheer volume but I found them to be fine.
6. Mythos for dinner was our best meal of the trip. The food there was incredible. We ate for (including tip) about $75. We like to share meals since most meals are so large. The night before we had reservations at Boma. The bill would have been $237 so we spoke to the manager and had our reservation penalty cancelled and left. We ate at Logan's Roadhouse down the road for about $55. Of course it is all about the experience and what you are wanting to pay so there is only blame on us for not researching fully before we went to Boma. However, it felt quite a bit like eating at Disney has become more about your financial pain threshhold than about enjoying the experience. The 'savings' look great on a spreadsheet when performing a cost benefit analysis of getting the dining plan and if it will save money. Walking in and paying cash from an 'off-site' perspective really puts the spotlight on how incredibly high the prices are in the bubble.
7. The relevance of the Harry Potter lands struck me. How fervent the fans are and how much they WANT to buy things unique and associated with the franchise and the park. I felt it too in some capacity. It made me think about Disney and what IP or franchise they have that can get such a wide variety of people so excited and ready to part with their money. My view on the Avatar addition was changed as well. Seeing how naturally WWOHP worked in a theme park environment made me wonder how forced Avatar would feel in AK. In some respects there are a legion of HP fans willing to put up with the rest of Universal to experience the HP aspects but I can't really think of any Avatar fans that would feel so passionately about it that they would go to AK solely to experience it. I know of Disney fans that will but no Avatar fans. And lacking the fans, why not just create a similar experience without the Avatar brand and save the fees and costs associated with aligning that IP to fit in your park? It really feels like Disney is missing the point at a macro level to save the energy at a micro level.
8. The American economy may be recovering or improving per stock prices but I didn't see that reflected in the parks. At least 30% of the crowd was from South America from a very unscientific glance at what was happening around me. If the South American economy tanks at some point I think attendance numbers are going to be reflected at a massive level. They were the people buying non-HP merchandise (Minions, Spidey, etc). The correlation between the growth of those economies and the sustained increases above inflation for park tickets, food, etc., must be very close to even on a graph.
9. Universal's use of 3D screens (and screens in general) on Spiderman, Transformers, FJ, etc., got very monotonous for me personally. The effects are good and enjoyable but each ride felt like the last as we were riding them. Disney's classic rides are still more enjoyable to me as there is more time to enjoy the details. Transformers happens so fast with so much jerking and movement that you focus on what the ride intends for you to focus on in a very limited scope but there isn't really time to stop and enjoy it. The attractions are good but my kids liked E.T. more as they could breathe on the ride and slow down a bit. Moving forward I hope there is still some focus on rides that don't require 3D glasses to feel fully immersed.
10. Cabana Bay was really nice for what we paid. The scope of the lobby and food court area are really big. We checked on bowling prices but found that 1 game for the 6 of us with shoes would have been $72 before tax so we passed. The pool area was great and there is a movie by the pool on their 'lawn' every night. The biggest surprise for my family was that we took the busses probably 12 times or so and we never waited more than 3 minutes for a bus. The drivers said they are running a bus every 5 minutes currently. Wednesday night we stayed til the park closed and the line to get on the bus stretched back to the escalator (probably 200 people) and there were 3 busses lined up back to back in the loading area to get everyone out of there as quickly as possible.
Those are 10 thoughts off the top of my head. I'll have some others but wanted to report while the information was still fresh.
We had booked our trip before the Potter opening date announcement of July 8th. We had never been to Universal but to Disney 5 times since 2006.
Overall thoughts are more enjoyable for me personally to read from other trips so this is what springs to mind from our trip last week:
1. We kind of just walked into the soft opening of Diagon Alley last Monday afternoon. It was a fantastic experience and completely unexpected. We were not sure of the layout of the park at all so strolled up to the new area which was roped off but that told us to go right on in. Blown away by the execution of the development and build by UNI. Starting Tuesday, the 2nd day of our trip, the wait to enter Diagon Alley approached 4 hours or more each day so we didn't attempt to go back. We expected this though so were not put off by this scenario.
2. I know there are greater plans for the interactive wands (more spells, more areas, etc) but there is a bit of a disconnect between people successfully casting spells and the system efficiently recognizing the spellcasting action. Our 7yr old was generally getting a spell to work (while being aided by a UNI employee at each window) on about 1 out of every 8-10 times she did the hand motion. The employees try their best to guide the person but there is a bit of magic lost after the 6th or 7th time a spell doesn't work. Hope they get this ironed out moving forward as the potential for this is just incredible beyond the scope of store windows.
3. There was enough for our smaller children to do which was a concern heading down there. I've read a fairly black and white view in a lot of threads about if you have young kids go to Disney if you have older kids/teens go to Universal. I can see the reasoning in this but at this point in the life-cycles of both parks it is too broad a brush to paint with moving forward. Young kids aren't insatiably trying to ride every single ride available as some older kids and adults tend to do to justify ticket price. Our 4yr old was fine riding a few rides in Seuss Landing and looking at stuff in the parks then going back to swim for a while. There really is something for all levels/ages of people regarding ride experiences. Its not as binary a viewpoint as I read about before going down there.
4. Express Pass isn't a complete must for first-time visitors like we were. I've read a lot of people that wouldn't go to the parks without it. If you get there first thing in the morning then most all the rides are walk-ons from 7 (early entry for resort guests) until 9:30 or so. We also went back to the parks later in the night around 7 until 10 pm and the lines were very manageable. If the majority of the park touring is done during midday for your group then your experience will be different than ours as far as lines go. I can't see any future at Disney where they won't charge for either additional fast passes or flat front-of-the-line access as well. People want it so it will be an option.
5. There were quite a few tour groups in the parks during our stay. We also had part of one in the room directly next to ours. I saw no rude or obnoxious behavior out of them. We didn't hear them in the adjacent room. They are large groups of people so can be a tad intimidating just in sheer volume but I found them to be fine.
6. Mythos for dinner was our best meal of the trip. The food there was incredible. We ate for (including tip) about $75. We like to share meals since most meals are so large. The night before we had reservations at Boma. The bill would have been $237 so we spoke to the manager and had our reservation penalty cancelled and left. We ate at Logan's Roadhouse down the road for about $55. Of course it is all about the experience and what you are wanting to pay so there is only blame on us for not researching fully before we went to Boma. However, it felt quite a bit like eating at Disney has become more about your financial pain threshhold than about enjoying the experience. The 'savings' look great on a spreadsheet when performing a cost benefit analysis of getting the dining plan and if it will save money. Walking in and paying cash from an 'off-site' perspective really puts the spotlight on how incredibly high the prices are in the bubble.
7. The relevance of the Harry Potter lands struck me. How fervent the fans are and how much they WANT to buy things unique and associated with the franchise and the park. I felt it too in some capacity. It made me think about Disney and what IP or franchise they have that can get such a wide variety of people so excited and ready to part with their money. My view on the Avatar addition was changed as well. Seeing how naturally WWOHP worked in a theme park environment made me wonder how forced Avatar would feel in AK. In some respects there are a legion of HP fans willing to put up with the rest of Universal to experience the HP aspects but I can't really think of any Avatar fans that would feel so passionately about it that they would go to AK solely to experience it. I know of Disney fans that will but no Avatar fans. And lacking the fans, why not just create a similar experience without the Avatar brand and save the fees and costs associated with aligning that IP to fit in your park? It really feels like Disney is missing the point at a macro level to save the energy at a micro level.
8. The American economy may be recovering or improving per stock prices but I didn't see that reflected in the parks. At least 30% of the crowd was from South America from a very unscientific glance at what was happening around me. If the South American economy tanks at some point I think attendance numbers are going to be reflected at a massive level. They were the people buying non-HP merchandise (Minions, Spidey, etc). The correlation between the growth of those economies and the sustained increases above inflation for park tickets, food, etc., must be very close to even on a graph.
9. Universal's use of 3D screens (and screens in general) on Spiderman, Transformers, FJ, etc., got very monotonous for me personally. The effects are good and enjoyable but each ride felt like the last as we were riding them. Disney's classic rides are still more enjoyable to me as there is more time to enjoy the details. Transformers happens so fast with so much jerking and movement that you focus on what the ride intends for you to focus on in a very limited scope but there isn't really time to stop and enjoy it. The attractions are good but my kids liked E.T. more as they could breathe on the ride and slow down a bit. Moving forward I hope there is still some focus on rides that don't require 3D glasses to feel fully immersed.
10. Cabana Bay was really nice for what we paid. The scope of the lobby and food court area are really big. We checked on bowling prices but found that 1 game for the 6 of us with shoes would have been $72 before tax so we passed. The pool area was great and there is a movie by the pool on their 'lawn' every night. The biggest surprise for my family was that we took the busses probably 12 times or so and we never waited more than 3 minutes for a bus. The drivers said they are running a bus every 5 minutes currently. Wednesday night we stayed til the park closed and the line to get on the bus stretched back to the escalator (probably 200 people) and there were 3 busses lined up back to back in the loading area to get everyone out of there as quickly as possible.
Those are 10 thoughts off the top of my head. I'll have some others but wanted to report while the information was still fresh.
Glad you had a great time!
have they found a loophole??????