Just spent the past Mon-Fri on site at UNI (at Royal Pacific) involving 3 days at the parks with a one-day side trip to Disney. Having done this before, I can safely say that for the money you spend it's the best way for me to spend an Orlando theme park vacation. I won't be doing any multi-day Disney centric trips for a long time.
Any way, just thought I'd share some opinions on what I experienced and how the resort may be imporved in the future.
The Hotel - Royal Pacific:
- Got a good deal on the room and a free upgrade to a nice pool view room with a great view of Cabana Bay, which appears close to being done. The hotel itself is as good as any deluxe at WDW, but for a much more reasonable price. I prefer the theme to Hard Rock and the proximity to IoA.
- It needs to have its rooms and connecting hallways renoaed though, especially the carpets. Hopefully this will be done soon
- It also needs a grab and go food option. I shouldn't have to go all the way to CityWalk to get a hot dog.
- If you're staying here, upgrade to conceirge level. Given how expensive the breakfast option is, you could probably save lots of money by snacking and eating there and not elsewhere in the resort.
- A gym related tip: The magazines and newspapers you see on the counter up front are complimentary, and you can take what you like. Same for the stuff in the fruit basket where you check in. Had I known this sonner, I would have saved some money on snacks. Not 100% sure, but I think acces is free if you stay at conceirge level. If not, it's $10 a day, or a multi-day pass ($34 for 4 days for example).
- My feet greatly appreciate the water taxi
CityWalk:
- Red Oven is good, with Pizza's large enough to split. Helps to justify the price more.
- Mini Golf is great, and more fun than the WDW options IMO, but maybe that's my own bias since they play an Animaniacs song in the sci-fi loop.
- AMC has very comfy chairs and better projectors than the movie theatres near me which seem to suffer from dim bulbs.
- Went to Margaritaville and had a good time, the whole place to myself pretty much! With walls around it I think people think it's closed.
Universal Studios:
- Transformers is not as good as Spider-Man, but it's 100 times better than it's source material due to the lack of human characters and shorter run time.
- Kang and Kodos is better than Dumbo, and Springfield offers good food and good staff. Both it and Harry Potter are on the dining plan now, but not all locations count for snacks (Honeydukes is "merchandise")
- Harry Potter will make the park better, but they need to do more to update stuff like E.T. and move away from the half-finished "studios" look which areas of the park still suffer from
- I missed the night-time show again due to when I visited the parks. Having it dark two nights in a row sucked.
Islands of Adventure:
- Best park in Orlando, IMO. Too bad it's not open longer at night since it looks so nice then
- Doctor Doom has a good queue, but the ride is pointless. Skip it even if you think it looks fun.
- Mythos was good and for the price a good alternatie to the fast food locations
- Lost Continent is worth keeping, but both shows could do with improvements. The best seats for Sinbad are the first three rows in the middle, which are close to the action, but won't get you wet
General:
- Shopping is much better than at WDW. Stores have ride or theme related merch and a better selection of higer end items along with the traditional souvenirs. Could have easily spent hundreds at IoA, but thankfully I kept my sanity (mostly)
- The parks need to be open later. 6 and 7pm when MK is open till 10pm it not good. I think it's a ploy to make you spend money at CityWalk, but if the parks were open later I'd spend money there
- They need to post times for shows and refurbishments more than two weeks (or one day in my case) in advance. Would have helped with pre-planning more
- Parks were not very crowded. Almost all South American and Asian tour groups, and they didn't crowd the rides until the afternoon (nor did they stay on site to get early entry, those were more of the convention groups and their families) This week was a good one for touring
- UNI does a much better job than Disney of reminding people not to take flash photos. Nearly ruined my day at MK it was so bad there
- If you want to get from UNI to Disney (or vice versa), a rental car or cab is the best option for a family or group of 4 (for example). Mears ads up pretty quickly, and is not direct. With a cab, you can even ask to go to Contemporary and not deal with TTC vehicles, but given the cost ($45-$50 each way after tip), it's not worth it for more than one day
I think that's it for now, will post more later if I think of it.
Any way, just thought I'd share some opinions on what I experienced and how the resort may be imporved in the future.
The Hotel - Royal Pacific:
- Got a good deal on the room and a free upgrade to a nice pool view room with a great view of Cabana Bay, which appears close to being done. The hotel itself is as good as any deluxe at WDW, but for a much more reasonable price. I prefer the theme to Hard Rock and the proximity to IoA.
- It needs to have its rooms and connecting hallways renoaed though, especially the carpets. Hopefully this will be done soon
- It also needs a grab and go food option. I shouldn't have to go all the way to CityWalk to get a hot dog.
- If you're staying here, upgrade to conceirge level. Given how expensive the breakfast option is, you could probably save lots of money by snacking and eating there and not elsewhere in the resort.
- A gym related tip: The magazines and newspapers you see on the counter up front are complimentary, and you can take what you like. Same for the stuff in the fruit basket where you check in. Had I known this sonner, I would have saved some money on snacks. Not 100% sure, but I think acces is free if you stay at conceirge level. If not, it's $10 a day, or a multi-day pass ($34 for 4 days for example).
- My feet greatly appreciate the water taxi
CityWalk:
- Red Oven is good, with Pizza's large enough to split. Helps to justify the price more.
- Mini Golf is great, and more fun than the WDW options IMO, but maybe that's my own bias since they play an Animaniacs song in the sci-fi loop.
- AMC has very comfy chairs and better projectors than the movie theatres near me which seem to suffer from dim bulbs.
- Went to Margaritaville and had a good time, the whole place to myself pretty much! With walls around it I think people think it's closed.
Universal Studios:
- Transformers is not as good as Spider-Man, but it's 100 times better than it's source material due to the lack of human characters and shorter run time.
- Kang and Kodos is better than Dumbo, and Springfield offers good food and good staff. Both it and Harry Potter are on the dining plan now, but not all locations count for snacks (Honeydukes is "merchandise")
- Harry Potter will make the park better, but they need to do more to update stuff like E.T. and move away from the half-finished "studios" look which areas of the park still suffer from
- I missed the night-time show again due to when I visited the parks. Having it dark two nights in a row sucked.
Islands of Adventure:
- Best park in Orlando, IMO. Too bad it's not open longer at night since it looks so nice then
- Doctor Doom has a good queue, but the ride is pointless. Skip it even if you think it looks fun.
- Mythos was good and for the price a good alternatie to the fast food locations
- Lost Continent is worth keeping, but both shows could do with improvements. The best seats for Sinbad are the first three rows in the middle, which are close to the action, but won't get you wet
General:
- Shopping is much better than at WDW. Stores have ride or theme related merch and a better selection of higer end items along with the traditional souvenirs. Could have easily spent hundreds at IoA, but thankfully I kept my sanity (mostly
)- The parks need to be open later. 6 and 7pm when MK is open till 10pm it not good. I think it's a ploy to make you spend money at CityWalk, but if the parks were open later I'd spend money there
- They need to post times for shows and refurbishments more than two weeks (or one day in my case) in advance. Would have helped with pre-planning more
- Parks were not very crowded. Almost all South American and Asian tour groups, and they didn't crowd the rides until the afternoon (nor did they stay on site to get early entry, those were more of the convention groups and their families) This week was a good one for touring
- UNI does a much better job than Disney of reminding people not to take flash photos. Nearly ruined my day at MK it was so bad there
- If you want to get from UNI to Disney (or vice versa), a rental car or cab is the best option for a family or group of 4 (for example). Mears ads up pretty quickly, and is not direct. With a cab, you can even ask to go to Contemporary and not deal with TTC vehicles, but given the cost ($45-$50 each way after tip), it's not worth it for more than one day
I think that's it for now, will post more later if I think of it.
