So I'm doing it

Universal Orlando Resort Trip Reports
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I’m on my third iteration of a spring trip. The first April 22-24 was canceled so I could manage work and a camping trip April 30- May 2. Then the camping trip was canceled due to ankle issues (pretty good for every day use, not great for uneven trails). So I toyed with the idea of going to Orlando April 30th. However, we decided so visit some of DH’s friends, so canceled the trip.

But I still wanted to go so I decided to treat myself on a single night trip, May 7-8 to have some fun . I land at 10 on Sunday morning and my flight leaves 8 on Monday night. I have a room at HRH for express passes and a place to crash.

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Did you get a good rate on a flight or are you using credits from a cancelled trip?

I’m always looking and haven’t seen any discounts or promos for a couple months!

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I’m flying southwest. When I originally booked, the outbound flight was bad at 289, return flight was okay at 179. Between DH and myself I have ~120000 Southwest points to play with, so I didn’t care too much. After I booked, I saw southwest was having a %30 off Mothers day promotions on flights May 7-8, so I rebooked my flight. By then the return was 219, so I only saved about 42 dollars. I checked today, and my return flight was back to 179 so in total the cost was about $382 worth of points.

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Rental car booked. Had some trouble with Uber so I’m willing to pay a bit extra to not have that worry.
Airport parking booked
Florida toll pass booked. That should save around $10 in rental car toll fees.

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Early bird check in added. If my boarding number isn’t early enough, i may use one of my upgraded boarding positions. I’m trying to to get moving as soon as possible.

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I’m on the plane with 15 minutes to take off.

I didn’t sleep more than four hours last night. I finally got out of bed about an hour before I wanted to leave. I ended leaving n around ten minutes late. There was no traffic to airport parking and I was through security in 5 minutes. My carry on got stopped at TSA because of the frozen water and milk I’m using as ice packs but I was let through without incident. I got to my gate 40 minutes to boarding.

When I checked in last night my boarding number was A60. There were so many families that has I had a B boarding group I would have used one of my free upgrades to get in the early As.

I got lucky with a window seat on the fourth row. I want to be off the plane as fast as I can and this should let me.

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Safe travels, have fun!

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I am glad that you are treating yourself!

Are you using these as ice packs for ankle?

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To keep the food I’m bringing fresh. I don’t want to make a grocery run if I don’t have too.

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Flight was unremarkable. We landed on time, and I grabbed my stuff to head for to the rental cars.

I couldn’t find the Visitor Toll Pass pickup location. I started at the wrong terminal and then when I went to the other side, i couldn’t figure out where to go to find it, so I gave up and just headed to the rental cars. I know using National’s tolls will cost 3 times as much, but I had already wasted 20 minutes, and with just an overnight trip, I wanted to maximize my time.

I picked up my car and headed to Hard Rock. I missed the turn to the hotel so it took a few extra minutes to pull up. I decided to pay for valet parking to get the extra few minutes. I went to the mobile check in line and got my room key.

I got to the parks around 12:00pm.

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I think I planned to do Minions first, but as I walking I heard “Last call for Bourne Stuntacular” so I decided to visit it then rather than do it on Monday. I got a decent seat towards the middle of the auditorium. It broke down (again). This time the front door prop for the house failed to come on to the stage. It was cool to see inside the house without the set piece there. They reset the show and it completed with no issue.

Animal actors was 15 minutes into its show, so I went to ET. I like the minty (for lack of a better word) scent of the queue for ET. As I was walking past the NBC media center, I saw Shrek was out, so I decided to take a picture with him.

Then came Kodos and Kong Twirl and Hurl, then MIB. I got about 200k, one of my better scores. Then I did Escape from Gringotts and Revenge of the Mummy. With EP, i walked on to Race through to New York. I took a picture with Hashtag then got into the final queue as the safety rap video was going on. Then on to minions. I think the TM directing people was training a new person. As a single rider, I was directed to go to the around everyone front of Row 6 near the doors. The poeple already in line were puzzled, but I asked if they were a party of 3 and they said yes, so I said I’m single rider and they are putting me in the empty seat.

I decided that if I wanted to make to nightfall at IOA to see the light show, I had to take a break. So I walked back to my hotel. I got a really good room, 1133 where I could take enter through the emergency exit near the pool gate and walk straight to my room without having to double back at all.

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After an hour and a half where I ate, drank and recovered a bit, I headed out to IOA. Here I had my first disappointment of this trip where I could not get the Velocicoaster test seat to turn green. I was border line on my February trip and the wait I gained made it a no go.

I walked on to river adventure, and got just wet enough to cool me off. Then I went to forbidden Journey where I had the same issue with the test seat there. I rode Flight of the Hippogryph then did my first bit of souvenir shopping with the Hogwarts Spinner keychains. They don’t engrave the keychains anymore, so I’m hoping to find someone at home who can engrave DH and DD’s names on the keychains to go with the one I got for myself 3-4 years ago. I headed to Poseidon’s Fury for my Final Tour. The wait was about half an hour.

After that, I went on Hagrids. As I could only ride in the motorbike, I waited an hour in line.
I got off just as it was getting dark, and watched the light show that started at 8:50 pm. Then headed back to the hotel. From the light show until I reached my room it took about 20 minutes to walk.

I prepped my bag for the next day and went to sleep.

Total step coutn 22805 for May 7.

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Sounds like you had a great day!

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I did. Aside from the visitor toll pass, it pretty much met my expectations. Even the heat wasn’t too bad. It was hot, but not humid, so being in the shade and the breeze made things decent. I also brought a cooling towel that I used a little and it helped some.

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That must be frustrating! You’ll get it next time - keep getting those steps in!

Wow!!

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Day 2

I woke up at 5:45. I packed up and ate breakfast and brought my stuff to bell services at 7:00 AM. I discovered Emack and Bolios has a coke freestyle machine where I got ice and filtered water.

After doing a final run through of the room I headed in the direction of the water taxi. They were letting people on the taxi so I decided to ride instead of walking. I was the last person in line end they left HRH at 7:13 AM.

When I got to the entrance to IOA I had to choose between the regular lines and the APH line. I decided to stay in the line I was in because it was shorter than the APH line and near the center of gates. However, that was a mistake as people in front of me had issues with tickets. I went directly to Hagrids. After putting stuff in lockers I entered the queue. The line moved sporadically for about 8 minutes until halfway through the egg room where we stopped due to a delay. We had a 15 minute delay. Once the line started moving again, it was a 20 minute wait until we got on the ride.

I did a bit of shopping. Turns out, you can only send sealed items to the store in CityWalk, so I had to hold on the fudge purchase I had planned. I went to Hippogryph at 9:05 but they weren’t letting the EP line move until 9:15 so I decided to bail.

I went through the EP line at the castle for a final look.

I went to the River Adventure. Walk on with EP. I wanted to stop at the AP lounge to get a magnet, but it was still closed. After that, onto Marvel Superhero Island, where I did Spider Man and Incredible Hulk. I circled back to Seuss Landing to do Cat In The Hat. I picked up a mug and a Thing One shoulderkin from Cats Hats and Things. At some point I want to embroider a small bandanna with DD’s name. Those got sent to city walk as well. Then I went through the lost continent and onto the Hogwarts Express to London.

I went to Mummy (my favorite ride of all time), After that, I went ot MIB and did it 3 times in the single rider line. Two out of the three times was a walk on. The middle time it was a 5 minute wait. I went to the Horror Makeup Show and Animal Actors. Gizmo was a different bird this time. I picked up some fudge as a souvenir gift for my PT office.

I did Mummy again then headed to Minions for my last ride of the day. No issues with Minions on Monday.

I headed to the studios store to pick up my items. I headed down to the water taxi dock and waited in line. They were doing some sort of recording on another taxi. Our taxi to HRH also had people going to PBH. I thought about staying on the boat to see it the hotel as it is beautiful

I decided to get off at HRH, stop at Emack and Bolio’s to get more water and to the lobby to get my items from bag check.

I repacked my items so everything fit into my carry on and knapsack. Only a few minutes of traffic getting to the airport. I returned the car. (They didn’t charge me for gas.) Security was fairly easy. I pulled out the fudge and put it in a separate bin. Then I headed to my gate. I got there with over an hour to boarding.

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Wow! You crushed it today! Having that UXP is the best! I’ve never had it all day, just single use passes. Hope you got home safely!!

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I did get home safely. And the next morning, I realized I forgot my water bottle at MCO. I’ll live.

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