We tried it once, too sweet… one and done. Now… the macadamia pancakes… that’s a different story 
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I wouldn’t mind trying those sometime, but a couple of the kids aren’t keen on nuts, so I decided to remove the added complication of running up to Kona to grab those.
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What you don’t see is @amvanhoose_701479 is sitting on her balcony with a sniper-style water pistol. When they least expect it?
splish.
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So basically she is providing the Magic Carpets of Aladdin experience?
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Watch out! She spits!
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Picture we planned to take Wednesday night before our exit turned into an extraction mission:
Now we’re in a really long check-in line for the event…
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We parked at 3:20pm and it took us about 20 min to walk to the end of the very long Orlando Informer check-in line. The line was moving pretty well but it was still about 4:20pm before we were in the park.
And…they assigned us to the USF check-in location but following where the nice people told us to go dumped us in IoA! (There was a line split at the very beginning that may have chosen our destiny!)
We had planned to just go to the Animal Actors show at USF before switching to IOA so decided just to stick with IOA.
It was starting to sprinkle and rumors floating of rides closing so we headed straight for the Toon Amphitheater Bonus Bite Zone. The sky opened up shortly thereafter so we chose well!
There are 4 food stations set up and one beverage station. There are no in-and-out privileges, but you can get in line multiple times.
Happy with our location choice. Big, covered amphitheater with lots of room to spread out. There’s a DJ too. The food line has gotten really long. (They should be encouraging people to split to different food stations instead of hitting them sequentially, I think?)
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Can we assume DS has fully recovered from his previous nights tummy upsets?
Yes, it would seem so! 
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Very good!!! Hate him to miss out on all that food 
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I interrupt this trip report (or not trip report – have we decided yet?) to ask @amvanhoose_701479: Do you know these people???
I mean, how common is the name VanHoose???
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More common than you would think, actually. 
. There are a couple dozen close variations of “Ann VanHoose” on Facebook. 
But no, don’t know these people.
Just popping in to say we had a great time last night and I’ll be back with details later. Scooting off to brunch now…
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So even with the rain delay, the Orlando Informer event is totally worth it based on what we’ve seen so far.
If you go to Universal regularly, you could just go one night to hit your favorite rides with little to no wait for most. For those that it’s been several years, I’d recommend both nights. I would not pay extra to get day tickets on the day of the event. It’s a really long day as is, even though it goes by super fast. Just do your research to know what won’t be open after hours so you can prioritize those items while they’re still open.
You might need to tack on a day or two if you want to see every nook and cranny in the parks. I would NOT do that the days of the event or the day after, though. Probably the day(s) before so you could just stick to things not open during the event or that had short waits.
We were very happy with our Toon Amphitheater Bonus Bites location overall.
We arrived about 4:30pm and the line was very short. The boneless wing station was late to open, about 15 min after we arrived. After that, the food was well stocked the entire time we were there, which I heard wasn’t the case at some of the other Bonus Bite locations.
Our drinks were single serve bottles of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, and water. They were out of Diet Coke and Sprite when we left, though. Apparently the Bonus Bites locations in restaurants used the fountain drink dispensers there instead?
Plenty of room to social distance, except for people crowding around us without thinking about it. 
The sky totally opened up about 4:50pm.
Big booming thunder and all outside attractions in the park closed down. The food line got pretty long shortly after that.
The rain (mostly) let up after another hour or so, but there was still lightning close enough they kept outside attractions closed. The inside ones all had long queues, and we were trying to minimize the DS11s’ time in inside queues. so we just stayed put. The official park close was 7pm and I don’t think they re-opened anything prior to that.
It was barely sprinkling at 7pm, and @TarHeelTiff had reported that the Hogwarts Express was running, so we went and rode that to Diagon Alley and back to have something fun to do.
We got to the Hogsmeade station right at 7pm, and they had just closed the regular line and waved us into the Express Pass line.
(I’m really bad at selfies…)
Helpful CM (or whatever Universal calls them), took this video for us:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tTf3V38vSCSPLXR8-DamhFAsn9BXS1el/view?usp=drivesdk
Round trip train ride (including using the “lift” for DM’s chariot) plus a restroom break brought us back to Jurassic Park right at 8pm, when the open unlimited food service started.
Next up, we actually start riding rides!
ETA: Random picture from DH of DD20 in the people dryer.
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The food is so good at Thunder Falls Terrace!
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Oh, yes, I should have mentioned that. It was every bit as good as it looks!
There was no line and they were loading up the trays so you could just grab one without ordering. Without thinking about it, we each grabbed one. That was silly and wasteful as most of us only ate half our food. We should have split them.
But it was super yummy!
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Your pic and rec definitely makes Thunder Falls a must do tonight.
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I’ve read and by the pics would confirm that the food at Thunder Falls is essentially the same stuff they have at Three Broomsticks, minus the butterbeer and substitute other treats like that key lime pie. If so, it is very good stuff.
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That was what I was guessing. And minus the crowd! Butter beer is fairly easy to obtain at carts when there is no payment involved.
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