Second Helpings - 21 days July / August 2016 1st August 2016 - IoA

[The A team]

The plan today was to get to IOA for early entry at 7, however, we all forgot to set our alarms so only woke when I happened to turn over and see the clock at 7:10, we were still out the room just after 8 and into the park by 830. The girls having eaten a cupcake we picked up on the way back to the room last night.

We went straight to Harry Potter and queued for forbidden journey, we were queuing from around half way through the greenhouse and it did seem to take around the posted half hour (no phone or watch so can't be certain) the queue is great here, there is always something to see / watch so the queue doesn't feel bad, it felt like it moved quickly too long, in fact, there were times I'd liked to stay a little longer in each room just to take it all in and watch the film or character.

Once we got on the ride we all loved it, I did close my eyes through the spider section, if you want to do this, close them as soon as you see the first spider and don't open them again until Hermione mentions the quidditch pitch.

Once done here, we joined the queue for Olivanders, it is a lovely little show, well worth doing, even if you are not the chosen one. They did appear to ensure that they picked a child on their own rather than one with a sibling.

We went through to the wand shop and all got some wands. Amelia chose Ron's, Niamh chose Hermione's and I chose Tonks'.

We then tried out doing some spells, they are a bit hit or miss as to how they work and they seemed to work better for Niamh than Amelia, which led to much frustration from Amelia and me calling a stop to spells before tears began.

We picked up some croissants, which actually tasted more like bread shaped like croissants. Niamh didn't eat hers so Dave did, the rest of us managed them, Niamh just wasn't hungry enough as she ate most of a vanilla cupcake from yesterday in bed this morning.

We decided to start going through the rest of the park and headed to Pteranodon flyers, this was one we couldn’t use our FOLP for. It was posted at 15 mins so we joined the queue, the wait was at least 40 mins and when we got off was posted at 45. The ride itself was quite pleasant, but short. I did feel that largely the actually rides (not simulators) were very short, especially for the queues, which certainly felt underestimated on the wait times app and boards.

As Niamh hadn't eaten loads, she wanted a donut, so two donuts (Amelia couldn't be left out) and a hotdog were purchased, we sat behind the kiosk in the shade to eat these, it felt really hot today, confirmed later by the in car thermometer reading 38.

While we were eating were heard the announcement from Kong that it would be down for at least 40 mins, the queue was posted at 75 mins when we passed it just before this so I would have hated to be in that queue. We didn't ever ride Kong, with it just having opened, the queues were just too long and it was constantly breaking down as it was so new. It just means that there is still something 'new' to us if we ever go back.

We had a wonder trough Toon Town, very cute area and we enjoyed posing by the speech bubbles.

Our next stop was Spider-Man, this was posted as 65 mins, but was just 15 with folp, this was good, I preferred this to transformers, it was less banging and smashing.

We then went to storm force acceleration, basically a spinning tea cups ride, this one was walk on ! As we came off, the girls asked to go on Dr Dooms Fearfall we checked Niamh’s height and she was good to go. As I hate drops and only just manage tower of terror, I sat this one out with a nice cold slush while the other rode.

The only rides we hadn’t yet done that we were keen to were the water rides so we started with Jurassic Park, this was fun and we didn’t get too wet. I was happy with this, Amelia wasn’t she wanted to get soaked! So her and Dave went on Ripsaw Falls, which did make her wet enough!

Niamh played in the water fountains while we waited and I photographed every ‘log’ coming down until I finally got the right one (I had over 50 photos to delete of random strangers!), here are the ones they are definitely in!

Amelia decided that she was wet enough so didn’t want to do the raft ride so we left around 2:10 having done all we wanted to at Universal.

We were home to the Villa around 20 mins later and the girls spent the next two hours in the pool, only leaving when there was a pink tinge to their shoulders, whoops, they were fine the next day, no burning so we got them out in time. It then rained for much of the evening so they didn't go in again today.

As I’m sure it has come across in the last two days of this report, we didn't enjoy Universal as much as we'd hoped. The queues even with folp still at least 15 mins min and more often 30 mins for pretty much everything, cast members didn't seem interested and mostly just stood chatting to each other rather than checking passes or helping direct us when we clearly were unsure of where to go, yes we could have asked and they would have helped, but we did feel like we were interrupting them if we asked, we just didn’t feel it, other than the Harry Potter areas.

There were too many simulator rides for our liking. We decided to cancel our next overnight stay and rejig our plans for the rest of the days based on not spending more time here.

I was really disappointed, before coming away, I’d already suggest to Dave that if we liked Universal, we might do a trip just to cover Universal as it would be a little cheaper than Disney and meant we could return sooner. Since being back, I’ve thought a lot about Universal and whether we just did it at the wrong point in the holiday or if it really isn’t for us, no one else is keen to go again, but since it is enjoyed by so many, maybe I can be persuaded to give it another try, although with the increase in ticket prices I’ve been reading about, I might not!

[collybird]

We don't do Universal and although I have toyed with returning (we're yet to see Diagon Alley), I just don't want to sacrifice Disney time for something we aren't overly fussed about (not thrill ride fans). We definitely don't feel as though we are missing out doing only Disney.

[Mortimer Mouse]

Our last trip was Disney only and our next one will be just Universal,DC and shopping.
It's nice to have slower paced trips and also saves you money on park tickets!