I shared a few behind the scenes glimpses of our most recent trip with my brother and sister in law to Universal Studios. So many of you said that you have a trip planned to go this spring as well. I’m so excited to share our Universal Studios weekend trip recap with you, in hopes that it serves as a resource if you’re venturing down to Florida as well. If you don’t want to read the details but just want the gist. Two things I would say if you are going to Universal. One, get the Express Pass worth every penny. Two, book through a travel agent it is free, everything is set up for you and you get in an hour early!
Our Universal Studios Weekend Trip Recap
We arrived in Orlando, Florida around 8pm, and were all starving! Made a pit stop at Norwood’s Treehouse Bar. Pro-tip, put you name on the waitlist and then run and drop off your bags and by the time you come back your table will be ready! It’s a super cool atmosphere with live music. We ordered the Golden Tile Fish Stack and the Shrimp and Grits, and would recommend both! We also ordered the Pimento mac and cheese, but Andrew said it was just ok, so maybe skip out on that dish.
DAY ONE
We hit bed early because we knew it was going to be an early wake up call. Our condo was about an hour away from the park, so woke up at 5:30am. By 6am we left, grabbed some coffee, and walked in around 7:20am. We use Lia Nelson with @onthebrinkofadventure. She booked the tickets and had everything ready at Will Call. The best part was we got to go in an hour early. We kind of thought we would be the only people in the park at that time. The joke was on us, it was already pretty full.
SHOP THIS LOOK
PRO TIP: Have someone wait in line and then have someone else from your group go to will call and print the tickets, then join you back in line. We went to will call to grab the tickets, then had to get back in the huge line to get in.
Once you go in, everyone is RUNNING to the Hagrid ride because you can’t use your Express Pass. Within minutes the line was at a 90 min wait time. What we didn’t know was the Jurassic World VelociCoaster ride is also one that you can’t use an Express pass on and that line was super short when we first got to the park. I would say if you want to ride that one, start there. Then, I would go to the Hagrid ride because it will be long all day long, whereas the VelociCoaster is short at the start of the day and then gets longer as the day goes on.
Once you’ve knocked those two rides off your list, I recommend Harry Potter Forbidden Journey and Flight of Hippogriff. We walked onto both rides every single time, even with a wait time line of 60 min.
Then we went over to the other park. Another perk of Express Pass is that it works for the Hogwarts Train. We got on within 15 minutes and rode over to the Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts ride. It doesn’t open until 9 am and we were able to get off and ride it a few more times because of Express Pass. There really isn’t too much at this park that we loved. We did Fast and Furious and Jimmy Fallon, but later in the day decided both were kind of a waste of time but nice to be in the in the AC. If the Mummy had been open we would have loved to ride that, but it opens back up in Summer 2022.
I personally think Leaky Cauldron has better food than the Three Broom Sticks. I recommend grabbing the chicken sandwich and then making your way back to the other park. Now would be the time, if you missed it when the doors opened, to wait in the 90 min Hagrid ride. It’s the perfect time to let your food settle and then ride what I think is the best ride in the park.
SHOP THIS LOOK
From there we did Hulk which was AWESOME. Andrew did Dr. Doom and walked right on. If it was warm enough this would have been a good time for water rides, but we opted out! We also did King Kong, which was great. We were so glad for the Express pass, as King Kong was a 40 minute wait time, and we got on it in 15 minutes. If you’re debating about waiting in a long line to ride that one, I would say skip it! Then we went back and re-road a few rides that we loved earlier in the day. We never could bring ourselves to wait 2+ hours for the Hagrid ride.
DAY TWO
The next morning was rainy and cold from the storms that were passing through. We had planned on a solid beach day, but changed the plans for weather. We popped into Mon Delice for pasties in the morning. Andrew and I did a workout. Then we all hung out in the hot tub for a while before grabbing pizza for lunch. We had some down time, so drove around and showed Dave and Bailey some of our favorite local stops. We followed that by a walk on the beach around 4:30pm.
PRO TIP: If you’re eating at The Garlic, go put your name in around 4:30 if you want to eat at 6pm. Then use the down time to go get ready. We did not do that, and when we put our names in at 6pm we had an hour and half wait. It was pretty chilly, so we sat by the fire. They have open bars if want to grab a drink and hang out while you wait. We love this restaurant, it’s totally worth the wait!
If you’re heading to NSB or Universal Studios anytime soon, I hope you have the best time!
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