Cheated on the Mouse; Long Weekend Trip… (Universal Orlando)

For the first time in almost two years, spent a few days in central Florida for a long weekend. Just two of us, no kids.

For decades, I was a WDW fanboy not even considering staying off WDW property and focusing only on the Disney empire. It served its purpose well.

However, with all the recent changes and price increases at WDW, we actually cheated on the mouse this time and stayed at Universal and spent most of our time there.

Most all of us know central Florida well, so I’ll spare you every little detail; a few highlights, observations and takeaways…

Cabana Bay Beach Resort - Stayed here for three nights and it was great. On par with most of the Disney moderates and I would rate the food court and pool areas on par with some of the WDW deluxe resorts.

The rooms were fairly basic but the resort was clean, fresh and nice and like I said the pool areas were a highlight as we spent two of our mornings/ early afternoons lounging at the pool before hitting the parks and City Walk.

We paid only $170 a night so in comparison to WDW, it was a steal. Would love to try the other Universal resorts during future stays.

While you can walk, it’s a bit of a hike to the parks but the bus service was great; we never waited more than 5-10 min for a bus and the ride is only about 5 minutes long. Advantage Universal.

We purchased an online ticket deal with Undercover Tourist where you got four days for the price of two. So we spent a day at each park with a third partial day at IOA just because we like that park better. Crowds were manageable and we were able to hit up just about all the main attractions. Harry Potter lands were mobbed as you would expect. I had three, $8.50 frozen Butterbeers.

We splurged on one of the days and bought the Express Pass which other than the $79 cost, there was no downside. It was great to cut the lines as we didn’t wait more than 5-10 min at most. We probably didn’t *need* the express pass as most lines were less than an hour wait, but it was nice to have on the day we did just to be able to breeze past the standby lines, particularly in Harry Potter Land.

Cirque, Drawn to Life. I’m a huge Cirque fan and loved La Nouba. We ubered to Springs one night for dinner and the Cirque show and we loved the new production. Don’t let the IP element scare you away, I was worried too. But the IP is subtle and the music score is mixed where it’s a really nice blend of original music and IP score. I would give the show a thumbs up. One of my favorites and the storyline is easy to follow.

Overall a great, short trip with limited interaction with the mouse. I’ll have to say, for this WDW fanboy, Universal might be my new goto for the foreseeable future. The resorts are more convenient and the vibe there is just better. The parks seems fresher, cleaner and less crowded. Plus it’s a lot cheaper if you price it out right. And if you need to get a WDW fix in, you're only a $20 Uber ride away.

I went with friends from Royal Pacific last month, and it made a huge difference in my perception. Might just be the nostalgia of it, but I definitely enjoyed the parks more just from that starting point. The hotels are definitely a better deal most of the time, though I do feel like they might be under-pricing them a little.

You must have been lucky if it seemed less crowded. I feel like Universal never has an off-season anymore either.

My strategy with Universal is to go an hour or so before close. I've had near walkons for Velocicoaster and total walkons for Hulk and Forbidden Journey in that last 30-45 minutes of the day.

In my limited experience that ride benefits from self-selecting out a significant portion of park goers, and genuinely great capacity. I think I waited a half hour entering the line at 9:30 am on a Saturday.

I don't think I've ever clocked more than 45 minutes for Velocioaster on any visit (3 now?) since it opened. Single Rider line is usually 20-40 minutes, but it does cycle open and close due to the locker limitations and such. So you just mingle out front until they open it if you go that route.

Even then, even normal standby just outside of the main building with a post 1hr+ wait, the line flies... Usually on in 30-40 minutes or so. It's so nice. Our last visit the standby line was outside of the main building in that little side queue area... That wait, plus the additional front seat wait had us on in roughly 40 minutes... Not shabby at all.

(And you don't have to do some stupid reservation shenanigans to ride the thing! YAY!)

When I first rode it after passholder previews I wound up waiting about an hour and ten minutes, which was suboptimal. But after exiting I learned there had been a downtime, and I don't think I have ever waited more than 45-50, even with some of that overflow queue in use.

Hagrids Motorbikes on the other hand...

BrettV:

Hagrids Motorbikes on the other hand...

Yeah, such Disney nonsense vibes with how they run Hagrids. Thankfully, it's just that ride and not everything... But I think it took us like 3 or 4 visits until we finally got on the thing because we never could get reservations and never the option for standby. So dumb.

Thankfully(?) when we did get on it, it wasn't all that great, so it's not a huge loss that the hassle is on that ride. Dueling Dragons was so much better :)

Fortunately I haven't seen the VQ only process in a while there. But even on a day where both parks are dead, Hagrids always seems to be a posted 90+ minute wait and the singles line always seems to be closed.

SteveWoA:

(And you don't have to do some stupid reservation shenanigans to ride the thing! YAY!)

SteveWoA:
Yeah, such Disney nonsense vibes with how they run Hagrids.

Big Disney fan?

;)

Honestly, I don’t get the hate for Hagrid’s. I will say the first time I rode it, which was fairly soon after its opening, involved a longer than usual wait time. I chalked it up to unexpected down time and the desire to hit the ride at rope drop. (Later in the day the ride had a much shorter line.) The second trip I made to the park the wait was quite manageable, and I’d guess as expected- by then Velocicoaster was the draw.
And the ride itself is great. It’s not the intense loopiness we found in its predecessor, but I didn’t expect it to be and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s well themed, quite imaginative, and families seem to love it.
As for operations, I guess I don’t understand what a comparison to Disney has to do with it. But I’m not the type to count the seconds between launches or time spent on the final brake.

I personally don't hate Hagrids at all, if you thought that is what I was implying. I just didn't think it was nearly as good as many make it out to be. It's a very good family attraction and it's fun for what it is, but I can skip the ride and not really care too much. I'm sure a night ride would be far more impressive, though.

As far as the Disney comparison? Disney's whole reservation fiasco for their attractions for one, that in my opinion, is a complete joke. With Hagrids more often than not being reservation only with no option for standby throughout the day... Well, that's very Disney like. One of the reasons I care not to visit those parks, so yeah, it's a little annoying that Universal does it with Hagrids (or did, from the sounds of it?). Let people wait if they choose... Like all of the other parks in the world.

The only ride at Disney still doing that is Guardians. I don't think it will last, given the availability of said reservations. I have one for today.

I believe that Tron is opening as VQ and LL.

I don’t think Universal has used a VQ for Hagrid’s since during Covid? It’s also worth noting that the queue times are generally pretty inflated. If the ride is running well with no stops a posted 120 minute wait is probably somewhere around 60. YMMV.

I prefer the VQ reservation thing to the 4+ hour lines Flight of Passage was consistently commanding when it was the new hotness.

Yeah I don't know how I feel about virtual queues. In concept they're great but my experiences with Disney's haven't been great with the time continuously extending any time I get close to riding. The Guardians VQ really f-ed my last day at Epcot. I got a reasonable return time only to have it change any time I got close. It got to the point where I couldn't ride anything else nearby or drink another beer in the blazing hot sun.

Well, a not so little known secret is you can be as late as you want for the VQ. I’ve gotten BG1 numerous times (another story) and showed up after dinner and nobody cared.

More often than not being reservation only? I have never needed to reserve a time for Hagrids. Perhaps that was the case when they first opened but my last visit was May of 22 and I walked right in. Several times. Another time I can recall offhand was February of 20, and once again, I just got in line.
One thing they weren’t honoring was Express Pass. But I normally don’t have it so I’m standby all the way.
As for my comment about hate for Hagrid, I wasn’t pointing at you necessarily. I just see a lot of unfavorable comments in general. And I think most of that is just hurt butts over the loss of Dragons.

VQ is fine if you can get in it. When Rise of the Resistance opened, it was practically impossible. At least now you don't have to be in the park.

When we went on a Monday, Hagrits Motorbike was posted for 80 minutes but our actual wait was closer to 55 min. I thought the line moved pretty quickly.

Not sure why this coaster doesn’t get more props. It was one of my favorites and I was totally surprised by the drop section. I thought it was a fun, thrilling coaster that kinda falls in a category of itself.

I rode it at night during an IAAPA event a few years ago and yes, it’s way better at night.

The biggest issue I have with Hagrid's is the line length. If memory serves me, when I went to Universal, Hagrid's posted wait time was in the 2 to 2.5 hr range, while Velocicoaster was in the 45 minutes to 1 hr range. As good as Hagrid's is, I struggle to justify getting one ride on Hagrid's when I could get 2 to 3 rides on Velocicoaster, which I would consider to be a better ride, in the same amount of time.