“Well, It’s Really Just 2 Meanies Who Show Up Every Now & Then...And Try To Kill You” August 2021 TR *COMPLETE* 7/22 x2

[khertz]

“Well, It’s Really Just 2 Meanies Who Show Up
Every Now & Then...And Try To Kill You”​

Welcome, everyone, to our most recent Universal Orlando TR! So I’m a tad late on this one, because we actually took this trip back in August 2021. But better late than never, am I right?! This is our 5th Universal-only trip since 2017, so it’s fair to say we are BIG Universal Orlando fans! But before I get too far into it, let me introduce you to our family.

I’m khertz, the resident note-taker and TR-writer of the family. To fund our travel habits, I work as an RN in both adult & pediatric hematology/oncology. I love so many things about Universal, but top of the list would be all things Harry Potter/Wizarding World, Marvel, frozen Butterbeer, Hard Rock Hotel, the water taxi, the scent of the E.T. queue, and pizza tots.

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Next up is my wonderful DH, who completes our TR team by taking about 95% of the photos you’ll see aside from the few I snap on my iPhone. He works in the oilfield, and is always on board to help me plan out the next vacation. In fact, sometimes he steers the planning even more than I do! He enjoys Harry Potter (though probably not as much as me), The Simpsons, Velocicoaster, Marvel, getting the high score in our Men In Black vehicle, and the Hulk.

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Then there’s DS, our really awesome 10 year old 5th grader who loves Universal as well! In his spare time, he collects Pokemon and plays lots of Minecraft and Roblox. But in the parks, he enjoys casting spells in the Wizarding World (and getting chosen repeatedly for the wand experience, he’s pretty good at that!), the loop of Simpsons cartoons in Fast Food Boulevard, getting soaked on Popeye & Bluto’s, and posing with Spider-Man.

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Finally, there’s DD, one of the reasons we took this trip! She turned 6 years old on this visit and was just shy of starting 1st grade when we were there. She is going to be my thrill seeker, and was disappointed in some of the big rides she couldn’t experience yet. Her favorites list would include Jimmy Fallon, hanging out with the Trolls, birthday cake milkshakes from Toothsome, kiddie coasters, and Escape From Gringotts.

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How this trip came about was that for the last week of summer, the kids’ summer camp had ended but school wasn’t beginning, so we had a week that was available to plan a quick trip if we wanted to, and we started tossing out ideas. Inevitably, theme parks came up as an option! Plus, it was DD’s 6th birthday on 8/2, and what better way to celebrate than to take a vacation?! We looked at both Disney and Universal as an option, but ultimately decided to give DD some of the deciding power. I asked her between the two parks which one she wanted to visit? Her response was, “I don’t really remember what’s where so can I just tell you my favorite rides and you tell me where that is?” Her list of top rides was Slinky Dog Dash, Minion Mayhem, and Escape From Gringotts. With 2 out of the 3 being Universal attractions, the decision was made!

Our trip started Sunday August 1st with 5 park days until we departed on Friday August 6th. We flew Southwest in and out of New Orleans and decided not to rent a car. We had 4 day 2-park park-to-park tickets that we later upgraded to seasonal APs. We stayed all 5 nights at the Royal Pacific Resort for the ease of transportation to the parks and of course, for the best benefit, the unlimited Express Pass!

 

[khertz]

Table of Contents

Sunday August 1st
Day 1: Birthday Tea

Monday August 2nd
Day 2 Part 1: Birthday Kickoff!
Day 2 Part 2: Kidzone
Day 2 Part 3: Birthday Celebration!

Tuesday August 3rd
Day 3 Part 1: Clever Girl
Day 3 Part 2: Jurassic World Tribute Store
Day 3 Part 3: Magical Menagerie
Day 3 Part 4: Cinematic Celebration

Wednesday August 4th
Day 4 Part 1: Doughnuts & Water Rides
Day 4 Part 2: Catch Ya On the Flippity Flop!

Thursday August 5th
Day 5 Part 1: Hippogriffs & Velociraptors
Day 5 Part 2: Spider-Man & Seuss
Day 5 Part 3: Ticket Troubles

Friday August 6th
Day 6 Part 1: Visiting the REAL London
Day 6 Part 2: Butterbeer & Jimmy Fallon


​

 

[khertz]

Day 1: Sunday August 1st

We started off our travel day leaving home around 9 am for the two hour drive to the airport in New Orleans. My parents live about 20 minutes from the airport, so they drove out to meet us at a gas station nearby so that one of them could hop in our car and drop us off at the airport, and then drove our car to their house to keep it for us until we came back. Yay for not having to pay parking!

We got to the airport at 11 am for our 1:30 pm flight. We had wanted to give ourselves plenty of time on the road that morning since there is always a chance of traffic on the way to New Orleans, but we didn’t mind getting to the airport extra early to get through security and so that we could have lunch before boarding. We were able to grab some food from Shake Shack after security while waiting at our gate. There were thunderstorms in Orlando, so our flight got pushed back a couple of times, first to 2 pm, then 2:30, then we were finally able to board at 2:45.

The flight was largely uneventful, but when we landed, we had another 30 minute wait on the plane before we could pull in at the gate and get off. Thankfully it’s not like we had another flight to catch or any plans, but we were definitely looking forward to being done with traveling at that point!

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We had booked our transportation to and from the airport through Orlando Airport Towncar Service and had been in frequent communication with our driver regarding the flight status. She assured us there was no rush! She helped us get our luggage when it finally started coming out on the carousel, then brought us out to our van. The service included car seats if needed, and a free 30 minute grocery stop, so she brought us to a Publix very nearby our hotel. We were able to grab a case of water and some snacks and breakfast items, and we picked up one of their fried chicken meals to have for dinner that night.

We finally arrived at Royal Pacific around 8 pm that night to check in. We made sure to get DD’s birthday button upon check in since we would be celebrating the next day! We got settled in our room and took our baths and got ready for bed, but there is one tradition we HAD to do before going to sleep. Ever since DD was 2, about to turn 3, we have had a tea party before bed on the night before her birthday. So this year could be no exception! Here are the previous years.

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So yes, I had packed a tea party set for our Universal vacation so that we could have her “Last Night as a 5 Year Old” tea party in the hotel room!

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Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

After that, we got right to bed, because we wanted to be up and moving for Early Entry in the morning!

 

[AuroraluvsPhillip]

What a nice birthday tradition for your DD! Looking forward to reading about your trip.

 

[musika]

Oh, I love that tradition! We have kids almost the same age, but genders reversed! My DD is 10 and DS is 6 (Aug 16 bday!). He is also very much our thrill seeker. Looking forward to your report.

 

[MLB1974]

Looking forward to reading your report!

 

[khertz]

What a nice birthday tradition for your DD! Looking forward to reading about your trip.

I'm going to keep it up until she refuses to do it with me anymore. lol Welcome along!!

Oh, I love that tradition! We have kids almost the same age, but genders reversed! My DD is 10 and DS is 6 (Aug 16 bday!). He is also very much our thrill seeker. Looking forward to your report.

Welcome! I don't know what it is about the younger kids being such daredevils. I remember taking her when she was 4 and she was so mad when we told her she couldn't ride the Hulk yet!!

Looking forward to reading your report!

Welcome along!

 

[khertz]

Day 2: Monday August 2nd

We woke up on Monday ready to celebrate DD’s 6th birthday!! We got up early at 6:30 am and were out of the room by 7:10 to get to the water taxi.

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Early entry was happening at Universal Studios for 8 am, and we made it there in plenty of time. We had already decided that for that day, DD could choose what we were going to ride all day so that meant we wouldn’t be doing any of the stuff she wasn’t tall enough for yet. She had also really loved Escape From Gringotts on our previous visit, so she wanted to make that our first stop. To the Studios we went!

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Once inside, we walked back to Diagon Alley! We had all really missed being here!

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Seeing DD in the stroller in the above pic reminded me that I should mention we rented a stroller from Orlando Stroller Rentals who we have used many many times in the past. They are really easy to get in touch with and very responsive to any questions or issues we have had (which is not many, just a hurricane that nearly impacted a trip a few years ago and also once when I accidentally made 2 reservations for the same trip!), the strollers are always in great condition, and the price is the best I have found for all the rental companies in the area. I had put in the dates of the rental starting today (Sunday) but had taken a chance on checking with bell services the night before and it had been delivered early! One less stop we had to make in the morning.

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We went to get in line for Gringotts but it was stretching pretty far back into the land and the TMs were saying the ride was not ready to go yet. We were far enough back that we were close to the Money Exchange, so I brought the kids through there while DH held our spot in line.

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After waiting about 10 minutes, we realized this might not be the best way to spend our early entry time. Since we had Express, we weren’t too worried about not being able to ride this one right away, but it was a bummer to start off our first park day. We pivoted over to Ollivanders and got in there rather quickly. We made the right choice because Gringotts was down for the whole hour!

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After that, we spent more time around Diagon Alley shopping and letting the kids do some spellwork.

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DD was instantly in love with Pygmy Puffs, and was really trying to convince us she should get the enormous one. We convinced her to hold off since it was literally only our first hour in the park.

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Once the park was open for the day, we went up to the front to get our refillable mug activated. We never thought to ask before, but we asked if it was possible to pay for 4 days of activation and were able to do that! It didn’t save us any money doing it for multiple days, but it did save us the time of having to take time to do it each morning! DD’s first choice of Icee was blue raspberry, and we took it in line for our first ride, Minion Mayhem.

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We got our 2nd Icee (lemonade flavored) and took it into her next ride choice, Race Through New York.

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DS was still into social distancing, even from us.

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Not really, he just wasn’t paying attention when the TM said we didn’t have to go all the way down to the end since it wasn’t going to be full.

Next, we went over to ride Transformers.

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One of the things that had been all over the Facebook groups leading up to this trip were nightmare stories of trying to get food in the parks. I was seriously stressing over this. Also, Universal had just recently removed the mobile order option for almost all of their quick service locations. We had decided that we were going to do our best to eat early for lunch and dinner to hopefully avoid crazy long waits and backups. It was now around 11, so we headed over to Louie’s to have lunch.

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We ended up eating here a lot because it was one of the very few places that did still offer mobile order, and after the ease of this experience, we ended up returning there often. People seemed completely unaware of the mobile order option here, because the line to order in the restaurant was very long, but we walked right up and picked up our order with no wait. Plus, it was easy to order a full sized pizza and feed us all for less money than ordering individual meals somewhere. We had also stopped and gotten a Coke Icee refill.

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[ofcabbagesandkings]

Following along! We just got back from our first trip and my kids are similar ages to yours. I found one of your earlier reports to be really helpful when planning ours.

 

[musika]

That's a great tip on Louie's! Looks like they had a great day so far.

 

[khertz]

Following along! We just got back from our first trip and my kids are similar ages to yours. I found one of your earlier reports to be really helpful when planning ours.

Oh, that's so wonderful to hear!!! Thanks for joining in for this one also!!

That's a great tip on Louie's! Looks like they had a great day so far.

I was SO happy we discovered this! It meant eating pizza a few times, but the kids certainly weren't complaining about that. And it definitely made it so that getting food was not nearly the nightmare I had been anticipating and stressing over.

 

[amazingact21]

Following along! I am really interested to see how Universal went with a 6 year old. This summer will be Evie's first trip to Universal (not counting when she was an infant) and I am a little worried about the height restrictions. You guys all seemed to have accomplished a lot that first morning, though!
You can't go wrong with pizza. It's less expensive than individual meals, easy to eat, and goes well with Coke Icees.

 

[khertz]

Following along! I am really interested to see how Universal went with a 6 year old. This summer will be Evie's first trip to Universal (not counting when she was an infant) and I am a little worried about the height restrictions. You guys all seemed to have accomplished a lot that first morning, though!
You can't go wrong with pizza. It's less expensive than individual meals, easy to eat, and goes well with Coke Icees.

Hey, welcome!! I was really surprised how much DD loved Universal when we went in 2019 when she was 4, and was also surprised at how much she was able to do! She was really excited to get to spend her birthday there this time too, but still jealous of all the things she couldn't so because of the height restrictions. She was really bummed she couldn't get on Hagrid's! But just something to look forward to doing on a future trip!

We ended up at Louie's several times because of the price and the mobile ordering! It was too easy not to keep going back!!

 

[khertz]

DAY 2 Continued: Monday August 2nd

After lunch, we were ready to ride some more! We headed off in the direction of KidZone.

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We ended up riding this FOUR times in a row! The kids were really having a blast riding it, and with Express we had little to no wait at all. After that, and since we were over in that area, we decided to head over and check out E.T.

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At this point, DH was starting to get hives. He gets them randomly without a real definable rhyme or reason, though it tends to happen more when he’s hot. Usually he takes an antihistamine on vacation but had forgotten. We went by the First Aid near Fast & Furious, and they did say they could give him Benadryl but that their policy was that they’d have to monitor him for 30 minutes, or we could purchase a dose at a store. DH didn’t want to do either option, despite my protests, so he pressed on. I only share this because of the 30 minute observation thing, just to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in need of an antihistamine in the parks.

By this point, DD was really wanting to ride Gringotts, but the wait time was posted at 2 hours. Even though we had Express, with it having been down a lot of the morning we knew that even that line could be backed up to as much as an hour, so we decided not to chance it and convinced her to pick something else. Instead we did Men In Black, which we walked on with EP.

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DD had decided she really liked those Blue Raspberry Icees so on our way through Springfield and out of the park, we grabbed one.

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We got to the water taxi dock and thought we had gotten lucky to get right on because it looked like some dark clouds were rolling in and we were about to get a lot of rain unleashed on us.

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No sooner were we settled on the boat when the captain had us all exit because there had been lightning reported too close for them to continue running the water taxis. So we HOOFED it back to Royal Pacific as quick as we could trying to beat the rain, and made it just before it started pouring! We enjoyed the break out of the heat and humidity.

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Continued in next post...

 

[khertz]

DAY 2 Continued: Monday August 2nd

We had a dinner reservation for 4 pm, so we were back down to the water taxi at 3:30 to get to CityWalk.

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A glimpse of where we were headed!


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DD had really gotten her heart set on a birthday cake milkshake as her birthday treat, so of course we had to plan a meal at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium!

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We had a few minutes before we would be seated so we enjoyed walking around and checking out all of the treats available.

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DH and I really enjoy the Totchos appetizer there, but we also really like getting a dessert, so we usually end up sharing that for our meal, and today was no exception. With the heat, it was hard to think about eating a huge meal each on our own. DS got the kids sliders, and DD got the chicken tenders.

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We were ready for the desserts! DD got the Confetti Milkshake.

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DH and I got the Brookie Sundae, and DS just shared our desserts (despite trying to convince us he needed his own milkshake!).

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Just as we were ready to dig in, our server Abdellah hurried over with candles so we could sing Happy Birthday to DD!

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In the words of Hamilton “Ham” Porter, “And then…you stuff!”

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It was a great meal, and although it took awhile (nearly 2 hours), we weren’t in a real hurry to get back out into the sun anyway. Stuffed to the gills, we rolled out of there and over to Islands of Adventure next.

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We noticed there was no line at guest services, so we decided to go in and see how much it would cost to upgrade our tickets to seasonal APs. It would be $60 for the three adult tickets and $70 for DD’s. We decided not to do it just yet and to talk about it to decide if it would be worth it and what kind of use we’d get out of it first. Ready to go, we headed into Seuss Landing and onto The Cat In the Hat.

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DD got to choose the next Icee flavor, and she picked Watermelon.

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She was the only one of the 4 of us that liked it. It didn’t taste good and had a pretty terrible aftertaste!

DD really wanted to ride One Fish Two Fish, but I was not in the mood to get wet and neither was DS. She batted her eyelashes at her Daddy and convinced him to ride with her. He managed to keep them dry!

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DD’s last request of the night was Flight of the Hippogriff, so we headed over to Hogsmeade.

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On the way out, we grabbed one more Icee, lemonade this time.

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6 Icees on a 6th birthday, what could be better?!

We stopped in the big store at the entrance because DS’s lanyard pouch had broken. Just FYI, they sell replacement pouches for $1 and some change. Not too bad for theme park prices. We decided to walk back to the room instead of taking the boat since IOA is so close to the walking path. When we got back to the room, we had our first of many strange interactions with our housekeeping services. They had emptied the trash and changed out the towels, but only made one of the two beds which seemed odd. And the other bed didn’t have anything on it that maybe they wouldn’t wanted to have moved to make the bed either. Our housekeeping throughout the week was really spotty, but nothing terrible.

 

[khertz]

I might be losing my mind attempting 2 TRs at once, but since my DCL trip is entirely done and typed up, I am going to go ahead and start that one too if you'd like to read along!

Living the Verandah Life! A Feb/March 2022 DCL TR​

 

[khertz]

Day 3: Tuesday August 3rd

Today we were up again early, but this time for a very different reason. DH and I were really excited to get on Velocicoaster for the first time!! We had heard accounts that it may or may not be open during Early Entry at IOA, but we wanted to head there first and hope for the best. We hustled over there, and they were letting people in!

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The queue was REALLY cool!

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We tried really hard as we walked through the line to convince DS to ride with us because he was tall enough, but he flat out refused. The child swap room had a TV playing Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous so the kids were happy to watch that while DH and I took turns. I let him go first, and he came back grinning and said it was amazing! I was so nervous walking through the queue and while waiting for the launch. They did an INCREDIBLE job on this coaster!!! Hands down the most thrilling and fun new attraction in a long time, and right up there with Hagrid’s as the top two rides in Orlando theme parks!

Next we decided to cross over to Hogsmeade and ride Forbidden Journey because it’s DS’s favorite and we had skipped it the day before.

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After two rides in a row that we needed to rider swap, DD was getting restless. She was ready to ride something! But first, she obliged us with some photos on the bridge.

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Then we headed back through Jurassic Park heading to Skull Island.

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The first Icee choice of the day was strawberry!

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At some point that morning that I didn’t put in my notes, we had gotten a virtual queue spot for Hagrid’s and it was getting close to coming due. So we backtracked again to Hogsmeade and did Flight of the Hippogriff before hopping in line for Hagrid’s! DS had not been a huge fan of this one last trip, but had agreed to try it again. DD was bummed she wasn’t tall enough for it yet.

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We did rider swap again, and DS enjoyed it so much the first time this time that he rode with both DH & I! Last time, he had ridden with me first and then decided to sit out when DH took his turn. I think it was better this time around for a couple of reasons…this time he knew what to expect, and he chose to ride in the sidecar instead of on the motorbike. He felt a little more secure in the sidecar. Last time, I had given him the choice and he had picked motorbike, and I think without something of a ride vehicle around him, it made him feel like he was going to fly off. I was happy to give the motorbike a try this time, and it really does feel like a totally different ride depending on which one you’re in!

 

[BLTtinkerbell]

Following along and enjoying!

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

Oh, I'm glad you got some photos of the greenhouse and other parts of the normal FJ queue. It was so packed during Easter that we did the Express Line both times we rode, seeing those extra rooms didn't feel like it was worth the extra wait, especially since my youngest was too short to ride. Maybe if we return at a low-crowd time we'll finally see the regular queue ourselves.

 

[khertz]

Following along and enjoying!

Thanks so much!

Oh, I'm glad you got some photos of the greenhouse and other parts of the normal FJ queue. It was so packed during Easter that we did the Express Line both times we rode, seeing those extra rooms didn't feel like it was worth the extra wait, especially since my youngest was too short to ride. Maybe if we return at a low-crowd time we'll finally see the regular queue ourselves.

So this is my husband's favorite part of having to do rider swap is not having to put the camera in a locker! lol We usually do the regular queue at least once at Forbidden Journey if we can hit it early enough not to have a long wait and need to use Express. It's a great queue! So detailed, and so fun for a HP fan. But I totally get it, when it's super busy, NO THANKS!