Trip Report 3 Park 5 Day

[sipnride]

Arrived in Friday night and checked into aventura around midnight. Just me and my 11 yo. I've been enjoying the hotel. The rooftop bar was real lively last night, and before that we had a good time at the pool, with a good number of kids around the same age but otherwise catering more to the adults. All around just a great place to socialize, and though it's definitely not providing 4 star service the people who work here are great. Very few little kids here which is nice. One of the perks of having a just ok pool.

Park hopped between IOA and US on Saturday, more or less having a strictly Harry Potter day. As I noted in another post, the morning was nearly flawless. Early entry to IOA. Hagrids was down (the one negative, but with a silver lining) so we just enjoyed Hogsmeade then walked on to express, gringotts, express again and then FJ (well not exactly walk on, but walked straight to the classroom). Had breakfast at Leaky Cauldron. Bangers were banging and the potatoes, mushrooms, and croissant were all delightful. After FJ hung out behind Hogs Head. I enjoyed a hogshead and a deathly hallows triple (called it that every time I ordered it and got no pushback fwiw). The kid had a frozen butter beer - spectacular!

I would highly recommend this itinerary if hagrids is down for EE. Had a really great time and fully experienced everything Harry Potter before noon - with one exception of course. We definitely had time to do olivanders and griffin if we had wanted to, but preferred to shop and enjoy some brew.

At this point we decided to bite the bullet and get in line for hagrids with the wait time down to a mere 105 minutes. Good lord that line is brutal. It's not just that the wait is long, it's that the queue moves so slowly that you spend way too much time in the same room. It was at least 20 minutes and in one case a good 45 minutes to move through a room. It just gets incredibly boring. On to of that that it wound up taking 2 hours 10 minutes. But it was our first time riding and damn was it worth it. Great great great ride. We're going to EE again tomorrow in hopes it'll be open.

Today (Sunday ) we did VB and I was just blown away! had never been before and without a doubt it's the best water park I've ever been to. we were up late the night before so we didn't arrive until after noon. The walk from aventura was amazingly short. it's almost like having VB is the other more spectacular swimming pool for the hotel, but of course it's not just a swimming pool. So relaxing, such beautiful sightlines, exquisite theming. I had coconut curry chicken when we got there and it was really good, and the platanos they came with were cooked to perfection.

Spent a long time time floating down the winding River losing track of time and and space. Then moved on to the fearless River, putting in a solid 5 laps and loving every minute. At this point there were short waits for everything but the water coaster, which was full. So we did Tonga and IkaMoana. Great slides both of them,especially the latter. From there we found a nice spot on the main beach and just soaked it up in and out of the wave pool with a periodic dip into dancing Dragons for some rum sugar and ice.

Going back on Tuesday. Got a good deal on preferred seating, and just love the idea of ordering from my seat. I'll be back to report on that and our first HHN. So far its been a great trip at UOR.

 

[sipnride]

Forgot to mention we had dinner at Mythos. Loved the lamb meatballs and the gnocchi bolognese. Did not care for the panko sushi. We also had the steak medallions. The steak itself was good, as were the mashed potatoes and green beans. But the demi-glace was disgusting. We both agreed to call it sewer gravy and discarded anything that had touched it. It was that bad. Overall though that is a very impressive restaurant. Will definitely be back.

 

[wdwrule]

Arrived in Friday night and checked into aventura around midnight. Just me and my 11 yo. I've been enjoying the hotel. The rooftop bar was real lively last night, and before that we had a good time at the pool, with a good number of kids around the same age but otherwise catering more to the adults. All around just a great place to socialize, and though it's definitely not providing 4 star service the people who work here are great. Very few little kids here which is nice. One of the perks of having a just ok pool.

Park hopped between IOA and US on Saturday, more or less having a strictly Harry Potter day. As I noted in another post, the morning was nearly flawless. Early entry to IOA. Hagrids was down (the one negative, but with a silver lining) so we just enjoyed Hogsmeade then walked on to express, gringotts, express again and then FJ (well not exactly walk on, but walked straight to the classroom). Had breakfast at Leaky Cauldron. Bangers were banging and the potatoes, mushrooms, and croissant were all delightful. After FJ hung out behind Hogs Head. I enjoyed a hogshead and a deathly hallows triple (called it that every time I ordered it and got no pushback fwiw). The kid had a frozen butter beer - spectacular!

I would highly recommend this itinerary if hagrids is down for EE. Had a really great time and fully experienced everything Harry Potter before noon - with one exception of course. We definitely had time to do olivanders and griffin if we had wanted to, but preferred to shop and enjoy some brew.

At this point we decided to bite the bullet and get in line for hagrids with the wait time down to a mere 105 minutes. Good lord that line is brutal. It's not just that the wait is long, it's that the queue moves so slowly that you spend way too much time in the same room. It was at least 20 minutes and in one case a good 45 minutes to move through a room. It just gets incredibly boring. On to of that that it wound up taking 2 hours 10 minutes. But it was our first time riding and damn was it worth it. Great great great ride. We're going to EE again tomorrow in hopes it'll be open.

Today (Sunday ) we did VB and I was just blown away! had never been before and without a doubt it's the best water park I've ever been to. we were up late the night before so we didn't arrive until after noon. The walk from aventura was amazingly short. it's almost like having VB is the other more spectacular swimming pool for the hotel, but of course it's not just a swimming pool. So relaxing, such beautiful sightlines, exquisite theming. I had coconut curry chicken when we got there and it was really good, and the platanos they came with were cooked to perfection.

Spent a long time time floating down the winding River losing track of time and and space. Then moved on to the fearless River, putting in a solid 5 laps and loving every minute. At this point there were short waits for everything but the water coaster, which was full. So we did Tonga and IkaMoana. Great slides both of them,especially the latter. From there we found a nice spot on the main beach and just soaked it up in and out of the wave pool with a periodic dip into dancing Dragons for some rum sugar and ice.

Going back on Tuesday. Got a good deal on preferred seating, and just love the idea of ordering from my seat. I'll be back to report on that and our first HHN. So far its been a great trip at UOR.

Glad you’re having a wonderful time! We’re just leaving now from a quick weekend trip and also stayed at Aventura. Your Saturday sounds a lot like our Saturday. Wait times were unusually high for Hagrid’s all weekend. I don’t think I saw it less than 120 minutes which is strange. Usually it dips down a bit during the early afternoon hours.

You may want to pool hop across the street to Sapphire Falls. Quick short walk and their pool is much larger and has a fun slide. Just show Sapphire Falls’ front desk/concierge your Aventura room keys and they’ll gladly give you their pool access card. Some people like pool hopping to Cabana Bay which has a lazy river.

Also, the Death Eaters are out at night in the Hogsmeade area… unless you saw them. Another thing we did that was fun was visit Dead Coconut Club in Citywalk and met Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein… and Dracula. They were all fabulous!! Under 21 is allowed there with an adult.

Anyways, keep enjoying your time!! Such an amazing destination!

 

[sipnride]

Yesterday (Monday+Halloween) started off well. EE got us Velocicoaster (amazing) River Adventure, Kong, Spiderman, Dr Doom, and Hulk all before 10:30. Ate some savory Cinnabon breakfast before heading back to the hotel to rest up before HHN.

Back to US by 3p, we rode ET and Simpsons before selling down for some dufftober. I'm not a fan of duff but you add tober to it and suddenly it's a pretty good beer. My kid had a Flaming Moe's and before you know it it's 5p and we're lining up for Weeknd. Spoiler, we didn't see many haunts, Weeknd was our favorite by far. Did Monsters and Descendants. Felt like both were overrated. But it was still early. Bugs was up to a 45 minute wait so we decided to kill some time in HP World. The alley was fun to finally see at night and we rode Gringotts again. At some point during all this it became apparent that neither of us were dealing with the heat very well, and after watching the witch conjure demons in the SF scare zone we decided to call it a night. Sometimes you just have to listen to what you're body's telling you, but sadly I won't be doing chupacabra or dead man's pier.

The bright side of the early bedtime was an early start to our Volcano Bay day, which reinforced it as one of my favorite parks anywhere, and not just water parks but of any park.

 

[macraven]

sounds like you had a great time !and enjoyed it all. !

 

[sipnride]

I want to say that yesterday (Tuesday) was the best experience start to finish.

We did Volcano Bay again, this time with preferred seating as it was only $70. At that price I would do it again, though I realize it's not typically that cheap. The best perk is having a locker right at your seat. It's awesome knowing your stuff is safe when you leave and can just come back to your seat and have what you need right there. On top of that we had the perfect view of krakatau! The service part was hit or miss, but overall preferred seating made for a more relaxing day.

We immediately got in queue for Krakatau AC and WOW. Great aqua coaster. Only been on one other, in BG Williamsburg and this one is way better. After getting off got in queue again and this time it was going to be 180 minutes wait. No problem as every other attraction was on Ride Now status, and either way preferred spending most of our time in the rivers and beach. Waturi and TeAwa were particularly impressive. Not sure if it was due to lighter crowds but both seemed as though they had their waves cranked up. What a blast we had on those.

Before we knew it 3 hours had gone by and we were headed back to the coaster. But when we got there I'm not joking a party of 40 people were getting into a line that was already kind of long. We decided we'd come back later, and that was serendipitous because it led us up the path to the walk through caves of Krakatau. If there was a Disney magic moment to be had, this was it.

A cluster of glowing fountains lit the front of the cave. At this point we were just happy to stand in them to cool off a bit when we were startled by a loud voice. Looking around we saw a face on the rock behind us who would later introduce themselves as Vol, The Spirit Of Krakatau (queue thunder+dancing fountains followed by sheepish apologies from Vol for causing all the raucous. Vol was the best. Cracked a bunch of great dad jokes, hosted a great dance party, but most important did a really great job of interacting with us. After maybe 20 minutes of engaging and entertaining the two of us we said bye to Vol as a family of 8 approached. I hope they had as much fun as we did.

Back down the path, the line was shorter but still long and closing time was approaching, so we rode TeAwa until there was only time left for one last lap, got out and returned to KAC. The line was much shorter at this point, and soon we on our raft screaming "Vooool" like Andres Cantor as we plummeted down each chute. As we exited we screamed Vol one last time time at the top of the stairs for good measure.

After a pretty exciting and exhausting day we decided to skip city walk and just eat dinner at amatista in Sapphire Falls. Glad we did. Delicious. We shared a 3 course meal of empanadas, steak, and mousse. All three courses were excellent. But the hidden gem was in the kids menu. Convinced the kiddo to get chicken sliders instead of Mac & Cheese. Served on Hawaiian rolls the grilled chicken was incredibly tasty, and we got some of the cilantro sauce they normally serve with their rotisserie to dip them in and oh my Vol taste bud bonanza. Dinner also came with bread service that included pao de queijo and that was another bright spot. Service by omar was also stellar. Overall best meal we had of the trip no doubt about it.

With HHN being a low point of the trip it was great to bounce back and end on such positive vibes. We fly out today (Wednesday) and instead of trying to squeeze in some park time were going to visit Portofino and just have the shuttle pick us up from there. I'll put up a final post summarizing the entirety of the trip but I'm probably not spoiling much by saying it was a fantastic trip.

 

[macraven]

It sounds like a fantastic trip!