Posting our review of Volcano Bay from Monday, July 3rd.
We didn't get down to the HRH bus stop until about 7:20 -- we were off the bus and in line at VB around 7:35, and, as expected, there were many people ahead of us already. When they started letting everyone in, I couldn't help but notice that our line was moving way slower than the others, and as I got closer to the front, I saw why. The ticket scanner was having small chat with EVERYONE -- wanting to explain everything about the Tapu, making sure to high five all the kids, etc. I appreiate his enthusiasm, but this was not the time for it, LOL. So, we head straight to the concierge hut to get the premium seating we had reserved in April (I had printed the tickets at the will-call kiosk at HRH with the reservation number on my confirmation email). There were about 10 guests ahead of me. Just about all of them had issues of some sort, so it was slow moving. When I got up there, I was done in about 20 seconds. We then waited about 5 minutes from that point for someone to escort us to our seating.
I had reserved Wave Village and we were in a pretty location near the center of the volcano in a fairly shady area. Suprisingly, our regular-sized backpack fit in the storage -- I thought I'd have to remove items to put in there.
From there, we rode Krakatau Aqua Coaster. It was "ride now" and we waited probably 10 minutes (my guess is it was around 8:30 at this point). We liked it a lot and I wanted to ride it again, but the kids wanted to try something else. We walked by Ko'okiri body plunge, but the wait time was already 85 minutes, so we moved on to Honu. Of course it was down, so we did "ride now" with Ika Moana. We waited in line for close to 30 minutes and it was just okay. Honu was now up, but it had a wait, so we decided we'd come back. We went by the Kala and Tai Nui body slides and the wait was 35 minutes so we tapped in and went to the wave pool and loungers. We returned expecting the wait to be no more than 30 minutes, however, the ride went down twice and had to recycle, so we waited 60 minutes in line for this. Any fear I had about riding this was diminished by just wanting to get out of the line already. None of us liked this ride. Water shoots right in your face/up your nose the first thing when the trap door opens and I just wanted it to end. My older DS had gone first and he said that as he watched people get off, most of them looked kind of dazed and confused like they weren't sure what just happened to them, LOL.
We went back to the wave pool and then it was time to eat. At first, older DS didn't want anything off the menu, so DH took him to find food. He was back within 10 minutes and said that the lines were insane, so he was going to eat something off of the menu. Our service at our seating was good, which surprised me. The food also came out quicker than I thought it would and the food was pretty good, too. As we ate, I told DH that I thought the cost of the seating was worth it just for this.
We then decided to tap into Honu and go to the lazy river for a bit. It was crazy crowded and just not very enjoyable. We then rode Taniwha Tubes since it was "ride now". They did have us tap in and we didn't lose our wait in the Honu virtual queue. Then it was off to Honu -- we all loved it-- the boys liked it more than Krakatau, but I would say it was a tie for me with the edge to Krakatau.
On a side note, the sidewalk is REALLY hot. I had bought cheap Old Navy flip flops just for VB and I hated walking in them when my feet were wet -- the top straps were irritating when wet, so I took them off a lot. Even worse than the sidewalks was the sand. OMG! We had to walk quite a bit to get to our seats and back when we'd go to the wave pool (which was fairly close) -- OUCH! I still have a blister on the bottom of my big toe from a week ago.
At this point, we didn't really know what to do. Everything had a pretty substantial wait. There was even a long line just to enter the Fearless River. We tapped into the Punga Racers which only had a 60 minute wait, but we just didn't have it in us to stay any longer than another 30 minutes.
Regarding the premium seating, if I would've known exactly where we were going to be seated, I would've just gotten one set of loungers and pulled some free lounge chairs up for the boys. Not sure if that's workable in all areas, but it would've been where we were. The location of many of the cabanas didn't look that great and I'm glad we didn't go that route for as much as they charge you.
I'm glad I kept my expecations low. I knew what to expect going in, so there were no major disappointments. I think by next summer, most of the kinks will be worked out. It definitely has a lot of potential.