Her View 

Orlando - Caywood's perspective

 

Orlando: the city of tourists. We went down there to go to one of the many theme parks. Originally we were thinking Disney, but once the planning began we went with Universals. Honestly, it was an easy choice to pick Universal since I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (one of the many). We chose to do the two day park pass where we did Universal Studios on day one, and Island of Adventures the next. The only downside to this option was that we couldn't ride Hogwarts Express-you have to have the park to park pass to do that, which would have added about $100 between the two of us. My highlights by far were Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Although the rides here were not all superb (Gringott's Bank ride was much overrated), it truly is just like in the movies. If not better. I really felt like I was there! And of course topping it off with a Butter beer on a warm summer day was a nice touch.

 

My advice from our experience:

1. Get there as soon as the park opens. On the first day we got there around 10:00 am (later than planned; the park opens at 8:00 am). First ride already had near a two hour wait once we got through security and into the park. On day two we got there right as the park opened, and went on the Hulk with only a ten minute wait! Even got the front row.

2. Ride in the singles line! We tested out the singles line for a few of the rides, and they're totally worth it. Sometimes we got lucky and got to go in the same cart, but most of the times we were still split. Even though your split up for the ride (which is usually under a minute), you still wait in line together so you're not missing out on quality time! On one of the Harry Potter rides we turned a 4.5 hour wait into 2 hours. On the Ripsaw Falls water ride, we waiting literally 3 minutes for what would have been 75. 

3. Take advantage of the Universals phone app. There's actually an app that has all of the ride's waiting times. We started using this at the end of day one thanks to a British person in line with us in Diagon Alley, and it made it much easier to plan our way around the park to get as many rides in as possible.

4. Pack a few frozen water bottles in your backpack. I was shocked to find out that Universals allows you to take water in the gates. Most public parks and such don't let you do this so they can charge you up the wazoo! Once you get in, bottles of water are $2.75. I've definitely seen higher water prices than this, but compared to buying the water bottles prior it's still high. We took in two bottles of frozen water, and they were cold most of the day and available to us whenever we got thirsty.

5. It was way easier going to a theme park with two people vs. the typical three or four. This was actually my first time going with just two people to such a large theme park, and it was definitely easier to bypass some of the lines thanks to being in a pair.

6. Prep yourself for an overload on little kids, big families, and lots of screaming. Enough said.