RachelleBeaney
PrincessShelle
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2012
Day 8 - Part 2 - Express Pass Failings
When I had calmed down enough we caught the Hogwarts Express over to Universal Studios. As I mentioned earlier, we planned to stop riding rides so we could search for a SD card. A search that ended up being in vain.
The wait was only about 10 minutes so we decided to save our Express Pass for our trip back to Islands of Adventure later in the day.
We were so dispirited after not finding an SD card we threw our plan away completely. We knew we were heading out to Cowfish for lunch (I'd changed our reservation from dinner to lunch the previous day knowing we would be leaving in the afternoon). Lunch was at 1pm so we just decided to see if we could get all the rides we wanted to do at Universal done before lunch, and then we'd finish up rides at Islands of Adventure and go home. Honestly I wasn't in the best head space for having fun, as I was still worried about how the photo recovery would go. I really did try and get out of my head and have fun, but I was not doing a very good job of it.
Since we were up closer to the entrance of Universal Studios (having walked around looking for an SD card) we decided to start with Jimmy Fallon's Race through New York.
We did glimpse Hashtag the Panda out the front of the ride, which was fun!
We were given a "green" boarding pass and headed in.
We got to enjoy the musical stylings of this barber shop quintet while we waited! They were good (not Dapper Dans good, but still good!)
Pretty soon we were on the ride. The Express Pass hadn't really done us much good here as it only bypassed the first part of the line before you get a boarding pass. Once you have the boarding pass you just wait to be called along with everyone else (which took about 10 minutes for us). Still it's great because there is no "line" and plenty of seats around the place!
I wasn't expecting much of this one, knowing it was a pretty basic simulator attraction. It was a basic simulator but I really really enjoyed it! Mostly because it was so utterly hilarious. Jared and I both really enjoy Jimmy Fallon and the completely surreal and incredulous journey you go on "racing" him through New York is pretty fantastic. The ride itself may not be all that impressive but the comedy and story that comes from it is, so I think it's worth riding just for that reason alone.
After Jimmy we headed over to the Mummy. We had a lot of trouble getting a locker to open with our phone (which is where we had our tickets stored). I went to find a staff member to ask how we could get the locker to work (we were getting so fed up with the lockers by this point) and she informed us we could just use a "locker pass" and proceeded to hand me two! Anyway we used these passes from here on out to open lockers, which was easier than using the phone.
Right before we headed onto the Mummy it had started raining heavily. In true Orlando fashion it lasted 2 minutes and was then done!
We enjoyed the Mummy but it is looking old and tired. A lot of the mummies in the opening scene weren't work (aka didn't pop up) and again the whole thing looks as though it could use a refurb. I do know a lot of people complain about Disney World's maintenance of it's attractions but I have to say Universal was definitely coming off worse this day (to us anyway).
The express pass worked well for our trip to escape having our souls doomed for all eternity (though the wait for the ride was only about 10 minutes) but after this they started to be MUCH less valuable.
We headed towards Transformers next. The posted wait was 30 minutes, so not too bad, and we though "hey we will be on in no time with our express pass". We've never normally waited more than 5 minutes with express pass in all of our past experiences. I believe we waited 15 minutes (which was half the standby wait).
Halfway through our ride the attraction frozen. When it started working again we weren't facing the right direction, so we could hear the action going on but we couldn't see it. I figured the long express pass waits were probably due to the fact the ride had broken down a few times. Unlikely Disney though, Universal didn't seem to be too worried about clearing the Express Pass backlog (considering people pay for the privilege to use Express Pass, whereas Fastpass is free, this seems like a daft move!).
When we were done it was lunchtime (or time to head out to Cowfish for lunch) and we still had three attractions we wanted to get done at Universal. We had thought we'd managed to get them all done before lunch with EP and everything had gone so badly we were really depressed. We didn't really want to go back into both parks after lunch but it looked like that would be what we'd be doing. We had already agreed to skip Men in Black and ET, both of which were originally on our list of rides to do that day.
As we walked out of the park we passed Bart and Lisa Simpson. Bart gave me a hi-five and this simple act made me smile and clearly my sour mood a little.
Lunch at Cowfish was fantastic. We really weren't too hungry but we were exhausted and sitting down in the cool was so welcome.
Our exhausted faces!
Our food was fantastic. Cowfish has some of the best sushi that I've ever tasted (sushi-rolls that is) and I love the fusion with American style burgers. Since we weren't that hungry we ordered two sushi-rolls to share and loaded fries.
I loved the vegetarian roll in particular:
Continued in Next Post....
When I had calmed down enough we caught the Hogwarts Express over to Universal Studios. As I mentioned earlier, we planned to stop riding rides so we could search for a SD card. A search that ended up being in vain.
The wait was only about 10 minutes so we decided to save our Express Pass for our trip back to Islands of Adventure later in the day.
We were so dispirited after not finding an SD card we threw our plan away completely. We knew we were heading out to Cowfish for lunch (I'd changed our reservation from dinner to lunch the previous day knowing we would be leaving in the afternoon). Lunch was at 1pm so we just decided to see if we could get all the rides we wanted to do at Universal done before lunch, and then we'd finish up rides at Islands of Adventure and go home. Honestly I wasn't in the best head space for having fun, as I was still worried about how the photo recovery would go. I really did try and get out of my head and have fun, but I was not doing a very good job of it.
Since we were up closer to the entrance of Universal Studios (having walked around looking for an SD card) we decided to start with Jimmy Fallon's Race through New York.
We did glimpse Hashtag the Panda out the front of the ride, which was fun!
We were given a "green" boarding pass and headed in.
We got to enjoy the musical stylings of this barber shop quintet while we waited! They were good (not Dapper Dans good, but still good!)
Pretty soon we were on the ride. The Express Pass hadn't really done us much good here as it only bypassed the first part of the line before you get a boarding pass. Once you have the boarding pass you just wait to be called along with everyone else (which took about 10 minutes for us). Still it's great because there is no "line" and plenty of seats around the place!
I wasn't expecting much of this one, knowing it was a pretty basic simulator attraction. It was a basic simulator but I really really enjoyed it! Mostly because it was so utterly hilarious. Jared and I both really enjoy Jimmy Fallon and the completely surreal and incredulous journey you go on "racing" him through New York is pretty fantastic. The ride itself may not be all that impressive but the comedy and story that comes from it is, so I think it's worth riding just for that reason alone.
After Jimmy we headed over to the Mummy. We had a lot of trouble getting a locker to open with our phone (which is where we had our tickets stored). I went to find a staff member to ask how we could get the locker to work (we were getting so fed up with the lockers by this point) and she informed us we could just use a "locker pass" and proceeded to hand me two! Anyway we used these passes from here on out to open lockers, which was easier than using the phone.
Right before we headed onto the Mummy it had started raining heavily. In true Orlando fashion it lasted 2 minutes and was then done!
We enjoyed the Mummy but it is looking old and tired. A lot of the mummies in the opening scene weren't work (aka didn't pop up) and again the whole thing looks as though it could use a refurb. I do know a lot of people complain about Disney World's maintenance of it's attractions but I have to say Universal was definitely coming off worse this day (to us anyway).
The express pass worked well for our trip to escape having our souls doomed for all eternity (though the wait for the ride was only about 10 minutes) but after this they started to be MUCH less valuable.
We headed towards Transformers next. The posted wait was 30 minutes, so not too bad, and we though "hey we will be on in no time with our express pass". We've never normally waited more than 5 minutes with express pass in all of our past experiences. I believe we waited 15 minutes (which was half the standby wait).
Halfway through our ride the attraction frozen. When it started working again we weren't facing the right direction, so we could hear the action going on but we couldn't see it. I figured the long express pass waits were probably due to the fact the ride had broken down a few times. Unlikely Disney though, Universal didn't seem to be too worried about clearing the Express Pass backlog (considering people pay for the privilege to use Express Pass, whereas Fastpass is free, this seems like a daft move!).
When we were done it was lunchtime (or time to head out to Cowfish for lunch) and we still had three attractions we wanted to get done at Universal. We had thought we'd managed to get them all done before lunch with EP and everything had gone so badly we were really depressed. We didn't really want to go back into both parks after lunch but it looked like that would be what we'd be doing. We had already agreed to skip Men in Black and ET, both of which were originally on our list of rides to do that day.
As we walked out of the park we passed Bart and Lisa Simpson. Bart gave me a hi-five and this simple act made me smile and clearly my sour mood a little.
Lunch at Cowfish was fantastic. We really weren't too hungry but we were exhausted and sitting down in the cool was so welcome.
Our exhausted faces!
Our food was fantastic. Cowfish has some of the best sushi that I've ever tasted (sushi-rolls that is) and I love the fusion with American style burgers. Since we weren't that hungry we ordered two sushi-rolls to share and loaded fries.
I loved the vegetarian roll in particular:
Continued in Next Post....
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