Day 3 – December 21st - Universal here we come - But a few housekeeping items before we begin …
Universal’s Royal Pacific Resort - When planning this Christmas trip, I was very worried about the crowds. I didn’t want our 3 days in the parks to be a lot of standing in line, so I knew I wanted to stay on site and get the Express Pass. Looking into the hotels, RPR was the least expensive, and that was still $400 a night! I talked with the family and decided we’d do 2 nights at RPR and transfer over to a $100 hotel the last night, saving us about $300. Not ideal, but to be budget conscious it would be done. I had watched all the discount hotel sites, and I think it was hotels.com that had a 15% off day that would expire at midnight. Well, that was the best rate I had seen yet and after my noon routes, I was going to come back and book it. Once I returned, I sat down at the computer ready to book, checked my emails, and here was an email from Universal offering me 50% off the room rate for the dates I was just going to book. CRAZY! That was a no-brainer and I called and booked and booked the 3rd night with them right away. SCORE! I also upgraded to a water view for an extra $17/night (which we only looked out when it was dark, so probably not a needed upgrade.) So it was $217/night and with taxes $244.13. Taxes stink.
Tickets – again I was on the hunt to find the best price. Buy directly from the Universal website or some sports site that was chatted about on the DISboards quite a bit? Since we needed 3 days worth of tickets, the best price was from
Undercover Tourist. I wasn’t worried about the reputation as I get a newsletter from them and know they are legit. They had a special buy a 2day park-to-park and get the 3rd day free, so I bought those for $197.21 / ticket. That’s still a lot of money times 4!
Lanyards – Since we were going to have Express Passes that needed to be out for every ride we could use it at, I bought some from
Amazon for about $11 for 8 of them in bright colors. Not the coolest, but they worked fine. I had thought they were clear on each side, but they weren’t. It would have been nice had they been, but it wasn’t the worst. I told my family that we would buy them ones if they wanted (DH liked the Simpson one) but in the end they were all find with the ones I had bought. They also weren't waterproof as the family found out on the Jurassic water ride! Oh well, a little drying out and everything was good.
Locker Chat- DS19 became our locker guy. He is tall, thin, and good at moving among crowds (he learned that from me.
) He figured out how to use the lockers, is good at remembering numbers and was our go-to guy. With the finger scan and all that, I was glad he was so receptive to always doing it – especially since he had to walk around with my purse every time. Lol DS19 is also a very thoughtful boy. If you don’t get your stuff out of the locker in the designated “free time” then you need to pay a rental fee. Which makes sense, unless you put everything in the locker including your money. DS19 gave money at least once to someone who had done that and we kept a few extra singles in our pockets just in case. DS19 also helped a few others who didn’t know what they were doing and gave them quick tutorials. A couple times he came out just shaking his head.
Transfering from the Sheraton Vistana to Universal’s Royal Pacific Resort
We were up at about 6:00am and all showered and packed up. We had to call the shuttle to come pick us up and get us back to the welcome center. We had wanted to use more Uber and less taxis, but being behind the gate in the condos it seemed like too much hassle. The taxi service out of the Vistana said they were $25 to Universal, how strange that several extra miles past Sea World was only $3 more.
So that morning, I looked on the
Uber app and it said there was a car near our location and the cost was $22. I had a new user coupon code for $20 off our first use, so after I looked over our bill and checked out, we requested our first Uber ride. It is as nice of a feature as it looks! We knew what car was coming (we requested an XL with our luggage) and what the driver looked like and his name. He showed up in 3 minutes, loaded our stuff and we were off! Since all the billing is online, we didn’t do any cash transaction. I heard that you tip online, but when I’ve gone back to look it says that his tip is included in the price. I’m still worried I shorted him. Our price came to $21.58 and with my $20 coupon, it came to $1.58 and the guy was super nice!
I know we had poptarts and protein bars for breakfast again this morning. Not sure when it was, but it helps to have something in your stomach to start the busy day!
So Uber picked us up at 7:15 am and at 7:32 we were walking on the bridge into the hotel. We did a very quick check in, gave our bags to the luggage services, and did the super fast Express Pass photo cards (mine turned out almost black, but since the rest of our families looked good and they were scanned it wasn’t a problem.) I had imagined the Express Passes would take awhile, but really it was about 1 minute for each. Nice!
I also took a picture of our tickets in case they were lost of something. You never know!