FAQs - Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure
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AKLRULZ · 11-19-2003, 09:40 AM

Post deleted by Dad2jbj

Shell_of_the_South · 11-20-2003, 09:33 AM

No big secret here, I love Universal! The #1 planning tip I can offer is stay onsite! The "front of the line access" at all rides and attractions in the theme parks is, like the commercial says, "Priceless"! Universal has some great hotels.

To save money on Universal hotels, you can get 50% off the rack rates with an Entertainment card. Visit www.entertainment.com to purchase one. The $20 cost of the card is more than worth the $100+ per night you can save on room rates!

JoanW · 05-06-2004, 09:10 AM

I don't see that anyone has posted here recently, be we are planning our first trip to US next year and wanted to know what you think about their resorts and how the rooms are (7 going, and we need 3 rooms because one of the seven is the boyfriend of one DSD, so no room sharing going on with my money). I am thinking of staying one night, after our week in Kissimmee so we can get two days in at US (Sunday and Monday) and fly home Monday night, possibly. What do you all think?

NancyW2 · 05-06-2004, 12:24 PM

Joan, speaking from experience, (we stayed at the Hard Rock), I can honestly say you will absolutely LOVE IT!!!!

The hotels are on par with anything deluxe WDW has. The best feature, in my opinion, is that your onsite room key gives you front of the line access!! No waiting, no fast passes. You can also walk into the parks within 5 minutes, or take the boat. It's very pretty. If you have any questions, ask away.

JoanW · 05-06-2004, 12:51 PM

I've read that I can get an Entertainment Book discount, but I will have to wait for a 2005 book to come out I think. I do believe that it is important to stay onsite to go to the front of the line. What is your experience on rates per night for a standard room?

dizPlanner · 05-06-2004, 03:24 PM

We have stayed at both the Hard Rock Hotel and the Royal Pacific. Both are very nice. I've never gotten the Entertainment rate - none available for my dates. I've used Magical Journey to reserve my room both trips. The first time they got a very good AAA rate for me at the Hard Rock. However, this was the Jan 2002 - right after 9/11 and the hotels were hurting. The trip to the Royal Pacific was in March 2004. I was able to get a Universal Fan Club rate - $164 a night. This was booked in January.
For our March trip, we checked in late ~10pm and they didn't have any 2 queen rooms left, which is what we reserved. They had some convention groups stay longer than planned and they had some room changes. A bit of a problem as we had four people - me, DH, DS(14 yrs), DD(12 yrs). They put us in a king room with a sleeper sofa, but gave us a free roll-away bed on my request. They were willing to move us to a two queen room the next morning, but I asked if we could keep the roll-away in order to separate the kids. The clerk did not recommend the rollaway in the 2 queen room due to space constraints. Since the sofa bed was fairly comfortable for my daughter, we decided to just stay in the king room. They never did charge us for the roll-away. I was willing to pay for the second and third day as it was my choice to stay in the room.
They normally charge $6 a day for self-parking, but we were not charged. We didn't move the car until we left, so that might be why.

The front of the line access definately makes it worth staying at these resorts. On Friday and Saturday, the waits were long (60 min or longer on many rides) and express passes were gone before 11am, but we could just walk on or have a short wait. Sunday it was slower, so the express access was nice, but not as critical. However, since the last day we were just re-riding the roller coasters, it still helped, particularly on Hulk. It is also nice to not have to worry about which park to see on which day to avoid crowds, since crowds don't affect you.

Karen

BostonTeaParty · 05-06-2004, 04:44 PM

To be honest, I don't remember what we paid. It was a couple of years ago. I remember it wasn't cheap, but I didn't care. I remember that we got upgraded to a pool view room for no extra charge; that was fantastic!! It's not only important to stay onsite for front of the line access; it's imperative! That alone makes the price worth it, in my opinion. We must've gone on Men In Black and Spiderman - 5 times in a row. Just walked right on - over and over!! You can't beat that! Also, parking wasn't an issue for us - because we had used Tiffany Town Car to bring us to Disney and then used Disney transportation. Then, when we were finished at Disney and headed over to Universal - we used Tiffany again. We didn't need a car there, because it's a two minute walk to both parks.

DouglasE · 11-21-2003, 10:17 AM

<font color="purple">My big tip for Islands of Adventure is to plan on being wet. Wear a swimsuit or quick drying clothes because on so many of the attractions you get splashed, sprayed, spritzed and downright poured on! While that spells FUN for me, it pays to be prepared. Next time I go I will wear a swimsuit, a T-shirt, and flip flops. Soggy socks and sneakers is the pits! If you do go on the Bilge Rat Barges, you will not have a square inch on you that isn't soaked to the gills. NO ONE escapes being thoroughly drenched. I always find that hysterical, but others don't so be forewarned.

Islands of Adventure is also a park geared toward the adventurous thrill seeker. If being upside down, shot up in the air, spinning around isn't up your alley, then there won't be a lot to do and you could get away with planning half a day.</font>

simbarel · 11-21-2003, 03:22 PM

Unfortunately I won't be able to take advantage of Michelle's on-site tip.....but thanks for making this available! It's good to know I can come here to get some reliable and helpful information from people I "know." We won't be going until January 2005...but I can't wait!

Since Michelle C said she went on the Hulk a number of times I'm loosening my personal ban from the ride. I'll decide when I see it myself.

Shell_of_the_South · 12-16-2003, 12:19 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Since Michelle C said she went on the Hulk a number of times I'm loosening my personal ban from the ride. I'll decide when I see it myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh Rachel, you gotta try it at least once!! The takeoff is worth it all!! I could loan you my kids, they are quite persuasive in getting me to ride this stuff!

Just another tip I remembered. A Universal Fan Club card will save you 10% on tickets, food, and merchandise. I got mine free through Your Magical Journeys. Just contact one of the ladies there and they can get you a card as well.

Also, Annual Passholders get 20% off merchandise and food and get free parking. That can add up to a big savings.

Tiger Lily · 12-28-2003, 02:45 PM

My tip is to plan on more time in each park than you would expect -- due to the large number of shows that run only at certain times. There are fewer continuous-loading attractions, and it just takes more planning to be able to hit all the shows. Some of them don't run very often, and the times don't coordinate very well with each other. (We also encountered this at Sea World.)

Suffice it to say that we are able to get more done in a shorter period of time at Disney World.

Nonetheless, Universal has things that I wouldn't miss for the world, like T2 3D! And Back to the Future. Also IOA has the magnificent Incredible Hulk roller coaster and the one-of-a-kind Spider Man ride. I have to agree that staying at one of their hotels helps. We rode Spideman over and over thanks to front-of-the-line access. This allowed us to take it all in. You can't really appreciate that attraction in one ride.

lilprincess · 01-09-2004, 08:42 PM

Just a heads-up on one of the websites mentioned...I clicked onto the third one "Largest Unofficial..." and read a long message about how the website will be closed down as of February 1 (I took it as there are legal issues and bitter feelings with Universal ). So, maybe it can be deleted off this thread.