Day 11 - Move to RPR, Universal, Islands and Red Oven Pizza Bakery – Tuesday 13th May

Today’s a bit vague as I didn’t get round to recording my voice notes until two days later! We had an action packed couple of days at Universal!

We began stirring at 6am with the alarm, but as ever we faffed about and didn’t get out of the bed until 6.30. We were shattered from staying up a bit late last night so we literally had to drag ourselves out. This was bad as we needed to be ready early so we could get to early entry at the WWoHP for 8am!

Either way we didn’t leave the hotel until 7 something and we had to stop at a petrol station due to the fact we were too scared to get any last night! We grabbed some just before you get onto the I4 near the big McDonalds and it was super cheap. Wish it was that cheap over here. I remember looking at the clock on the car, we left the station at 7:51am and hopped onto the I4, arriving at the hotel at 7:54, super duper quick!

So we’d already missed the start of early entry practically. We went to check into Royal Pacific and this was a bit of a rigmarole. I hadn’t realised it was going to take quite so long to check us in but we were told a room was ready for us which was great so we went and dumped our bags. We were on level 2 I think, not too far from reception. We ran back up to the lobby and grabbed our Express Passes from the little booths.





We arrived at early entry at about 8.25am, so not tooo late. We went straight to Forbidden Journey of course which was posted as a 10 minute wait. We thought that was great until we got inside the castle and realised it was NOT a 10 minute wait at all. I’m not exaggerating at all here, it was probably the longest wait of the day, if not, the whole holiday, as it took about 40 minutes in the end. Normally the queue moves very quickly as they get people on but this was at a snail’s pace. We theorized as to why and once at the front of the queue our theory was correct! Basically because it’s early entry rather than the park being fully operational, they were only running a couple of trains. So a group of 2 benches would come, and then the next wouldn’t arrive for around 30 seconds or so. This is why the queue was hardly moving, as no one was getting on quickly. This is a bit of a pain because what’s the point of having early entry if you don’t get on anything quickly anyway?!

By the time we got off the park was now open but we headed onto Dragon Challenge anyway. I stupidly locked my Express Pass in the locker with my bag but Liam had his and the lady kindly let us both through, which was nice. We actually went on twice. The first time she let us through but the second time we felt bad so we just got in the normal queue! It was a walk on anyway but the queue is super duper long to walk up when you can’t take the shortcut.

After this I was starving as I haven’t eaten anything whereas Liam has some cereal at the Enclave before we left. This I felt was justification enough to have a Cinnabon. I love these!



I ate it while Liam quickly ran and went on the Hulk. I sat outside and it was already humid, first thing in the morning. I didn’t enjoy it as much this time. The lady gave me a weird lopsided one so it wasn’t ride, which I was a bit disappointed about. Once I finished I walked over and met Liam off the Hulk. He’d been on twice, as usual. My stomach was now a bit delicate from the bon so we went on Spiderman first. We used our passes and got on straight away, but the queue wasn’t very big this early anyway.





After that we went back on ourselves so I could do the Hulk and then we did Dr Doom was our passes, we got on both straight away. Dr Doom was great and I kept pointing out the Enclave to Liam!

We pretty much then started working our way round the world. We did Toon Lagoon first.




Liam likes this creepy moon face haha



We went on Bilge Rat Barges, we both got pretty wet but had a couple of dry patches still on us.





We played with the guns you squirt people with, I love these. In the entire holiday I must have spent at least $20 in these. Then we headed to Ripsaw Falls.



Neither of us has been on for years so we couldn’t remember it. I was a little worried about my back as I couldn’t recall whether there’d be a space for me to put my bag where it would stay dry so I plumped to pay for a locker. I had my camera so didn’t want to get everything soaked. It cost $4 which was extortionate! I spose they don’t offer them for free here as they know people will pay when they don’t want their things to get wet!

It was at this point we had a massive tiff because Liam was in charge of Express Passes and he’d left them in my bag, which was now locked in a $4 locker. I said there’s no way I’m getting them out, and I went a bit mad at him :angry:. We got in the normal queue which was luckily only 15 minutes or something but it was an extremely long walk, especially considering we weren’t talking now! We didn’t utter a word to each other until we were at the front of the queue and even then we were evil to each other until we decided to make friends.

Even without the passes we were straight on, luckily. I sat at the front with Liam behind me. We both literally got soaked from head to toe, dripping wet. There was not a dry patch on us. It was soo good! But the worst bit was that being at the front, because of the shape of the boat, all the water shoots up and hit you in the eyes and mouth so I kept swallowing loads of water! And it was all going in my eyes and stinging like mad. I kept my eyes closed for a while after that because I couldn’t really open them. At the end on the last drop, I’d forgotten how tall it was! I hadn’t been on since the 90s I don’t think. The drop is practically vertical! I got super soaked on that drop. We went and got our stuff back and I got a $1 coin in my locker change! How exciting! I’d never seen one before but have since done some research and found it was part of a limited edition presidential coin collection. I will never use it hehe. It’s sitting with my jewellery at home.

As we were wet anyway we thought we’d head to River Adventure.



We thought it’s one of those river rides you don’t normally get wet on. How wrong we were. I kept my bag with my on my lap which I thought would be fine. We were having a jolly old ride round and it was all nice, the dinos were in good working order this year (they hadn’t been in 2012). We got into the building and as ever I kept my eyes closed. Dinosaurs and King Kong, two MASSIVE fears of mine. When they had the new King Kong ride into I’m going to have a mental breakdown just from stepping into this area of the park . So, we went down the drop and somehow, we got ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY SOAKED all over again! My bag was dripping, I couldn’t believe it. I also nearly broke my hand I reckon. A man in the car I think had bigger legs than us so the bar didn’t go all the way down and as we went down the drop I shot forward and mashed my finger against the seat in front, owwwweeeeee!

Since we didn’t particularly enjoy being sodden we decided to head back to RPR. We thought on the way out this was the perfect time to buy our Thing 1 and 2 tops as now we were soaked we needed extra clothes as we stupidly hadn’t packed enough. Unluckily for me I had also only packed one spare pair of pants. Since my current ones were wet through I had to use the other pair which left me with nothing… Shudder. We’ve all been there!

So we went back to RPR via Suess Landing. So walked all around the lagoon. Twice today we spotted the fountain outside Sinbad talking! I’ve never seen it talk before! I wasn’t brave enough to go up to it myself though . It was so funny, it was just trolling everyone. There was a guy looking at it and it said “I like your top” and tried to squirt him but he was totally oblivious. Later on it kept saying he was related to loads of American places, like “Flint Michigan” and “Stone Country”. He said “If you’ve seen my cousin tell him to stop being such a jerk!” Then a woman voice later was going “I’m so lonely I don’t get to talk to many people.”

I brought the two thing tops as I owed Liam money for the petrol. I think it was about $50. Once back at the hotel we got changed and chilled out. We revitalized ourselves, we didn’t get much chance to do this during the holiday! We hung up all of our wet clothes anywhere we could get and watched TV and generally lolled about the room.




Our view


We headed back via the water taxi

After an hour or so we headed back to Universal for some lunch. We contemplated going to the Irish Pub there to get the onion loaf started but I wasn’t sure it was acceptable to go in and just have a started as I was under the impression it was a proper sit down meal? I’m still not sure. Anyway it felt wrong/cheeky so I steered us to Springfield so we could eat in the Simpsons Food Court.

Tbh this was a bit of a pain as we were hungry and they had a queue to queue. That’s right. You queue for ages to get into another queue. At the front of the first queue they ask how many in your party as if you’re getting on a ride! Eventually once through I headed to the fish place and got a Basket o’ Calamari while Liam grabbed some houmous from Lisa’s Cottage. Mine took a while so once Liam caught up I instructed him to go and grab a Flaming Moe which I would pay for as a treat. It was about $10 and a bit disappointing. You get the keep the glass but it’s blinking teeny and tasted like fizzy orangeade with some popping candy in the bottom. The Calamari was amazing though. SOOO tasty! I’ve had loads of people react badly to the fact I ate calamari but it was super tasty. I’m not even entirely sure what calamari is? But I love sea food.



I don’t remember exactly what order we did everything next but we went round the whole park and with the FOLP we didn’t have to wait for anything, which was great! It was well worth the money spent on the hotel.





Once done in US we headed back over to IoA to do the coasters.


Haha what a loner

Liam likes to go on tons of times in a row but I don’t so I sit out a lot. IoA closed at 7 so we went straight back to US as it was closing at 9pm and they had the fireworks on tonight! We went on a couple of things there, including the Despicable Me ride for the first time this holiday as it had been broken down earlier! I liked it much better this time than 2012, but back then it had only just opened during our hol and therefore we queued for about 1 hour and a half in the blistering heart to get on, which sortof mars your enjoyment slightly!

At about 8.15pm we decided to go and get a good spot of the show. We grabbed a bench in Central Park with the intention of moving down to the grassy patch once the show started, as trees sortof blocked the view from the bench. However Liam got bored as ever and decided to abandon me and go on the Mummy.


Tried to get a pic of Liam abandoning me but failed

He was gone for a good half hour, during which time I was feeling really selfish for staying on the bench and I was worried people would sit there so I put my leg up on the space next to me. A family did come and sit on the other end but that was fine. I had nothing to do but read articles on my phone which had low battery so that was a bit annoying. Anyway he came back and said he was “having fun” and that he’d only been on once. I said Liam, don’t lie to me, TELL THE TRUTH because I knew there was no way it would take half an hour to go on once and he admitted he’d been on about 3 times! His excuse was that “Well when I left you were just sat on your phone anyway.” At least I wasn’t a creepy loner bench hogger sitting on my own!

With about 10 minutes until the show started we went and sat on the grassy area. It was incredibly spiky for some reason. We enjoyed the fireworks but I noticed they were the same as they’ve already been – I’m sure I’d heard Universal say they planned to add extra footage as new films came out? Once it was over we knew we’d be getting hungry soon but weren’t quite yet so decided we would pop back to the room and use the pool while it was open as this would be our only chance. We popped into Citywalk first to scope out where to eat later and headed into Red Oven Pizza Bakery, which looked lovely. We asked what time they were open until and they said probably around 11.30pm, maybe earlier. We didn’t know if we’d make it but either way we headed to RPR and got changed into our swimming cosies super quick. I put my hair up so I wouldn’t have to get it wet or bother with it later and we went down to the pool. We both felt really weird walking through the hotel in our swim stuff and out of place as it was full of posh, rich and business people but when we arrived there were other people in the pool which we weren’t expecting.

The hotel was putting on a little movie night at the pool, they were showing Thor on a projector in front of the pool. We just got in and swam about, trying not to cause much noise. We stayed in about 20 or 25 minutes, it was a nice pool, and would be really nice to get in in the day time when its warm.


Thor movie night





We got out and ran back up to the room. I got changed and since I’d managed not to get my hair wet and it wasn’t much of a mess I just left it for our walk into Citywalk. We made friends with a little froggy on the walk!




Our silly little friend

We were really lucky as Red Oven was still open even though it must have been nearly half 11. We had a margarita pizza to share and a caeser salad which was mostly for me!







The salad was nice and the pizza was really nice! We both enjoyed it loads. We shared a coke. We than had a slow walk around the hotel taking some night time pictures as we went.





We got back to the room at half 12. We’d dumped a load of stuff on the bed before so we had to sort the place out and check on our wet things from earlier! We got to sleep at about 1am, so a super late night, and we were both shattered. But luckily had decided we wouldn’t both with early entry tomorrow and have a bit of a lay in at the hotel.


Biggest bed ever

Tomorrow… IoA, US and Shopping (oh god, not again!)