In January, we took a trip to Florida. While we were there, we went to Gatorland (which I’ve already written about), Universal Studios and Walt Disney World.
This post is about our trip to Universal Studios.
We went to Universal Studios for three days while we were in Florida. We visited both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida. Three days is the perfect amount of time to make your way through both of these parks.
On our first day there, we went to Islands of Adventure. Islands of Adventure is a great park. They have plenty of thrill rides for the (older) kids and adults. There are also something’s for younger kids, but we skipped most of that.
On our second day there, we went to Universal Studios Florida. This park doesn’t have as many thrill rides, but we still found a lot of fun rides and stuff to do.
On our final day in the parks, we visited both parks, tried to go on any rides we missed and rode all of our favorites again. It rained this final day, so we didn’t get on every ride we wanted to, but we got every one but one.
My favorite areas of the parks are both of the Harry Potter areas. I have been a fan of Harry Potter, the movies and books for a long time. Universal Parks did such a great job on the Harry Potter areas. We also hit all of the rides in those areas. I think my favorite rides here were either Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts or Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. I’ve been on Escape from Gringotts a few times in the past, but Hagrid’s ride was new. I also love drinking Butterbeer in the parks, it’s a delicious treat. My daughter and I also used our magic wands in Diagon Alley to cast a bunch of spells.
The food in Universal was really good. I think it was better than I remember. Everything we had was good. There was one exception.
We had dinner in at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in Universal CityWalk. They must have been severely understaffed. The service was terrible and the food was just so-so. When we saw our waitress, she was very helpful, but it seemed like she was handling every table in the restaurant. The food and service was bad enough that I don’t think we’ll be revisiting Margaritaville anywhere, anytime soon.
We didn’t stay at a hotel on-site. In the past, we’ve stayed at Loews Royal Pacific Resort And have loved it. But this time, since we were visiting so many different places, we decided to stay off-site.
We really had a great time in Universal Studios. I think we’ll go back there at some point.