Orlando Day 6 - Universal Studios, Hot Butterbeer debut, Turkey Drumsticks

11/21/2014

Hogswart Express

Today is the first day Universal started selling hot butterbeer. Before, it was just cold or frozen butterbeer, but now you get the choice of hot. Which sucked for me cuz I’d originally wanted to buy a hot butterbeer on Tuesday (it was freakin freezing that day!). But today's pretty warm (Orlando weather is very temperamental. It fluctuates 20 degrees from one day to the next. :T), so I wasn’t about to go buy a hot one just for the sake of tasting it.

The hot butterbeer debut was important enough that it warranted airtime on the evening news. No joke. We were watching the evening news in our hotel and the 3 newsanchors were discussing it. Since Orlando weather is so unpredictable, we had no choice but to watch the evening news to find out what tomorrow's weather will be like (usually evening news would be the last thing we'd want to see on vacation).

Cold and hot butterbeer are both 4.99+tax. But if you want a frozen one (like a frappuccino), it’ll cost you 5.99+tax. I don’t drink carbonated, so cold was out.  I’d originally wanted to taste the frozen one, but then Angel said her coworker told her that butterbeer tasted like cider. Hmmm, ok…but Williams Sonoma’s cider is freaking awesome. I don’t think anyone can top that.

So I asked a Harry Potter worker. She said she loves butterbeer and that it tastes like butterscotch + shortbread. I love butterscotch…but I really, really, reeeeaaallly don’t like shortbread. So that was a deal-breaker for me.

The Horseless Carriage actually moves!

Since today is Friday (and the weather's extremely nice out—perfectly balmy and sunny, not too cold, not too hot), business has picked up significantly. The line for Escape from Gringotts was around 30-40 minutes. In fact, every ride had a longer line than Tuesday's. The Hogswart Train is extremely popular. Try to ride it in the mornings when not a lot of people want to park-hop. This way, you get more room in the train cabins, and there’s a shorter line. As the day goes on and everyone has had ample time in one park, that’s when they want to park-hop, so the line is a lot longer in the afternoon.

Hogswart School

Angel still couldn’t handle Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, so we didn’t go on that. We did go on Escape from Gringotts twice. Once in the morning, where the line was already 45 minutes long...when the ride breaks down. Again. Remember when it broke down on us on Tuesday? I guess it is a new ride and they're still working out the kinks. :T

People were getting very antsy and a lot of people left the line, as they had several announcements over the intercom that they weren't sure when the ride would resume functioning again. They "invite" you to stay in line, but of course, that's at your free will.

This is where Disney triumphs Universal. Universal doesn't care that you waited an hour in line and the ride breaks down. If you want to leave, leave. They won't offer any recompense. As the employees at Universal often say (in a condescending tone), "We're not Disney." Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

Disney, on the other hand, will give the people at the front of the line (who'd waited the longest) FastPasses so they can return at some other time and enjoy the ride. This happened to us at Splash Mountain in Disneyland before, where we'd already waited some two-odd hours to get to the front of the line, and it broke down. We were issued FastPasses, so we wouldn't have to wait two hours again to ride Splash Mountain. That's pretty awesome of Disney, isn't it? 

We're the kinds who like to wait things out, especially if we've already invested some time into doing something. As we'd already waited 1/2 hour in line for Escape from Gringotts (and we'd already done everything else at Universal that we wanted to), we decided to wait it out as they worked out the kinks. A lot of people in front of us left, so that meant the line for us got shorter. The father ahead of us decided to take his daughter out of line and go buy an Express Pass (Universal's version of FastPass but costs money; Disney's free) so he could come back later and not have to wait in line. I felt bad for him. He shouldn't have to shell out additional money for an Express Pass just because the ride broke down! It's hella expensive! I think it's something like $60 extra per person per day.

Universal Orlando doesn't have the Jurassic Park ride. Booo. It's one of our favorite rides at Universal Hollywood. They do have a Pteranodon Flyer ride that Angel was super excited to ride...but it's for little kids. Anyone over 54" tall has to have a child accompanying them. Say what??

Usually it's the other way around: anyone shorter than so-and-so inches needs an adult accompanying them. Crazy.

So we couldn't ride that. :T

Water Lily pond

Yay! We finally get to see water lilies (that weren't in bloom during our visit to Monet's Gardens in Giverny):

We were a bit confused because we saw these statues in the gift shops:

Thor

Aren't these Marvel (aka Disney) characters? What are they doing in Universal?

Captain America

When I saw "The Doctor is In!" I thought it was Doctor Who. Angel was quick to correct me--it's Spiderman, apparently.

Wolverine...and I think Storm?

We thought this mom with her kids was so adorable. Thing 1, Thing 2! When we first glimpsed them, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were going off in opposite directions, but the mom has a leash on both of them so it was easy to get them in line.

In Universal and Disney, they sell turkey legs. We'd eaten this in Disneyland before so we knew it was something definitely not to be missed. They're so yummy! Disney World sells the turkey drumsticks for $10.50 each; Universal for $12.99 that includes chips or $13.99 in Harry Potter land that includes french fries. We opted to eat in Hog's Head tavern in Hogsmeade because if you don't order and eat in there, you can't get in there otherwise just to take a picture of the place. :T

Dude, the drumstick's huge! Damn, looking at the picture now makes my mouth water. It's so juicy and the flavor is *smack* delicious. Kinda like pork knuckle. My favorite. ^.^

The fries were delicious--perfectly salty, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. We'd originally planned to get a turkey drumstick in Disney World the next day we're there, but Angel got so sick of the drumstick by the end of the meal, she said she's good on turkey for another two years or so. As in, she'll lay off turkey legs for the next two years.

Yeah, we'll see about that.

Hog's Head tavern

Hogswart School

This is another one of those interactive wand experiences. You wave the wand at the book and it opens up to a diarama of the story:

As this is our last day in Universal, here's some thoughts/tips of mine:

The Don’t Miss as Universal include:

- Park hopper so you can ride the Hogswart train

In line for the Hogswart Express train to park hop, you "disappear" through the wall, just like Harry Potter

- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (only if you’re not prone to motion sickness)

- Escape from Gringotts

- Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade Village – just walking around, taking in the sights

- Spiderman ride – I’ll admit, the special effects were pretty cool. I’m not a Spidey fan, but even I can appreciate the ride. Though I have to say...what's up with all the rides at Universal needing 3-D glasses? Shrek, Spiderman, Harry Potter, you name it--they all rely on 3-D glasses to make it look cool. Which means every time you enter a ride, you need to pick up these glasses. Disney's getting in on this too, but I find the glasses just annoying to wear.

- Fear Factor show – they cast real visitors to the park to participate in this show. The first day we saw it, they picked two couples to participate. One of the boyfriends is a Marine. A Marine, folks. The last challenge required climbing up a wall to tear flags off the windows, sliding down a pole, getting into a car, the car being lifted—vertically—35 feet in the air. They had to climb out of the car seat and onto the windshield (the windshield pointing at a steep downward slope), and toss the flags affixed to the front of the car down. Once they manage to get all the flags, they climb back into the car (remember, it's hanging vertically), get a rocket launcher and point it towards a bulls-eye. Whoever shoots the bulls-eye first, wins. This is like basic training for the Marine. So obviously, he wins. Which was OK in the end as his opponent was his girlfriend.

During the set-up time, they’d get other volunteers to do Fear Factor stuff. Like have scorpions placed on your head. Or drink a disgusting mixture of soured milk, rotten seafood, meat leftovers, and maggots, grubs, silkworms…I’m getting ready to barf here…Whoever downs the cup first, wins the match. I told Angel: if my boyfriend ever did that, I’d never kiss him again. I was seriously ready to puke, watching them down the cups. On the first day, this one guy holds his nose and downs it fast, winning the challenge. Smart. The second time we watched this, the guys (teams this time) downed it so fast…without holding their noses. EWWW! 

- Magic Show – I really wanted to buy the Levitator but it’s $33 for the set and Baby wouldn’t let me L

- Despicable Me ride – well done, but again, might not be suitable for motion sickness people. And requires 3-D glasses.

- Buy your Park-to-Park passes from Undercover Tourist. They had a deal where if you buy 2 days, you get the 3^rd day free. They had a similar deal with Disney World tickets, where if you buy 4 days, you get the 5^th free. This is a big money saver, as Universal and Disney online sell their tickets at full price. Once you buy from Undercover Tourist, they ship it immediately to your house. Our tickets arrived within the week. Also, they don’t charge tax while Disney and Universal do charge tax on top of the tickets. Super reputable company, very prompt customer service. With their tickets, you don't have to stop by the theme parks' ticketing centers to exchange for proper tickets; you go straight to the entrance of the theme parks. And their Disney tickets are the real deal, so you can link them up to your Disney account ahead of time if you need to reserve FastPasses, restaurants, etc.