We're Back! Our Trip Report for Oct 9-14 RPR, HHN and our Engagement! *Updated 2/11*

[LMichelleee]

So after our hour long power nap, we made sure we had everything for HHN ready to go! Since our window looked over the park we could also see when the boats left or arrived. One of us would watch out for it and as soon as we saw it leave that was our “we need to be out the door in 5 minutes” cue. It helped at times like this when we were feeling sluggish!


Once we arrived at the docks, we walked over to Universal and were again greeted by all the HHN decorations. I was actually getting more excited than scared for it!



The whole time we had kept forgetting to get my birthday button, so we finally did that. We also told the lady we had just gotten engaged and she made us buttons for that too!



We made our way to Despicable Me. I really liked this movie and had been hearing great things about the ride so I was really excited for it.



I love the holding room, the little minions are hilarious! Once the ride was over we heard them say to enjoy the dance party and were so confused, but sure enough there was dance party! Loved it! Well done Universal!



We had to go over and explore the other side of Universal where Terminator was, so that was our next stop. On the way we were looking at the stars and saw Marilyn Monroe! I was cracking up over how she was interacting with the male guests who were trying to take her picture. We made it Terminator and the show was good. I haven’t seen any of the movies though… that probably would have helped! The entire time though my contact in one eye was bothering me so much! I had taken them out during our nap to give my eyes a rest, but obviously that didn’t work. It was around 2:45 at this point and we figured this was the only time I was going to be able to get to the hotel, get my glasses and get back in time for our 4 o clock reservation at Finnegan’s. So off we went back to RPR…


The whole trip took about 45 minutes and made it to Finnegan’s with about 10 min to spare.



I thought it would be busier, there were plenty of tables available. We were seated and given that delicious bread I had been hearing so much about!



We both ordered the grilled chicken sandwich and went over our HHN plans we had discussed with the employee we met. We got our food which was so delicious! Especially the fries!



About this time they were checking people in and handing out wristbands and maps. Another tip we had learned from the employee was to text “tonight” to 64646 and you got house wait times every thirty minutes. LOVED this tip! I believe it has it on the HHN guide map they were handing out. We paid our bill, and headed outside to the holding area and stood right in front of the Finnegan’s door waiting for the release!

[Jonesloonybin]

My kids are going to LOVE the Despicable Me ride. It is one of their favorite shows. We love us some minions.

This will be our first Universal trip and we are pretty excited. We are staying at RPR too. How did you like it? Was it easy to find your way around the resort? What tower were you in? One? Is that pretty close to the park/boats?

You are very brave for doing HHN. There is no way I would do that.

Thank you for writing this report. It is much harder to find info about universal than WDW. This is really helpful.

Thanks
Terri

[LMichelleee]

Originally Posted by Jonesloonybin

My kids are going to LOVE the Despicable Me ride. It is one of their favorite shows. We love us some minions.

This will be our first Universal trip and we are pretty excited. We are staying at RPR too. How did you like it? Was it easy to find your way around the resort? What tower were you in? One? Is that pretty close to the park/boats?

You are very brave for doing HHN. There is no way I would do that.

Thank you for writing this report. It is much harder to find info about universal than WDW. This is really helpful.

Thanks
Terri

We absolutely LOVED RPR! The staff was so friendly and helpful. On our last night, my fiance had a sore throat and wasn't feeling well. He had a cup of the green tea they provide with the Kuerig and it helped so we wanted more. I called the star service and asked for 2 more cups and a guy came within 10 minutes and brought us 9! He was so sweet!

We stayed in tower 1 which isn't the closest to the boat docks but we wanted the awesome view of the park and the waterway. Way worth it! The walk wasn't bad, it added on maybe a minute. Total walk time from our room to the docks wasn't even 5 minutes, but we're fast walkers.

I have a horrible sense of direction and I was able to find my around the hotel. We did walk right past the docks the first day we were there so keep an eye out for that sign!

I was so excited for HHN until we were released and then all of a sudden it hit me! But I kept telling myself over and over again, "They're not real, they are actors, they can't touch me..." and I closed my eyes during the terrifying parts while grabbing on to my fiance and let him get all the scares... Haha!

I'm so glad my report is helpful to you! I will try to include as many tips as I can think of. You're going to have so much fun but you'll have to remember you can't compare Universal and Disney, they are completely different. We both used to be Disney kids and this last trip we didn't even go! We spent all 5 days at Universal and IOA!

[LMichelleee]

So around 5:30 we were really getting pumped! We started seeing all the fog and hearing the creepy music. The TM working the gate started explaining how he’ll be opening it in few minutes. This is when I started freaking out! He opened the gate and we all starting walking behind him as he led us to Silent Hill.

We were first in line! I really started to panic now! We made it through the queue line and were greeted with the Welcome to Silent Hill sign. I had watched this movie for the first time a couple days before the trip and that really helped me to understand the house. I was on the left side of Bryan the whole time and I felt that he got most of the scares on the right side, not only for Silent Hill but all the other houses too. Let me just say it was absolutely terrifying going through a house first! We finished the house after taking our time to walk through and thought it was awesome! Since Bryan is a huge Silent Hill fanatic who loves the movies and the games he really wanted to do it again, but we still had 6 more houses to go!

We had been talking to a nice guy who does HHN every year and followed him to Gothic. We were really excited since we had heard it was a favorite. We didn’t wait very long, maybe 5 minutes. So we liked Gothic a lot, but not a favorite. We did think the gargoyles were cool and the sets were great. Our next house was Dead End. Now this one, we really liked! We looked at our watches and noticed we had knocked out 3 houses before 6:30!

We made our way over to line up for the opening of Walking Dead. I was really hoping this one would be good. We’ve watched the first two episodes but we don’t follow the show, so I didn’t look for all the specific stuff that I’ve heard is hidden. Anyway, we’re in the queue and see the zombie girl walking around and she is creeeeeppyy. Wow! I loved the hospital and the clothing store. What awesome scareactors! They got us really good. They were still scaring us as we were leaving the house. It was hilarious watching the actors scare random people. You really had to keep an eye out, they really went for people looking at maps. We had a great time just watching them!






We saw it getting kind of busy with waits up to 45 minutes so we headed to the kiddie area to House of Horrors. The texts stated that the houses in this area were still under 20 minutes. This was another great tip we learned. Do House of Horrors since the exit is near the Alice Cooper entrance. Then do Alice Cooper since that exit is all the way at MIB. We really enjoyed House of Horrors; they had a lot of good scares! We then headed into Alice Cooper and although we aren’t big fans of his music, we really enjoyed the house! We were really making good time so we went to Penn & Teller. It was our longest wait at 20 minutes but it went by fast. We found this one to be very interesting. It wasn’t a favorite but we did enjoy it.

As we were walking through the exit we noticed it was around 8. We were really excited we got through all 7 houses before it started getting really packed! I had been getting the wait times texts so as of 8:30 houses were already at a 45-90 min wait.

We didn’t make it to either of the shows, so instead we rode some rides that we hadn’t done yet. We did Simpsons which had a 10 minute wait and MIB, another 10 minute wait. We really liked both rides!

We walked around some more and just watched and took pictures of the actors. The girls with the chain saws were my favorite!



It was very hard to not be scared when they came up behind me, so I really had to put on my not scared face! I didn’t want them to all gang up on me and chase me like I saw them do to a group of other girls!

It was really busy at this point with wait times from 45-120 minutes so we called it a night. But not before taking some awesome pictures!



We were both extremely sore and tired after such a long day, so for dinner we just grabbed Pastamore and Moe’s to go.





We took the boat back (made it just in time!) and ate dinner in bed. Great night!

[stitchaholic]

i'm loving your report ! Congrats on the engagement

[Jonesloonybin]

Wow, you are braver than I. There is NO WAY I would do HHN. But I was traumatized as a child...my mother LOVED scary movies and she would make me watch them with her and then would wait until I had to go to the bathroom or something and she would jump out and scare me.

Great parenting...

I will keep in mind that Universal is not Disney. My oldest really loves roller coasters and she has been wanting to go for awhile. I think that there are also enough things for my youngest to do. Last year we did Busch Gardens and the oldest liked it, but most of the things that the youngest could ride were geared towards really little kids.

I am excited to go as well. DH and I really like Harry Potter, so we are looking forward to that.

Great Report!

[LMichelleee]

Hi everyone! Sorry for being absent the last couple of days and for lack of posts! Fiance passed his cold to me and I've been sick! I tried working on the TR, but staring at the screen gave me horrible headaches. THEN we had our Halloween party! Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Originally Posted by stitchaholic

i'm loving your report ! Congrats on the engagement

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Jonesloonybin

Wow, you are braver than I. There is NO WAY I would do HHN. But I was traumatized as a child...my mother LOVED scary movies and she would make me watch them with her and then would wait until I had to go to the bathroom or something and she would jump out and scare me.

Great parenting...

I will keep in mind that Universal is not Disney. My oldest really loves roller coasters and she has been wanting to go for awhile. I think that there are also enough things for my youngest to do. Last year we did Busch Gardens and the oldest liked it, but most of the things that the youngest could ride were geared towards really little kids.

I am excited to go as well. DH and I really like Harry Potter, so we are looking forward to that.

Great Report!

Oh my goodness! It was so scary going through those houses with the actors jumping out at me so you should definitely stay away!

The oldest will really like all the thrill rides then! As for your youngest, I'm sure Suess Landing should work. We're in our 20's and like the rides!

You are going to LOVE HP! I am obsessed with HP and was so sad to leave it that I actually started tearing up a bit! I know, kind of pathetic. I really enjoyed just sitting at tables, drinking my butterbeer, listening to the music and taking everything in. Ah, I miss it so much.

[LMichelleee]

Hello everyone! I finally have another post! I hope y'all are still there with us following our trip! It has been so crazy around here with the engagement and all the wedding planning. Plus, with the holiday season here it has been non stop craziness at work! Oy retail! Anyway, here is Day 4 and hopefully I can get the rest of the day up soon. I'm so glad I took such detailed notes!



Day 4, 10/12/12- Friday

So we woke up pretty late because of our long and exhausting day before. We again, were planning to spend the whole day at Universal but decided to devote the morning to Harry and the afternoon to water rides! YAY! Because of this, we did not bring a bag with us. All we had was a freezer baggie for our camera, phones, express passes, annual passes and room keys. This worked out so well! All our stuff stayed perfectly dry!

So we made it to the park around 8:30 or so and headed for Forbidden Journey! I just love this ride so much, it makes me so happy! I’m still convinced my Hogwarts acceptance letter was lost. Anyway, we only had time to ride it once before the line started building up. Haha, only once! After FJ, we used our express passes where we could have walked on to Dragon Challenge. Instead, we decided we really wanted to experience the front row! We did this on our last trip in May but it was raining pretty hard and oh so painful! What a rush! Love front row!

We then went to Toon Lagoon planning to get our wet rides done, but found it was still a bit cool and Blutos didn’t open til noon anyway, so on to Marvel Island! We hit all the rides starting with Spiderman, then Doom, next was Hulk and finally STORMFORCE! We love yelling that. And there really is no reason why, Storm is probably our least favorite!

So it finally warmed up and we started out our water ride adventure with Jurassic Park. Hello happy Team Members!



I absolutely adore this ride. My favorite part is the two little ones fighting/tearing the JP shirt. This ride is so random. There are times we don’t get so wet and times I am completely soaked. This time we got pretty wet which made for a great start!



We then got right on Ripsaw Falls which, if you’ve following this report you’ll know, is one of Bryan’s favorites! The first time we rode it we got our own log! Sweet! The second time around 2 boys were with us. I really wish they would have kept a seat between us, the kid behind me would not stop moving around and kicking me. Ah well. Since we were completely soaked we thought, why not one more time? So we went again. We still had about 20 minutes until Blutos opened at noon so we headed over to Captain America’s Diner.



We both ended up getting the chicken fingers basket which we both enjoyed. It wasn’t our favorite meal but it worked.




By the time we made it to Blutos it was ten after noon and thanks to our precious express passes we walked right on!



The barge seats 12 and there was only one guy who had on a poncho and of course the first dip and rush of water on the barge went right on that guy! Everyone on the barge was cracking up! There was also a group of three boys who got all the bad dips, waterfalls and rushes of water. This ride was so fun, definitely a must do for the next trip!

At this point we were completely soaked from head to toe and needed to get back to the room to get changed.



We caught the boat (just in time) and quickly made our back. We were so cold! Haha!

[MilitaryMouse]

Love your trip report! Congrats on the engagement! Part of my honeymoon was at Universal Studios, so I know how romantic WWoHP can be!

[LMichelleee]

Originally Posted by MilitaryMouse

Love your trip report! Congrats on the engagement! Part of my honeymoon was at Universal Studios, so I know how romantic WWoHP can be!

Thank you! It really can be very romantic HP is just that much more special to me now!

[ksromack]

Originally Posted by LMichelleee

Thanks! Yeah, the lockers were acting a bit funny this time. This past May we had zero issues so who knows. I'd rather have the lockers than nothing. At Disney it made me nervous when I had to bring my backpack on the ride. I saw people getting on rides with fanny packs still on. It may be tight on Forbidden Journey though. Glad you found the link helpful!

I was just going to ask about people with fanny packs. I have a Kipling mini-crossover bag that converts to a fanny pack. I got it specifically for IOA! I'm hoping to be able to throw in my small camera and keep it with me during rides.

[LMichelleee]

Originally Posted by ksromack

I was just going to ask about people with fanny packs. I have a Kipling mini-crossover bag that converts to a fanny pack. I got it specifically for IOA! I'm hoping to be able to throw in my small camera and keep it with me during rides.

Oh wow, that sounds like an awesome bag! I'm going to have to look for one!


WOW!! It has been 20 days since the last update! We have been so super busy with all the wedding planning and with work. Seriously, working retail is no fun, especially this time of year! Also, another reason is that WE ARE PLANNING OUR NEXT TRIP!!!! YEP! I'm super excited, can you tell?? Anyway, I am editing my notes and look for an update *hopefully* today/tomorrow! Goodnight!

[WanderlustNZ]

Thanks for your TR. I've really enjoyed reading what you've written so far.

I needed a little bit of extra persuasion to pay the extra to stay onsite, and your TR helped. :-)

[LMichelleee]

Originally Posted by WanderlustNZ

Thanks for your TR. I've really enjoyed reading what you've written so far.

I needed a little bit of extra persuasion to pay the extra to stay onsite, and your TR helped. :-)

Yay!!! I'm so glad it helped! Like I said so many times before, we will never stay offsite again! That extra hour, the boats, and express pass made our trip so much more relaxed. It was so great doing early entry and then going to take a nap in the middle of the day. I wish I had done a report for our offsite stay in may. It would show how much of a difference the two really are! Our shuttle to take us back to our offsite hotel came only once and that was about an hour and a half before the park closed, so we missed that opportunity to do wwohp at night when there's harldy anyone! Do it. You will not be disappointed!

[macraven]

congratulations on the engagement!

plan on the honeymoon including another trip to the darkside...




i could have sworn i saw you two in the lobby at rph.
(looking at your pics, it had to be you.)


are you planning a repeat for hhn in 2013?