My Universal & Loews Portofino Experience

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It is wholly human to compare the two parks

Which is why I stress on ALL my comments to posters who come onto the Universal side and give their take on Universal.

So many compare the two parks just because in their minds all they've got going while they are experiencing Universal is what Disney does in comparison. If you try and free yourself from doing so you tend to give yourself a better opportunity to take it all in..in the moment... Both have pluses and minuses and you actually hit on some of them.

Disney magic isn't just marketing hype, it is embodied in how the staff interact with guests.

For every person who says what you say is another disgruntled guests lamenting where has the magic gone. This Board is full of them and has been since I joined in 2015. It's just a marketing strategy and one that isn't living up to present day expectations for many to how the parks look (like trash clean up) to guest interactions (many more disgruntled CM encounters in recent years), to park upkeep (like ride maintenance). That doesn't mean it's not up to par for you just that for many it's not what it once was.

I'm a fairly practical person and if Disney is magic to you then Universal can be magic to someone else. It's how you feel while you're there. Both companies strive to give customers places to go and escape and use their imagination. I get the same smile on Seuss High in the Sky as I do on PeopleMover

Or think of it like this if Disney never spoke the words in any of their marketing over the years "magic" do you really think you'd be saying it's magic? Rhetorical question.

UO just doesn't measure up to Disney, for me, for my level of expectation.

Which is again why I stress trying to not compare the two. The expectation based on how you thought the parks were based on Universal's commercials and it's website OR based on how your adventures were at Disney.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We didn't try the chocolate bread though I saw it on the menu. We'll have to try it in April. We did get to interact with the characters on our first trip there, during subsequent trips we only saw them once but they were downstairs. The "robot" sounded like Nyles Crane only digitized. The two of them were very much in-character and pretty engaging with families. From what I read online, the pair wasn't as appreciated in the CA location, so much so that I think they were removed.

CA at DL has a different vibe of people than WDW so I could totally see it not working as well for Universal. I was actually a tad surprised they were putting one in CA.

They definitively engage with people I just liked how if you didn't seem all that hmmm inviting maybe is the right word they didn't bombard you. At Disney you are paying for the character interactions, though you can say no, just at Toothsome you're not paying extra but getting that ambience. I also like its location easy to go to after the parks close for dinner or for lunch if you want to. Universal isn't as big about food within the parks focusing more in their CityWalk area but at least CityWalk is right there so no need to get in your car or take other transportation.

Okay, I had to Google that one, "Ursula Theme Park Disaster". Yea, that was bad! The stuff of nightmares! The head severed and attached by wires.... creepy stuff! For our times at Disney, the animatronics all worked. We experienced rides that were shut down or delayed but the mechanics of the rides were all functional. As for Imhotep, it didn't detract from the ride. It's a 5 second bit at the beginning. If anything, it's funny. How it differs from Disney is the nature of the failure. Disney will have equipment failures and malfunctions but I suspect the issue would be corrected, promptly. Imhotep is not a failure per se, it is a maintenance issue. The animatronic needs ongoing maintenance that it isn't receiving. I don't recall that at Disney. I didn't see anything that looked dated, worn out or in need of a touch-up. In April, I'll look closer at their sets and see. I'm curious now if I can spot something.

Err..Yeti anyone for Ursula my gosh I hope a child wasn't on that when it happened!

I invite you to search the DIS and you'll find thousands of posts about lack of maintenance at Disney. There's a post I think in the last several weeks about FOP for example and being off sync and blurry something of which happened somewhat soon-ish after it opened in 2017 and has been getting worse since. But it's like how Terminator 2 was at Universal (now Bourne show) the syncing of the film but Universal knew T2 was going away much like how Disney knew Splash was and opted not to fix the lighting and animatronics over time.

In any case at least you have a humorous story to tell about Mummy, although it was on refurb when we were there in 2022 that would be unfortunate to see it either the animatronic didn't get the TLC it should have or it wasn't a good job. Now I want a picture or maybe I don't want that nightmare

 

[IMMkXLVI]

Which is why I stress on ALL my comments to posters who come onto the Universal side and give their take on Universal.

So many compare the two parks just because in their minds all they've got going while they are experiencing Universal is what Disney does in comparison. If you try and free yourself from doing so you tend to give yourself a better opportunity to take it all in..in the moment... Both have pluses and minuses and you actually hit on some of them.



For every person who says what you say is another disgruntled guests lamenting where has the magic gone. This Board is full of them and has been since I joined in 2015. It's just a marketing strategy and one that isn't living up to present day expectations for many to how the parks look (like trash clean up) to guest interactions (many more disgruntled CM encounters in recent years), to park upkeep (like ride maintenance). That doesn't mean it's not up to par for you just that for many it's not what it once was.

I'm a fairly practical person and if Disney is magic to you then Universal can be magic to someone else. It's how you feel while you're there. Both companies strive to give customers places to go and escape and use their imagination. I get the same smile on Seuss High in the Sky as I do on PeopleMover

Or think of it like this if Disney never spoke the words in any of their marketing over the years "magic" do you really think you'd be saying it's magic? Rhetorical question.

Which is again why I stress trying to not compare the two. The expectation based on how you thought the parks were based on Universal's commercials and it's website OR based on how your adventures were at Disney.

UO and Disney are the same in many ways but also very different. Some of those differences, I appreciate, like the rides. UO has some very thrilling rides that as the kids get older, will likely become their preference as the bar for thrills is moved higher and higher.

Disney just feels more inviting, from the parks to the employees. When we went to UO years ago, if we had been presented with an opportunity to buy a timeshare, I doubt we would have and not because we had/have Hilton since that didn't stop us from acquiring DVC. I'd point out that 7 years ago, we took the kids to UO and not Disney. Granted this was mainly, at the time, for the Minions and Dr Suess themes (Transformers for me). I am not bashing Universal and by next January, I may very well renew our APs.

I didn't compare the two parks prior to going to Universal. That process came later and came organically when I saw line cutters go unchallenged or how employees responded to guests in the park.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I still find a LOT of fault with Universal's mobile order....they've improved a lot, and the app is quite a bit better, but Disney wins that one.

You make a good point about but I will say Disney has all but basically made it a requirement to use mobile ordering for many of their places, I love it myself (ordering on the ferry to MK is super helpful when you're already hungry for example) but I don't find I need to at Universal either because it's not required or because the place doesn't call for it over at Universal. They were more or less pushing it at Thunder Falls Terrace and at Cafe 4 outdoor seating at least (with the number on the tables) but other than that it wasn't so heavily used. I haven't been back since 2022 so I'm not sure if they've tweaked the app or in park services there, that might be why they didn't put forth much effort into it. I'm not sure when Universal started doing mobile ordering, I'm blanking on that but Disney started in 2017.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

CA at DL has a different vibe of people than WDW so I could totally see it not working as well for Universal. I was actually a tad surprised they were putting one in CA.

They definitively engage with people I just liked how if you didn't seem all that hmmm inviting maybe is the right word they didn't bombard you. At Disney you are paying for the character interactions, though you can say no, just at Toothsome you're not paying extra but getting that ambience. I also like its location easy to go to after the parks close for dinner or for lunch if you want to. Universal isn't as big about food within the parks focusing more in their CityWalk area but at least CityWalk is right there so no need to get in your car or take other transportation.


Err..Yeti anyone for Ursula my gosh I hope a child wasn't on that when it happened!

I invite you to search the DIS and you'll find thousands of posts about lack of maintenance at Disney. There's a post I think in the last several weeks about FOP for example and being off sync and blurry something of which happened somewhat soon-ish after it opened in 2017 and has been getting worse since. But it's like how Terminator 2 was at Universal (now Bourne show) the syncing of the film but Universal knew T2 was going away much like how Disney knew Splash was and opted not to fix the lighting and animatronics over time.

In any case at least you have a humorous story to tell about Mummy, although it was on refurb when we were there in 2022 that would be unfortunate to see it either the animatronic didn't get the TLC it should have or it wasn't a good job. Now I want a picture or maybe I don't want that nightmare

When I read that the CA location was underperforming, I was surprised. I would have thought that all the things going for it and are a hit in Florida, would also be a hit in California. It is first and foremost, a restaurant so if TGIF, Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Changs can thrive coast to coast, why not TCE. I don't quite understand the reasons why but the $ doesn't lie, the CA location just isn't generating the same revenue. It may not even remain open. Reminds me of this building where we used to live in Princeton. It was on a busy road, ample parking and easy to reach. It must have been zoned for a restaurant as that is all that went in there but restaurant after restaurant, it was failure after failure. The location is just cursed as a restaurant. The last thing to go in there when I drove past a few years ago was a sports betting business. Maybe the CA TCE is just in a bad location. It is after all, the same location as a failed Hard Rock Cafe.

I must have missed the Terminator when we were there years ago, as I'd have been drawn to that as well. It is another of my favorite franchises. Speaking of that Bourne show....that was really amazing. I should have added that to my original post. It slipped my mind because we saw it just once very early on and pictures were prohibited. They did a superb job with it, blurring the line between the real set pieces and the images strictly in the screen. Half way through there was a technical difficulty so an employee came out to kill the time. She described in brief, how they are very mindful to ensure the colors used on screen match those of the physical assets to keep viewers guessing where the 3D ends and the 2D begins. I'd say they succeeded. Sitting there, even before she came out, I realized that was what they were doing but damn if I couldn't pin point exactly what was an on-stage asset. This one piece I thought for sure was 2D was in fact, a set piece.

Now I'm sad I missed the Terminator attraction. Gonna have to Google it.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

I just realized, there is another area where UO could do better.
The pictures. You know the ones, taken for you while on the rides and ready to review when you exit the ride.
We have the picture pass so at every ride that had the option, we looked to add them to the portfolio. Many times the self serve kiosk wouldn't scan or pickup our tags qr code forcing us to wait in line for the employee. They'd ask what row we were in to quickly locate us. Then we'd have to scan our Qr on that terminal, the one in front near the sreen. Sometimes it would give an audible alert that it registered our Qr, other times it wouldn't and when I inquired, the employee would say "you're good" or something like that. We rode Velcicoaster MANY times but we have just three of the pictures, sadly the one time my wife and daughter rode with us is one of the missing ones.

Because the pictures take days to load to the profile, not hours like the Disney app, I didn't have the luxury of going to a picture desk to see if they could be recovered. The Magicband approach is superior, granted it is another money grab for Disney but it is one that is worth it.