We went to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida on a family vacation over Thanksgiving weekend. It was my first destination Thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun, but I think I prefer celebrating Thanksgiving at home!
Tolls:
Pro-tip: if you rent a car, just pay whatever fee they ask you to and use their electronic toll system. If you try to pay by cash, most toll booths are unmanned and require exact change in coins. That’s right – you can’t pay even with exact change in bills. We accidentally went through a few tolls without exact change, and there’s a hefty $57 fine for not paying the toll. Also, you can’t pay a forgotten toll online – you have to mail in a check or money order (NO CASH) to wherever the heck you’re supposed to. Some of the tollbooths have little envelopes which tell you what toll you missed and where to mail it to, but many of them don’t. All in all, it’s worth paying the rental car fee so that you don’t have to worry about this.
Hotels:
We stayed at the Sheraton Lake Buena Vista (SPG), funded by my Amex SPG personal card sign-up bonus of 30,000 points. For some reason when I booked the hotel, it was only 3000-4000 points per night during Thanksgiving weekend. I thought it was well worth it. It’s right next to Disneyworld and within 15-20 minutes of Universal Studios and Medieval Times. It wasn’t as fancy as some of the other SPG hotels I’ve been to, but it was very clean with lots of amenities (2 pools, 2 hot tubs, pool bar, a spa, restaurant, mini-market, activities, etc). However, they charge $15 per day to self-park and a $26.95 daily resort fee which is not included in the price. Since I am an SPG Gold member (thanks to my Amex Platinum card), we received free parking and a reduction of the resort fee to $11.95, which saved us a lot of money.
Food:
We mostly ate Thanksgiving leftovers, but Sofrito (a 4 minute walk from our hotel) had absolutely amazing Cuban/Venezuelan/Argentinian food! I was pleasantly surprised to find such amazing food so close to our hotel. It was a great price too. We also ate at the Yard House by the Ferris Wheel. It’s a chain, but it worked for us since we had dietary restrictions to accommodate. There’s a big wait on Saturday night since there’s a lot of nightlife there and parking is a pain. If you go, take advantage of the complimentary valet parking – it will be way faster than self-parking. I was surprised at how many vegan/vegetarian options Yard House had, and they were quite good. Great beer selection as well.
Medieval Times:
I’m not ashamed to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this. Medieval Times is a dinner show with cheesy reenactments of medieval life – jousting, sword fighting, falconry and horsemanship. You eat dinner (with no utensils!) while watching knights compete in a tournament. I thought the food was decent – not amazing but there was a lot of it, and they had a good vegetarian dish which I think can be made vegan. It’s pretty touristy but quite fun. You can buy a Groupon for $42 per adult ticket, and on Black Friday this year they had a $37 per adult ticket deal. Tip is not included so make sure to tip your server; they accept cards for the tip. The acting was a little hit or miss, but some of the performers did a fantastic job and really sold it to the audience. In the end it didn’t matter – we had a lot of fun!
Universal Studios Orlando:
I didn’t realize this at the time, but Universal Studios consists of 2 parks, not one. We bought the 2 park ticket (Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida) for 4 days at the reduced price of $164 per adult using my mom’s military card. $164 is the regular daily price, but you can get special deals on Black Friday. If you buy the regular 4 day 2 park ticket, it’s $288 – so if you go for two days or more, it’s worth it to buy the 4 day ticket.
I recommend buying tickets to both parks – it doesn’t really make sense otherwise. Islands of Adventure has more fun rides, but you’ll miss out on some good attractions if you don’t go to Universal Studios Florida. The reason we went to Universal was to see Harry Potter World. Harry Potter World is broken up into two parts: Diagon Alley in Universal, and Hogsmeade/Hogwarts in Islands of Adventure. Diagon Alley is a lot bigger, has lots of shade, and is home to the Escape from Gringotts ride, which is good but not great. Hogsmeade has the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, which was our favorite ride in the park. It’s a combination 3D and other effects ride that is definitely worth it. Even waiting in line is fun. You get to travel through Hogwarts Castle, and there’s lots of things to keep your attention as you travel through the line. At night, they do a special light show at the Hogwarts Castle every 20 minutes with a few fireworks.
We loved the frozen butterbeer. I’ve had butterbeer at Warner Brothers Studios in Leavesden, and this one is much better in my opinion. The pumpkin juice was way too sweet but had a good flavor. The Leaky Cauldron had a good menu and fast service (although we did go at 3pm instead of a regular mealtime). It was really fun to go through shops like Honeydukes and see all the different Harry Potter themed candies, or go to Ollivanders and try wands. You can spend $50 (yikes!) on a wand which interacts with different special elements of the theme park. I saw a lot of kids trying it while we were there.
To travel between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, you take the Hogwarts Express. Sometimes lines for that can be quite long and it might make more sense to simply walk there.
Other rides that we enjoyed:
The Hulk roller coaster (Islands of Adventure) was super fun but very short! Get in line first thing in the morning and you’ll only have to wait 10 minutes. I also enjoyed the Rip Ride Rock It coaster (Universal Studios Florida) – it was longer, and during the beginning of the ride you ascend vertically while laying flat on your back, which was quite scary! King Kong was lame, and I heard Spiderman was okay but not great.
If you stayed at the park from 9am-7pm you could probably do both parks in one day, depending on how long the lines are. If you have a VIP or Express pass, you can definitely do both parks in one day. We ended up going to the parks for two days (one long day, one half day) and we felt that we had our fill.
WanderLiz 