As if my trip report wasn't random enough, here are some extra bits:
Hotels
Portofino: In my opinion, the prettiest of the on-property hotels. Rooms are large. Getting around is confusing.
Aventura: Very nice - feels like a 'level up' from Cabana Bay. Compact and easy to get around. Everything is very close (Urban Pantry, pool, lobby, bus pickup, parking garage, elevator are all within a very short walk from each other). Central core elevator gets crowded and the elevator acted.
General
Hotels
Portofino: In my opinion, the prettiest of the on-property hotels. Rooms are large. Getting around is confusing.
Aventura: Very nice - feels like a 'level up' from Cabana Bay. Compact and easy to get around. Everything is very close (Urban Pantry, pool, lobby, bus pickup, parking garage, elevator are all within a very short walk from each other). Central core elevator gets crowded and the elevator acted.
The elevators acted oddly - some would pass us on the way down. Some would stop at our floor going up when we pressed down. One time, we were headed up from the lobby and stopped at 4 to let people out, at 6 people got on, it went down to 5 and those people left, then up to 10, then 14. So weird.
We'd never done the bus service and wondered how fast security would be in the hub. Security there was very efficient. The lines for hotel guests were short and quick, the line from the parking garage was always long.
Negatives were the bus service. It shares a loop with Cabana and Cabana loads first. One time, we waited ~30 minutes for a bus as we saw several pull out of CB and bypass us. We also saw this behavior from our room - a bus would pull into CB, then head back to the park. We saw and heard many Aventura guests walking to either Sapphire to take the boat or to Cabana so they could greatly improve their chances of getting on a bus.
The rooms were small. Fine for two people, but there was no where to put luggage. The night stand was too full to use for your own stuff. There is large lamp, a phone, and the dock for the ipad. I ended up putting the phone on the floor so I had room to put my phone and a cup.
USO/IOAVelocicoaster (JWV) instantly became my favorite ride in the parks. No contest. Loved everything about it. My wife liked it, but says it's too scary to be her top ride. She prefers Hagrid's.
The locker setup works really well but are a bit hectic because everyone gets funneled to the same bank. And there's no 'only one person with the bags' because we're all in the same spot. My wife got a top locker and ended up leaving her sunglasses because she couldn't see that they had fallen out of her bag. Luckily she noticed right away and two attendants helped us retrieve them in the chaos.
The day/night differences in the queue are subtle but a great attention to detail.
We rode in the next to last row (day) and in the middle (night). I didn't think there was a huge difference between them. Maybe a bit more air time in the back.
The seats are high and we both had to get on our toes and kind of 'jump' get get in. There is a large center pillar between your legs. Then they really crank down on the restraint. Men - prepare for this. I thought I was prepared the second time, but apparently not well enough.
Neither one of us saw the raptors during the ride. There could have been real raptors down there and I wouldn't have seen them.
Jurassic Park River Adventure - we've never seen the TRex looking better than it does right now. Fantastic.
Hagrid's virtual queue - we weren't able to take advantage of this. We got VQ reservations the 3 days we were there but the timing never worked out for us. Between lunch/dinner reservations, weather delays, ride closures, just being too far away to make the time, and being in line for JWV, we'd keep pushing out the time as often as we could, but just never worked.
Early Park Admission and Express Pass - I know some feel that with EP, you don't need to use EPA. In my opinion, if you want to ride Hagrid's, go early. It was showing down a lot when we were there. If you are visiting in the summer, I think EPA is even more critical. Between the afternoon heat and the inevitable thunderstorm, you may not have the opportunities that you hoped for.
Volcano BayHard to say if the Premium Seating was 'worth it'. It was nice having shade throughout the day. We brought a sheet to hang up across the front since the clam shell cover doesn't move forward.
Might have been nice to have food delivered, but we felt it would be too uncomfortable to try to eat in those seats.
While I appreciate their dedication to the theming, the attraction names are hard to identify and remember.
The park need more signage. You can't carry a paper map and can only carry your phone if you have a waterproof case.
I don't know that there is a better way, but it's not convenient to leave your shoes at the ride entrance then have to walk back when you get off the ride. Add to that, there weren't many signs at the exit telling you where the entrance was.
Some may be able to walk around without shoes, but not me. The sand was hot and the concrete hotter. The fast river was a lot of fun, but I took off my shoes, that was a big mistake - it tore up my feet.
The VQ here didn't really work well for us, either.
We learned later that the park hit capacity the day we were there. We saw the big drop slide posted with a 180 minute wait. It was at capacity by 1:30 or so.
General
We made dinner reservations 2 of 3 nights, and lunch reservations once. The most we've ever reserved at Universal. Not my favorite way to visit the parks, but they were necessary.
Coke Freestyle machines were often our of ice and choices were limited by mid afternoon. We still got our monies worth with how hot it was.
Despite the heat, we had a great time and everyone - TMs and guests - seemed very friendly and understanding. We only saw two kids melt down and one family having the "Why don't we just leave then!" argument.
What do you think?
