Friday, May 1st……part 4
Once we were all settled into the villa, we hopped in the car and headed down the I4 to the Universal parking garage. Despite it being a glorious Friday afternoon, there was no congestion nor delays along the way, and we were making the trek to CityWalk along the moving walkway in no time flat. We paid for standard parking for this visit (the cheapest option….once we activated our AP’s, preferred or valet would be free for the next one year) but even in mid-afternoon, we didn’t have a lengthy walk.
I love the seamless and organized way that Universal guests are ushered into Citywalk. We breezed through bag check, and voila!....we were here.
We were super surprised at how crowd-less it was. The parks were forecasted to be “moderate”, so we expected more people. Maybe they were all in the parks?
First stop was the concierge in CityWalk to exchange our purchase voucher for our annual passes. We had long since pre-purchased the passes, somewhere in the late October/early November time frame (I am a bit obsessive about having everything pre-paid in advance whenever possible…..it helps me enjoy the trip to know every cost is already covered). It turned out to be a good move on our part, though, as the value of our dollar declined dramatically thereafter, and the prices of the AP’s also increased in the spring. Sometimes, it pays to be a bit crazy
.
A very friendly young fellow was able to process our AP pick-up quite efficiently, but wasn’t able to provide us with the little booklet of extras that comes with our Premier Annual Passes (that includes the vouchers for the free bottles of water, Halloween Horror Night ticket, etc.). He apologized sincerely for his kiosk not being adequately stocked with that particular item, and indicated that we could pick up the booklets at Guest Services at either park. He also said he had just made notes to that effect on their computer system, so we wouldn’t have to worry about having to explain anything to the Guest Services agent that assisted us.
We headed to the Universal Studios gate with our hot-off-the-press AP’s in hand, and once into the park, stopped at Guest Services to pick up the perks booklets. True to his word, the Concierge fellow had put all the notes in in the system, and the second stop was as quick and painless as the first. With our ticket activation now crossed off our to-do list, we stopped at the gift shop by the entrance to purchase lanyards for our passes. With (hopefully) three Universal trips planned before they expire next spring, we figured the lanyards would be a good investment indeed.
There was no question as to which lanyard I was buying…..it was Minions all the way, baby. Steve had a tougher time, as there are so many characters at Universal that he loves (Spiderman, Simpsons, Transformers….even Harry Potter). In the end, he decided on Simpsons: it’s been a long-time favourite for both him and Jake, and I liked it the best of all his shortlisted options because it was so bright and colourful. We slid the passes in the pouches, sealed ‘em up, and wore our sparkly new lanyards right out of the store. Universal housekeeping item #2 completed!
Our final “chore” was to activate our Photoconnect Annual Pass. Again, I had pre-purchased this well in advance (October 2014) and again, my planning mania paid off in spades. We snagged the pass while it was still in its introductory stages at the crazy low price of $49.95 including tax. They confirmed before we purchased that one year of pass usage wouldn’t begin until it was activated, so we set our voucher aside and watched the months tick by. That same pass by presale now? $89.95….and again, our dollar has tanked so we’d be paying 25% exchange versus the 10 or 12% I paid last October. The Photoconnect location was right outside the Universal store, so after we picked up our lanyards, we hopped across the street and picked up our Star Card.
Once again, it was quick and painless….no lines, wonderfully friendly and efficient staff…..and we were already oozing to each other about how marvellous the customer service was (a theme that recurred all week long…..nothing but smiles, helpfulness, and a noticeable effort to ensure guest satisfaction. I know this will ruffle some feathers when I say it, but…..the TM’s at Universal this trip blew our most recent interactions with their Disney CM counterparts away. They all just seemed generally
happy to be there, and their genuine enthusiasm was awesome. “Magical”, even. But I digress.).
We had our first park photo taken by one of the Photoconnect photographers who was just outside the store, since we had our shiny new Star Card just begging to be used.
This was the sum total of what we felt we
had to get accomplished today. Sunday was planned to be our first full park day, and we just didn’t want to be fiddling with all the administrative things when we arrived for a day of fun at the parks. However, it was only mid-afternoon, and the temperature was so pleasant (low 80’s, no humidity, and a gorgeous breeze) that we decided we’d poke around for a bit for a preview of what we would enjoy later in the week. There were still about 3 and half hours before the parks closed for Grad Bash, and judging from what we could see, crowds were super light.
We weren’t really sure where to head first, but noted that Shrek was a walk-on…..so that officially became our first attraction of the trip.
Steve and I are both Shrek lovers, so this was a good kick-off to our time at Universal
.
After leaving Shrek, we meandered toward New York. We were wondering why the street was completely void of people (and why everyone was starting to line up along the sides) when we heard the music approach.
We couldn’t have timed that any better if we had tried. We stepped up onto the sidewalk (there were tons of empty places to stand with not a soul in front of us to block our view…..it was marvellously uncrowded!) and soaked in the Superstar Parade:
Yes, I may have shrieked a little when I saw the Despicable Me float!
It was very cool to see Margo, Edith and Agnes on board!
A little side note: my mom’s name is Edith……and it’s a very old fashioned name that you never hear. In fact, other than my mom (and my paternal grandmother, who was also, ironically, an Edith) the first time I had heard it outside of a nursing home or the obituaries in the newspaper is when I watched Despicable Me. With such an uncommon name, never in my lifetime has my mom ever been able to purchase anything personalized (unless it was custom ordered, which she was always too frugal to do). As a result, she’s never had a single thing with her name on it. Imagine my excitement when we spy personalized Minion mugs in the Universal store, and the top of the display features mugs bearing the names of Margo, Edith and Agnes. Needless to say, one of those made the journey home to Canada for my mom, who is proudly drinking her morning tea from her prized personalized Minion cup while showing it off to anyone who will listen. I don’t think she would have been any more excited about her little gift if I had brought her home a live Minion itself!
What a cute little parade this was….even if I wasn’t 100% familiar with some of the “stars”. I have never seen Hop, and Jake is too old to have watched Dora the Explorer, but the floats were so colourful and well done that I could totally appreciate them nonetheless. The music was upbeat, the dancers were engaged with the crowd, and the characters were absolutely adorable. I found myself grinning from ear to ear as Steve asked
hey, did you get a picture of that float? And ..
look at that one! Is that a dancing chicken?
And as I type this, all I can hear going through my head is the “I want candy” song
:
While the final float drove away:
….I spied something I knew Steve would enjoy.
A ride on the Mummy was up next. And I discovered a Christmas store.....with Minion decorations!
.
,
However, we could meet for dinner on the 9th regardless. 
.
. For a while we ran on complete adrenalin...especially when sleep was hard to come by the night before....but we started to grow weary later in the day. I think we could have slept through a hurricane that night!!
