15.1 mi / 11.6 mph / 68 ft. climbing
Home: Rosen Inn

Our space heater was still valuable on our last morning at Disney World, with the cool and misty conditions heralding our eighth consecutive day of below-normal temperatures. Since we got even more use out of it than I expected, I wouldn’t have felt that bad adding it to a landfill, but I felt much better when Rett found another couple for us to pass it along to. Fort Wilderness is very strict about campfires, and only allows them if you have a fully-enclosed, steel fire container (the giant things people have in their back yards), so that has apparently birthed a culture of continually passing them on to new campers. Maybe we started a new version, with space heaters! Though unlike the fire pits, the chain of giving will likely be broken in a few more weeks, and people we be looking for fans instead. But the forecast shows it will still get plenty of use in the near-term!

While we’re leaving Disney World, we’re only halfway through our theme-parking. Most people combining Disney World and Universal Orlando into one vacation probably don’t even consider them to be in separate locations, since they’re “only” 15 miles apart, but for us it obviously necessitated a move (there also probably aren’t many people who combine 5 Disney days and 4 Universal days into one vacation!) Universal’s three parks are much more centralized than Disney’s, and much more-integrated into the city of Orlando, so we just moved to a hotel within walking distance of the parks, amid a strip of hotels and various dingy tourist traps (so a very different experience than Disney camping!)

Universal was much easier to manage than Disney. Instead of deciding which of four parks to visit each day, we just got tickets that let us hop between Universal’s two main parks (Studios and Islands of Adventure) on each of our four days. The third park is a water park, so nothing for us (and it was “closed for weather” anyway the entire time we were there), and the new Epic Universe park doesn’t open until May (annoyingly close-but-not-quite!)

The “hop between parks” ticket was a requirement because the Hogwarts Express train is a backdoor tunnel that connects the Harry Potter sections in each park, and Rett was determined to ride it each day. So disappointment hit hard when we saw it closed on our first day’s arrival, and then learned the unexpected closure would stretch until the day we were leaving Orlando! No! Especially because that meant we were forced to walk, like Muggles, out and in the front gates to move between parks (honestly faster than waiting in line for the train ride, but less fun!)

Well, in the meantime we were still able to get our fill of the Wizarding World. I had already seen the “Hogsmeade” half (Universal Hollywood is essentially the identical twin of the section in Islands of Adventure), but the Diagon Alley section was all-new to me (Rett was here in 2017), and equally immersive. I usually think of Disney as the ultimate in “theme parks”, where world-building takes priority over thrills, but it’s surprising to realize that Universal beat Disney at their own game with their Harry Potter developments. No one did this level of “just create an entire small town to emulate a movie set” before Harry Potter, and the subsequent creation of “Star Wars World” at Disney (and to a less-extent, “Avatar World”) shows that they’re the followers playing catch-up.

Fifteen years after the Hogsmeade opened (and 11 after Diagon Alley), and after a supposed loss-of-esteem for JK Rowling, and after the collapse of “Fantastic Beasts…”, the Harry Potter worlds remain incredibly popular. A significant number of guests are in their full Hogwart’s robes, and many more are at least wearing some house-themed items. No one visiting Disney has nearly the same emotional attachment to their stories/characters; one or two Star Wars-dressed guests were the only similarities I saw at Disney’s parks. Guests adding to the theme creates an immersive feedback-loop, with the costumes bringing nearly a Renaissance Faire-feeling (while eating in one of the impeccably-designed fantasy taverns, I mused whether a billionaire making this level of investment in building design for an actual Renaissance Faire could revolutionize that world). Further proof of Harry Potter’s pull is that the wait time for Velocicoaster, one of the top-5-rated roller coasters in the world (and a three minute walk away), was frequently shorter than the wait for Flight of the Hippogriff, a low-speed “family coaster” that is just a re-theming of a coaster that existed in the park before Harry Potter arrived!

After two park days, the weather wasn’t looking great for our departure from Orlando on Monday, so with our Universal tickets allowing us entry until that Monday, and the Hogwarts Express train reopening on that Monday, and the low-season Monday rate at our perfectly-fine hotel at $67 (compared to the $110 we were paying at Disney’s campground!), we extended our stay to that Monday (and two days beyond for rest and weather). That also allowed us to take rest days during the long-line Saturday and Sunday of the MLK weekend. We’re so lucky to have this flexibility that very few Florida vacationers have.

Rett initially wanted to spend three days in the parks, which felt excessive for me. But Universal had a deal where a four-day ticket cost only a bit more than a 2-day ticket, so, how could we refuse? That extended itinerary meant that even though we visited the Wizarding World all four days, we still had plenty of time to try every other significant ride (and some insignificant ones) in the two parks.

Despite long knowing that we both love roller coasters, this was our most-significant sharing of that love together. I’ve been completely out of the game for decades, so until we arrived I had no idea that we’d have a chance to ride one of the top-rated coasters in the world. So, we rode Velocicoaster once each day as well, and whether from the front car, the back (our final ride), or two spots in between, it was a revelation. LSM motors were just gaining traction before I stopped going to Six Flags Great America, but by now they’ve revolutionized coaster design. Hagrid’s has a record-breaking seven of them, and thus, like Velocicoaster (which “only” has two), it produces incredible bursts of acceleration and speed despite the complete absence of any sort of lift hill.

The idea of Velocicoaster is that it’s a roller coaster built within Jurassic World, where they set velociraptors free to chase you and add to the thrill. But really, the ride itself echoes the characteristics of a velociraptor: not visually imposing, but quick and incredibly clever. It also provides great views of Hogwarts, in those brief fractions of a second when you can steal your attention away from the next insane thing that the ride is about to do to you (the “heartline roll” at the end, that flips you upside-down while skimming the surface of the lake, and then returns you upright before you can even scream, is the most-perfectly-designed bit of controlled insanity I’ve ever felt). I only wish we knew that the 20-minute waits of our first day wouldn’t last, otherwise I would have insisted we do it four times that day!

The two other roller coasters were a ton of fun too. The Hulk is a brute compared to the elegance of Velocicoaster, but its complete denial of your request to take even the tiniest breath at any time over its first 30 seconds of HULK SMASH intensity is impressive in its own right. Rip-Ride-Rockit is ending its life this year (you could once choose between dozens of songs to play while you ride, but now it only gives 5 choices!), and it goes on longer and with more quality than you’d expect from its (effective) straight-up lift-hill gimmick.

One night on our way out of the park, we were lucky to stumble across their version of Disney’s fireworks, since we had no idea Universal even did anything like that! Their unique feature was projecting video onto the sheets of mist created by their wall of fountains coming up from the lake, and while it didn’t equal Cinderella’s Castle, it was awesome in its own way.

Rett would have gone back to Hogwarts every day for another week, but after 9 theme-park days across 2+ weeks, I was completely sated and satisfied, and ready to move on. Except the weather, bringing snow to New Orleans, seemed to side with Rett. We extended for a second time (just one more night this round), giving three post-park days to “rest up”, and be glad that we weren’t in the parks on those bitter and rainy days, where many of the rides were closed anyway.