It was about April 20th before I realized our Universal passes were about to expire. If you recall, my mom gifted them to us when the entire Sattler family went last June. We went a few weeks early to get them, when we wanted to be in Orlando for our passholder preview for Guardians of the Glaxay at Epcot, which was apparently a whole year ago. We'd been saying since January that we needed to stay at a resort one more time, preferrably one of the three "fancy" hotels that come with Express Passes. So, I did a little rearranging with our schedule and with the "fun stuff" budget, and we decided to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel. First of all, this is the only one of the big three that we haven't stayed at before- and second, it's so close to the parks you can walk there in 5 minutes! That's basically like walking from my house to the lodge. Sadly, there weren't any great passholder rates for a normal room at Hard Rock on our preferred (and basically only) dates. The Florida resident rate wasn't terrible. But, for something like 40 bucks over the Florida resident rate, we could get a passholder rate for a Club Level Room. Sold! Sunday, April 30th the four of us headed out to Orlando for our one night stay at the Hard Rock Hotel. We quickly checked in, and made our way to the Club Level Lounge.
We got in around 11:45, and even though our room was not ready, we were able to head up to the Rock Royalty Lounge on the 7th floor, and start using our lounge benefits (we got them from noon until 11 am the next day) People did say the Hard Rock was the "worst" lounge out of the big three hotels. I would agree. But, it's not terrible. Just smaller. And last time we stayed at a lounge at Universal, there was always at least uncrustables, and some fruit. Here it was just a lot of bagged snacks, and granola bars.
Still, there were drinks available for us, and we had some chips and cookies and things- before we headed into the park. And we grabbed a whole bunch for later to tide us over tomorrow even, too.
The good thing about staying at these resorts is that your room key acts as Express Passes. That means you basically get to skip the line on any ride that has express pass lines, which is basically everything but Hagrids. After we had gotten our room key, we did they very short walk over to the park to start using our skip the line benefits.
The guys first stopped to ride Hulk, and then Spiderman. Both rides I passed on. But, the weather was nice and the crowds weren't too overwhelming, I didn't mind waiting. Here's the thing with the Express passes, you want to go on a medium crowd day. Too big of crowds, and those Express pass lines can also get very long. Too little and it's like 'why did I pay for this fancy hotel room when everything is walk on?' We totally nailed that balance.
They flew through those two lines. We had only been in Orlando for about an hour on that point, and we'd checked in, had snacks at Club Level, walked to the park and made it on two rides! Crazy efficient. Especially for a trip to Orlando these days (it just feels like it's always busy and there's ALWAYS traffic.)
Up next we went to Suess Landing, one of my favorite places at Universal outside the Harry Potter areas. I was a big fan of bedtime stories that involved Dr. Suess (The Sleep Book is a particular favorite of mine!), and I refused to give them away. They all still sit proudly on my living room bookshelves. So, basically I tell you all this so you know I'm a big Suess fan.
And I got everyone to ride ALL the Suess Landing rides with me!
Though I will note, my favorite is probably the Caro-Suess-cel
Though, I also just love the land in general. The Lorax! The Oncler! And the Truffala Trees (which everyone needs!)
And, of course, I love the "Unless" rock. I even made one in my own backyard!
My favorite might be Suess Landing, but everyone else's favorite is the new Velocicoaster. They were super excited to have express passes, because this had just been added to them not long ago. So, while they did still have to wait about 20 minutes, that's not so bad for a new-ish coaster like this.
A visit to Hogsmeade was in order after that, though the trip on Forbidden Journey made everyone a little motion sick, so we took it down with a trip on Reign of Kong. That one only ever makes me motion sick, and I know when to look away to combat it.
By now our room was ready. The Hard Rock rooms are nice enough, though I did prefer the Portfino Bay rooms to these. Still, totally comfortable, complete with a kuerig and a mini fridge. Good enough for all of us for one night. And we were just a couple doors down from the Club, so it was easy to pop in and out for drinks, coffees and snacks, which was nice.
We did really like the mirror in the room, though. It had the heights of all kinds of famous musicians on it, so you could compare yourself (turns out I'm just about as tall as Kelly Clarkson).
By now we were kind of hungry and not wanting to wait until Club level appetizers, so we decided to pick up some fries at the pool to share. We grabbed some soda at Club level to take down with us, and enjoyed our carbs.
And then we went swimming! There was a slide, nothing too exciting- but we all went down it once. And, the music plays above ground and in the water, so you can even hear it underwater, which is pretty cool.
So we swam around for awhile, but turns out- it was a little chilly for us Floridians to go swimming. We were all FREEZING when we got out. So, what temperature do we all deem too cold? Well, that my friends is apparently 79 degrees. If there's no humidity, of course.
Dinner at the Club was fine- but light. Chicken Skewers, Veggie Spring Rolls and some salad (though the lime vingerette was pretty tastey. But, it was enough to fill up us, since we'd just had the massive plate of fries. Plus, we got free drinks from the bar, and after dinner coffee.
We took a minute after that to regroup. I wasn't so sure I'd convince anyone else to go back into the parks.
But convince them I did. We only had about 90 minutes- if that, before Universal closed (Islands of Adventure was open till 9, though). So we made the best of it with the Minons, the Mummy, Transformers, and lovely temperatures.
No new Minons ride next, but I'm sure it'll be done by the next time we go.
The guys were talking about making their way over to Islands of Adventure to hit up Hulk, and Velocicoaster again. I however had no interest in those, and a ton of interest in the desserts they'd be serving at the Club Lounge from 8 to 9. So, I told them to head on over to Islands of Adventures, and I'd go back to the hotel.
It is a super quick walk too, this is the view right out of the gates from City Walk. You can see the Hard Rock Guitar right there.
And the whole thing is a lovely walk along the water.
And then you can shortcut into the pool area, by taking this little detour.
I decided to nose around the resort a bit, before heading back up to the room. I will note, pool tables cost actual money here. Weird. Disney has them all for free. (Disney also took away parking fees for their hotels, while Universal still has them).
But the pool area and the ambiance of the whole place is pretty on-par with some Disney resorts.
I took a little bit to nose around the resort too. It's the Hard Rock after all, lots of cool artwork, artist memoribila and fun little nooks and crannies.
And then up to the 7th floor I went.
By now the sun was setting, and there was a really pretty view.
When I arrived back at the room, I found it had been all turned down for us, which was lovely.
Evening desserts was probably the best offering of our trip. There were all kinds of assorted cheesecakes, cookies, donut holes, and even some chocolate milk. I grabbed a plate and headed back to the room.
I also grabbed some extras for the guys who didn't think they'd be back in time (including some chocolate milks).
Bonus of being in Orlando, they show all the rocket launches as 'breaking news'! Yay!
The guys were able to get on the coasters, and then head back. After some chocolate milk and cookies, we all got ourselves tucked in. Hotel rooms are funny, they just feel like big sleepovers.
Asa and I got up for breakfast. It was an ok offering. Fruit and pastries. Cereal. Coffee. Juice. That sort of thing. I did take some donuts back to the kids, who did eventually eat those up.
We hung out until it was time to check out. We'd done basically all the rides the day before, so we weren't in a huge hurry. Hayden wanted to check out all the memorabilia, so we did that before walking over to the parks. All in all, Hard Rock is a good hotel. It's not my favorite at Universal- that goes to Portfino Bay. And, it's not usually the cheapest of the three big ones- that's almost always Royal Pacific. But, you cannot beat the proximity to the parks. It feels like it's on par with the Beach Club to the back of Epcot. Crazy close. So if you're going to be going to the parks and back a lot, this is the hotel for you. For sure. I probably wouldn't pay a hefty premium to stay at this Club Level again, but for the $60 extra this time, I feel like we got our moneys worth.
Our first park after leaving the hotel, was Universal, because Rip Ride Rocket had been down the day before. We didn't want to miss it, and then of course, there was the Mummy that Asa just had to go on again.
I did convince them all to go see the Animal Show. It was mostly dogs and birds. But a skunk, a pig, a ferret and a porcipine made an appearance. I rather enjoyed it.
The new kids land is under construction, with no real talk about what it will feature. But, perhaps Puss in Boots is a clue? Either way, Hayden loves that movie. We made our way through the other lands, hitting up Springfield (aka Simpsons Land) and doing Men and Black.
We'd circled the park and ended up in London.
And then into Diagon Alley we went. Our first stop was the Leaky Cauldrin.
The way you order here has changed quite a lot since covid. No more waiting in long lines, ordering your food at the counter, then stalking people for their table. Instead, you order online then get in line. They'll then tell you a table number, and direct you there only once the table has been cleared. And then they bring the food to you. It's actually way better. It was here we got our last butterbeer of these passes.
And a Ploughman's Platter (the highlight is the scotch egg for sure). To finish it off, we got some potato wedges to share.
After our tummies were full we headed back out, did some nosing around shops, and rode what I still think is the best ride in Orlando: Escape from Gringotts.
And then to Kings Cross Station to ride the Hogwarts Express (the express pass line here is not impressive, we hardly got to skip anything, but still, it was nice to skip something).
Over in Islands of Adventure, the guys made a beeline for their favorite coaster one last time. It was down, but after a trip on Kong it came back up and they were able to ride.
While I waited, I made one final trip to Hogsmeade. I even bought myself a cute plate at Honeydukes.
After meeting back up with everyone in Suess Landing, the guys decided they really had done everything they wanted to do-multiple times. I'm telling you, those Express Passes are something.
So while they took one more spin on the Hulk, I nosed around the main gift shop at the front of the park. While they had some very cute stuff, I did end up with a Hufflepuff sweatshirt that was half off (and then we got our discount on top of it!) so that was very exciting.
And that was a wrap on our day at Universal. We could have stayed longer. Our Express passes work both days in the park, but really, they'd allowed so many walk-on rides, we were pretty well done. We all had a great time though, and we were excited to get home to the puppies (thanks to Theresa for watching them for us!)
We did make one final stop on our way out- one last trip to Voodoo Doughnuts. Sure, we can technically get into City Walk without passes to go here or to Cowfish. But, whose going to pay parking to do that? Likely not us.
But we do like bringing home some goodies from Orlando. It always makes for a nice little extension of your trip when you know you have some sweet treat waiting for you.
All in all, it was a lovely trip, and a good end to our passes. We don't often get them because it is all the way on the other side of Disney, but maybe when Epic Universe opens in 2025 we'll have passes again. Until then, I have my Hard Rock magnet, Honeydukes plate, and Hufflepuff sweatshirt.
Next up: Some odds and ends. We have a busy May ahead of us...
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