- Tuesday, June 21, 2016 8:15 AM
- DisneyDan
Hello everyone,
Last month while at Walt Disney World, we made use of our Universal Orlando annual passes, visiting the parks there on two separate days.
Universal Orlando continues to surprise me with the sheer volume of characters that they have out at any given moment in a day, and the relative ease with which you can meet them all. I really love that they are not afraid to have huge groups out all at once - and for some reason, even though some of them are really popular characters, people there simply don't go nuts over them like they do at Disney. It's an odd, but refreshing experience.
During our visit we even managed to meet some characters that we hadn't seen out at Universal before, including the Men in Black, Beetlejuice, one of the Pink Beret Bunnies, Baby Bop and the recently added Hello Kitty.
Another thing that I love about Universal Orlando is the amount of entertainment that they have. There are lots of bands and street performers that play throughout the day. While we were there a brand new Marilyn Monroe show started. Marilyn and the performers greet guest afterwards for photos. Other entertainment that we either saw or passed by was the Blues Brothers, Beat Builders and Oh! The Stories You'll Hear.
We watched the Universal's Superstar Parade once, too. It's a fun parade, although I do wish it were a little longer and had some additional characters in it, rather than just the ones that meet on the main Hollywood street in the park.
At the Wizarding World of Harry Potter we watched two of the shows - Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees, and Tales of the Beedle and the Bard. I am still yet to find time to see the Triwizard Spirit Rally (both the Beauxbatons and the Durmstrang schools) and the Frog Choir. There is always so much else to do! As well as the two performances, we did manage to take the the Hogwarts Express train in both directions, to and from Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and met both the train conductor and the Knight Bus conductor.
That was pretty much it for our time at Universal Orlando on this trip. As always, we had a great time, and can't wait to go back sooner rather than later!
Have a great day everyone,
Dan.