Figured I'd give this it's own topic so we can start discussing things, if necessary. Here's a list of people going so far!
IMPORTANT: One person (possibly two depending on the amount of people) will need to supply information to pick up the comp passes. Apparantly it cannot be me (I think). Just name, phone # and e-mail, and either has a credit card onhand to verify the name for the self-help kiosk or a photo-ID for manual pickup. Basically, instead of hard passes they give to us, now we get credits online that we use to get the passes. We have to fill out a form for the amount and have to pick them up at the park, after showing ID. Basically they did this to keep people from selling passes, which was a big problem. It's a smart move! Just makes the process more annoying, especially for a big group like us.
1. Soppy (D)
2. Meeple
3. Nitori
4. Grefter
5. Joe Snow
6. Xer
7. Gate
8. Djinn (D)
9. Tal
10. Idun
11. VSM
12. Scar (D)
I'm going to be setting a cap on the trip at 20 people, for two reasons. That way I don't really have to worry about extra drivers, and I estimate I'll have 17 passes by the time of the con. I can get a few from my sister to get it to 19 (my employee ID gets me in which rounds it to 20) but I don't want to grab that many from her. As long as you're signed up for the con before April 2nd, signup for Universal will be open until I hit the cap. DO NOT just sign up just in case, only sign up if you're sure you're going. I will be very angry if people sign up to get in before the cap and end up dropping.
The park will open at 8, I believe. Summer months it might open earlier, but we'll see. So my aim is to leave the house at around
6:15 AM to get to there with enough time to park, get our passes and get in when it opens.
After that it's pretty much open game. Harry Potter is pretty awesome, but honestly unless you get there FIRST it's not worth going to immediately, as it overcrowds easily. Best time to usually hit it is after 3PM. The passes we get are two-park passes, so we can literally do almost everything before heading over there if people want to wait for a more pleasant experience. Three Broomsticks is also less crowded around that time if people want to eat.
I'm not a great judge of what people would want to do, and people can obviously split off into smaller groups to do other stuff, but my main aims are:
Islands of Adventure Harry Potter (The area and the ride)
Duelling Dragons (Roller Coaster)
The Hulk (Roller Coaster)
Spiderman (Simulator ride)
Possibly Jurassic Park and Dudley Do-Right (Raft and Log Flume rides, respectively. Depends on if people care about getting wet).
Other Stuff of Interest: Dr. Doom's Free-Fall, Mythos (restaurant, awesome), Posideon's Fury (incredibly lame, but neat to look at), the Dr. Seuss area, Sinbad's Stunt Show.
Universal Studios Rip Ride Rocket (Roller Coaster)
The Mummy (Indoor Roller Coaster, doesn't go upside down)
Disaster (Ride/show)
Men In Black (Ride/game. You shoot stuff and are scored on it. Would be awesome to have the DL go against each other)
The Simpsons (Simulator ride)
Despicable Me (Sim ride, should be open by then)
Other stuff of interest: Twister (pyrotechnics show), E.T., The Beetlejuice show, the Blues Brothers show, Terminator 3-D, Shrek 4D, Horror Makeup Show, Animal Actors Show, possibly Fear Factor Live.
Tips:
For rides, the best thing I can say is that we should all do single rider for. It can sometimes cut up to 90% of the wait time off a long line, and with some rare exceptions (Men In Black) there isn't much that you really NEED to ride as a group. This would save a lot on time and allow us to better get everything people want to do in.
Think about how much you want to spend ahead of time, and on what. There are souvenirs associated with all the rides, and I get discounts on all of them. Plan on sticking around or at least let me know what you would want so time isn't wasted looking for you/me if people go off on their own. Same with food, I do not get discounts on outdoor snack carts, but handy rule of thumb is that if the register is outside, I don't get a discount, if the register is inside, I probably do. My discount also technically only is for up to 5 other people, but I know people in lots of places that'd have no problem covering everyone if we all eat at once (Three Broomsticks, Jurassic Park restaurants, Monster Cafe, my area, etc). Otherwise, covering smaller groups of people at a time isn't a problem. I get 25% off Food, and 35% off Merchandice. Lunch would cost ~$10-20 depending where you eat without the discount, snacks less so. Souvenirs are more or less what you're willing to pay for... there's cheap stuff and expensive stuff. T-Shirts are usually around $20, non-discount, as a baseline?
For the drivers, I have no problem if you want to drink at the park (it's not Disney, booze flows freely). We'll be there a long time and will also be walking around a lot. Just remember to cut yourselves off before we leave.
Be on relatively good behavior. I don't particularly think this should be a problem and don't care how wild people get, but if you get in serious trouble, they can tell who you got your passes from. People have been fired in the past from this. Again, I highly, highly doubt this'll be a problem, but I feel the need to put it out there >.>
For more info if you want to plan stuff out, go here to Universal's website:
http://www.universalorlando.com/Any questions or comments about the trip should be made in this topic!
