I initially thought we would leave early Friday morning for our weekend away, but the way life played out that week left both Maddie and I ready to pack and get in the car the second I was done with work Thursday night… and that is just what we did! We got a last minute reservation at Endless Summer Dockside. We have stayed at this resort before, but this was the first time Madie got to experience a 2 bedroom family suite (my second time- I stayed here one night on my own before Christmas). She absolutely LOVED the space and the features in the room. We ordered pizza from room service, and it was delivered within 20 minutes and it was tasty and affordable! Endless Summer is a really great option for anyone on a tight budget who wants to still experience Universal from the property. Like I mentioned before, I’ve stayed here twice before this and each time has been great.
I was lucky enough to find a passholder discount for Lowe’s Royal Pacific Resort for Friday and Saturday night! We’ve never stayed here before, and it was at the top of my list for a few reasons! First, it’s the closest resort to Islands of Adventure (my very favorite theme park), the theme looked so awesome (I LOVE Hawaii, and hope to someday visit French Polynesian) and it’s a premier resort; which means it comes with complimentary unlimited express passes!!! All of those things together have made this THE resort I’ve been waiting to stay at since I started visiting Universal.
Staying at Endless Summer Dockside the night before helped us get a little extra sleep Thursday night. We still woke up pretty early Friday morning because we were excited to go check into Royal Pacific!
We got our stuff into the car and headed to Royal Pacific around 9am. I was able to park my car and get checked in even though our room wasn’t ready yet. I figured the room wouldn’t be ready that early, but I heard before I checked in that we would be able to get the room keys with the express passes early (I think as early as 7:30-but I’ve only personally tried after 8am). And we did! We were off to Islands of Adventure not long after 9am 😃
The walk from Royal Pacific was super short!!! (At least for me, I typically stay at Cabana Bay and sometimes Sapphire Falls). This was such a nice bonus for me since I’m a single mom and Islands is my/our favorite park at Universal 😃 Maddie was hungry when we got into the park and there was barely a line for one of our favorite spots to eat: Green Eggs and Ham! So of course we jumped in line and grabbed an order of green eggs and ham 🤤😋
Next up was Jurassic Park (my personal favorite that is tied with Harry Potter 😃) where we went on Jurassic Park River Adventure. Maddie has been on this before, and she seemed to enjoy it in the past, but on this day… she did not enjoy it… at all 😓😤 she stated she never wanted to ride it again as we got off 🤷♀️( sad day for me if I want to ride it again while I’m with her). We then headed to Camp Jurassic where we finally experienced the amber caves!!!
The Jurassic Park area is so super cool (in my opinion!) I read my first Jurassic Park book when I was 12, and I absolutely fell in love with the story, so I’m guessing that’s part of what makes this area of Islands one of my favorites 😍
It was a very hot day and Maddie loves Kali River Rapids at Disney, so I knew she’d enjoy Popeye and Bluto’s 😃💦😬and I was absolutely right!! We had so many laughs on that ride and getting wet wasn’t even a problem bc it was over 90° by that time.
Next was Dudley Do Right: Ripsaw Falls and neither of us had ever been on it, but she was finally tall enough to try! We maybe waited 10ish minutes before getting on…. and I’m glad we rode this because I had never tried it before… but this ride was the least enjoyable out of all the rides I’ve been on in all of the Universal Orlando parks combined. I really don’t like to be negative, but this ride just needs work in almost every aspect. The ride vehicles are super awkward to ride in, the theme is definitely outdated (and I’m questioning the relevance as well at this point?) The ride is not smooth, there is a bunch of jerking forward and backwards. The drop is a good thrill, but overall this ride needs some love.
We headed to Hogsmeade Village next for a butterbeer and some treats from Honeydukes 😋🥰
Butterbeer and cauldron cake 😃 (being eaten in Jurassic Park: that’s where we found a spot to sit 😬).
It was around 1300 when I got the text that our room at Royal Pacific was ready! We were ready to head back to the resort and check it all out!
The view from the walk to Royal Pacific Resort from Islands of Adventure 🏝
We were able to go straight to our room with the key cards they gave us at check in, and that made the process so smooth!
The room was absolutely beautiful!
The parks closed early this particular night, so we decided to check out the pool area. We spent the afternoon and early evening at the pool. I ordered these snacks, but Maddie was more interested in swimming, so we didn’t eat much of them 🤷♀️ it was a quesadilla and nachos.
When the sun started to set, we headed back to the room where I ordered us room service for dinner!!! It was such a nice experience!!! The food was very good too! We had fish n chips, cheese pizza and tomato soup with grilled cheese 😋. We were going to try to roast marshmallows, but this property doesn’t have a fire pit! We did find a couple of cupcakes for dessert and the cookies and cream cupcake was AMAZING!!! I will absolutely seek that out again the next time we are at Universal!
Room Service at Lowe’s Royal Pacific Resort 😃😍
The next day was stormy in the morning, so we went back to sleep after we had some snacks like the cookies and cream cupcake 😋 When we woke back up, the storms had cleared and we were rested so we got ready to go back to the parks.
Maddie was hungry when we arrived, so we got green eggs and ham again 😋 we also rode ‘one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish’ and the ‘High in the Sky Suess Trolley Ride’ while we were in Suess Landing 😃. We also rode flight of the hippogriff in Hogsmeade before we went back to Jurassic Park to check out the wait time for pteranodon flyers (it was over an hour at that time and we had express passes for a bunch of other rides). We went back to Camp Jurassic and Maddie played for a while in the refurbished play area.
We decided to have dinner at the Leakey Cauldron in Diagon Alley, so we hopped on the Hogwarts Express to get us over to Kings Cross Station 😃. We had fish n chips, mac n cheese, a hot butter beer and I tried the Dragonscale brew. It was all delicious!
Hot Butterbeer in the Leaky Cauldron
I tried to convince Maddie to go on ‘Men in Black’ with me, but she wasn’t having it. We went over to Springfield where we rode Kang and Kodos, then played a few games where she won a seal 😃
In Springfield with her new stuffy 😍
We decided to head back to Islands of Adventure to ride the pteranodon flyers at night before the parks closed. We hopped back on the Hogwarts Express from Kings Cross Station.
Going to Hogsmeade Village again!
We got back to IOA with enough time to hop on the pteranodon flyers with almost NO WAIT!!! Which is amazing!! We were on and off that ride so fast that we had time to go over to Suess Landing to get on the ‘High in the Sky Suess Trolley Ride’ one more time at night! The park at night is so nice!!! We stopped to get some treats before we went back to the resort for the night.
Suess Landing after hours 😊
The next morning we checked out 😓😭😥🥺😢 it was sad to leave such a beautiful resort! But we are lucky enough to visit Universal Orlando regularly 😃
The view from our room at Royal Pacific
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Once Upon a Lifetime 