Monday May 23, 2005

I got up around 8, got showered and dressed, and downloaded yesterday's pics from my camera to my laptop, and got on the road to Universal Studios before 9am.

The drive to Uni was uneventful, and I was soon forking over the $8 parking fee to leave my rented Grand Am in one of Universal's two gargantuan parking garages. Many people, especially WDW fans, have some sort of objection to Uni's parking garages, either that they are "ugly" or that they are "difficult to walk or drive through", but I personally love them. I'm in a much better mood when leave the park in the evening if I know that my car is not only parked in shade and will be cool, but that most of my trip to the car will be under cover, protecting me from blazing sun or pouring rain. I have no trouble navigating the garages, thanks to the giant-sized directional signs, and the moving walkways make the trip a little shorter and quicker.

They also make the trip from tech car into Uni a little shorter, and so I was quickly standing in line to use the electronic Will Call ticket machine to pick up my Annual Pass, which I had bought on May 21, 2004 over the internet. But the machine had no record of the transaction, which I guessed was because of the long time between the purchase and pick-up (one year and two days), so I had no choice but to stand in line at Guest Services behind 15 or 20 other Guests with various problems to get it all sorted out.

Universal's Guest Services generally work just as good as Disney's, sometimes better, sometimes worse, so I was not terribly dismayed to see such a line at Guest Services first thing in the morning. After all, Magic Kingdom and Epcot often have lines like this in the morning as well. But one small thing grated on my nerves a bit; the Guest Services windows are in shade, but the actual roped-off queue was in direct sunlight. And there was a large shady are to one side where the queue ropes could easily have been moved, but weren't!

Oh, well, everybody pulls a Bonehead Maneuver once in a while.

My wait was about 20 minutes, after which a friendly young woman took my confirmation number into a back room, figured out the problem (it was indeed due to the long time between purchase and pick-up), and issued me a paper temporary pass (similar to a Disney AP voucher), which would have to be exchanged for my actual pass at the Vacation Services office inside the park. Great, another line to stand in...

Using the magnetic strip passes, which Disney still does, many Guests stand at the gates for a moment or two trying to figure out how to orient the pass before feeding it into the slot, despite the fact that the machine will read a pass no matter which side is up, and no matter which direction the magnetic strip is facing. In short, there are four ways to put the pass into the slot, and the machine will read it properly in all 4 directions, but most Guests, familiar with the "this end up, magnetic strip this side only" instructions of ATM and debit card readers around the world, do not know this, and need to be told that the pass will work no matter how it's fed into the machine. This is a brief delay, to be sure, but when multiplied by 20,000 or 50,000 Guests in a day, it causes huge backups at the park gates.

Uni's new barcode system completely eliminates this confusion. People all over the world are familiar with barcodes and barcode readers, and instantly orient their passes perfectly for the readers, giving Uni's gates a huge speed increase over those of Walt Disney World. And that's not counting the huge delays recently caused by Disney's implementation of the new biometric identification system, which Uni doesn't have.

And along with that huge speed boost at the gates, which cuts lines down to almost nothing, these new barcoded passes have an additional benefit to Universal: there is no magnetic strip to de-magnetize, meaning far fewer ruined passes from proximity to cell phones or other passes, which probably saves Uni thousands of dollars per month in pass re-issuing costs. This is Uni's proof that just because a technology is newer doesn't mean it's better.

Once inside the gates, I walked over to the nearby Vacation Services office, where I stood in another 10-minute line to get my final Annual Pass. It was here that my Universal experience took another upswing, when I saw the actual AP cards. Universal is now leaving Disney completely in the dust on this front; for years, WDW Passholders have been complaining that while park hoppers from the Disney Store and on-site Guest passes are hard plastic cards, Annual Passes, which are supposed to last a whole year, are still printed on the flimsy-feeling paper and mylar stock of old. Not so at Uni! A Universal AP is a hard card, laminated with exactly the same technology as a drivers license. These cards are tough! And adding insult to injury, Uni trumps WDW yet again by actually putting the Passholder's photograph on the front of the card using a cheap web-cam, making biometrics and ID checks at the gate totally unnecessary, yet again eliminating issues that cause delays and bottlenecks at Disney's gates.

I'm reminded of a bumper-sticker from an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - "On Zeta they do it right!"

Since I was nearby, I jumped into the line for one of my favorite Uni attractions, Terminator 2 3D. Although the word "line" is somewhat inaccurate; on this morning T2:3D was a walk-on, and I was in the pre-show room so fast I didn't get to enjoy any of the details in tech queue area. I made sure to sit toward the back of the theater, and timed my entry into the seat rows so that I would be near the center of the row, because the 3D technology seems to work far better for me if I am farther away and centered in the theater. The show was as good as I remember, though my stomach was growling through most of it.

In my hunger I wound up wandering the park for nearly a half-hour, and since it was already 11:30 I finally gave up on the idea of breakfast and went searching for lunch instead. After a bathroom break I went into Richters and got a cheeseburger and fries, and I noted that Richters had not only improved the quality of their food since my last meal there, but had also improved their service and the cleanliness of the dining room and condiments bar. None of these things were terrible in the past, but they had improved from Good to Very Good since my last meal there, and I was pleased to see that Good was not, apparently, good enough.

After lunch I tried to make up for some of the time I had lost in line this morning by going from attraction to attraction. First up was Shrek 4D, the hilarious adventure that continues the story of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Farquad.

Next up was Uni's newest adventure, which I had missed last year when I had to skip visiting Universal entirely: The Mummy's Revenge. This ride had been hyped up since long before it had opened over a year ago, and was still being hyped as one of the best rides in Orlando.

I wasn't terribly impressed. Sure, it's a great ride, and yes, it does use ride technology like nothing else in the world, but I just don't think it lived up to the hype. Still, it was an enjoyable ride and thrill ride enthusiasts will certainly love it.

After visiting Imhotep and Rick O'Connell, I rode the ET Adventure and saw Twister: Ride it Out. I considered getting in line for Jaws or Earthquake: The Big One, but although these are great attractions, they are not my favorites at Universal, and I was getting a little tired and hot from the 91-degree heat. I decided to take a break, and went to the bakery at the front of the park for a Velda chocolate milk (WDW has only Nesquick, which I don't like) and a giant-sized chocolate-chip cookie.

When I finished my milk and cookie, I went shopping in the stores at the front of the park for some Universal 2005 logo merchandise; I make a point of getting something with the year on it on every trip, which I can use as the background of my trip report and digital photo album when I get home. I didn't have any luck.

On my way back to WDW, I stopped at the Walgreens near the Crossroads shopping center for a Powerade, then continued into Disney property to MGM. I wasn't planning on making it a late night tonight, but I did want to pick up the Guest of Honor badge I had left for engraving the day before. Fortunately, as the CM informed me when I inquired, Celebrity Five and Dime keeps unclaimed engraving items for about a week, and my GOH badge was waiting for me in the back.

After a quick bathroom break, I rode Rock and Roller Coaster, which I had not had time or ride over the weekend, and then had to wait for the Stars and Motor Cars Parade to end so I could cross the park to Backlot Express for a dinner of chicken strips and fries.

Backlot, as well as several other counter service venues I had tried on this trip, seemed to be suffering from some sort of time warp. A time-stretching time warp, that is; after placing my order, I counted over 8 minutes until my dinner arrived. And I was not the only one standing around waiting for my food, either. Eight minutes may not sound like much when you read it in a trip report, but when you are actually standing there waiting for your dinner, it's a long time, especially when you remember that Backlot Express does not handle many special orders, only pre-made meals which are usually ready and waiting before an order is even placed. At peak times, Backlot and similar places should have average service times on pre-made meals of 30 seconds or less.

Being hungry, I didn't make a fuss; I just grabbed the food when it came up and found myself a place to sit. Normally when I eat at Backlot, I like to sit outside, on the side nearest to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. When the show is on, this part of Backlot is great for listening to the dialogue and sound effects, and you can even see backstage a little. But today was simply too hot; I picked a table inside, where I could enjoy the comfort of air conditioning.

I also enjoyed the background music that plays in the dining area, which consisted of themes from old TV shows. I heard the themes from Quincy, Rockford Files, Simon & Simon, Magnum PI, Hill Street Blues, M*A*S*H, Sanford & Son, and Dynasty while I ate, plus several that I didn't recognize.

Hm, I thought, Star Tours is right next door... So when I finished eating, I rode it. And I was pleased to find that it had only a 10-minute stand-by line. My next stop was Muppetvision 3D, which was a walk-on, with only a five-minute wait while the show cycled.

By this time, I was getting pretty tired, and my feet were beginning to hurt, so I decided to call it a day. I did stop at the camera shop on my way out of the park and inquire about downloading pictures from digital cameras to CD; I found that although the MGM camera shop did not have self-service download machines like those in Magic Kingdom's camera shop, they did have the ability to download Guests' photos to CD while you wait. Cost was $12.77 with tax, but that included only 120 pics. I didn't think to ask if that was the limit or if additional pics could be downloaded at an additional charge. I did, however, find out that the two big, empty shelf units at one end of the counter had been emptied in preparation for the installation of those self-service download machines.

I ended up back in my room at ASMU at about 8:50 and spent some time downloading the day's pictures to my laptop, watching CSI: Miami, and performing first aid on a couple of blisters, before hitting the hay at about 11:30.