The Universal experience is very different from the Disney experience, but it’s hard to pinpoint why. After all, often the attractions are designed by literally the same people; there’s only so many jobs for people who can list imagineer on their resume. And if you missed that memo, Disney bought Marvel not long ago, yet much of Universal is Marvel themed. There’s dinosaurs in both Disney attractions and Universal attractions, there’s themed lands, there’s Lucas here and Spielberg there, and the ultimate landing place of the Potter franchise could have been either one (the films being neither Universal nor Disney properties) and who would have questioned it? But still, there’s an underlying feeling about WDW that pulls it all together. They don’t necessarily do it better, so much as they have a unified history dating back to the silent film era, held together by themes and characters still very much in the public eye. Universal also goes back to silent films, but their hold on the American psyche isn’t the same as Disney’s. Maybe it’s a question of heart. In the formative years of each corporation’s growth in the 30s, one was creating Dracula and Frankenstein movies, and the other was creating Snow White and Pinocchio. The latter simply connect better to the child within us than the former, and we all connect to our inner child better than to our inner monsters. Arguments can be made, on a more immediate level, that the theming in WDW actually is deeper and more meaningful than the theming at Universal, and that may be true, but it’s not the real difference, if it is a difference. Disney coopted our dreams generations ago. Universal makes movies. Therein lies the difference.
The DisAdders have had extended discussions about things like where to start and how to build the arc of a trip. To that I will had that I have, in the past, jaunted over to Universal from WDW in the middle of a trip. Universal, when you do this, tends to pale by comparison because it is not as all-encompassing. Everything in Disney is of a piece; everything in Universal is standalone. But at the same time, much of Universal, as far as the attractions are concerned, is amazing. So my thought is that by starting at Universal, and only Universal, there will be no paling by comparison because the comparison doesn’t exist yet. On its own, it will be a great collection of attractions, and a lot of fun. It will be the hors d’oeuvres before the entrees at WDW. It will set things up, it will be the warm-up phase of the trip. And then we’ll head in for the main event.
The plan is to meet up Friday night for dinner at Emeril’s, which I’ve eaten at before and really liked. I had expected something hokey, and got really good food. As the DisAdders are really appreciate of really good food, it’s the way to start. Then, at the crack of the next dawn, we head to IOA and Hogwarts, beating the crowds because we’re staying on-site. Then we do the rest of IOA and a little of the main park, with a break in the middle, one of the perks of staying onsite. Then back for more, but at a fairly leisurely pace, since front-of-the-line privileges will remove the necessity of commando-style line planning. Dinner will be whatever; I’m thinking that we’ll want to see the Universal fireworks end-of-day extravaganza, so we won’t be eating our little butts off that night. We’ll have already done that the previous day and, for that matter, the next day. There’s no point in overdoing it.
As for Sunday, we head to Diagon Alley where there should be a roller coaster ride of sorts at Gringotts, just like the real (real?) Gringotts, taking you to your vault, presumably with a dragon on hand for excitement. Then the rest of the attractions not yet seen, then midday one packs up and heads over to WDW. And there you are.
Pulling Universal, a one-day experience, out of the middle of the DisAd and placing it as a one and a half day experience at the beginning made for lots of changes from the original, initial plans. A total day off, for instance, where those of the spa persuasion could get their nails polished and their butts massaged while the rest of us explored something other than our nails and our butts went off into the ether, but everything else pretty much remained intact. That’s one nice thing about planning days on an electronic calendar. You move this here and that there until everything fits just fine. Which, I hope, is what I did.
By the way, O’C is going down early for whatever he has to take care of, and Kaz is going down early to visit Sea World. Her reason for the earliness is saving money on transportation, as if you travel during the week it’s way cheaper than traveling on a weekend, as most of the rest of us are doing. Of course, even though she’s flying out of Newburgh, her first stop on the way to Florida is, I think, Butte, Montana, so I question exactly how great an idea that really is. Butte (or maybe it was Detroit) just isn’t on the way to Florida, last time I looked.
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