Our 2025 Universal Studios Trip, Days 4 & 5 - Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, & Home

Today I’m recapping our third day in the parks at Universal Studios.  If you missed the first two days, you can see the posts here and here.

Saturday morning, we were up at 6:30 AM again and we met Jeannine’s family in the lobby at 7:30 AM.  On the way out, I grabbed Starbucks from our hotel lobby, and we jumped on the bus. 

When we arrived at Islands of Adventure, the lines were bonkers, and they were moving very slowly.  We also had a very chatty employee in our line, so that didn’t help as that held us up even longer.  If we’d known it was going to be so packed, we would have gotten up and out a bit earlier but live and learn!

While we were in line, Brian monitored the lines for Hagrid’s Motorbike ride because that’s the main thing that Brian, Jacob, James, Jeannine, and Mack wanted to do.  While we were in line, the wait was already 55 minutes, so once we were in the gate, I stayed behind with Olivia and Buckley, and they all hauled booty to the ride.

By the time they got there, the wait had jumped to 140 minutes, so they decided to scrap it and try again later in the day with the hope that the wait time would decrease, but spoiler alert, it continued to increase for the rest of the day and they were never able to ride.  At one point, the wait was more than FOUR HOURS, which is just silly.  I can’t imagine spending that much time waiting in line for a ride.  Nothing is worth waiting that long, in my opinion.

Instead, Brian ran to the Jurassic World VelociCoaster to do the single rider line, and he was on and off quickly.  James, Jeannine, Jacob, and Mack all went to ride Flight of the Hippogriff.  While they all did that, Olivia and Buckley and I meandered through the park, stopping here and there to look at various things. 

We ended up making it to the bridge under the VelociCoaster just in time to see Brian whizz by.  The roller coaster does two loops right there, and I knew he was wearing a red shirt since it was game day, so he was easy to spot!  I got him on video, and I was able to take a picture from the video!

After he was done there, we walked over to the Hippogriff just in time to see them riding, and then all of us walked to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  The kids had loved it so much the day before that they wanted to ride again.  We all walked through the castle again, and Brian rode with the kids, but Jeannine, James, and I didn’t ride, and we went straight to the gift shop while they rode. 

The adults did a quick check on the wait time for Hagrid’s again and the wait had only gotten worse, so we decided to hop on the Hogwarts Express to go over to Universal Studios as there wasn’t much else we wanted to do at Islands of Adventure.

When we arrived over there, we went straight to Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon.  The wait for that was 30-ish minutes (I think??) but you get to sit in a big lobby and watch old clips from his shows, so that passed the time and allowed us to rest our legs and feet for a bit.  We all loved the ride – I had to close my eyes several times so I didn’t get too dizzy – but it was so neat!

After that, we decided to hit up Illumination’s Villain-Con Minion Blast because the wait wasn’t long at all, and it was something everyone could do.  It was also nice to be inside because it misted rain off and on all morning and it was windy, making it very chilly.  It wasn’t really enough rain to warrant pulling out the ponchos, but it was enough to make my hair look all crazy for the rest of the day.  Haha.

As we were walking to find lunch, we saw Bumblebee from Transformers!  He was so realistic and I’m still trying to figure out how a person fits in that costume… assuming a person was in there?  There’s no way it was moving the way it was without a human in there, though.

We decided to eat at Mel’s Drive-In for lunch… it’s a quick service diner style restaurant.  The line was wrapped around the building to get in, but we didn’t have to wait too long – 15 minutes, maybe?  We placed our orders in the app and then picked them up once we were seated.  There were mini jukeboxes at each of the tables and the kids loved that.  I don’t think they worked, but we don’t know for sure because we didn’t have any change to put in ours.

After lunch, Buckley saw Johnny and Rosita from Sing, so we stopped there so he could meet them.  How sweet are those pictures?!

Then, we decided to split up again.  Brian, Jacob, James, and Mack all wanted to ride Transformers: The Ride – 3D, so while they did that, Jeannine and I took Olivia and Buckley to Shrek’s Swamp, which was another huge play area with bridges and tunnels and such.  We sat and chatted while they explored, and then we moved to Po’s Kung Foo Training Camp which was the same area we’d explored the previous day with the gong.  Buckley and Olivia didn’t want to stay there long, so we found another area that had some sort of interactive games on big screens, and they played there until the boys came back.

By then, the lines for everything were really long, so we decided to go to Despicable Me Minion Mayhem because the wait wasn’t too terrible.  We actually ended up waiting a lot less than what they’d estimated for that one, too, so we were glad we did it.  And we got to meet one of the minions afterward.  ;o)

There was a huge Universal Studios store just outside of that ride, so we all went there next to do some shopping.  I wanted to get a tacky souvenir frame for our collection, but shockingly, there was not one to be found in the entire store.  So weird.

We ended up getting separated from Jeannine’s family briefly in the store, so when we left, our family walked into a sweets shop across the street in search of ice cream for Olivia.  She’d been begging for some all weekend, but they didn’t have any there.

While we were waiting for Jeannine’s family outside the store, I heard Casper’s Lullaby from the 1995 Casper movie playing in the park and I teared up at the sound of it.  That was one of my favorite movies of all-time when I was a kid, and I listened to that soundtrack every single night for years as I was going to sleep.  Casper’s Lullaby is the best one on the entire soundtrack and I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard it.  I need to get Jacob to learn that one for me since it’s a piano song.

Once we met back up with Jeannine’s family, we all walked to the big Universal globe (I guess you would call it?) – that iconic Universal sign at the entrance – and we took pictures next to it.

After that, our family wanted to do a little bit of shopping and find some ice cream, and Jeannine’s family wanted to head back over to Islands of Adventure, so we split up for a bit.  I went in and out of a million different souvenir shops and there was not one single frame to be found which is just CRAZY. 

We did find some ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery, though, and then I found a Christmas ornament for our family tree. 

After that, we went back into Islands of Adventure to find Jeannine’s family.  James and Mack had gone back to Universal Studios to grab a souvenir, so we met Jeannine and Buckley in Hogsmeade to take pictures by the castle.  We also saw a character on the way.

My goal was to walk in a bunch of shops to find a frame, but there was NOTHING, y’all.  Just so weird to me that there wasn’t a single frame in the parks.

After that, the six of us walked to Me Ship, The Olive in the Popeye’s Playground area of Islands of Adventure.  On the way, we walked through the iconic Jurassic Park entrance that we’d missed the day before and the kids wanted a picture with the t-rex. 

Me Ship, The Olive is a large boat play area that overlooks the large lake in Universal Studios.  There are water blasters near the top so you can shoot water at the people riding the Popeye water ride, and the kids were getting people right in the face.  Hahahaha.  They were all super soaked anyway so it probably didn’t matter, but it was so funny (and dirty) that they even had those water blasters there.

We were all dragging by then, so we decided to leave the parks for good.  On the way out, I stopped in all the stores and all I could find was a Spider Man frame.  Since none of us rode that ride nor did we spend any time in that part of the park, I decided not to get it because it had nothing to do with our trip.

When we got to CityWalk, Jeannine and Buckley took off for the buses, and I dragged my family to more gift shops.  Haha.  I finally found a Jurassic Park frame in one of them, and I ended up getting that one after asking an employee why there were no Universal Studios frames.  She said they usually have them in the main store in CityWalk, but they’d opened a whole room just for Halloween Horror Nights and apparently, they had to decrease their inventory for other items, so that’s probably why it wasn’t there.  So now we have a Jurassic Park frame for our tacky souvenir wall – LOL – but at least it says Universal Studios on it!

I also got an ornament for Jacob.  I’d wanted to get him a Super Nintendo themed ornament, but they didn’t have any (I asked and was told that they will have them next year, but not this year), so I ended up purchasing a Mario keychain that has a nice gold metal Universal Studios charm, and I’m going to remove the chain and add a nice ribbon to make it an ornament. 

We also had to swing by the photo store so Brian could grab a photo he’d missed on the VelociCoaster, and then our family left the park around 5:45 PM.

We took the bus back to the hotel after waiting foreverrrr for a bus to show up, and we were all exhausted on the way back. 

When we got back to the hotel, it was dinnertime and we had no energy to go anywhere, so we opted to eat at the hotel again.  Jeannine’s family had started eating just ahead of us and they sat outside, but I had been freezing all day, and I just wanted to stay warm and cozy inside the hotel.  They had tomato soup and grilled cheese on sourdough on the menu, and it was just the thing I needed for a good warmup!

The Georgia vs. Auburn game was starting at 7:45-ish and all I wanted was to get in my warm and cozy pajamas and watch the game in bed, but Olivia had other plans… she wanted to swim.  Bless Brian for being the best dad ever, because he went out there with her, and then Jeannine and Buckley joined them while Jacob and I (and James and Mack) all stayed cozy in our respective hotel rooms watching the game. 

I texted Brian the play by play for the first quarter and then he came up, leaving Olivia with Jeannine and Buckley.  They were just living their best lives in the heated pool and watching The Barbie Movie. 

My plans to lay in bed leisurely and watch the game were disrupted by a VERY CLOSE game, so I had to get up and start doing stuff to get rid of my close game nerves.  I ended up getting lots of stuff packed so we’d have less to do in the morning while keeping one eye on the TV. 

Jeannine brought the kids up just before halftime and we said goodnight to them, and then Olivia showered and was out cold before halftime was even over.  Haha.

Brian, Jacob, and I stayed up and watched the whole insane game until the end, and thankfully, Georgia won.  Whew.  We finally went to bed at 11:30.

Sunday morning, we planned to sleep in until 8, but our upstairs neighbors were up stomping around at 6:30 AM… like, literally stomping.  They did it all night Saturday night, too, but thankfully stopped before we went to bed.  I finally had enough and got out of the bed at 7:30, and then after showering and getting ready, we had a big breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel.  We finished packing, I grabbed Starbucks for the road, and then we made the drive home, only stopping once for gas and a snack at Culver’s.  We made it home before 4, and then we spent the rest of the day/evening getting unpacked and settled back in!

And that was our trip!

And just in case you want to see our entire day summarized, here it is…

 

Summary:

Hours spent in parks – 10 (8 AM – 6:00 PM), rounded up

Rides/Attractions – 8

Characters seen and/or met – 12

Steps taken – 15,979

Miles walked – 6.48

Weather – Partly cloudy, misty rain in the AM, high of 75 degrees, low of 72 degrees

 

Schedule:

Wake at 6:30 AM

Meet in hotel lobby at 7:30 AM

Bus to Islands of Adventure at 7:30 AM

Arrive 8:00 AM

Jurassic World VelociCoaster (Brian)

Flight of the Hippogriff (Jacob, James, Jeannine, Mack)

Walk around the park (Lindsay, Olivia, Buckley)

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (Brian, Jacob, Olivia, Mack, Buckley)

Hogwarts Express (everyone)

Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon (everyone)

Illumination’s Villain-Con Minion Blast (everyone)

Lunch at Mel’s Drive-In (everyone)

Met Johnny and Rosita from Sing (Jeannine, Buckley)

Transformers: The Ride – 3D (Brian, Jacob, James, Mack)

Shrek’s Swamp (Lindsay, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Po’s Kung Foo Training Camp (Lindsay, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Despicable Me Minion Mayhem (everyone)

Shop at Universal Studios gift shop (everyone)

Pictures by the Universal Studios globe (everyone)

Shopping and ice cream (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia)

Hogsmeade (James, Jeannine, Mack, Buckley)

Universal Studios to get a souvenir (James, Mack)

Hogsmeade (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Pictures by Hogwarts (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Pictures by T-rex (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Me Ship, The Olive (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Left park (Jeannine, Buckley)

Shopped for frames (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia)

Left park at 5:45 PM (Brian, Lindsay, Jacob, Olivia)

Dinner at hotel (Both families, but separately)

Pool (Brian, Olivia, Jeannine, Buckley)

Georgia vs. Auburn game in our rooms (Lindsay, Jacob, James, Mack)

 

Happy Monday, y’all!