This definitely stinks. I'd hope they will start selling charging cables somewhere in the park because I have experienced multiple times a friend having their battery completely drained during a park day or HHN night and not having a charger with them, and with this, not being able to check showtimes or anything like that thru the app would be a pain. Smaller issue but it is one I've seen multiple times.
My husband in the pre-show room of Bourne was over by the wall plugged in and charging his phone during the whole time we were in there. For sure need more charging areas.
I also think the Universal Orlando experience isn't necessarily great right now, but the absence of paper maps has little or nothing to do with that, and I think we'd be having this exact same conversation whether the park was running in high gear or the current state. As a person who attends less often, on a micro level, it's easy to criticize UO for the day to day guest experience, but on a macro level, they are overhauling Kidzone, IOA is (still) great, Epic Universe is shaping up to be a smash hit, there's a UK park in discussion, an HHN experience in Vegas under construction, and a small time park planned in Texas, a new coaster being built in USH, and two smash hit HHNs on both coasts (which is what I care about).
Given the level of investment in the parks, I am inclined to say that Universal isn't resting on their laurels like Disney has, so I don't think I'm giving them a pass or going easy on them, and I don't see a reason to be negative over this particular change.
I hear this a lot on here about Disney resting. But I haven't had Universal passes the entire time my son has been alive and before that. He is 6 now. Since the last time I was at Uni with AP there has been the 2 coasters at IOA added and F&F, Bourne and Fallon at Studios. In the meantime 4 rides have been removed and 4 shows (Disaster, Beetlejuice, Twister, PF, whatever dueling dragons was now called, Sinbad, Terminator and FF). I won't count the kids area since that will be like for like when it opens, but has been closed. So that is a net gain of 1 ride and a loss of 3 shows.
Since my son has been born Disney has added 7 rides (2 SW, 2 TS, Tron, rat, and the galaxy one) and removed 4? The one Galaxy replaced, that car show, disaster, and the Dino coaster. Am I wrong? Was more removed? I haven't been to Disney for a couple years. So that is a net gain of 3 rides and a loss of 1 show. Like kidzone I won't count splash since it is a like for like.
I will admit my memory is pretty shot, so I may be missing ones in both parks, so correct me if I am wrong on the add/removes in the last 6 years. Also, I didn't count Avatar, but that opened right before my son was born which really should be included in here since I didn't have Uni passes then either. That would be another 2 rides, with no losses.
100% Epic will be a huge game changer, I am just not seeing how Uni has done all these great things in the past 6 years and Disney nothing. Epic my fear is the are they able to handle a 3rd park. Because they do have a lot of customer service/staffing issues with just 2 parks.
Alright, so I might just be living on a different planet than everyone else - but how are people struggling with the Universal app?
I wouldn't say struggle. It is clunky compared to how other apps work. Filtering settings not staying, logging you out all the time, food ordering system took me forever, not saving my AP for food ordering, etc. These are all things that I don't see in other apps. I mean I order food on apps all the time and when I click order the confirmation number comes up within seconds. It took me minutes. Heck just getting my subtotal took forever to even click order.
As I mentioned earlier ,it appears WDW Disney is getting a lot of negative feedback from guests unhappy they need to use their phones so much in the parks for Genie, food etc.. They had put very heavy emphasis on phone food ordering, but when we went in April it seemed there were few people using mobile and most people were back to using the regular lines to order food. Let a guest enjoy their vacation and leave their phone in their room if they want without penalizing them for it.
I am not sure how Disney has been recently, but while they suggested online ordering, they didn't discourage or almost disallow you to walk up to the counter. I will say it was always much faster than going to counter at Disney and so I used online ordering all the time at Disney to avoid the lines. At Uni they absolutely discouraged me and said it would take WAY longer if I ordered at counter when there was NO ONE in line at counter. So Uni seems to be a lot more pushy/rude when it came to this.
See this I don't understand, because the app does provide accurate hours for red coconut even if there is an event. I've never had a problem with that. The AP thing is annoying but it's not a big deal and takes literally seconds to scan.
Unless you are in Leaky Cauldron with almost no lighting then scanning does not work
