Well until USH gets that damn hotel built, there's really no vacation packages they can hawk unless they coerce the Hilton and the Sheraton to finally start catering to the theme park crowd more than the "talent" for the studio.
As for the loyal fans... well this is really sad to say but I don't think Universal gives a crap. They don't want to be a locals park anymore, and instead want to change the focus on being a destination instead. This is where the bizarre California/Florida paradox comes into play. Both Disney and Universal on the west coast in fact do cater to the local crowd more because they are in a less isolated location. As such they feel forced sometimes to play their hand towards repeat guests in an obligatory way, and this pays off through consistent refurbs and updates. However, they also badly want to be like Florida and woo that vacation crowd, which leads to them pulling moves like this despite the fact that they're too landlocked for space to truly justify. Whereas you have Florida, which is ideally a vacation destination for both properties. Ironically, Florida arguably has the more loyal (although smaller) fanbase, and they get more simply because it's easier to cater to them on the smaller levels, while trumpeting bigger prices which the fans are fine with because they're simply used to it. But at the same time, they also suffer to see the parks being maligned and less well-maintained, and watching their favorite attractions sucked up due to the property wanting to cater to their international, once-in-a-lifetime audience.
In all, it creates a massive headache for both theme park fans and tourists. I think California feels the pains the hardest, because those are actual pains of overcrowding and overpricing. Florida's fans are much whinier about what used to be, and no wonder... it feels like they just have less actual things to be angry about.