The nice thing about staying overnight when visiting a theme park is the ability to take a break at the hotel room to recharge. We made reservations at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, conveniently located about five minutes from Universal Studios. From the outside, the hotel did not look too impressive. They were doing some construction, so maybe they will be working on a facelift.
The interiors and the room itself were quite nice, minus the odd odor that greeted us every time we got off the elevator.
Somehow, D has maintained his Platinum status at Marriott, so we had access to the Club Lounge. We filled up on the evening appetizers (pizza bites, cheese and crackers, veggies, etc.) so that we would not have to buy a full dinner!
At nighttime, Universal City Walk felt like a PG version of Las Vegas!
We splurged on a large boba drink from Mini Monster. Thankfully, security let us bring in the empty glass jar (I didn’t think about it until after I had already bought the drink). I am not sure if that is standard protocol, or we just got lucky. The mason jar says California, and does make a nice souvenir!
The periodic snowfall in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter added even more magic to the ambience.
The lighting of Hogwarts Castle was pretty spectacular! Our viewpoint from the stand where they sell Pumpkin Juice was nice because it was not too crowded.
We were also able to catch one of the Whoville Christmas tree lightings. What a fun way to start off our winter break and celebrate k’s birthday!