Last week I went with my friend (both of us in our 60's) to Universal Studios to see the Harry Potter parks. I do not like rides but she does. We spent 5 days (Monday-Friday) in the parks. We were hoping to avoid the crowds by going mid-week, and despite MLK Day on Monday, it wasn't bad. The weather Monday-Thursday was really cold and windy (Universal can't help the weather) but the weather meant that the rooftop bar at our hotel (Aventura) was closed, and several of the rides were closed on certain days during certain times.
Pros: Harry Potter World was so very well done. Although I don't like rides, several of the rides includes "shows" while you wait, so I waited with my friend as she walked through Gringotts and Hogwarts, which was awesome. For riders, they typically have a "single rider" option, so if you don't mind sitting by yourself, it's a lot quicker through the line as a single rider. Since we were there 5 days, we went to other areas (Suessland was visually stunning) and went to as many shows as we could. Employees were incredibly helpful, friendly and patient (they must get the same request for directions 1000 times but they are just as kind with everyone.) On Friday, the only warm day, I went to Volcano Bay and it was incredible. The water was warm and the beach was awesome.
The dragon in HP blows fire randomly throughout the day, and only on Thursday did we catch the fire-blowing, which takes about 3 seconds. There are also secret magic windows where you can use your wand (other windows have a marker on the ground in front of them.)
Cons: Food. Generally, the same extremely overpriced food (bad burgers and fries) is served throughout the parks and it's not good. At Harry Potter, you have to have butter beer ($8 for 16 ounces) (tastes like sweet butterscotch soda), but we went to breakfast at the Leaky Caldron (potatoes swimming in grease) and at the three Broomsticks (tasteless pasty). We found a good breakfast at the Today Cafe, and a good dinner at Grill and Brew in City Walk. Even snacks were ridiculous- $3 for a bag of chips. Universal can do a lot better. Side note- if you pay for your park ticket with your American Express card, you can use the AMEX lounge. It's a tiny room and there's not much there but it is air conditioned, a bathroom (single occupancy) has free chips and granola bars and small water bottles.
We went to the Horror Film Make-up show, which was generally pretty good. The presenters (a "funny" make up artist and a straight man) geared the show toward kids (plenty of fart jokes Hardy-har) but adults were entertained as well. However, and it's a big however, they made a racist joke (one audience volunteer was from Ecuador and the "funny" guy make a joke that we better not make her upset- she's from Ecuador and she'll "cut you".) and a completely inappropriate joke about women's biology ("Latex and Playtex are different- they create different monsters" Yuk yuk.) These are the kind of comments that, if made in front of my children, I would stand up against and let my children and the commenter know that these are disrespectful. Unfortunately, in the middle of the show no one was going to do that. I'm guessing that the Playtex joke went over the kids' heads, but I still felt disrespected and hope Universal will take notice and educate their presenters that these types of jokes are disrespectful, perpetuate a stereotype, and should be avoided.
Ride closures: We ran into one couple who were in for one day, They stood in line for Hagrid's ride for almost 2 hours, when the ride was shut down for technical difficulties. they were about 50 people from the front of the line. The announcement was that they weren't sure when the ride would reopen. There should be some method for accommodating people when the rides close and they have invested so much time waiting. Something like a "front of the line voucher" could be used.