Feedback on my itinerary

We are visiting Universal from 6/16, 17, 18 and staying at Royal Pacific Resort for 3 nights. My son is 8 y.o. and my daughter is 16 y.o. Both of them are huge HP fans.

Please look over my itinerary and provide any feedback or tip/suggestions. TIA.

Arrival Date

Check-in Hotel
Hotel Pool

Food at City Walk for dinner

Enter Park around 5 or 6pm: Walk around Diagon Alley or Hogsmead, may catch any rides if the wait time is short.

Day 1:

Despicable Me (Universal Studio)
Escape from Gringotts (U/S)
Hogwart Express (US to IA)
Forbidden Journey (Island of adventure)
Flight of hippogriff

Lunch at Mythos or 3 Broomsticks

Cat in the hat/Seuss Trolley/One fish, two fish
Spiderman (Either before lunch or after seuss lending section)
Popeye, Jurassic park river, Ripsaw fall (WET RIDES!)

HOTEL POOL to rest between 2-5pm

During evening (re-enter park around 5 or 6pm): catch whatever rides we skip during the day.

Day 2

Busiest Rides (must do rides): Shrek, Simpsons, ET, Transformers, MIB, Despicable Me

This day is mostly rides and etc at Universal Studios park. I don't really have a detailed plan of which rides to hit first or etc. But hopefully we can do them all during day 2.

Lunch & Dinner at Leaky Cauldron or City Walk

Hotel Pool to rest between 2-5pm; re-enter park around 530/6pm

First off remember you will have Express Pass for pretty much everything but HP rides so this takes a lot of pressure off of what to do. Also, you won't really know which park will open early until closer to your trip. Might be IOA both days so day 2 might not work.

We just got back and really didn't need a detailed plan. Just get a feel of where you want to be and what you want to get done. I like the part of going back to the pool/room otherwise this can be long day.

Have fun

Are you staying onsite? If you are duanerice is right that you really don' t have plan.

Make sure you add a stop at Olivanders. This may be a great thing to do your first night. Go to the one in Diagon Alley. Lines are much shorter there as there are multiple rooms to go into which is NOT the case in Hogsmeade.

Stay until closing, especially since you've had an afternoon break. Crowds won't be as bad in the late evening not to mention the HP areas are even more magical at night. You should be able to get a few rides in your first night for sure. Evenings are also a great time to walk around the HP shops. Do be sure to eat at least one of the HP restaurants. Leaky Cauldron is my favorite as far as the food goes.

Start in Diagon Alley your first night. It is after all where Harry started.

Awesome! Thank you all.

We just got back from Universal. We live in South Florida and have annual passes. I suggest you hit up Harry Potter both mornings. With express passes for everything else, you can relax a little and still hit everything. I found the only ride that takes express pass and has a bit of a wait is Despicable Me. But you can find shorter waits later in the evening. I'm not sure why Express Pass at Despicable Me is not efficient but it will be shorter at times. Have a great time!

Factor in at least 2-3 hours walking around Diagon Alley and looking at all the shops. Also, the ice cream shop is quite popular.

We had two park days last trip and started one day at Diagon Alley and the second day at Hogsmeade. If you head over to Hogsmeade and try to Forbidden Journey mid-morning, you'll have a heck of a wait. Hitting each park at rope drop on separate days will let you get on the headliners first thing without much wait.

We focused on Diagon Alley/Universal Studios on day one and finished up by 1pm or so. We then rode HE over to IOA and just walked around, hit a few of the less popular rides. We did it in reverse on day two - hit Hogsmeade/IOA in the morning, rode HE to DA/Universal for the afternoon. Worked well for us.

We just got back...we also stayed at Royal Pacific and IOA had early entry. After much deliberation we decided to go to EE at IOA and hoping the HE would take us to US in a timely fashion. We went to IOA went through regular queue at FJ then went through single riders. We then headed to HE which was open by that time and went to Diagon Alley.. The line for Gringotts was 20 min but turned out to be less than that. We did that twice. Then we went to visit the Minions... a little wait ...less than 15min... with EP. We then did all the rides we wanted to do in Universal at our leisure and multiple times. We ate at Leaky Cauldron and took the HE back to Hogsmeade rode Dueling dragons... well my son and husband did while my daughter and I shopped ... then we went on flight of the Hippogriff....I think the kids did this like 3 times. We did one ride in Suess then my son rode the Hulk while my daughter and I went to Spiderman... it is one of her favourites. Then we all rode Spiderman again and left. We basically did a carbon copy of this the next day except we made it back to IOA before lunch ate at Thunder Falls (we like the wrap they have there). We did all the rides we wanted then the kids hit all the water rides... they got absolutely drenched and then we went back to the hotel.

We did not do any shows and skipped MIB, the Simpsons and a few rides in Seuss. My kids are 13 and 14 and have pretty good stamina. The parks closed fairly early both days we were there so we did not take an afternoon break but we also did not leave at closing... maybe around 4

Hope that gives you an idea...EP is amazing!

OP if your kids are big HP fans, I'd hit up HP first thing every morning; then head off to other parts of the park(s).

re the last day, most of the rides you mentioned have short waits with Despicable Me being the longest for us last few trips.

the onsite FOTL perk is priceless