Forbidden Journey and Hogwarts Express Strategy for late October??

[jenhelgren]

We will be visiting UO Tuesday-Thursday 10/25-10/27 and staying onsite. I was disappointed to see that only Universal Orlando will have Early Entry during our visit. Everyday we are there USO will open at 7 am for EE and IoA will open at 9am. We plan on starting the day in Diagon Alley for Gringotts during EE. What is the best strategy to see Forbidden Journey and take the castle tour at park open in IoA? Is it best to hop over ourselves or ride Hogwarts express? Does Hogwarts not start running until right at 9 or does it give you an early start on the front gate crowds? How early would we need to line up for Hogwarts Express to be on the first train of the day? This is our 1st visit and my DH is not a fan of massive crowds at all but is a huge HP fan! I am trying to soak in all I can for planning-so I would LOVE all the opinions and advice I can get on doing it the last crowded/stressful way possible
How bad should we expect for the crowds/lines in Hogsmeade right at park opening time of 9 am in October? We will have Express Pass for Dragon Challenge and Hippogriff. Thanks so much in advance!

 

[littlejimmy]

if you want to do fj and hogsmeade with the least amount of wait, I would do ioa at rope drop on one day. you will beat the hogswarts express over, because chances are the gates will open at 850 or so. if you get in line by 830ish, you will have the least crowded fj and hogsmeade you could have.

 

[tinkermomto3]

Agree with the above. We visited the second week in June and only had IOA early open. (So my experience is backwards, but probably similar)
We actually did both, the first day we rope dropped IOA and rode forbidden journey and then got in line for the hogwarts express, rode it over and got to gringotts. Had about a 20 minute wait. The 3rd day we rope dropped US and fast walked straight to gringotts. Had maybe a 10 minute wait. We saw the hogwarts express coming over, but we beat them by a good 10 minutes. We were at the gate about 30 minutes before opening, pretty close to the front. They opened about 15 minutes early.

 

[WonderKid]

@jenhelgren What strategy did you go with? How well did it work? Would you do anything differently? I've read an alternate strategy to help reduce waiting is to visit WWoHP in the non-early-admission-park during the last few hours of the day.