One day for both parks?

[littlbugmom]

We've never been to either park. We'll be at Disney for most of our vacation but want to see HP world. Is it practical to plan a day to visit both parks? Just one day?

We could schedule 2 days if we had to but would really like that second day to be a day of rest in the middle of our vacation.

 

[macraven]

depends on the date you are going if one day, maybe two will be sufficient.

 

[littlbugmom]

We'll be there Wednesday, April 6th. We can add the 5th but would rather not.

My kids are 11 and 15. The whole family loves HP.

 

[RMulieri]

If all you plan to see is Harry Potter and nothing else..MAYBE but a lot if it will be spent waiting in lines for the attractions and it is going to be expensive. One day tickets are rarely discounted

 

[Planogirl]

I wouldn't expect much of a rest if you decide to see two themeparks in one day. That's a lot of walking and you might need more than one day to recharge.

 

[johde]

You could try and see it all in 1 day. Then, if you decided you want to come back for a second day you can upgrade your tickets at guest services before leaving for the day. So, I would flip it. Make the 5th Universal and the 6th rest/optional second day at Universal.

 

[xlsm]

We did it. We booked an onsite room for the front of the line passes (it was cheaper than buying one day hopper tickets and paying for fotl passes separately - it was a saturday in july, front of the line passes were a necessity for us) and early entry but we didn't end up staying overnight. We had it in case we needed a midday break, or in case we were too tired to go back to the Wilderness Lodge at the end of the day. Instead, we started the day with our one hour early entry at 7am and went until around 5pm, then used uber to get us from Royal Pacific back to the WL. It was exhausting.

HERE is a link to the start of five posts in my trip report detailing how it went, if you're curious.

It was not a cheap day, lol, and we sandwiched it between an Epcot day and a day with a prepark opening breakfast at Tusker House for our Animal Kingdom day. But, it was also for my youngest son's 10th birthday (ok, and for ME, because I am HP obsessed!).

I'd like to go back again and take it more slowly, but you can hit the highlights of both parks in one day. They're very close together, and after WDW, it was almost surreal.

It's a totally different experience, in my opinion.

Good luck making your decision, and have fun!!

 

[Upatnoon]

We've never been to either park. We'll be at Disney for most of our vacation but want to see HP world. Is it practical to plan a day to visit both parks? Just one day?

We could schedule 2 days if we had to but would really like that second day to be a day of rest in the middle of our vacation.

The Universal Parks are great! We have annual passes, have gone 7 days and still haven't done everything (we don't rush around trying to, either).

Of course you can do some highlights in 1 day, but why spend all that money to rush? With your kids getting older, they may prefer the attractions at Universal.

 

[littlbugmom]

Thank you for the advice.

Moving the Universal day to the 5th makes the most sense. It would give us the chance to either add another day of Universal on the 6th or use it as a rest day. My kids are Disney fanatics but we've talked about adding HP since our last vacation. If we only see HP and nothing else of Universal, we'll be ok with that for this trip. Who knows, we may find that we're Universal fanatics too. If that happens, we'll make it a bigger part of our next vacation.

The price for one or two days *is* rather large! Since we may only be there 1 day, I was thinking about getting fotl passes to make the most of our time there. Would that help much? Worth the cost? (cuz, wow!)

 

[RMulieri]

Thank you for the advice.

Moving the Universal day to the 5th makes the most sense. It would give us the chance to either add another day of Universal on the 6th or use it as a rest day. My kids are Disney fanatics but we've talked about adding HP since our last vacation. If we only see HP and nothing else of Universal, we'll be ok with that for this trip. Who knows, we may find that we're Universal fanatics too. If that happens, we'll make it a bigger part of our next vacation.

The price for one or two days *is* rather large! Since we may only be there 1 day, I was thinking about getting fotl passes to make the most of our time there. Would that help much? Worth the cost? (cuz, wow!)

It helps with the rest of the parks. You can NOT use it on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Escape from Gringotts, Hogwarts Express or Ollivanders. It can be used on Flight of the Hippogriff , Dragon Challenge but to buy it for only those 2 rides if you are not doing any of the rest of the parks is probably not worth it .

 

[schumigirl]

Buying EP for just a couple of rides won't be worth it.

Going to any theme park for one or two days is expensive, especially if you're just going to focus on Potter and not the rest of the parks..........they really do have so much to offer beyond Potter.

Try for two days and try and see some of the rest of the parks too if you can.......

 

[crow11ad]

We tried it 2014 and it's a rush job. Too many things were missed.

 

[klo1335]

We did this in August 2015. It was rushed but we knew it would be. Our main goal was HP and we did everything except for Gringotts. After the Journey ride, my daughter didn't want to do it. Line's weren't too bad. The longest line was the Train from Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade but it is air conditioned. We are going back with my parents and kids next November and going for 3 days!! Can't wait to slow it down and do more.

 

[kristie73]

We are trying to plan this too in Oct 2016 for a Wednesday and staying the whole trip at Disney World POR. We will just do what we can between both parks. We'll plan to return another time to do more. Any tips for the one day! How do we get there and back from WDW, POR?