Both parks in one day feasible?

Tharris711

Earning My Ears
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Mar 19, 2017
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Anyway I can make this happen and still enjoy everything? Going in early November and it was either add another day to Universal or lose a Disney day, which were trying not to make happen. Was planning on skipping kiddie rides and the minor shows. Main priority is the Harry Potter areas, which we were planning on spending most of our time at. Any tips on this and what park we should start at? Thanks again!
 
It will be difficult. I suggest taking a look at the website and really planning things out. You will need to skip a lot of things. It is definitely doable to do the two Harry Potter areas and then add a few things. Hours are short in November.
 
You can do it, but remember that the first day of park is the most expensive one

you're talking about losing a "disney day" if you do an additionnal UOR day ... but that's not how you need to look at it.
both universal parks in one day will be a *waste* of a universal day

if you're gonna do something, do it right. you're going to pay a lot of money for that visit. Go for 2 days, add a night at CBBR (while still being checked in at disney's) for early entry, check in at 6am, do early entry, sleep at UOR, repeat early entry the next day

that will be more expensive, alright, (2 days and an additional hotel night) but that will be so much more worth it than paying a 1 day ticket for just doing a commando run through the Universal resort.
 

Early November shouldn't be too busy and totally doable to see both Harry Potter areas and train both ways in one day. If you like coasters I would definitely ride Hulk. They have a single rider line as an option. Just prioritize: go on the HP rides first then maybe Kong. By then the lines may be getting long so have an early lunch then check the Universal app for ride times to see what to go on. Some of the rides/shows are similar to Disney just different characters so you may not want to spend time on those thinks. Minions is a cute ride but the lines always seems long. Transformers and Spiderman are much better simulator rides. Go back later in the day to really take time to look around the shops at HP when the ride lines are long. The parks may close early at that time of the year especially mid-week. You can't do everything in one day but you can still have a good day. I personally love Universal and can go everyday. When I had my last Disney AP there were plenty of days I never even went to the parks because the rides were not as fun for me. To each his own.
 
So, 2 days without 'Park to Park' will be ok? We will be there sometime between October 8 - 18.
 
So, 2 days without 'Park to Park' will be ok? We will be there sometime between October 8 - 18.

If you don't get the park to park ticket you can not ride the Hogwarts Express train. If the reason for the Universal park trip is Harry Potter you definitely want to do Hogwarts Express, and be sure to ride it in both directions as it is slightly different. The train station is also very cool, and you cant enter the station unless you have park to park ticket, and they definitely check!
 
If it has to be 1 day and park to park or 2 days and not park to park, I guess I'd pick one day. No HP fan wants to miss the HE.
 
My fiance and I usually only do it one day and honestly its only taken us a little more than half day. We go from park opening and leave around 5 depending. Keep in mind we do skip out the kid stuff, shows and rides we generally don't care about. It's expensive for us for the park to park plus the cab from Disney Property to US/IOA though. We are planning on doing this again in June. This is what we've done in the past and what we are planning on doing this time. We will be going with friends this time so it may take us longer to also accommodate what they want to do so we may use the full day but if you are mainly concerned with seeing HP than you will def see both HP parks and more.

US is our first stop and we'll get there pretty much at opening. Our first stop there is Diagon Alley, with Gringotts as the first ride. We walk around and get some Ice Cream from Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour (def recommend!). This usually only takes us about less than an hour. The first time we ever went Gringotts took us 2 1/2 hours but that was because it first opened. Now it's been taking us 20 mins or less and there is a single rider line.

Next we'll do MIB because that also has a short line. We haven't waited longer than 25 mins for it. Also I think there is a single rider line.

Next maybe we'll do Simpsons. It isn't a priority but again we've never waited longer than 20 mins for it.

We'll skip everything else on that side and make our way on the next side and probably skip rip ride rockit. We've only ever seen it with a 60 min plus wait and even the single rider line was like 30 mins. Plus the ride gave me a headache so I would skip it if I can.

Next would be Transformers maybe ( I say maybe because we recently went to US Hollywood with the same friends and it seems like the ride is pretty much the same?) If we do go it will be single rider which we've seen as 15-25 mins.

Then we do the Mummy because we love it. We would probably do standby which we've seen anywhere from 10-15 minutes and then possibly go on one more time with single rider which can be a walk on.

Next we would take the Hogwarts Express to IAO. We've only used it once but we waited about 20 minutes for it.

We would take a break at Hogsmeade and get some lunch and beer.

We'll do Dragon's Challenge which we've seen usually at 20 minutes and Forbidden Journey which we usually wait about 25 min. They also have a single rider.

Next Jurassic Park maybe (also because the ride is the same at hollywood but also its never a long wait).

Possibly Reign of Kong if by some miracle we see it at less than 20 minutes. I heard its a glorified version of the Kong 360 section of the studio tour in hollywood so meh?

Spider Man we've seen around 35 minutes and less so we'll do that.

Doctor Doom's Fear Fall because that has always been a walk on for us.

We are going to try to do Hulk but I haven't been since they refurbished it so I'm not sure what they weight time would be.

We're probably going to skip Jimmy Fallon because i heard its kind of crappy and non of us really watch his show #justiceforconan ;)

Sorry for the long post. Keep in mind we've usually done the highlights of each park and still had time after but maybe it's just us being really lucky. What works for us may not work for you but this is our experience. Either way you should have more than enough time for each Wizarding World.
 
It's definitely doable to do both of the Harry Potter areas in one day, but I wouldn't expect to be able to do all the rest of both of the parks. But if you get EP, it may help. Universal always takes us longer than IOA. Have fun!
 
We have done it in early November, saw all the Harry Potter, rode Spider-Man, Jurassic park, minions, transformers, Simpsons, saw shows and ate. We had one day park to park, we got there for open and left at 7.
 
I think it depends on how interested you are in the stuff outside of HP. Express Pass won't work on the two main Harry Potter rides. However it will save you time on nearly all other attractions you plan to do them. So if you go for one day, you definitely want to invest in that. Add the park2park option on that to do both parks and it might get rather pricey.

If you stay onsite for one night, you can also get one hour early entry into the Harry Potter stuff at the parks, which can prove helpful on the time saving side. That really depends on your hotel situation down there though. If money isn't a factor, the top 3 deluxe hotels throw in free EP.
 
We did one day Park to Park in January mid-week. Very low crowds. We had an awesome day...rode everything we wanted to. Took our time to visit the HP areas, have lunch, & butter beer. I think we were there from 9:30 to 6 or so. This was not our first trip so we skipped a few rides. We did ride Forbidden Journey, Reign of Kong (longest wait) Escape from Gringotts (twice!) Hogwarts Express, Transformers, the Mummy, visited the "live" Raptor, and Minions. Spiderman is good too but we never walked back through that area of IOA. To experience it all.....2 days is better but you can have fun in just one day. We did do single rider the second trip on Gringotts.
 
It's doable if you get there at whichever one opens earlier. Studios doesn't really have all that much anymore that's a real attention grabber. Then again, that's just me. Much of the park always looks so empty. Easily a third to half day park. IOA is where most of the action is.
 
We have done it in early November, saw all the Harry Potter, rode Spider-Man, Jurassic park, minions, transformers, Simpsons, saw shows and ate. We had one day park to park, we got there for open and left at 7.
We basically did that Sunday...along with the new Race Through New York ride and Kong. We arrived at 10AM and left around 6:30PM.
 
We basically did that Sunday...along with the new Race Through New York ride and Kong. We arrived at 10AM and left around 6:30PM.

Nice how was the new ride? We are thinking about going in the fall on our next trip.
 
If you can enjoyably do 2 Disney parks in one day, you could probably do it at Universal.
 












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