Crowd question for regulars

[Disfan5]

I've only been to Universal once and it was a weekday in early December. Lines were nonexistent. My family of 5 will be there on a Sunday the first week of march, 2017. We are doing park-to-park concentrating on HP stuff, but I would still like to do some other things. Is this do-able without spending $500 for express pass? We plan to be there 9a-9p. Adding a day is out of the question, as originally I was planning on a 2 day park-to-park but my husband really wants to do sea world one day which only leaves us 4 full days of Disney, none of which we are willing to give up for a second universal day!

 

[janicept]

Since it's a weekend it will be busier compared to a weekday but is not a super busy time. I was planning a similar day for three adults, plus one 10 and one 7 year old. They didn't care about any of the little kid stuff or going to the shows like Sinbad. It is manageable with a lot of walking. I would do the two main rides at both Harry Potter sections first plus the train and save looking around much in the shops until later in the day. For my family I went through the whole list of rides and shows to let them tell me what they had to go on, what they didn't want to see, and things to do if we had time. Simpsons and Minions seems to be really slow to load and the lines get pretty long so you might want to consider skipping those since there are so many other simulator rides that are much better. Some rides never seem to have much of a line like Dragon Challenge, Flight of the Hippogriff, Fearfall, and Jurassic Park River Rapids so you could wait until you notice it's getting busy then star going back around to those. Depending on the line for the Harry Potter train it's sometimes faster to walk out and around the front entrance to the other park. Obviously if you eat before you get there and be there when the gates open are always important for any park to save time. Try to resist the urge to take a bunch of pictures and shop before noon to save a lot of time standing in line later.

Good luck

 

[bumbershoot]

What if you did your Uni and SW days in a row, and move up to a Uni resort that includes unlimited Express Pass* for a night? That way on your Universal day you get early entrance to a Wizarding World and the unlimited EP for almost all of the rest of the park, plus Dragon Challenge and Hippogriff and the other day you're a bit closer to SW than you would be at WDW.**


*that would be Portofino, Hard Rock, and Royal Pacific...

** you get early entrance and Unlimited EP at those resorts from the moment you check in until park-close on checkout day, so as long as you're there early enough on checkin day that could be your Uni day, or it could be the next day.


And you don't *have to* stay there. Many people find a good enough price that just booking the room is less than buying EP for their party would be, so it's worth having even if you keep your other hotel room.

 

[Disfan5]

Since it's a weekend it will be busier compared to a weekday but is not a super busy time. I was planning a similar day for three adults, plus one 10 and one 7 year old. They didn't care about any of the little kid stuff or going to the shows like Sinbad. It is manageable with a lot of walking. I would do the two main rides at both Harry Potter sections first plus the train and save looking around much in the shops until later in the day. For my family I went through the whole list of rides and shows to let them tell me what they had to go on, what they didn't want to see, and things to do if we had time. Simpsons and Minions seems to be really slow to load and the lines get pretty long so you might want to consider skipping those since there are so many other simulator rides that are much better. Some rides never seem to have much of a line like Dragon Challenge, Flight of the Hippogriff, Fearfall, and Jurassic Park River Rapids so you could wait until you notice it's getting busy then star going back around to those. Depending on the line for the Harry Potter train it's sometimes faster to walk out and around the front entrance to the other park. Obviously if you eat before you get there and be there when the gates open are always important for any park to save time. Try to resist the urge to take a bunch of pictures and shop before noon to save a lot of time standing in line later.

Good luck

Thanks for the tips! I'm also thinking I will actually flip my days and do Sea World on sunday and Universal on monday in the hopes universal will be less crowded on a weekday.

 

[Disfan5]

What if you did your Uni and SW days in a row, and move up to a Uni resort that includes unlimited Express Pass* for a night? That way on your Universal day you get early entrance to a Wizarding World and the unlimited EP for almost all of the rest of the park, plus Dragon Challenge and Hippogriff and the other day you're a bit closer to SW than you would be at WDW.**


*that would be Portofino, Hard Rock, and Royal Pacific...

** you get early entrance and Unlimited EP at those resorts from the moment you check in until park-close on checkout day, so as long as you're there early enough on checkin day that could be your Uni day, or it could be the next day.


And you don't *have to* stay there. Many people find a good enough price that just booking the room is less than buying EP for their party would be, so it's worth having even if you keep your other hotel room.

I seriously considered doing this as it's $100 cheaper to get a room than buy EP! But I think I'll switch my Seaworld day and go to Universal on monday in the hopes it will be even less crowded and I can get away with neither.

 

[janicept]

SeaWorld is much smaller than Universal so if you can I would definitely do SeaWorld Sunday and Universal Monday.