Crowds at Other Rides After DA Opening

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

We are going to Universal Jul 29 - Aug 5 this year. Assuming DA is open by end of June, I am curious about the crowd levels for the rides outside of the Harry Potter areas. I understand everything HP will be a zoo but will we also experience difficulty with long lines at other rides? We are staying onsite at PBH so we will have FOTL. I can "take" the crazy crowds for the HP rides but I will not be a happy camper if all of the rides and shows are similarly batcrazy. If it matters, I have planned our Universal park days for Wed/Thurs/Sun/Mon with SeaWorld and a pool day for Fri/Sat.

Does anyone have experience from the previous HP opening? Would love to hear some feedback on this and any tips to minimize wait times. TIA

 

[vince99uk]

Went to the parks shortly after the initial opening and although HP was crazy the rest of the park seemed very busy too. July to early August is always extremely crowded but I would expect the crowds elsewhere will be slightly less than last summer because of HP.

 

[hermionesnape]

We are going to Universal Jul 29 - Aug 5 this year. Assuming DA is open by end of June, I am curious about the crowd levels for the rides outside of the Harry Potter areas. I understand everything HP will be a zoo but will we also experience difficulty with long lines at other rides? We are staying onsite at PBH so we will have FOTL. I can "take" the crazy crowds for the HP rides but I will not be a happy camper if all of the rides and shows are similarly batcrazy. If it matters, I have planned our Universal park days for Wed/Thurs/Sun/Mon with SeaWorld and a pool day for Fri/Sat. Does anyone have experience from the previous HP opening? Would love to hear some feedback on this and any tips to minimize wait times. TIA

I was actually in the parks opening day back in 2010. That was my last day of a week long trip. The week leading up to the opening was easy crowds. The longest fast pass wait was 20mins for Dudley's.

On opening day the rest of the park was dead. Since I has already visited HP in the days leading up to the grand opening I just spent most of my time riding the other rides. The longest I waited for anything with fast pass that day was 10mins.

 

[saskdw]

We went the first Christmas WWoHP was open. Stayed onsite from Dec 22nd-28th. From 22nd-25th the parks were parks as a whole were manageable with FOTL never waited longer than 5 mins, it was pretty much straight on to the rides. Dec 26th-28th the parks were jammed full. Navigating through the park took patience, however still don't think we waited longer than 15 mins with FOTL.

WWoHP was filled to capacity as whole stay. We are not big HP fans and it was our first ever trip to UO so with lots to enjoy we actually never went to WWoHP at all. On some days there were hour plus waits just to get into the HP area to wait in another line to see anything or ride something. We just simply didn't care enough about HP to put ourselves through that.

To directly answer your question we did thoroughly enjoy our time in the rest of the parks, but FOTL was the key and I wouldn't go to UO during peak season with out staying onsite. We returned to UO in Dec 2012 and were able to enjoy WWoHP as well.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

Thanks for all of the responses! It sounds like we should be OK with FOTL at the other rides. Hot, crowded, but doable without too much frustration.

We may also split up our days and do some rides in the evening too which would help. This will be our first trip during the summer months with extended hours. Our previous trips were always in the spring so we have never experienced Uni in the evening. Are the crowds for HP usually just as bad in the hour before the park closes? Thinking we would hit HP one morning for EE and another in the evening *IF* the crowds are a little lighter at that time. If not, we will just brave it in the mornings when we have the most patience.

 

[RMulieri]

Summer is ALWAYS busy at Universal..It is going to be crazy busy throughout the parks especially end of July -beginnning August

 

[mjohnson96]

We were there opening weekend of WWOHP and stayed at RPR. The FOTL made it very easy to handle the crowds. It was busy but we were able to do and see everything we wanted to in the 4 days we were there that trip.

I remember walking over to Spider Man because DD wanted to ride it one more time and the wait was 90min. We walked on in 5 with the FOTL. So spoiled staying onsite

 

[JessicaR]

staying on-site at pbh with hotel express will be a huge time saver. however, the parks are at high season for your dates and add to that the new HP area and I can imagine attendance will be extremely high.