Do I need a plan?

[planningjollyholiday]

I will be at the parks the Sunday and part of Monday before Thanksgiving so I'm sure it will be crowded. We have park to park tickets and express pass. Do I need a plan or with express pass can we just "wing it" and have a great time. Never been, so not sure if I need a strategy.

 

[contemporarymom]

With express pass you should be able to get quite a bit done. The only planning you might need to do is for Hagrid's. Just returned and we did rope drop and got on twice with less than an hour wait both days we rode.

As far as crowds, we were there last Thanksgiving and crowds weren't bad until Wednesday and even then with express passes were completely manageable.

 

[bchbetha]

Review the park maps. If you are eligible for early entry, use it. If you're HP fans, plan to start there.

 

[only hope]

Some planning maybe, depending on interests. Nowhere near the level of Disney planning though.

Hagrids and Petradon Flyers (if you have little kids) have no express. I think Flyers hands out return times. I think the Christmas stuff will be running and I don’t think the Grinchmas show has express. That show is very popular. Sometimes you have to wait through an entire show to get in. Avoid that by seeing the first show.

Pretty much all express queues skip parts of the highly themed queues, for rides that have one. If anyones a huge fan of that particular IP, they’d probably appreciate seeing the entire queue via standby which means doing it early since it’s a crazy busy week. Gringotts does not skip anything worth seeing.

HP lands get busier as the day goes on. Starting there and looking around while everyone runs to the ride(s) is the best way, especially if you want to cast spells. It thins out a bit at night at Diagon.

 

[planningjollyholiday]

Some planning maybe, depending on interests. Nowhere near the level of Disney planning though.

Hagrids and Petradon Flyers (if you have little kids) have no express. I think Flyers hands out return times. I think the Christmas stuff will be running and I don’t think the Grinchmas show has express. That show is very popular. Sometimes you have to wait through an entire show to get in. Avoid that by seeing the first show.

Pretty much all express queues skip parts of the highly themed queues, for rides that have one. If anyones a huge fan of that particular IP, they’d probably appreciate seeing the entire queue via standby which means doing it early since it’s a crazy busy week. Gringotts does not skip anything worth seeing.

HP lands get busier as the day goes on. Starting there and looking around while everyone runs to the ride(s) is the best way, especially if you want to cast spells. It thins out a bit at night at Diagon.

which queues are a must see? (we are most excited about Harry Potter)
I didn't even know you can use express pass for shows. How does that work? Do they reserve seats that we can walk up to just before the show starts?

 

[only hope]

Express pass is let in before standby for shows, so it actually takes up more time since to get any kind of advantage you have to arrive early. No reserved seats, just first dibs at seats. There aren't many seated shows though; I think just two year round, Animal Actors and Horror Makeup, plus the seasonal Grinchmas. I'm not sure that Horror has express. It's really quite useless for the animal show as it's a huge stadium with no bad views.

Must see queues depend on how passionate someone is about that IP. Basically, any indoor queue has things to see that are missed by using express. Cat in the Hat, Hogwarts Express, and Jimmy Fallon are exceptions. To get the full HP experience at Forbidden Journey, you really need to do standby once and express once. Express skips a few things but allows you to linger in each part of the line to fully experience it without constantly telling people to pass you. Hippogriff and Gringotts have no difference between express and standby. The other one with the biggest difference is MIB- without spoiling details, you skip the preshow that sets up the entire reason you're there, as well as a hallway with interesting things to see. The queues generally regarded as being the best themed besides HP are MiB, Mummy, Kong, and Spiderman.