Early entry to Gringotts

[Cyrano]

I was listening to the Podcast (DISUnplugged Universal Edition) and they were saying that early entry for Loews Hotel guests is only at IOA....say it is only a temporary change

Early entry along with Express Pass are part of the reasons we can see a value in staying at Hard Rock or Royal Pacific.

Does anyone know why the change has been introduced?

 

[clsteve]

Cyrano, I think they're trying to find the optimal crowd flow between the 2 Parks on low-to-mid crowd level days.

Just from watching it while we were there a couple of weeks ago, I can see where they might be going.

It doesn't make good fiscal sense to open both Parks for EE when it's not that busy and I'll bet they were seeing all of the on-site guests heading straight to DA when it was open, followed by all of the off-siters doing the same thing when US opened at 9am.

Big bottleneck

I'll bet their gate entry for IOA was way down, with a lot of people getting paid standing around while everyone was already in or heading to DA. (probably backed up the HE line around 10am heading to IOA too)

Makes sense to see how it works with Early Entry at IOA for onsite guests at 8am, since a lot of those onsiters are going to stay in Hogsmeade, ride FJ, have a butterbeer or hit Olivanders - even out the Harry Potter flow.....

But with Hogwartt's Express starting at 8:30am to carry on-siters over to DA, it still gets those who want to get to Daigon Alley (and Gringotts) ahead of the 9am Universal Studios gate opening crowd.

Now they have guests in US and IOA and flowing in both directions.

We did 6 EE mornings 2 weeks ago when they started this and each one was a little different. Different in what time they opened the gates at US, or when they fired up HE. Looking back on it, it was straight test mode.

And all of it worked fine except the morning HE was down until 9am, really putting us onsiters behind the 9am gate entry at US. Gringotts was filling up.

 

[LetsTalkWDW]

Most may already have read this but in the spirit of more information is better....

The Benefit listed for staying at the on-site hotels states:
Early Park Admission to The Wizarding World of Harry PotterTM, one hour before the theme park opens† (valid theme park admission required)

Notice the "†"

In the terms and conditions it further explains:
†Requires theme park admission. Early Park Admission begins one (1) hour prior to regular scheduled park opening to one (1) Universal Orlando theme park as determined by Universal Orlando. Valid at select attractions at each park. Universal Orlando Resort reserves the right to open alternative attractions in the event that a technical problem arises or an attraction opening is delayed.

 

[nkereina]

The same podcast also speculated that it may be partially to give Gringotts more down time for maintenance. They said it has had a lot of technical difficulties lately, so being able to leave it closed for an extra hour to work on it, etc may be able to help with it's wear and tear. Unlike Disney, Universal doesn't typically take their rides out of commission for extended refurbishment periods, so they don't really have an alternative to fix Gringotts' many issues.

Another reason the podcast speculated was to drive up attendance at IOA/Hogsmeade. Since DA is newer, everyone has been going over there.

 

[hayles77]

Hi

Can anyone direct he yo where I can find out which park will have early entry in early April? Thx

 

[sharona]

Good question - I could not find it on the website.

Also, I know pretty much everyone heads right to HP area no matter which park has EE (as we did also)... are the other areas of the park even open?

 

[soniam]

Hi

Can anyone direct he yo where I can find out which park will have early entry in early April? Thx

Heck, I couldn't even find anything official saying which park would have EE for the week after next. I just looked around here for here say and anecdotes I thought the latest rumor is that starting 3/27, both parks will have EE. I don't know how long through April that will go. Don't hold me to that info though. I may have remembered wrong.

 

[johde]

Good question - I could not find it on the website.

Also, I know pretty much everyone heads right to HP area no matter which park has EE (as we did also)... are the other areas of the park even open?

When USF has early entry Despicable Me has EE along with Diagon Alley. If you're staying at Cabana Bay especially I'd recommend taking advantage of EE on DM. At IOA, I would only count on Hogsmead being open.

 

[hydrotony]

Gringotts was down for about 3 full days last midweek. I heard that a great many improvements were made and it was now running better. Just info from people I know, I haven't been there myself to see the changes.

 

[houdmorg87]

My cousin and I went 2 weeks after the opening. The wait was over 5 hours long! (I would never. It doesnt matter how excited I am.) We got ice cream, and jumped into the single rider line. ( I hear you miss out on seeing some things that the original line takes you through) but I wasn't terribly disappointed in that. We got through the single rider line in an hour. It seems like longer because you literally stand in a hallway and cant see how much farther you need to go, but they let a couple single riders on almost every cart. She and I ended up on the same cart just not next to each other so as long as you dont have small children, we were perfectly ok with doing this and skipped out on 4 hours of wait. Hope that helps!