First trip: Arriving 1/30, how will crowds be after Celebration of HP event?

[kim31kim]

We just booked our first trip to Universal and after looking at the crowd calendars we chose to arrive on Monday, January 30th (park to park tickets for Tues/Weds) because they predicted lowest crowds would be that week for February. I didn't realize our arrival date was the day after the Celebration of HP Event. The event will be over but do you think there will be a lot of crowd volume remaining in the following week? It's not too late for us to change our tickets... wondering if we should delay a week and go the 2/6 week instead. We plan on spending 90% of both days in the wizarding world section of the park so would be really nice if we weren't there during a super busy time.

Thanks in advance!

 

[perditax]

We just booked our first trip to Universal and after looking at the crowd calendars we chose to arrive on Monday, January 30th (park to park tickets for Tues/Weds) because they predicted lowest crowds would be that week for February. I didn't realize our arrival date was the day after the Celebration of HP Event. The event will be over but do you think there will be a lot of crowd volume remaining in the following week? It's not too late for us to change our tickets... wondering if we should delay a week and go the 2/6 week instead. We plan on spending 90% of both days in the wizarding world section of the park so would be really nice if we weren't there during a super busy time.

Thanks in advance!

Touring Plans adjusted the Feb dates recently and they list the HP event so they clearly know it's happening. I'm new to UO thing myself (or at least haven't been there in about fifteen years) so I can't venture a guess, but I'm also betting on the crowd calendars because we will be arriving two weeks after you.

 

[kim31kim]

We were originally planning on going on 2/13, but after looking at the crowd calendars we changed to 1/30 because they predicted lower crowds. Seems like people that are coming in for that event would stay longer though so you'd think crowds would be up those next few days. I guess we'll see.

 

[kim31kim]

Touring Plans adjusted the Feb dates recently and they list the HP event so they clearly know it's happening. I'm new to UO thing myself (or at least haven't been there in about fifteen years) so I can't venture a guess, but I'm also betting on the crowd calendars because we will be arriving two weeks after you.

I just looked at that touring plans website and we didn't look at that calendar because it required a subscription. Looked at a couple of other ones though. Could you tell me if they are still predicting low crowds that 1/30 week ven with the event happening that previous weekend?

 

[perditax]

I just looked at that touring plans website and we didn't look at that calendar because it required a subscription. Looked at a couple of other ones though. Could you tell me if they are still predicting low crowds that 1/30 week ven with the event happening that previous weekend?

Yes, I looked at your dates last night and it was all 2/3. I think by Weds there was a 1.

 

[perditax]

We were originally planning on going on 2/13, but after looking at the crowd calendars we changed to 1/30 because they predicted lower crowds. Seems like people that are coming in for that event would stay longer though so you'd think crowds would be up those next few days. I guess we'll see.

Oh just saw this part. Yeah, a few weeks or maybe a month ago, the crowds for my week (which is a surprise VDay trip) were weirdly high, in the 7/8s I think? I posted a thread about it here trying to figure out what the heck was going on since I don't believe VDay drives that much park traffic and spring break won't have started--and literally within the hour Touring Plans and a few other sites adjusted the crowds down levels dramatically. Otherwise I was going to abandon that week and shoot for 2/6 maybe.

As of now the crowd calendar on Touring Plans has my week at about 2/3s also. I figured something was weird because the hotel rates were lower for my chosen week at the same time crowd calendars showed high season. I'm still a little confused but sticking with my HRH res.

 

[kim31kim]

Oh just saw this part. Yeah, a few weeks or maybe a month ago, the crowds for my week (which is a surprise VDay trip) were weirdly high, in the 7/8s I think? I posted a thread about it here trying to figure out what the heck was going on since I don't believe VDay drives that much park traffic and spring break won't have started--and literally within the hour Touring Plans and a few other sites adjusted the crowds down levels dramatically. Otherwise I was going to abandon that week and shoot for 2/6 maybe.

As of now the crowd calendar on Touring Plans has my week at about 2/3s also. I figured something was weird because the hotel rates were lower for my chosen week at the same time crowd calendars showed high season. I'm still a little confused but sticking with my HRH res.

Thanks! We had originally been thinking Vday week also, but the hotels were so much more that week. Saved a considerable amount of money on lodging by moving to 1/30 week.

 

[TheConsciousness]

Would the first week of February be affected by the event as well? More or less packed?

 

[perditax]

Would the first week of February be affected by the event as well? More or less packed?

I believe that's more or less what the OP's asking.

I don't know how much I should share since Touring Plans' future calendar stuff is behind a paywall (which I paid), but other than Saturdays, all of Feb mostly falls below crowd level 4 until Friday February 17, when things seem to start ramping up. I guess for Presidents' Day and early spring break.

 

[perditax]

Thanks! We had originally been thinking Vday week also, but the hotels were so much more that week. Saved a considerable amount of money on lodging by moving to 1/30 week.

Interesting, when I worked backwards on my dates (I'm trying to do a Sun-Weds trip), prices became MORE expensive for the hotel I was looking at (HRH). Maybe I'll look again today, I did the reservations about a month ago.