Gringott's and Touring Order

[Pirate1+Princess4]

10/21 - 10/23 park days for family of 7. Kids are 14, 12, 12, 12, 12. Focus is HP. Some fearless, some not fond of upside down or dark rides. Enjoy "sharing the experience" but will do single rider in order to minimize wait on good rides.

I subscribed to Touring Plans for our October trip. Just poking around and did an initial plan to see what it would do.

Why do you suppose it optimized Escape from Gringott's later in the day? We will have Early Entry but no Express Pass.

Is the Universal strategy so different from my previous WDW planning? I would have expected that we go straight there and queue up as AM would have the shortest wait time.

I know I can re-order to my liking. But I'm not familiar with the park.

 

[RMulieri]

I am guessing is that the reason is because everyone and their mother line up for early entry at gringotts, and once Sept 2nd rolls around only,rumor has it that Diagon alley is likely the only thing to be open for early entry( no more Hogsmeade at IOA) and even then the only things will be Gringotts, the stores as well as Despicable me outside Diagon alley. Hogwarts express wont be operating during early entry.. right now, The waits are over an hour long just during early entry. Some people are finding lesser wait times later in the day than during early entry hours. The problem with waiting though is that if Gringotts is having a really bad day from a technical perspective, the wait times won't be less by waiting till later in the day, and if it is real bad you might not get to ride at all

 

[flortlebap]

We are there in sept as well with predicted crowds of 1-3s. Because of the technical issues, I would rather get there first thing in case it goes down. Just keep checking wait times to see when is the best time to go for example, Gringotts is currently 90 mins (nearly 2pm) or 24 mins for single rider. On that basis I'd rather go early or ride single rider

 

[CKCruising]

10/21 - 10/23 park days for family of 7. Kids are 14, 12, 12, 12, 12. Focus is HP. Some fearless, some not fond of upside down or dark rides. Enjoy "sharing the experience" but will do single rider in order to minimize wait on good rides.

I subscribed to Touring Plans for our October trip. Just poking around and did an initial plan to see what it would do.

Why do you suppose it optimized Escape from Gringott's later in the day? We will have Early Entry but no Express Pass.

Is the Universal strategy so different from my previous WDW planning? I would have expected that we go straight there and queue up as AM would have the shortest wait time.

I know I can re-order to my liking. But I'm not familiar with the park.

We just got back from a day on the 26th (with no EE). When we entered the Park (8:55), Gingotts was 45 minutes. By the time we got there it was 120. At 4:00 in the afternoon, it was 60.

That is probably why they push you to the afternoon.

 

[HoosierDaddy71]

My family will be there the same days and our plan is to do Gringott's early entry both days we can. If it is a ride everyone likes, we may watch for a reasonable wait time in the evening or do single rider. My advice is to ignore the touring plan.

 

[disneyygirrl]

We are there in sept as well with predicted crowds of 1-3s. Because of the technical issues, I would rather get there first thing in case it goes down. Just keep checking wait times to see when is the best time to go for example, Gringotts is currently 90 mins (nearly 2pm) or 24 mins for single rider. On that basis I'd rather go early or ride single rider

Hi, I'm wondering which app you have that shows single rider wait times for Gringott's!

 

[RyannB]

The Touring Plans app shows single rider times.

 

[disneyygirrl]

The Touring Plans app shows single rider times.

Thank you very much!

 

[kkendle]

10/21 - 10/23 park days for family of 7. Kids are 14, 12, 12, 12, 12. Focus is HP. Some fearless, some not fond of upside down or dark rides. Enjoy "sharing the experience" but will do single rider in order to minimize wait on good rides.

I subscribed to Touring Plans for our October trip. Just poking around and did an initial plan to see what it would do.

Why do you suppose it optimized Escape from Gringott's later in the day? We will have Early Entry but no Express Pass.

Is the Universal strategy so different from my previous WDW planning? I would have expected that we go straight there and queue up as AM would have the shortest wait time.

I know I can re-order to my liking. But I'm not familiar with the park.

If you have early entry....I would get to the gates about 45 minutes before early entry and wait. We did this for 2 days on Aug. 21 and 22 and when they opened the park people rushed back there. We walked and they started letting people into Diagon Alley at 7:45....8am early entry that day. We were off the ride by 8:20. The ride had long waits the rest of the time we were there...we never saw it less than 75 minutes. I am sure later in the day is better than the first part of the day if you do not have early entry but I would definitely do it first thing.

 

[Tiggr88]

Assuming the ride is up in the morning getting there early is probably best. However, we just got back and I can tell you that doesn't always happen. We were there from 8/16 - 8/20. I convinced the family to get up early one day. We got to the gate at 7:01, with only 3 people in front of us at the turnstile. At 7:30 or 7:40, just as they were about to let people in, they announced that the ride was down and would not be open until after 10:30. The people next to me had been there the say before and it was not open at EE as well that day either.

Universal really needs to do a better job having other rides open if they are going to taut EE as a perk. The only rides open were Minions and HE. I doubt even HE will be open if IOA isn't open this week.

They made a lame excuse about trying to get Transformers up, but it wasn't open until usual time.

 

[Pirate1+Princess4]

Thanks all. I think we'll try to plan for it at EE early in our trip and see what happens, then adjust from there. If things go well, we'll actually have almost 4 park days. So we can pop in on our arrival day and get the lay of the land. If times are manageable, then maybe we'll get lucky on our arrival day. And since my kids will do single rider to avoid a wait, that's a help.

 

[johde]

I subscribed to Touring Plans for our October trip. Just poking around and did an initial plan to see what it would do.

Why do you suppose it optimized Escape from Gringott's later in the day? We will have Early Entry but no Express Pass.

Is the Universal strategy so different from my previous WDW planning?

I've played around with Touring Plans personalized touring plans and to be honest, right now from a computer perspective they don't know how to handle it. The wait time is less dependent on time of day and more dependent on how many break downs it experiences (if any). I think, in the software, they have programmed Gringotts with 75% of "worst case" wait times all day long. As a result, it it's figuring 3 - 4 hour waits all day, to fit everything else you want into a day, it shoves Gringotts to the last position before expected ride closure.

I think this is just one of those situations where a computer program can't handle all the variables.

What I would do, is take Gringotts out of your plan and in the computer start your day at 9:30 if you're planning on getting there early for RD. Then if you're using the App, once you're out out of Gringotts you can recalulate based on your new time for the rest of the park.

BTW, In case you haven't notices, touring plans doesn't handle Hogwarts express well either. You'll want to add it in yourself as well after you've optimized. In the software it's treated like any other ride where you could exit and immediately go to another ride in the park you entered from.

 

[BrerNashville]

In my experience over Labor Day weekend, as long as you are walking up to the gates before the shuttles from the hotels start to arrive, you will be fine. This is generally by 7:10 at the latest. I'm not sure what your options are from CB if you try to leave before their shuttles start to run. Is it walkable from there? We stayed at PBH, and walking time was 11 minutes taking the shortcut through the HRH parking lot.