Harry Potter Crowd Report Thread...

[reelmom]

I know that nobody has a crystal ball but I will ask anyway. We are thinking about going the first week of June. Is the WWoHP the only place that is crazy busy or are the other lands busy due to the overflow of WWoHP? We are wondering if we should wait another year or just go expecting huge crowds. Is Universal crazy or is that pretty normal crowd wise?

 

[mesaboy2]

This is just my opinion, so others may disagree. I'd go to Ollivander's first thing. That line gets really long really quickly, and if you have to stand in a long line, at least the FJ line is interesting once you get inside the castle. There's nothing interesting about the Ollivander's line! Also, the FJ line moves along well; they only let about 30 people in Ollivanders every 10 minutes or so.

I completely agree.

 

[julie1218]

we are going to disney may 10-17 and planning on doing one day at ioa just for harry potter. my kids are too short for the 54 inch ride, dragon challenge, but we will ride the other two rides, hippogriff and journey, and go to the shops. i think only one, hippogriff, of the two shorter rides, participates in the "cut in line if you stay on site" program.

question: should we go to the trouble to stay on site to get the cut in line deal for harry potter if we cannot do dragon challenge and only want to do hippogriff and fj and shops? for example, i have read that there is a wait just to get into wwohp--if we stay on site can we cut that line and at least get into the area quicker?

question: what do you think the crowds will be like 2nd week of may mid week? most school are not out.

i know this is all new and wasn't even opened last may but any advice on what we will face would be appreciated. thanks!

 

[ladeedeb]

we are going to disney may 10-17 and planning on doing one day at ioa just for harry potter. my kids are too short for the 54 inch ride, dragon challenge, but we will ride the other two rides, hippogriff and journey, and go to the shops. i think only one, hippogriff, of the two shorter rides, participates in the "cut in line if you stay on site" program.

question: should we go to the trouble to stay on site to get the cut in line deal for harry potter if we cannot do dragon challenge and only want to do hippogriff and fj and shops? for example, i have read that there is a wait just to get into wwohp--if we stay on site can we cut that line and at least get into the area quicker?

question: what do you think the crowds will be like 2nd week of may mid week? most school are not out.

i know this is all new and wasn't even opened last may but any advice on what we will face would be appreciated. thanks!

Although we went at a very slow time and the rest of IOA & all of US were very low crowds, we stayed on site and were so glad. We walked to the parks, and were all to get into WWOHP an hour early. Totally worth it for us. Went later in afternoon our 1st day in town & WW was packed. Lines for stores, etc. Went early hour 2 of our days and were in and out with no lines & crowds entering as we were leaving. FOTL wasn't really necessary at WW that early, but we really liked having it for some of the things we wanted to do. We also really liked HRH.

 

[Echo queen]

Just booked my RPR 1 night stay in August for our 2 park days FOTHL. Last year at that time Sunday was the recommended slow day, so that's what I chose this time, hopfully it was hold true for 2011.

 

[Latel]

After trying to go into HP a couple of times last week and finding the queues about 2 hours long I decided to go at the end of the day about 1-2 hours before the parks closed. I walked straight into WWoHP and straight onto FJ, no queue for anything except Olivanders which had about 10-15 people in the queue for it. Definitely try late in the day rather than any other time.

 

[MIChessGuy]

The late-evening strategy seems to have worked well for a number of folks. I may give it a try next month, though on the first day I'm sticking with the bright-and-early approach to minimize suspense of the encounter with FJ's Sorting Fat.

 

[debsters41]

The late-evening strategy seems to have worked well for a number of folks. I may give it a try next month, though on the first day I'm sticking with the bright-and-early approach to minimize suspense of the encounter with FJ's Sorting Fat.

me too!

 

[DISdreamin']

me too!

No issues for me with the Sorting Fat! I was shocked, and happily surprised.

FWIW, on 1/6 our FJ wait was under an hour, much less if you were willing to do single rider. No wait for FotH or pretty much anything else except Ollivanders, and we got there late!

 

[amylia403]

Anyone out there today who can let us know what the crowds have been like today?

 

[bouncycat]

I know today they're probably bad, because of it being a holiday weekend, which is why I'm going NEXT weekend!! LOL

 

[phamton]

I wasn't at IOA today but the Studios were pretty darn busy today.
It was busier than on previous MLK weekends. I know that Orlando schools are out for MLK day.

 

[gogo]

We're scheduled to be at Universal this Friday, 1/21. We're staying onsite for one night but probably won't arrive at the park until between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m.

Anyone have any idea how the crowds will be. Is a Friday likely to be less crowded than Saturday? Hoping for lower crowds.

 

[DoOverDreams]

I tried a search on this one and came up with no matches. Does anyone know what the maximum number of people allowed in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter area is?

Thanks!

 

[mesaboy2]

I tried a search on this one and came up with no matches. Does anyone know what the maximum number of people allowed in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter area is?

Thanks!

A TM told me last month 9,000. She wasn't a WDW bus driver, but her info may be just as trustworthy.

 

[DoOverDreams]

A TM told me last month 9,000. She wasn't a WDW bus driver, but her info may be just as trustworthy.

Thanks, I needed that!

 

[GetGlowing]

Somewhere I recently saw a link to TripAdvisor's IOA/WWoHP page and wow .... there are some angry people leaving comments about the holiday crowds.

I'm glad I'm the type of person who researches *before* my trip to understand what's coming, instead of going online afterwards to complain.

DISers are an invaluable source of info!

 

[Armadillo4]

I know that Orlando schools are out for MLK day.

The schools were out, but the RAIN helped keep the crowds low today, the last day of the three-day weekend.

It was raining very heavily at times in the morning, but while watching the Sunday latenight news, one of the local meteorologists forecasted a tapering off by early afternoon. So our gameplan was to hit the park sometime after lunch. Well, just like the meteorologist predicted, the heavy rains gave way to light sprinkles around 2pm. We entered IOA at 2:30pm and the sprinkles were so light, we didn't even bother with ponchos (but brought them with us, just in case).

Our first stop was Ollivanders. We only had to wait for two shows before our group went in (maybe 10-15 minutes wait?). FJ had a posted standby time of 15 minutes, but it was really like 5 minutes. You walked right through the entire queue and barely had any wait at the end. We rode it twice in a row, did some shopping, rode the Hippogriff with a 5 minute wait, and came back for a third ride. By 4pm, the sprinkles completely stopped and we enjoyed a few other rides in IOA.

At first, I was bummed about the rainy forecast for our IOA day, but in the end, everything worked out beautifully! Especially since we were originally planning for medium-heavy crowds because of the MLK Jr. weekend. FJ being almost a walk-on during a long weekend? We'll gladly take it!

 

[Disgram23kids]

We are headed to Orlando on April 13th - thinking of dong WWoHP on 14th - we know spring break is around that time. I guess crowds are still crazy even 6 months after opening. We will be there from 13th through 19th. Would you recommend going during the week or on the weekend?

 

[bouncycat]

I hope crowds are still low for this weekend!!! MK was dead yesterday because of the rain, it was nice, but our IOA/US is saturday!!! We're getting there early, and going straight to WWHP, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We'll finish up IOA, rides, and then hop to the studios. I can't wait, I'm ready to GO!