hogwarts express worth 300!?!

[travelingmom4]

All right, maybe more of a frustration post but I just read that park to park is required to ride hogwarts express. Really makes me love disney more. So paying for 4 of our 5 kids and us adds an extra 300 dollars to our tickets (which I'm just now reading went up recently) We do love HP, but that's one expensive very short train ride. Is it worth 300.00 more dollars? We could all do a fun character meal at Disney for that!! Actually that's not a bad idea...

 

[bumbershoot]

You get a hopper for that. How much would adding hopping be to a WDW ticket?

It's not just the train; it's being able to jump between parks all day. To me that's a HUGE benefit.

Remember that at Disneyland you can't even get on the monorail without a *ticket*.

 

[littlejimmy]

worth it

 

[perditax]

There are more HP attractions at the other end of the ride.

 

[DisBuckMan]

You get a hopper for that. How much would adding hopping be to a WDW ticket?

It's not just the train; it's being able to jump between parks all day. To me that's a HUGE benefit.

Remember that at Disneyland you can't even get on the monorail without a *ticket*.

To be fair though...you don't HAVE to have a park hopper ticket to do everything at WDW. Universal forces you to buy the PTP ticket to ride HE.

 

[AJ1983]

I can see why US requires the P2P pass. You are paying for the benefit of park hopping, and it would be a logistical nightmare for crowd control to try to separate people who could enter the other park from those who couldnt.

 

[DisBuckMan]

I can see why US requires the P2P pass. You are paying for the benefit of park hopping, and it would be a logistical nightmare for crowd control to try to separate people who could enter the other park from those who couldnt.

Not really. They already have the turnstiles in place. Just reverse the flow of them. Exit through the scanners, instead of entering through them. No PTP ticket, no entering the "new" world.

The "logistical" problem would be from a capacity standpoint. You'd have the additional passengers who choose not to get the PTP ticket, plus they'd have to ride HE back to the park they paid for that day.

 

[TommyJK]

As people have noted above, to me the value is more in the ability to park hop, and experiencing the Hogwarts Express IMO is "gravy". If you are ONLY wanting to do it just to ride HE, then probably not worth the extra cost.

That all being said, my overall thoughts on park hopping is that there is much more value on having it at Universal than Disney. At Universal, because of the close proximity of the two parks, you are not losing tons of time in travel from one park to the next so you get more time in the parks. Whereas at Disney, you're losing a lot of park time based on the amount of time it takes to travel from one park to the next.

Just my $0.02

 

[Court475]

I get what you are saying. It stinks that you HAVE to buy P2P in order to ride HE. We aren't usually park hoppers but bought them this trip to be able to ride it.

 

[bchbetha]

As people have noted above, to me the value is more in the ability to park hop, and experiencing the Hogwarts Express IMO is "gravy". If you are ONLY wanting to do it just to ride HE, then probably not worth the extra cost.

That all being said, my overall thoughts on park hopping is that there is much more value on having it at Universal than Disney. At Universal, because of the close proximity of the two parks, you are not losing tons of time in travel from one park to the next so you get more time in the parks. Whereas at Disney, you're losing a lot of park time based on the amount of time it takes to travel from one park to the next.

Just my $0.02

Perfect reply. Summaries my feelings on the value of P2P tickets. I wouldn't go without them. I would certainly choose it over a character meal at Disney. Your HP fans will agree, I bet. Be sure and take the train both ways.

 

[bumbershoot]

Not really. They already have the turnstiles in place. Just reverse the flow of them. Exit through the scanners, instead of entering through them. No PTP ticket, no entering the "new" world.

The "logistical" problem would be from a capacity standpoint. You'd have the additional passengers who choose not to get the PTP ticket, plus they'd have to ride HE back to the park they paid for that day.

There's already enough agitation at the turnstiles when people realize after waiting in line that they need a p2p. Imagine it at the end of the train journey. And then the lines would be even longer both directions to accommodate the people without p2p. No thank you.

You're also paying for a much quicker way to hop! Take the train and you're there. Otherwise you have to go alllll the way to the front of the park, traverse the pavement and resist the chocolate restaurant, reenter, and walk alllll the way to/towards the back of the other park to be back in Wizarding world.

 

[bumbershoot]

To be fair though...you don't HAVE to have a park hopper ticket to do everything at WDW. Universal forces you to buy the PTP ticket to ride HE.

Not yet.
You think disney isn't kicking themselves hard seeing what Uni has done so successfully? Then again they don't have parks close enough together to do it. And they chose to not have the monorails enter the parks.

At WDW at least. Like I said, at Disneyland you can't even go on the monorail unless you have a ticket. And if you've already been in DCA you have to have a hopper to ride the monorail that day.

 

[TommyJK]

Perfect reply. Summaries my feelings on the value of P2P tickets. I wouldn't go without them. I would certainly choose it over a character meal at Disney. Your HP fans will agree, I bet. Be sure and take the train both ways.

Also not to be understated, the 2 parks have such big ebbs and flows of traffic that IMO I would not do Universal without P2P.

There can be times that virtually all of the attractions on one side have long waits while the other side does not, and to be able to hop over to the other side to hit attractions with lower waits, and then flip back when the crowds seemingly swing back the other way is worth the P2P cost.

It just opens up so many more options on how to tour the parks.

 

[janicept]

If you are planning to go to only one park in a day I would not pay the extra money just to ride the train. There are plenty of Youtube videos of it. You can still take pictures by a similar train in the IOA HP area without spending the extra money. Personally I have an AP and only ride the train if there not much line and I want to switch parks. Otherwise I walk out the front entrance and to the other park.

 

[kathy884]

Worth it? That is definitely going to be a personal value judgement. We went Tuesday of this week. I think the train is the coolest ride in the park and forked over $155 pp for tickets for me and my son and $100 for my husband for a convention 1/2 day 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. park hopper ticket to be able to see it. // Now on my next trip I will skip Universal entirely. If we go to Universal, though, we always do the one day park to park. For us too FYI we can get everything we want to see in both parks done in one day, and there is not enough to do in just one of their parks that we like and think is worth doing.

Do note too this was I'm sure the only time DH will ever go to Universal/IOA (He doesn't like theme parks but was down in Orlando for a three day convention at one of the Universal hotels), he has read all the Harry Potter books and seen all the movies, and DS very much wanted him to see all the HP areas. With him between 3 and 6 p.m., we looked around Diagon Alley, did the train ride from Universal to IOA (the interesting way), had some butter beer and looked around the IOA Harry Potter area, did a tour of the castle, then did the Jurassic Park flume ride and had fun at the Raptor Encounter meet and greet photo area. And I paid $100 for DH to do that.

Morning for me and DS, we did Gringott's (Universal) , the train, Forbidden Journey, the Jurassic Park flume, the Jurassic Park Discovery Center, the new King Kong ride (the only thing we never did before), the Hulk, the spin ride, the free fall ride, (all in Universal) then headed over to IOA and did Despicable me, the Shrek 4D movie, Mummy, Rip Ride Roller Coaster, had lunch -- Then it was 1:30 p.m. we headed back to our hotel to relax and pick up DH and were back again at 3 p.m. and did the items above in the first paragraph. Lots of people like the Spider-Man and Tranformers rides too -- for us it was been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt -- no one in our party had any interest in doing them again. But FYI those are quite popular rides that we skipped and seem to be on most people's to do list. DS also was not interested in seeing any of the shows. DS is 21 and I am in my 50s and DH is in his 60s (party ages could have a bearing on interests).

I am one of those people in the minority too that really hates it that Universal makes it so compelling to do the two parks in one day -- we want to do that or not bother with the parks at all. That makes it super expensive and I'm sure increases their profit margin a lot, as instead of getting around $100 pp from one day people they often get the $155. DS's (21) favorite parks in Orlando are FYI in order (1) SeaWorld, (2) Magic Kingdom, and (3) the Universal/IOA combo. And on our three day trip those were the three we hit.

 

[nkereina]

Agree with PPs in that the value is in the park hopping, not just being able to ride HE. We're two adults and on our very first trip, we had planned one full day at IOA and one full day at US. We questioned whether we should really spend the money on the park to park ticket, but ultimately decided to both so we could have the flexibility in our schedule and ride HE. We ended up spending far less time in IOA than I had anticipated, and were glad we had the park to park tickets so we could go back over to UO. There were things at UO we hadn't gotten a chance to do the first day, so it worked out very well for us. On a first trip, I'd always recommend park to park tickets for the flexibility of it until you acclimate yourself with the parks and how you spend your time.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

As others have said, it is all in how you frame the question. If you define it as the OP did, then it isn't a good value.

As for us, we bought AP's. So I don't feel like we paid extra for the train. When we go to US, we hop as much as we want, especially at night.

 

[imprint]

It's very convenient to hop between the two Harry Potter areas, and the ride entertains you with a show. We almost always stay in one park each day, so the way we tour the parks, it would not be worth it. Having said that, we have annual passes, so if we deicide to hop, then we just do it.

 

[go2grl]

resist the chocolate restaurant

Wait. Resisting The Chocolate Emporium is an option?

 

[Seeker615]

I love the park to park tickets and would never go without them. It is so nice to be able to spend an early morning in one and then head over to the other in the afternoon. If one park closes early then we just hop over to the other one.

I always find it odd that people say there is not enough to do in the parks. I can easily fill a week at the Universal Resort. Just admiring the theming can take up a good day. I plan to use my next vacation absorbing all the new HP stuff!