How bad was Easter, really? On-site make a big difference

[writerriann]

DS really, really wants to head back to US and IOA for a short trip - maybe about 5 nights. We just received the school calendar for next year and his spring break will run into Easter (like probably 3/4 of the rest of the U.S.).

If we stay on-site, is the week running up to Easter manageable? We're not commandos and would spend a fair amount of time swimming. I figure the Express Pass and an early morning at WWOHP would let us hit all the highlights.

I've seen a couple of Easter trip reports and it seems a mixed bag. Anyone else want to offer some advice?

 

[DizneyLizzy]

I went to IOA for a day trip up from visiting relatives in Tampa. I went on Good Friday and was not at all horrified by the crowds. We bought the express pass a few months in advance and I was glad we did - when I bought it in late Feb, it was $39.99...the week before we went it was $79.99.

The park opened at 8 AM for regular guests, which I'm assuming is just too early for some people. We didn't see very many resort guests going in at 7 AM (we arrived at 7:15 and were second in line for the regular opening turnstiles) They let us in around 7:50 and we walked slowly (while people literally ran past us...one man even knocked me over) to the WWOHP. Here's how our day went -

-We rode FJ in the regular line at 8 AM...we waited about 15-20 minutes which was the perfect amount of time to see the stuff in the castle
-We rode FJ again, but this time in the single rider line...maybe a 3 minute wait
-Around 8:30 we rode Flight of the Hippogriff which had a 30 min wait (none using the express pass)
-Around 9 we rode the Dragon Challenge which had a 25 min posted wait

Other wait times I noticed (but again, none of them affected us since we had the express pass)

-Spiderman around 10:30...there was a 45 min posted wait but the single rider line only took about 15 minutes

-We hit Seussland after lunch and everything (including the Caro-seussel) had a 30 min + wait

-Hulk around 1:30 had a 70 min wait

-Jurassic Park had a 60 min wait around 2 PM

-We re-visited WWOP around 3 and the FJ had a 90 min wait...the single rider line had a 40 min wait if you had bags, and a 10 min wait if you had no bags

Hope that helps give you some idea of what it was like! Having the express pass was great, and we used single rider lines to re-ride Spiderman and FJ. I really expected crowds to be much worse. WWOHP seemed the most jammed when we went back for lunch around 11 AM. But even then we had no problem getting food at Three Broomsticks.

Good luck!

 

[Dax]

I was in the Studios on Easter Eve...which was both a Saturday, and a Mardi Gras night...Cyndi Lauper was the concert...Crowds were high, but I have seen MUCH worse..

RRR was 60min, Mummy 45...Simpsons 45...nothing outrageous.

 

[Rosanne]

I was there with my daughters on Thursday, April 5. It was the first time I'd been in many years. We hit both parks. We were through the gates about 8:10. Unfortunately, we didn't know much about the park and didn't realize my younger daughter would be too short to ride most of the rides (she can ride almost all of them at Disney). So... we went down the the Pterydactyl (no doubt terrible spelling) ride. The line looked short but again, we didn't realize the teeny capacity so we wasted about 30 minutes there. By the time we were done and headed to Harry Potter It was very crowded. We got in line to look at the wand shop and it was pretty much too crowded to get around so we headed out to Seuss Land. We rode a ride about sneetches or snitches which had about a 25 minute wait. I'm not quite sure what the ride was for. Then we waited in line for 77 minutes for the Cat and the Hat ride. The posted wait was 30 minutes or we wouldn't have tried.

Hat and the Cat is where we learned about the express pass system and how it worked (or, rather I googled it while waiting in line). It explained a lot about why the line didn't move for up to 12 minutes at a time. After that we gave up on rides at IoA. We went back to the dinosaur area and the girls explored the rope bridges and caves and stuff. That part was pretty cool.

Then we went to US. The line for ET wasn't bad... maybe about 25 minutes. We enjoyed that. We waited about an hour for the Simpsons and 30-40 minutes for a tiny rollercoaster for kids.

I didn't care for the concept of Express Pass the way it is done but I won't go into that.

If I ever went again (especially during a busy time) I would only do it if I were staying at one of their resorts. Otherwise the lines were long considering what rides they were.

I guess I will remain partial to Disney as long as their system doesn't change there.

It was good to see the ET ride again after all these years. We really enjoyed the Simpsons ride which surprised me as I don't usually do too well in simulator rides.

 

[ldo]

yes, onsite at Easter would have made a BIg difference. We went on Thurs. 4/5. We were in the park from 10-2pm. the posted time for Journey to Atlantis was "next show 20 minutes." We waited 40 minutes while express walked right into next show. Getting to HP 1st thing in AM would have made a big difference. Everything in HP, except roller Dragon rollercoaster (20 minutes), was packed and impossible 120 miunute wait for FJ, but single rider for FJ (no bags) was under 30 minutes. We left at 2pm. Cat/Hat, trollery, etc. were all 70-90 minutes at 2pm.
But, all is not lost if you stay off-site. We went back at 7pm and waited less than 15 minutes for everything in Univ. and IOA (did not go back to HP). We did Men in Black 4X and ET 2X in under 2 hours. Next time (off-site), I will go at 9AM-noon, then back from 6-10 pm. I am SO gald we left from 2-7pm. So many stay off-site that they leave by 5pm vs. WDW, where it is still pretty crowded even at 7pm.