How busy / crazy is it at US/IOA on Easter?

[pat's mom99]

Is it worth it? Do they do anything special or should I just stay away and go another day??

 

[djmeredith]

I will be there this weekend and have a subscription to Touring Plans so I've been checking their predictions for crowds. Their crowd predictor says April 5 at IOA is 6/10 and US 7/10. Those numbers are much lower than Saturday which are 9/10 and 10/10. Monday is 8/10 for both. I'm hoping someone else will let us know if there are any special Easter activities because I was wondering the same thing.

 

[michigandergirl]

We will be there on Easter. I'm not sure if they do anything special or not. We are going that day because it's supposed to be the least busiest day of that week...I hope.

 

[Goofy4DW]

We did Universal parks Saturday through Monday of Easter weekend a couple years ago. I didn't think the crowds were crazy. Universal typically doesn't get near the attendance as the Disney parks. We went to IOA on Easter Sunday...early entry to Harry Potter and pretty much walked onto Forbidden Journey. That area did get busy mid-morning, but other parts of the park were ok. We've been to Disney several times on a non-holiday weekend and I'd say it was busier than what we experienced at Universal for those 3 days. We stayed at one of the on-site resorts so the express passes helped.

 

[djmeredith]

I'm reporting back on my Easter weekend trip in case anyone is searching for info in the future. The day was predicted 10/10 on Touring Plans. We checked into PFB Saturday morn around 8:00 and were on the water taxi by 8:30. Started the day at IOA with FJ which was about a 35 minute wait (though posted longer). We then did Dragon Challenge with basically no wait on both trains and proceeded to Jurassic Park which had almost no wait. Stopped for lunch then did Spiderman with a 5 min wait and then rode Hulk with a wait of about 15 mins. I noticed the crowds were getting larger when we exited JP but it didn't feel overwhelmingly crowded. We left after Hulk which was about 2:30. We then went to US that evening and were able to do several rides with little wait. Sunday (Easter) was predicted 6-7/10 but the park crowds didn't seem much lighter to me. The hotel pool was significantly less crowded on Sunday, but the parks seemed about the same to me. The Easter Bunny did make a visit to the resort pool that afternoon and handed out Hershey Kisses. That was the only special Easter activity I saw, but I didn't look for others. Monday was crowded in the parks, but still low wait times with EP.

 

[macraven]

thanks for coming back and sharing your experiences.
sounds like your park days were smooth and had a good trip.

i hope you got lots of hershey kisses from the easter bunny...

 

[johde]

I'm reporting back on my Easter weekend trip in case anyone is searching for info in the future. The day was predicted 10/10 on Touring Plans. We checked into PFB Saturday morn around 8:00 and were on the water taxi by 8:30. Started the day at IOA with FJ which was about a 35 minute wait (though posted longer). We then did Dragon Challenge with basically no wait on both trains and proceeded to Jurassic Park which had almost no wait. Stopped for lunch then did Spiderman with a 5 min wait and then rode Hulk with a wait of about 15 mins. I noticed the crowds were getting larger when we exited JP but it didn't feel overwhelmingly crowded. We left after Hulk which was about 2:30. We then went to US that evening and were able to do several rides with little wait. Sunday (Easter) was predicted 6-7/10 but the park crowds didn't seem much lighter to me. The hotel pool was significantly less crowded on Sunday, but the parks seemed about the same to me. The Easter Bunny did make a visit to the resort pool that afternoon and handed out Hershey Kisses. That was the only special Easter activity I saw, but I didn't look for others. Monday was crowded in the parks, but still low wait times with EP.

Thanks for the feedback. Looking at Touringplans historical crowd data the "actual" crowds for Saturday and Sunday were very similar.

            Expected Crowd           What We Saw
           USF             IOA              USF       IOA
Saturday   10/10          9/10            8/10      7/10
Sunday      7/10            6/10            8/10      6/10
Monday      8/10            8/10            10/10    8/10

So, Saturday was slightly less crowded than anticipated and Sunday was slightly more. And neither day was Christmas crushingly crowded. They actually thought Monday ended up being the busiest day in the park. Thanks again. It's always interesting to compare Touringplans data with Peoples perceptions.