IOA in October ... Canadian Thanksgiving/Columbus Day

[disneymath]

How busy is IOA in October around the Canadian Thanksgiving / US Columbus Day weekend? We are hoping to spend a day at IOA and then have some members of our party stay for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal.

Is this a time of year when Express Pass is typically needed? (We won't be staying onsite.) We would be focusing on rides for the younger set (Seuss Landing etc.) over the more thrilling attractions and coasters. The adults in our group have all been to IOA, but never to the WWoHP.

 

[Metro West]

How busy is IOA in October around the Canadian Thanksgiving / US Columbus Day weekend? We are hoping to spend a day at IOA and then have some members of our party stay for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal.

Is this a time of year when Express Pass is typically needed? (We won't be staying onsite.) We would be focusing on rides for the younger set (Seuss Landing etc.) over the more thrilling attractions and coasters. The adults in our group have all been to IOA, but never to the WWoHP.

Any holiday weekend will be busier than normal but no...normally you wouldn't need EPs during the day during October. If you're only focusing on the attractions for the younger people and not the coasters, you should be fine w/o EPs. I would recommend waiting until you arrive and see what the wait times are before purchasing an EP.

On a side note...EPs for HHN are definitely recommended to see everything in a single night. Some nights wait times for the houses reach two hours...and I'm not kidding. This past year was very busy most nights.

 

[macraven]

i have done the columbus day weekend the past 6 years at the darkside.

the past 2 years i have seen more crowds on that Monday in the parks.


weekends do tend to fill up more since the hhn event is held for 4 nights that weekend. (Th-Su)

the studios will start to have more crowds come in around 3ish, prior to the 6:30 start of hhn on Sat and Sun.
prior to that time, not too bad.

IOA is not effected by hhn.
those that do not have hhn tickets usually go to ioa if the studios start to have more of a line wait for rides. that is if they have park to park tickets.


leading up to that weekend, parks are not crowded.
they also tend to be light after that Monday until the next weekend.
if you stay onsite, your waits will be minimal.

 

[Ninnygunk]

We will also be traveling that week & were concerned about crowd levels. WWoHP is #1 for us - then the stuff for the little kids. Our older kids will hit the coasters & such. Hopefully they won't be waiting forever. Thanks for the info!

 

[disneymath]

Thanks for the replies everyone ... especially for the info about EPs for HHN - didn't even realize you could get them for that. (Thanks also for the heads up about Monday ... that was a day we were considering.)

 

[macraven]

i have been buying the epp's for hhn for years if i needed them or not.......


i can remember spending $15 for the hhn epp on a weekend night and only using it twice.
(we will never see that low price again in our lives)

those were the days.
they are never coming back like that again..!

 

[Deanie1]

We will be heading over to USF/IOA in October also. We have never done HHN but will be this trip. We will be staying onsite at WDW so cabbing it over to Universal. Do we need a Universal ticket as well as purchasing a HHN or just the HHN if we enter the park in the evening? Could you please give me a rough idea of the price of a HHN ticket?

 

[Metro West]

We will be heading over to USF/IOA in October also. We have never done HHN but will be this trip. We will be staying onsite at WDW so cabbing it over to Universal. Do we need a Universal ticket as well as purchasing a HHN or just the HHN if we enter the park in the evening? Could you please give me a rough idea of the price of a HHN ticket?

You will not need a theme park ticket if you wait until the event opens at 6:30pm. Otherwise you would need both theme park admission and HHN admission. HHN is a hard ticket event and everyone must have a ticket for entrance. General admission tickets were about $90.00 at the gate and the only discounts available are for FL residents and passholders.

 

[macraven]

We will be heading over to USF/IOA in October also. We have never done HHN but will be this trip. We will be staying onsite at WDW so cabbing it over to Universal. Do we need a Universal ticket as well as purchasing a HHN or just the HHN if we enter the park in the evening? Could you please give me a rough idea of the price of a HHN ticket?

if you do not want to buy the park ticket and only the hhn ticket, you will have to stand in line outside the gates until the official opening time.

depending on the date you are going to hhn, can make a difference on the length of wait you will have to enter.

last year on friday and saturday (columbus day weekend period), peeps were starting to stand in line before 5:00.

yes, they had a long wait before entering the park but the ones behind them even longer.

all must go through the metal detectors before entering the park.
that can slow the entrance line down.

if you have a park ticket, it would be best to stay in the park in the selected wait area so you can avoid the wait into the park at opening time.

 

[vleeth]

So the Monday of Columbus day and the weekend after are busier than Tues-Thurs? Isn't HHN on Wed and Thurs that week. Or does that not affect the crowds as much as the weekend?

 

[Metro West]

So the Monday of Columbus day and the weekend after are busier than Tues-Thurs? Isn't HHN on Wed and Thurs that week. Or does that not affect the crowds as much as the weekend?

The weekend before the holiday is busy...the weekend after is normal. It's possible one of the Hell Weeks could be that week this year (Wednesday night HHN) and HHN always on Thursday nights. After the actual holiday on Monday, crowds should return to normal during the day.

 

[macraven]

in 2011 and 2012, the tuesday and wednesday after monday/columbus day was not at all busy in the parks.

i was there and had a great time with no crowds those two days.