IOA one day touring plan

[RookieLady]

I am going to IOA for one day, Sunday, June 30, right before the new HP opens (I will be back in two weeks to join that madhouse). Given who I am going with, I am not going to buy the express pass, and I am not staying on site. (Don't try to sell me, I know what I am missing, but I am going with a hardhead; if I hadn't already planned to be back so soon, I maybe would have fought harder)

Every touring plan I have read says if you don't have express pass and you are staying off site, go left and tour clockwise, so you start out at the Hulk and end up with the Forbidden Journey.

Is this really the best way to minimize lines under these circumstances? For those who have done it, what am I looking at? I had concerns that HP would be a madhouse in the evening.

 

[hpfan100]

I usually start with marvel area then water rides if interested then Suess and save Potter for the evening. You can use the single rider line if you see a very long wait for the regular line.

 

[rtfelt]

That's what I did 3 years ago at the end of August and it worked perfectly. I told my SiL family to do the same thing when there last week, and it worked perfect for them too. In both instances Marvel, Jurassic, water rides, everything but Dr. Seuss was finished by 12:30 and arrived in HP around that time for lunch at 3 Broomsticks. Toured HP in the afternoon and FJ took 30 minutes--perfect amount of time to experience and take pictures of Hogwart's Castle during queue

 

[kathy884]

Sounds like you have a good plan. FYI, though, if for a nominal fee you are interested in optimization / time studies -- I upgraded my touringplans.com subscription to get their Universal add on for $5. Since I've only been to Universal once in 1989 and DS has been just once to IOA/Universal in 2008, this subscription, I think, will be really helpful to me, as we are just doing one day for both which mean HP stuff and a handful of other things. I liked having the descriptions and ratings of rides.

It helped a lot too that my 18 year old from 2008 had very definite ideas about what he wanted and didn't want to do and wanted to skip a ton of things which is why one day is looking good for us. Otherwise, I could really see doing two. Despite his really liking coasters at places like Cedar Point, he's not that big on most of the IOA/Universal stuff so is happy with a trip mostly to see HP stuff and hit just a handful of other attractions.

Fortunately we have a low crowd level day, as my budget trip doesn't have funds for onsite at Universal or express pass. The order for the things we want to do that is looking best for minimizing lines is doing the IOA HP and Forbidden Journey stuff later in the day, like you are doing. // It also looked best when doing parks (two in a day) to do Universal first and IOA second.