Is Touring Plans saying it's slow right now?

[quantumottle]

In order to help plan our upcoming December trip, I'm watching the Touring Plans website very close this week (U.S. Thanksgiving week) to get an idea how long the wait times are during a busy week.

Touring Plans posted this morning that they predicted yesterday 11/23/14 to be a 6 out of 10, but it was actually a 2 out of 10. That's quite a difference, and obviously far less crowded than Tour Plans originally predicted.

If you were there yesterday, did it seem as crowded as it should have been the weekend before Thanksgiving? Is it slow today?

Thanks for the help/info.

 

[TXTransplant]

We have been here for the past three days (11/22, 11/23, and 11/24). Overall, I would say the parks were less crowded than I expected; however the crowds are not evenly distributed throught the park. By far, Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade are the most crowded areas...we are talking elbow to elbow (it's worse in Hogsmeade). Today was the most crowded day of the three. I would not have characterized yesterday as a two, but we did not wait more than 20 min for anything. We did stay at a Universal hotel and had express passes, so that decreased our wait times dramatically.

With that said, we only did early entry on one day (11/22). We used early entry to ride Gringotts 2 times in a row - the first ride was essentially a walk on, and the second was about a 20 min wait. By the time we got over to Hogsmeade, we had to wait an hour for Forbidden Journey. Everything else in the park that day was essentially walk on for us, using express pass.

Yesterday, we saw the wait for Gringotts get up to about 90 min. But we did single rider during that time and were able to ride twice with no more than a 10-15 min wait both times. With express pass, most other things were walk on, except for the Shrek and Minion rides, but those waits were due to the fact that those rides are actually shows with a fixed theater capacity. So you have to wait for the previous show to finish. We did not get to the park until about 830 am yesterday (didn't take advantage of the early entry hour from 7-8) but that did not affect our ability to ride anything.

Today we entered IOA right at 9, with the rest of the crowd (no early entry). By the time we got to the back of the park, the wait for Forbidden Journey was 20 min; by the time we exited the ride, the wait was over an hour. I noticed that the places to eat seemed to have much longer lines and slower service today. That's probably where we spent most of our time waiting. We didn't ride Gringotts, but the wait was over 100 min. Everything else was walk on for us, with express pass. I noticed the Minion ride had a 70 min regular wait, and other rides like Mummy and Men in Black had 30 min regular waits.

As I said, the crowds were lower than I expected, but certain areas of both parks do feel much more crowded than others. Since we planned 3 days in the parks, we were not rushing and were able to enjoy everything we wanted (some multiple times) with minimal waits.

 

[ORMom2Four]

From the perspective of someone who went with no Express Pass.

Lines were quite long, most averaged 60-90 minute waits. Even Jurassic Park had a 50+ minute wait much of the day. At 8pm, Gringotts was still a 50 minute wait, as was Minions. The only ride we did walk on was Mummy, and that was in the evening around closing time.

There is NO WAY it was a level 2 crowd

 

[christophfam]

Totally agree with above post. Was very crowded yesterday. Couldn't move at all in Diagon Alley. I was in the Studios so maybe IOA was better. idk

I had express and waited at least 15+ minutes for mummy, transformers, and dispicable me in the mid morning time frame. Boats, restaurants, hotels all seemed very crowded. Boat captain said Sunday morning for early entry that he had not seen crowds like he was seeing that morning since opening of diagon alley.

 

[johde]

Universal has only been doing "what we saw" analysis of their predictions at Universal for a couple of months. I do wonder if there was some problems with whereever they get their data. Looking at the individual rides they were either scoring a 1 or a 9 on the crowd scores. Also the individual predictions didn't seem to match an "8" day.

 

[WVMomof3]

We were there 11/23 -25 and I thought it was very slow. I had joked that everyone must have picked Disney. I felt like we did not need our Express passes hardly at all. I think they may have saved us an hour over the course of the 3 days. We did not make Early Entry any of our days. The only rides I remember a significant line at was Despicable Me, Forbidden Journey and Gringotts. Some of the rides we felt that the Express Pass line was longer. The longest we waited was about 20 minutes doing Single rider at Forbidden Journey. We did Single rider 3 times at Gringotts and walked immediately on all 3 times. All 5 of us were in the same car all 3 times.

 

[wareagle57]

How good is the Orlando Informer crowd calendar? We are going December the 12th and it lists it as the last day of "slow" before it ramps up to moderate, then busy, then very busy in a 2 week time span.

Does anyone have the TP crowd prediction for Dec 12? I have TP for Disney, but Universal has expired.

 

[wareagle57]

Bump. Anyone? We only have one day so I'm trying to decide how to make the most of the day and what to expect so I can prioritize.

 

[berryinDC]

Bump. Anyone? We only have one day so I'm trying to decide how to make the most of the day and what to expect so I can prioritize.

TP has the crowd level at 2.

 

[FlipHipster]

We are here now. We were at Universal Wed, 12/3. We strolled into US around 10am and hit Diagon Alley 1st thing. Escape from Gringotts was posted 15mins we rode 2x with no line at all around 11. 1st ride there were 7 people in the elevator. 2nd maybe 15. Rode 2 more times, longest wait was ~30mins around 2ish. We walked on everything else no problems. Did have to wait for the train, there was a 1 train wait mid day. I remember seeing the minion ride posted 35 mins but we spent too much time on the coasters and didn't hit it. Yet.... Going back tomorrow I hope

 

[Bluer101]

We are here now. We were at Universal Wed, 12/3. We strolled into US around 10am and hit Diagon Alley 1st thing. Escape from Gringotts was posted 15mins we rode 2x with no line at all around 11. 1st ride there were 7 people in the elevator. 2nd maybe 15. Rode 2 more times, longest wait was ~30mins around 2ish. We walked on everything else no problems. Did have to wait for the train, there was a 1 train wait mid day. I remember seeing the minion ride posted 35 mins but we spent too much time on the coasters and didn't hit it. Yet.... Going back tomorrow I hope

Yep, gringotts was about 10 minutes this morning.

 

[pigletto]

Yep, gringotts was about 10 minutes this morning.

Yep.. we got here and checked in and then headed over to the park around 1pm. We rode the Hogwarts Express over to Gringotts not expecting to ride. However the posted wait time was 15 minutes. I'd say it was maybe closer to 20, but not bad at all. It surprised me. Everything was pretty much walk on. I expect it to be busier tomorrow with the weekend and all the holiday festivities beginning.

 

[Bluer101]

Yep.. we got here and checked in and then headed over to the park around 1pm. We rode the Hogwarts Express over to Gringotts not expecting to ride. However the posted wait time was 15 minutes. I'd say it was maybe closer to 20, but not bad at all. It surprised me. Everything was pretty much walk on. I expect it to be busier tomorrow with the weekend and all the holiday festivities beginning.

We rode gringotts again tonight well 6pm and we walked on single rider. We also ended up on same cart and row.

 

[TikiGoddess07]

Does all this mean that I won't have to drag myself out of bed next Friday (12/12) to make Early Entry? Will we be able to get on Gringott's without too much of a wait if we enter the park around 8:30 or so?

Kathy

 

[Bluer101]

Does all this mean that I won't have to drag myself out of bed next Friday (12/12) to make Early Entry? Will we be able to get on Gringott's without too much of a wait if we enter the park around 8:30 or so? Kathy

I have not done EE since the summer. But just keep an eye on the boards.

 

[quantumottle]

Just FYI wareagle57, I've found you'll have much better luck getting answers if you ask a new question within it's own new thread. Probably because more people will read your question if it's not hidden within someone elses question. Best of luck.

Bump. Anyone? We only have one day so I'm trying to decide how to make the most of the day and what to expect so I can prioritize.

 

[quantumottle]

Thanks to all for the wonderful and helpful replies, especially TXTransplant's detailed response.

I've never found TouringPlans.com to be very accurate at all regarding their Disney plans, so no suprise they are off at Universal as well.

Thanks again!

 

[FlipHipster]

How good is the Orlando Informer crowd calendar? We are going December the 12th and it lists it as the last day of "slow" before it ramps up to moderate, then busy, then very busy in a 2 week time span.

Does anyone have the TP crowd prediction for Dec 12? I have TP for Disney, but Universal has expired.

It was pretty accurate for the days we were there. Tues 12/2 and Wed 12/3 everything was walk on in the morning including FJ and EFG. Even in the afternoon EFG didn't hit 30mins but Hogwarts Express did. We walked on everything else.

We went back Saturday 12/6 which was considered moderate. It was considerably more crowded but very manageable. The Potter rides hit 45mins mid morning and were still that way when we left between 4-5PM. Minion Mayhem was 35mins most of the day. HE was 60 mins in the afternoon. If you plan to park hop via HE, you need to know it will be a wait. Everything else was cake. The rides at the front of the park had 20-25mins waits in the morning but once everyone moves through to HP, Hulk was walk-on, Spiderman was ~10mins etc.

For slow days, I think Express Pass was pointless we didn't have it and didn't need it. Moderate crowds I don't know. We showed up at 10:30 and left before 5PM and still got a lot done, but there were a few times when I could have used it to get an extra ride in. We could have entered an hour earlier gone to the back of the park and worked forward and I think that would have worked very well. I think next year we are going to plan for Universal mid week when it's slow and plan WDW around our Universal days.

 

[johde]

How good is the Orlando Informer crowd calendar? We are going December the 12th and it lists it as the last day of "slow" before it ramps up to moderate, then busy, then very busy in a 2 week time span.

I don't have any direct experience with Orlando Informer although I've look at their predictions for my dates. My favorite "crowd calendar" though is the Universal Orlando website. The easiest place is to 1 day ticket with unlimited express. They actually color code the calander with 6 crowd levels from "non-peak" through "Holiday plus" https://tickets.universalorlando.com/Ticket-Store/PurchaseTickets.aspx?VIP . They have the most "skin in the game" at getting crowd levels right. Just so you know I've seen very few "non peak" days on their. I normally look at the price of 2 park/1 ride express passes to get my judge of crowds.