Is Universal Orlando worth it if not doing HH?

[shosh1530]

We are heading to Orlando around Labor Day weekend and trying to decide if we want to make our first ever Universal Orlando visit. We've spent one day at Universal Studios Hollywood in the past, which my child absolutely loved. He is a huge Simpsons fan. DH and I both enjoy the Harry Potter themed areas.

We will be at WDW (Galactic Starcruiser) 8/30-9/2, but not flying home until 9/4. So potentially we could do Universal on that Saturday and Sunday (although I've read people are exhausted after so a rest day might also be good).

Looking at the calendar, I see there are HH nights both of those days, which I'm assuming means Universal Studios Florida closes early. I have zero interest in HH (my 11 year old might disagree, but I don't think he is ready for it, the pictures look too gory/scary for my tastes). How much are the parks affected? Do you see lots of HH stuff around during the day?

Ticket costs seem much higher than I expected, especially if you add the Express Pass, which we loved having at USH. Wondering if it is worth all that when closing early.

 

[titojackson84]

From what I remember, the studios during the day is family friendly. Decorations out, but nothing gory. There are 2 separate parks and IOA I don’t think it did much, if anything at all for halloween.

If you are staying onsite, take advantage of early entry. 3 of their hotels give express passes for everyone in the room and can sometimes be cheaper than a cheaper hotel and buying express passes separately. The dates you’re talking about is labor day weekend and I would imagine it will get busy.

 

[ClapYourHands]

Expect very high crowds both because it’s Labor Day weekend and the opening of Halloween horror nights. HHN will not have any decorations in IOA, but once HHN closes the studio side, there will be a big rush of people over to IOA increasing the crowds there. Studios will have some HHN decor visible during the day, but it’s typically not extensive or gory. IOA stays open as regular hours, and may or may not have the special Dark Arts projection show on the castle. Usually IOA gets some dark arts theming at night only during HHN, including roaming death eaters, but those elements often don’t start on opening weekend.

 

[djmeredith]

I have been Labor Day weekend the past 2 years. The first year we did not do HHN and had a great time. The earlier closing didn't interfere with our trip at all. We stayed in a Deluxe hotel that trip, so we had Express Pass. However, I think we still could have had a good time without them because we took breaks in our room each day. Last year, we did a quick 3 night trip and did HHN 2 nights. We went to the parks all 4 days and only had EP the first 2 days. We were still able to do everything we wanted. As someone else mentioned, the gory/scary props are not visible during the day. They literally cover them up.