Mid day arrival plan

[surgefest]

We will be arriving mid day middle of the week (on a wednesday) just curious as to what everyone thinks a good plan of attack would be. Which Harry potter section likely to be less crowded?? What are some wait times we can expect in your opinion? Or would it be best to totally by pass HP and do all of the other attractions, we will have an express pass. also does either HP section tend to empty out much right before closing? we'll be going in early May also....

 

[christophfam]

Universal has a great app that will let you see the current wait times. I'd take a quick look at the app when you arrive and see which has the longer waits, FJ or Gringotts. If both are super long, explore other areas of the parks with your express pass then head to DA the last hour or two of the day. Wait times do decrease if the parks are open late.

 

[sharona]

Are you staying onsite and for more than 1 day or are you buying the EP for your afternoon and that is it? Do you have park to park access? That will make a difference in what you should plan to do.

Personally, I like the atmosphere in the HP areas at night. We did notice that Diagon Alley started to empty out about 30 -60 minutes before close but that was in November so crowds were not that bad to begin with. We are also arriving mid day w/ EP and plan to spend the beginning of our time at US using the EP to ride our favorites then dinner in that park. After that we will wander over to DA I think and see what the crowds look like. We have been through the Gringotts queue before so if the wait is longer than 15-20 minutes, we'll use the single rider line. That was perfect on our last trip, never waited more than 5 minutes. You do at some point want to experience the bank lobby and elevator but you can always save that for the next morning with early entry if you are staying for a few days. Or, if you have PTP access, and DA is feeling too crowded, you can take the Hogwarts Express to IOA and tour Hogsmeade and see the castle at night then work your way out of IOA using your EP.

 

[hpriamson]

We're arriving next Friday around 3 PM for a 3 night stay. It's a grad bash night, so the parks are closing at 6. So our plan is to get our bathing suits on and hit the wet rides until we're sick of them, then head back to the Hard Rock pool.

 

[sharona]

We're arriving next Friday around 3 PM for a 3 night stay. It's a grad bash night, so the parks are closing at 6. So our plan is to get our bathing suits on and hit the wet rides until we're sick of them, then head back to the Hard Rock pool.

We'll also be there during the grad bash nights but staying at RPR. We arrive Thursday which is a 9pm night at US so we'll take full advantage of that but finding out about the early closings on Fri and Sat was a disappointment. It's school vacation week for us and we sort of tacked Orlando on to the end of a beach trip so we didn't have a lot of flexibility on the dates. We decided to spend Friday at MK since it's open until midnight and we haven't been in a while. Here's hoping for great weather!!!

 

[irene_dsc]

Sounds like closing time will be a major factor in what you can do - I didn't realize sometimes it closes at 6 pm! We were there last week with a 10pm close! It seemed like the HP areas started getting less crowded around 6 pm - which doesn't help if the entire park closes then! Middle of the afternoon on a nice sunny day, the first part of Diagon Alley was wall-to-wall people. I don't know about the rest of it, since we opted to come back later. May is probably better, however.