Newbs going on August 6th. Need Tips!

[nerdyone]

My wife, son (12), and I are going on August 6th. We are staying on property and will only be there for the day. We have the unlimited express pack and will take advantage of the extra hour to hotel guests. Can you give me some tips? We want to see as much as possible and plan on being there before the extra hour starts to rope drop and stay until 7pm.

 

[skylock]

Use early entry and use your express pass. Planning done.

You can check out the rides at the web site so you can do the ones you want to do most first so you do not miss them, then just do whatever else you want to do.

 

[marcais]

Starting early and staying till 7pm with express passes should let you get pretty much everything you want done, with the exception of the Hagrid ride.

The only rides available during the extra hour are Minion Mayhem and Escape from Gringotts. You have to pass Minion Mayhem to get to Diagon Alley, so it makes sense to do that one first and then head round to Diagon Alley and do Escape from Gringotts. If you're still in the extra hour then you could spend the time until regular park opening looking around Diagon Alley.

I assume you have a park-to-park ticket, so have a look at the rides that are available and prioritise them. If more of your top priority ones are at Islands of Adventure then head over there and work your way round the park in a circle. Shooting back and forth makes everything take longer. The way we usually do IoA is get off the Hogwarts Express, head through Hogsmeade to HP&tFJ, and then continue in an anti-clockwise loop of the park.

The wrinkle for you is the water rides at Ripsaw Falls & Bilge-rat Barges. You WILL get wet on these. We usually leave these until the end and do them just before heading back to the hotel. If you do them early then you'll be in wet shoes all day (never nice) & if you do them late you've no hotel room to return to, so you'll be wet heading on to wherever you're going.

If most of your top-priority rides are in Universal Studios Florida, then the same principle applies. Try and figure out a route that involves as little backtracking on yourself as possible.

The big thing is to not stress about maybe not seeing/doing something. Enjoy your time there together, and if there's something you really like, maybe do it a second time while you're there, as that'll be easier than trying to come back to it later.

 

[TommyJK]

Starting early and staying till 7pm with express passes should let you get pretty much everything you want done, with the exception of the Hagrid ride.

The only rides available during the extra hour are Minion Mayhem and Escape from Gringotts. You have to pass Minion Mayhem to get to Diagon Alley, so it makes sense to do that one first and then head round to Diagon Alley and do Escape from Gringotts. If you're still in the extra hour then you could spend the time until regular park opening looking around Diagon Alley.

Personally, with Express pass, I would skip past Minions and go Straight to Diagon Alley, especially if you want to do Olivander's Wand experience as that fills up quickly.

With Express Pass you can do Minions at any time later in the day.

Also, I would skip Fast and Furious. It is so bad that with one day in the parks I'd opt to skip that and ride one of the better attractions twice instead.

 

[marcais]

Both times I've done Universal with EP, Minions has been the longest EP wait we've had.

But, yeah, I forgot about Ollivander's being open during Extra Hour, so it might be worth OP going there and doing that if his son is a HP fan.