****OI Meetup**** -June 4-5, 2021

[policycobb]

So happy we are flying now! Was driving from Kentucky. Arriving the evening of 6/2 and leaving on 6/7. My daughter and I have season passes so we can get an extra day at the parks in.

 

[RocketCityMama]

So happy we are flying now! Was driving from Kentucky. Arriving the evening of 6/2 and leaving on 6/7. My daughter and I have season passes so we can get an extra day at the parks in.

Awesome! We arrive 6/1 leave 6/8, but we are driving from Alabama. We drive down on 5/31 will stop in Valdosta I think and then drive the rest of the way the next morning. Then we drive straight home on the way back.

 

[Darrah]

We are Universal veterans, but will be attending our first OI Meetup in June. We were supposed to go to last year's summer meetup, but COVID happened and it was cancelled. We're crazy excited for this year's! We are staying at RPR Thur-Sun and have P2P tix for all 4 days, though I think we'll need to pace ourselves on the actual meet-up days and will probably end up hanging poolside part of the time.

Since we'll have daytime access w/ our park tix and EPs because of RPR, I think our main focus during meetup hours will be food. And probably as many Hagrid's rides as possibe, since I assume it won't have an express line by then. It would be great if the Velocicoaster was open, but we're not holding our breath for that!

Anyway, we always look forward to Universal but even moreso coupled with the Meetup!

 

[Erica Ladd]

Also, should we stay off site or in an on-site hotel? We will need to stay one night somewhere.

If it’s just you and dd I would strongly consider booking both nights! One would be great but 2 would be awesome. Either way I’d consider staying at one of the on site resorts that offers EP, as you will have a few hours before the event to use the EP for rides. And if you can swing 2 nights you can have a nice relaxing day by the pool (they are all nice) before the second night plus you will have an idea of what you want to revisit or do if you didn’t fit it in the night prior!!

 

[jenhum]

I'm so excited to find this thread! I just booked both nights of the June meet up for myself, my sister and my daughter (12). We did a big all out trip to Universal in 2019, stayed at a suite at the HRH, did 5 days in the parks and it was AWESOME. Probably one of my all time favorite vacations. I have been dying to go back, but we can't do another $$ trip right now. So we're flying in Thurs night, booked at Cabana Bay, and plan on chilling by the pool during the day and then just going in for the meet up. I'm excited to try some new foods, and mostly just want to ride Hagrid's and do all the HP stuff. We also LOVE the Mummy and RRR. We may do Volcano Bay on Sunday if the weather is nice, since our flight doesn't leave until 8:30 that night!

Those who have been to a meet up before- should we just concentrate on 1 park each night? What's a good game plan? We all love HP and like most any ride (except F&F ), but especially thrill rides.

This has been A LONG year, I have lung disease so we have been hard core isolating and my poor only child extroverted daughter has been in virtual school all year. I am so looking forward to getting away from home and recapturing some of that UO magic!

 

[greg9x]

Since we'll have daytime access w/ our park tix and EPs because of RPR, I think our main focus during meetup hours will be food. And probably as many Hagrid's rides as possibe, since I assume it won't have an express line by then. It would be great if the Velocicoaster was open, but we're not holding our breath for that!

Never been to a Meetup, but have them on Facebook for info... Hagrids is still busy during the Meetups as even with the lower crowds everyone wants to do it, and it closes early due to noise ordinance, so won't be open the whole time.

They also had an issue last time that the regular day crowd was allowed to get in line right up until the parks closed for the Meetup, which meant there was still a long line when the Meetup began.

Seems there's an ebb and flow to how long the line is...but don't wait until too late since it closes earlier and they shut the line down so it can close on time.

Imagine Velocicoaster will be the same if it's open by then.

 

[bryana]

Just signed up for Saturday night with my Mom as a last minute birthday trip for me. We went to the Meet Up last February right before everything shut down, and I'm excited to go back! Started re-reading the HP books to get ready for all of the butter beer and firewhisky.

 

[RocketCityMama]

We are Universal veterans, but will be attending our first OI Meetup in June. We were supposed to go to last year's summer meetup, but COVID happened and it was cancelled. We're crazy excited for this year's! We are staying at RPR Thur-Sun and have P2P tix for all 4 days, though I think we'll need to pace ourselves on the actual meet-up days and will probably end up hanging poolside part of the time.

Since we'll have daytime access w/ our park tix and EPs because of RPR, I think our main focus during meetup hours will be food. And probably as many Hagrid's rides as possibe, since I assume it won't have an express line by then. It would be great if the Velocicoaster was open, but we're not holding our breath for that!

Anyway, we always look forward to Universal but even moreso coupled with the Meetup!

Our plan is similar, meetup days =sleeping in, swimming and chilling by the pool. We will probably head in when it opens at 4 to meetup guests, even though we could go earlier with our Ap's but we will have already been there several days by that point, so a good rest will be wonderful so we can stay through the meetup night hours! I kinda hope they will do a virtual line for Hagrids lol so we don't have to wait in line forever to ride Hagrids, or we will go when the park is getting ready to close and do the line then and the rest of the night eat/ride. If VC is open, I really hope they just do a virtual q or lottery lol I def would not stand in line during the meetup for it, because I think it would required the entire meetup time to ride. :/ but we shall see haha!

I'm so excited to find this thread! I just booked both nights of the June meet up for myself, my sister and my daughter (12). We did a big all out trip to Universal in 2019, stayed at a suite at the HRH, did 5 days in the parks and it was AWESOME. Probably one of my all time favorite vacations. I have been dying to go back, but we can't do another $$ trip right now. So we're flying in Thurs night, booked at Cabana Bay, and plan on chilling by the pool during the day and then just going in for the meet up. I'm excited to try some new foods, and mostly just want to ride Hagrid's and do all the HP stuff. We also LOVE the Mummy and RRR. We may do Volcano Bay on Sunday if the weather is nice, since our flight doesn't leave until 8:30 that night!

Those who have been to a meet up before- should we just concentrate on 1 park each night? What's a good game plan? We all love HP and like most any ride (except F&F ), but especially thrill rides.

This has been A LONG year, I have lung disease so we have been hard core isolating and my poor only child extroverted daughter has been in virtual school all year. I am so looking forward to getting away from home and recapturing some of that UO magic!

What a fun girls trip coming up! It is going to be me, dh and my 2 younger girls, the oldest didn't want to miss that much work, it's also their super busy time with training of new counselors, so I get it, but it'll be weird without her! I wanted to stay at RPR but decided to save about half the cost of it and do Dockside, maybe next time we'll hit RPR for a couple days. We have always done USO in the last week of May to early weeks of June and never had major issues in timing, so that probably also makes me not want to spend the extra lol We usually take midday breaks when the parks get hot and crowded and return in the late afternoon/early evening when others start to leave.

We have never been, but I think our plan is to hit 1 park each night, since they will be closing at the same times, crowds will hopefully be more even at both parks. We are going to ride/eat/ride/eat lol that's my goal anyway

Just signed up for Saturday night with my Mom as a last minute birthday trip for me. We went to the Meet Up last February right before everything shut down, and I'm excited to go back! Started re-reading the HP books to get ready for all of the butter beer and firewhisky.

Awesome, great birthday trip! I just re-watched all the HP movies this last week and think I am going to re-start the books again, it has been a long time since I read them.

 

[TeddieM]

If you're going to the meetup mainly to go on Hagrid's I don't think it's worth the ticket. You'll be missing the bulk of what you're paying for which is the food and pretty much every other ride that will have 0 wait. The wait times for Hagrids' and the Hogwart's Express (with the distancing and limited amount of parties per car) was not good.

So much more to experience in the parks being able to walk up to any cart/place and get whatever food item you want and enjoy the parks at night.

 

[Darrah]

If you're going to the meetup mainly to go on Hagrid's I don't think it's worth the ticket. You'll be missing the bulk of what you're paying for which is the food and pretty much every other ride that will have 0 wait. The wait times for Hagrids' and the Hogwart's Express (with the distancing and limited amount of parties per car) was not good.

So much more to experience in the parks being able to walk up to any cart/place and get whatever food item you want and enjoy the parks at night.

For sure we are not going to the meetup just for Hagrid's. It was not open the last time we were at US so we've never ridden it and it's a priority this trip. We'll (hopefully) ride it whenever we can, whether it's via virtual queue during regular park hours (we have daytime tix too) or during the meetup. Fingers crossed that between our 4 days of daytime tix and our 2 meetup nights we'll be able to ride it at least once!

 

[RocketCityMama]

@Darrah I think you'll be able to! We have not been since ummm 2016 so lots of new things but I think over 4 days you'll get to ride at least once! I can't recall, are you staying on site with early entry? I'd head straight there one morning if you are. That is our plan!

 

[Darrah]

@Darrah I think you'll be able to! We have not been since ummm 2016 so lots of new things but I think over 4 days you'll get to ride at least once! I can't recall, are you staying on site with early entry? I'd head straight there one morning if you are. That is our plan!

Yes! We’re staying at RPR so we’ll have EA and EP for the other rides!

 

[christophfam]

I am seriously considering going to this meet up in June for both nights. I’ve never been as I didn’t see the value since I was an AP holder. I let my pass go this year and I think this may be a good option for me now. I see a lot of people are staying at a premier hotel for the express before the parks close but I would really like to save the money and stay at my favorite resort SF. I honestly don’t know if I’ll even enter the parks before 6pm. I love the idea of lounging by the pool during the day and then having a long night in the parks without the heat and crowds. Very tempting! Now I just have to decide if June is too hot for me.

 

[RocketCityMama]

@christophfam do it! lol join us! We are staying at Dockside and just purchased AP's for this coming year. The meetup for June now allows entry at 4pm instead of later, so you could go in a little earlier than that if you wanted. We are staying for several days before/after the meetup, so we opted to stay cheaper than spend on the express passes, and take another 1-2 trips before the Ap's expire. We totally plan to lounge and relax on the days of the meetup until entry times, because we don't need to go go go since we have more and I suspect we'll all enjoy sleeping in on Saturday

 

[Sara W]

Hi! For those of you who have been to a meet up and Universal: what are your thoughts on a mama taking her 11-year-old daughter to the Friday, June 4 meet up as first-time visitors? We've never been to the parks before, but my daughter is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, and I'm thinking this may be a good birthday/elementary school "grad" gift for her? Thoughts? Will she/we get to experience enough HP land in one night?

I took my daughter to the December 2019 meetup for her 10th birthday. It was our first time and we did both nights of the meetup. We were able to do all of the Harry Potter stuff without a problem. The second night we just went back to the rides we enjoyed the night before and the rides we didn't do at Universal Studios the first night since we were so focused on HP and finished the night at IoA. We rode the Hulk a lot both nights, and I was happy for the free food because I needed it to settle my stomach! It was a really special experience for us, and she felt like a VIP with her light-up wristband.

 

[RocketCityMama]

@Sara W are you going in June? I am so glad we chose to do both nights with the best chance to ride Hagrids twice hopefully haha but if not, we have other days there to hit first thing in the morning if possible. I think we are going to do 1 park each night vs going back and forth between the two, but I guess we will see. I also like they are closing both at the same time those nights, hopefully will spread people out more than the previous times/meetups from what I have read.

 

[Sara W]

@Sara W are you going in June? I am so glad we chose to do both nights with the best chance to ride Hagrids twice hopefully haha but if not, we have other days there to hit first thing in the morning if possible. I think we are going to do 1 park each night vs going back and forth between the two, but I guess we will see. I also like they are closing both at the same time those nights, hopefully will spread people out more than the previous times/meetups from what I have read.

Yes, we are for 1 night. We were able to ride Hagrids at least once both nights we went back in 2019, and that was just after it opened. Maybe if the new rollercoaster is open everyone will go there instead! We really only experienced crowds in Hogsmeade. Diagon Alley and the rest of the park were empty on both nights. The walkway between the parks was great to get back and forth.

 

[RocketCityMama]

Saw today that the OI meetup is now officially sold out! Wow!! I am kind of surprised it took that long but with covid, I guess not surprised just the same LOL I am ready for new announcements!

 

[policycobb]

Saw today that the OI meetup is now officially sold out! Wow!! I am kind of surprised it took that long but with covid, I guess not surprised just the same LOL I am ready for new announcements!

Me too. They usually add something new to each meetup. I am ready for some news.

 

[RocketCityMama]

Big news! lol

The next meetup will be announced on Friday April 9th at 10 am edt!

When do you think it will be?? I really want a holiday one!