One Day, two parks....help needed.

[godisneyboat]

Will be headed to the dark side on Friday, May 22nd for one day only. That is the start of Memorial Day weekend. Will be coming off Disney Cruise. Drive time from Port Canaveral to Royal Pacific is listed as 59 minutes. Not sure what time we can get off ship. Will check in to hotel, head to park and will have to go to guest services to convert tickets. One day park to park tickets and with Royal Pacific will have front of the line. With not knowing what our arrival time will be exactly should we wait till evening to do the Harry Potter areas or still try that first. Have told the family we will be going at it hard to hit everything possible. Any and all advice appreciated. Have been once before but before HP.....anyone else tried this straight off a cruise. Univeral hours are 9-9 and IOA 9-8.

 

[macraven]

i have no idea when you debark from the ship.
hopefully you will be at the darkside early so you can enjoy most of that day.

if you have 2 day park to park tickets, you could hit the parks on check out day.
you receive the express line usage for check in and check out day.
you could also use the early entry for hotel guests on day 2.

 

[sharona]

In my experience with non Disney cruise lines, they want you off the ship pretty quickly once customs is cleared. I've never been off later than 9am unless we were taking our time due to a later flight.

As for the parks, we just came back last night and the parks were crowded but very manageable over the weekend with express pass (even with the early closings for Grad nights). The HP Diagon Alley area was pretty empty by 8pm on Sunday (9pm park close). We rode Gringotts 2X right before 9, pretty much walked right on though the stand by sign said 10 minutes. Everyone seems to hit that area in the morning and I think it's much better after dark with the dragon and all... plus it gets very hot and crowded over there during the day.

As for IOA - I would want to be there during the hottest part of the day to cool off on the water rides. That is what we did both days of our trip - made our way over there after lunch and stayed wet and cool for a few hours before going back to the hotel to freshen up and heading back out for dinner and more park time. The longest wait we had was for Forbidden Journey when we ended up behind the pack at early entry because we had to stop for Cinnabon and Starbucks!!!

If I had 1 day only and express pass I would start at US and do all of the non HP stuff that I was most interested in then have lunch at Finnegans before taking the train over to IOA and go to HP/Hogsmeade/Hogwarts then make your way out from there hitting the water rides during the hottest part of the day. Go back to US that night for Diagon Alley and redo the best rides like Mummy and Minions on the way to London.

Also, if you run into long stand by times at Gringotts or Forbidden Journey, there is always the single rider line. Just be sure to also take the tour of Hogwarts either before or after single rider so you can see it all.

 

[godisneyboat]

In my experience with non Disney cruise lines, they want you off the ship pretty quickly once customs is cleared. I've never been off later than 9am unless we were taking our time due to a later flight.

As for the parks, we just came back last night and the parks were crowded but very manageable over the weekend with express pass (even with the early closings for Grad nights). The HP Diagon Alley area was pretty empty by 8pm on Sunday (9pm park close). We rode Gringotts 2X right before 9, pretty much walked right on though the stand by sign said 10 minutes. Everyone seems to hit that area in the morning and I think it's much better after dark with the dragon and all... plus it gets very hot and crowded over there during the day.

As for IOA - I would want to be there during the hottest part of the day to cool off on the water rides. That is what we did both days of our trip - made our way over there after lunch and stayed wet and cool for a few hours before going back to the hotel to freshen up and heading back out for dinner and more park time. The longest wait we had was for Forbidden Journey when we ended up behind the pack at early entry because we had to stop for Cinnabon and Starbucks!!!

If I had 1 day only and express pass I would start at US and do all of the non HP stuff that I was most interested in then have lunch at Finnegans before taking the train over to IOA and go to HP/Hogsmeade/Hogwarts then make your way out from there hitting the water rides during the hottest part of the day. Go back to US that night for Diagon Alley and redo the best rides like Mummy and Minions on the way to London.

Also, if you run into long stand by times at Gringotts or Forbidden Journey, there is always the single rider line. Just be sure to also take the tour of Hogwarts either before or after single rider so you can see it all.

Thanks for the detailed reply, I need to do some investigating about timing to get off the ship. Hope to be at hotel no later than 9:30, just don't know if that is possible. Regardless, sounds like saving the HP areas until later will be the best approach....if we can be in the parks by 10:00 am, I will feel good about getting the most out of the day.

 

[sharona]

Just a follow up to add that if you do the water rides be prepared to be soaked - totally completely dripping wet wring out your clothes and squish around for a few hours wet. There are lockers if you want to bring a change of clothes. We wore bathing suits under our clothes and flip flops and then we changed afterwards. Don't forget your towel, you'll need it.