Park hours - both parks closing early?

[glamdring269]

Just a mini rant on what I would consider to be one of the biggest weaknesses between universal and Disney.

We just arrived today. The boat driver guy from Portofino mentioned Hhn closes universal down early so they can prep but no worries IoA is open until 8.

Just looked at park hours on the app. This really surprised me… universal closes at 5 (expected) but ioa closes at 6. Really? Hopefully epic universe has hours that actually extend past sunset every night.

Just looked and every other Thursday this month is 8pm in the app. No other day closes before 7pm.

 

[georgina]

Just a mini rant on what I would consider to be one of the biggest weaknesses between universal and Disney.

We just arrived today. The boat driver guy from Portofino mentioned Hhn closes universal down early so they can prep but no worries IoA is open until 8.

Just looked at park hours on the app. This really surprised me… universal closes at 5 (expected) but ioa closes at 6. Really? Hopefully epic universe has hours that actually extend past sunset every night.

Just looked and every other Thursday this month is 8pm in the app. No other day closes before 7pm.

Sorry to hear that for your trip. Sounds like possibly a special event taking place at IOA? That is annoying to find out, was it a last minute change or had the hours been showing that for weeks? There are quite a few weekdays in October with 7 PM closing for both IOA and US.

 

[leiaorgana]

It’s ADA SmileCon 2023 private buy out of the park tonight. 7:30pm - 11:30pm. Obviously closing earlier to make sure everyone else is out of the park for them. Buy outs like that happen quite often at IOA and Universal.

https://www.ada.org/en/education/smilecon/play/a-night-at-universal

 

[glamdring269]

Yeah I’m sure there’s a great reason for it but doesn’t really make it any better for us. We booked this trip several months back so really no way of planning around something like this. Thursdays during this time of year are typically 8pm close on the IoA side. Universal should just simply not double book event nights in my opinion.

If the trip wasn’t so short I probably wouldn’t care. The problem is I booked an earlier dinner time awhile back thinking we could open just go to the park after dinner. Couldn’t reschedule the res so we got about an hour in the park and have one more full day left tomorrow.

Kind of a complete waste of a multi-day park hop. My fault for poor planning? I guess one could look at it that way. I’ll be sure to share my thoughts with universal and keep it in mind when making destination choices for future trips.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah I’m sure there’s a great reason for it but doesn’t really make it any better for us. We booked this trip several months back so really no way of planning around something like this. Universal should just simply not double book event nights in my opinion.

You won't find Disney any different though. Buyouts happen there, so do other events. I remember the uproar over a CM event that had been rescheduled due to covid and went on last year and closed what was it MK down...yeah a lot of people very upset there.

Whoever is willing to pay they will accept (or sometimes in events for their employees).

It does however really bite though. FWIW last May when we were there both IOA and Studios closed at 6pm one of the nights we were there. I forget why but it wasn't a normal closure time. ETA: I believe it was grad nite now thinking about that.

 

[glamdring269]

You won't find Disney any different though. Buyouts happen there, so do other events. I remember the uproar over a CM event that had been rescheduled due to covid and went on last year and closed what was it MK down...yeah a lot of people very upset there.

No doubt Disney does it as well. The difference is we have multiple choices. I don’t go enough to know if they close all of their parks early simultaneously or not but maybe they do.

This is kind of funny at this point though:

My wife, ‘let’s go get a hurricane at pat o’brien’s’

Closed for a private event. Unbelievable. Hah no worries though, I didn’t even want a hurricane!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

No doubt Disney does it as well. The difference is we have multiple choices. I don’t go enough to know if they close all of their parks early simultaneously or not but maybe they do.

This is kind of funny at this point though:

My wife, ‘let’s go get a hurricane at pat o’brien’s’

Closed for a private event. Unbelievable. Hah no worries though, I didn’t even want a hurricane!

I understand where you're coming from but that's not Universal's fault here just because Disney has 4 parks and they have 2. People deal with a lot of park time interruption at Disney far more in time (as in like half the year) than Universal. Try planning around parties from August til end of December and you have DHS and MK with hard ticket events during Christmas time.

I'm totally with you if you just found out the unpleasant surprise that the parks close early, I just don't find this any different than any other theme park out there. They all do this.

But if you want some positivity in less than 2 years (if all pans out) Universal will have 3 parks for you to choose from

That's a shame about pat o brien's my husband and I enjoyed the dueling pianos years back it's actually what got us started on it and now we seek it out at other places

 

[Skippyboo]

They make a ton of money from Halloween Horror. It’s not a big secret that Studios closes early 5 days of the week from September to October

 

[glamdring269]

They make a ton of money from Halloween Horror. It’s not a big secret that Studios closes early 5 days of the week from September to October

This was about IoA closing at 6 tonight, on an HHN night. Not about UO closing early.

 

[keishashadow]

Couldn’t reschedule the res so we got about an hour in the park and have one more full day left tomorrow.

Playing devil’s advocate here, the option was there to cancel it & dine later. Not saying that it was the best plan

Sounds as tho quite disappointing to you

Didn’t catch if you have APs or you bought multi day tix. If the latter, suggest you stop at GS tomorrow and express your concerns as to basically ‘losing’ a day of your tix

 

[Genie+]

The difference is we have multiple choices.

That does make it a little easier to tolerate. I’d be frustrated too. We’re going to Disneyland and if I found out both parks were closing 5 and 6pm - disappointed for sure. Hopefully the early closings will help drive down attendance enough that you can accomplish the same amount in less hours.

 

[glamdring269]

Playing devil’s advocate here, the option was there to cancel it & dine later. Not saying that it was the best plan

Sounds as tho quite disappointing to you

Didn’t catch if you have APs or you bought multi day tix. If the latter, suggest you stop at GS tomorrow and express your concerns as to basically ‘losing’ a day of your tix

I hear what you’re saying but by the time I caught the park hour deal it just wasn’t an option. I do put this on me because I strive to be aware and I did plan this the best I could back when I planned it. Kind of makes me wonder how many people were in the parks and actually surprised by finding out it closed at 6pm. It’s the earliest closure of the month on the same night as an early UO closure.

We visit once every 5 years or so and have 2 nights at our hotel so this is a pretty big hit. Not a killer as we’re early risers and will just take care of business before I head off solo to Hhn later. It’s just super annoying and would argue that it’s not something anyone planning a once in x years vacation should expect.

But hey that’s the great thing. We have choices and can take all pros/cons into account for next time we debate a potential Orlando visit. Already made some decisions based on our Disney experience and this just adds to the data points.

 

[keishashadow]

It’s just super annoying and would argue that it’s not something anyone planning a once in x years vacation should expect.

I agree.

Do consider swinging past GS to have a chat

 

[georgina]

We have been caught by early closures in the spring. They have separate nights for middle schoolers and high schoolers. (Several for each, on various Fridays and Saturdays in April and May) Universal doesn't release their park hours very far ahead so it can be hard to plan.