Partial days in universal possible?

[brandonbr]

My wife and I will be going on the 9/8 Fantasy and we wanted to try to get in most all of Universal before we go (our first time at universal). Our flight lands at 4:30pm and I looked up park hours for September but they're not posted yet although august 31st shows 9am-8pm.

Is it realistic to think we could spend time at Universal either Thursday when we get in after our flight or Saturday before we head to the port to get on the cruise? We're trying to figure out what ticket options. We're also looking at doing the double tree unless for some reason it's worth about double the cost of a hotel to stay closer and get FOTL, or do we just add this option to the standard universal tickets?

 

[JessicaR]

No way with the 4:30 arrival at the airport. By the time you get to Universal the park would be closing. Those September dates are off season and I would bet you will not be seeing an 8P close more likely 6 or 7P.

The day of arrival would depend on your flight arrival time and how early you can get to the parks and how early you have to board the ship.

Personally I thinks its too much running around and not enough time to get anything accomplished. Could you add a day and spend one night and head to the ship the next day?

 

[brandonbr]

No way with the 4:30 arrival at the airport. By the time you get to Universal the park would be closing. Those September dates are off season and I would bet you will not be seeing an 8P close more likely 6 or 7P.

The day of arrival would depend on your flight arrival time and how early you can get to the parks and how early you have to board the ship.

Personally I thinks its too much running around and not enough time to get anything accomplished. Could you add a day and spend one night and head to the ship the next day?

If I remember correctly, the month of August started with 10pm close, then went to 9pm closing at the middle and finally the end of august was an 8pm close so I was thinking 8pm was off peak closing time... If park closing is 6pm that's not good... We figured with the flight landing at 4:30, we'd have luggage and be getting a cab (or use a car service) by 5:00 at the latest, be to the hotel by 5:30, ready to leave for the park at 6:00 and be inside by 6:30 at the very latest. We figured with an hour and a half we could knock off 2-4 rides and get a little oriented with the parks for the next day.

Friday we'd be there from park opening to closing...

On Saturday we thought we could get into the parks at 9am, leave the park about 12:30 to then leave from the hotel around 1:00pm and use a car service to get to the port at about 2:10. Ship boarding ends at 4pm.

My wife won't be riding all of the rides (non dangling feet rides, free-fall, loops, etc) so I'll single rider those I'm sure. She does like 3d simulators though and we'll be skipping all the kids rides. We did a quick tally of about 45 "attractions" listed and we have 9 well both do, 4 I'll do by myself, 10 no, 3 maybe for weather (water rides), 18 probably not (kid stuff, all of Seuss, all of Lost Continent, feat factor, ET), Basically we're doing HP and the main attractions in IOA and Studios.

Is this do-able in a full 10am-6pm day and pre 1PM hours on a Saturday? At this time of year would an express pass be worthwhile?

 

[JessicaR]

If I remember correctly, the month of August started with 10pm close, then went to 9pm closing at the middle and finally the end of august was an 8pm close so I was thinking 8pm was off peak closing time... If park closing is 6pm that's not good... We figured with the flight landing at 4:30, we'd have luggage and be getting a cab (or use a car service) by 5:00 at the latest, be to the hotel by 5:30, ready to leave for the park at 6:00 and be inside by 6:30 at the very latest. We figured with an hour and a half we could knock off 2-4 rides and get a little oriented with the parks for the next day.

Friday we'd be there from park opening to closing...

On Saturday we thought we could get into the parks at 9am, leave the park about 12:30 to then leave from the hotel around 1:00pm and use a car service to get to the port at about 2:10. Ship boarding ends at 4pm.

My wife won't be riding all of the rides (non dangling feet rides, free-fall, loops, etc) so I'll single rider those I'm sure. She does like 3d simulators though and we'll be skipping all the kids rides. We did a quick tally of about 45 "attractions" listed and we have 9 well both do, 4 I'll do by myself, 10 no, 3 maybe for weather (water rides), 18 probably not (kid stuff, all of Seuss, all of Lost Continent, feat factor, ET), Basically we're doing HP and the main attractions in IOA and Studios.

Is this do-able in a full 10am-6pm day and pre 1PM hours on a Saturday? At this time of year would an express pass be worthwhile?

OK that's better! I didn't understand in your first post that you will have one entire day.

You won't need express, if for some strange reason you do you can purchase it when you need it. It really is a very slow time - all the kids are back to school everywhere.There will be some crowds especially over at HP in IOA. Can you possibly stay on-site? You would get the extra hour early entry and express.

Based on what your desired rides/attractions are you should be OK with the whole day and 3-4 hours the next day.

Wanted to mention the end of august is Labor day weekend the parks stays open later. Right after that the hours will definitely change with an earlier closing time. Also, it is common to stagger the closings by an hour. So, one park may close an hour before the other.

 

[damo]

I have heard that Universal will be staying open later in the off season now that the night-time show has arrived.

Here is the schedule for the night time Cinematic Spectacular---meaning the Studios will be open until this time.

Showing daily at 9:00pm, except on 5/4, 5/11, 5/18, 6/2, 9/6 - 9/8, 11/10 - 11/11 and 11/15

 

[brandonbr]

OK that's better! I didn't understand in your first post that you will have one entire day.

You won't need express, if for some strange reason you do you can purchase it when you need it. It really is a very slow time - all the kids are back to school everywhere.There will be some crowds especially over at HP in IOA. Can you possibly stay on-site? You would get the extra hour early entry and express.

Based on what your desired rides/attractions are you should be OK with the whole day and 3-4 hours the next day.

I'm checking with DU to see what a 2 day on-site with 2 day park tickets run. Right now we are planning on the doubletree 2 nights and 3 day-park hopper for $570 so if it's less than a $100 more to go to on-site we'll do that.

What are the wait times like around the 6th of September for rides like mummy, rip, hulk, simpsons, spiderman, disaster, MIB, and the HP attractions?

Damo: Looks like we're out of luck with that schedule, we're 9/6-9/8 which is the exclusion on that schedule