Possible to do IoA/US in 1 day in Jan?

[marsrunner]

We are at Disney between 1/20 and 1/27 and we were thinking about spending one day at Universal. Do you guys think it would be possible to do both parks in 1 day if we are choosy about what we see? Just the biggies (hopefully more than once!) Is it pretty slow that time of year? What would be the best day to go? Any thoughts would be appreciated, but we really can't spare more than one day.

 

[Metro West]

We are at Disney between 1/20 and 1/27 and we were thinking about spending one day at Universal. Do you guys think it would be possible to do both parks in 1 day if we are choosy about what we see? Just the biggies (hopefully more than once!) Is it pretty slow that time of year? What would be the best day to go? Any thoughts would be appreciated, but we really can't spare more than one day.

January isn't really busy and if you stick to a weekday, you should be fine...if you don't mind skipping some of the little rides. I would normally not recommend doing everything in a single day but as you said you're mainly concentrating on the biggies, you should have little trouble.

 

[marsrunner]

Yeah, in IoA we want to do:
The Incredible Hulk Coaster
The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man
Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls
Popeye and Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges
Jurassic Park River Adventure
Dueling Dragons
The Cat in the Hat

At Universal we want to do:
Shrek 4-D
Terminator 2: 3-D: Battle Across Time
Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride
Jaws
Men in Black: Alien Attack
The Simpsons Ride
E.T. Adventure

Hopefully we can ride multiple times each, since it takes less time to walk through an empty queue than it does to walk back and forth from attraction to attraction when its busy. I've been there twice so I know what's what and where everything is, so won't have to get my bearings or anything.

Thanks for the info!

 

[TStrickland01]

you can manage both but only with very clear expectations that you are hitting the super headliners and better. During October mid week, and with a Express Plus pass, we were able to ride and see everything in IofA in one day with about 1.5 hours of slack. If you don't want everything in both parks, and with your time of year, you have a good shot at being able to accomplish what you want.

 

[RyMickey]

We've gone in the summer and have accomplished everything on your list without FOTL passes. Granted, we didn't do things more than once, and it was Back to the Future instead of The Simpsons, but we did it all.

We start in IOA, and did Spiderman, Hulk, then Cat in the Hat. Then we backtracked over to Ripsaw Falls, the Barges, Jurassic Park, and Dueling Dragons. We were out of the park before 11:30 (make sure you are there prior to opening).

When we headed over to Universal, I think we just went counter-clockwise through the park starting with E.T., then Back to the Future (obviously now Simpsons), Men in Black, Jaws, Mummy (probably about a 30 minute wait at this point in the day), Twister (not on your list, I realize), and Shrek (which had the longest wait -- 40 minutes or so). We skipped Terminator and did the Horror Make-up Show instead at the end, but it's the same idea. We were done the park by 5:30 or so.

Once again, this was during the beginning of August when we did this, so I'm sure it will be even less busy in January.

It can be done (without FOTL passes!). Just realize that we had breakfast before we arrived and didn't really stop for lunch until around 4pm. I'm sure we had some snack at some point in between walks to rides, but we didn't really sit down to eat until it was near the end of the day.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

We are at Disney between 1/20 and 1/27 and we were thinking about spending one day at Universal. Do you guys think it would be possible to do both parks in 1 day if we are choosy about what we see? Just the biggies (hopefully more than once!) Is it pretty slow that time of year? What would be the best day to go? Any thoughts would be appreciated, but we really can't spare more than one day.

We were down around that time in January 2008 (if I remember correctly it was the 21st to 29th). The crowds were busier than we thought it would be for January, however, as others have said you should be able to do everything on your list, although maybe not twice.

One thing we did notice during that time frame was there seemed to be a lot of Brazilian tour groups visiting - both at Universal and Disney.