Read UG and have some questions.....rides

[cissy]

1. What are the "not to be missed" queue lines in both parks? Don't want to miss cool stuff using express if lines are short.

2. How will we know how long a line really is? Is there a clock outside or an App we can download? Cause are disney, you could walk in and then realize the wait is still really long cause the queue was deceptively long.

3. We plan on touring 3-4 days. My teens are not adventurous riders but I think they will love it once they give it a chance. We plan to stay on site with early entry on a Friday. My plan was to hit HP at USF right off and get started but I am wondering if we should ease the girls into the rides with something tamer? They both love HP so I think Gringotts will be cool that they won't realize it is a coaster? Then I planned to HE over to IoA and FJ but I just don't know. Don't want to freak them out and then have them refuse to ride anything else!

4. Is there an intense scale somewhere for the rides?

5. Although I grew up in Florida and seem to remember cool-ish January's, I am not sure how wet we are gonna want to be in January if we ride the "wet" rides. I HATE carrying a lot of stuff so changing outfits for everyone is not on my happy list cause I would end up hauling it all! But walking around wet and COLD is a bummer. Thoughts? Cause the Jurassic ride sounds like fun!

 

[RMulieri]

1) Mummy ,Men in Black ,Spiderman are ones we don't like to miss
2)There are time boards in the parks as well as at each attraction entrance. They are usually pretty accurate but there is always a chance they can be off. MLK is pretty busy especially with the tour groups that tend to be in the parks.
3)You will need to check WHICH park has early entry.They aren't always both available for early entry and often if it is only one park it is IOA these days. I would hate for you to make a plan counting on the Studios being open for EE and it isnt. NOTHING else is open for early entry other than the rides in the Harry Potter area..At IOA, Forbidden Journey, Ollivanders, the stores, Flight of the Hippogriff and Dragon Challenge. At Studios, Gringotts and the shops and usually Despicable me .Hogwarts express doesn't start running till official park opening time.
As for your teens, it is a gamble. My 12 yr old ( who was 9 the first time we went ) took one look at Forbidden Journey and said nope. She walked thru the castle and then sat in the child swap area. A year later she rode with no issues. She rode a lot but still wont go on the major coasters
4)Not that I am aware of but I am sure someone else can chime in
5)Keep in mind ONE of the water rides is generally down for refurb in Jan ( each goes down in turn for a couple of weeks). The first year we went , Jurassic park was closed.The 2nd time Popeye was closed.
That said, weather is all over in Jan. The first year we went , it was quite warm and we could've done the water rides. This past year it was chilly and didn't ride them.Ponchos offer no protection at all on Dudley Do rights or Popeyes. You MAY be safe on Jurassic park. Jurassic park is a toss up- I have gone on that ride and got barely splashed and then gotten soaked. No way to know which it will be .When we do the water rides, we do them LAST and then head straight out of the parks and back to the resorts. There are giant people-dryers near them that cost $5 , but I am not sure how dry they get you

 

[cissy]

Good advice again, RMulieri! Especially about riding wet rides last.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

1. I also consider Forbidden Journey and Gringotts to be not-miss queue lines. There isn't an express line for these, but you could skip the queue for re-rides by using single rider.

2. There are time clocks outside each ride, and there is also the Universal app. I also subscribe to touringplans.com, and I switch back and forth between the Universal app and Touring Plan's Lines app.

3. The coaster part in Gringotts is very short - it is really just a drop and a few seconds, but it is at the beginning of the ride and obvious. They may have forgotten about it by the end. Honestly, I would let them watch it online to see what it is like rather then springing it on them if they are afraid of coasters. There are signs in the queue line that indicate it is a coaster, so if they are the kinds of kids who read everything, that will be spoiled before they get to the ride. As a comparison to Disney, the coaster is like taking 15 seconds of Barnstormer rather than Space Mountain. Also for the record, the small coaster at Islands is the same track as Barnstormer.

5. The wet sides are seriously wet, even in the winter. We go back to the hotel to change after doing the wet rides. This year, I had to stop by Guest Services on the way out of the park - a good 20 minutes after I had finished the last water ride - and I was still literally dripping all over the floor.

 

[squirrel]

So you can leave your older child in the baby swap area and ride the rides they don't want to ride? Is there something in these areas for them to do while waiting for you?

 

[hdnwaters]

I used the Universal App while we were in the parks. I found it to be pretty accurate. The wait times are posted outside the rides. My daughter is a chicken and she will ask me 100 times about a ride. Neither one of us will ride anything that goes upside down. I read descriptions about the rides and made a list of everything I thought we could handle. Our first ride was Forbidden Journey (I had it mentally switched with Transformers, on being a robotic arm) I have to admit, we were both were a little shaken walking out of there! We were both like....WTH did we just ride??? I do feel if your teens are HP fans they will overlook the ride itself and enjoy the adventure! We went back the second day and rode it again....it was a more fun the second trip. We did not get too wet on Jurassic Park.....love Ripsaw falls, but it is wet and the Bilge Rats, well you get soaked! Our top favorites were:

Escape to Gringotts
The Mummy
Transformers
Forbidden Journey
Jurassic Park River Adventure

Here is a good link to compare to WDW rides:

http://wdwprepschool.com/a-disney-world-freaks-guide-to-universal-orlando/

 

[RMulieri]

So you can leave your older child in the baby swap area and ride the rides they don't want to ride? Is there something in these areas for them to do while waiting for you?

When she was was 9 and 10 we swapped sitting with her .But last year when she was 11, she sat there by herself. some of the rides show movies in those areas.At HP rides, they show HP movies.This past year she sat out Dragon challenge and I don't remember if they had anything on

 

[squirrel]

My niece will be 10, I guess I will talk with my sister and see if she is comfortable having my niece sit in an area by herself if there are a few rides she doesn't want to ride.

 

[damo]

What's UG?

 

[cissy]

Lol.....universal guide, the book!

 

[bumbershoot]

Cause are disney, you could walk in and then realize the wait is still really long cause the queue was deceptively long.

Disney and Universal both have estimated wait time clocks outside their lines.

 

[Planogirl]

We also like the ET queue even though it's an odd little ride.

 

[SingLikeC]

Lol.....universal guide, the book!

There's quite a few Universal Guides out there. Which one are you referring to?

 

[cissy]

Ultimate guide by Kelly Monaghan

 

[kohlby]

My niece will be 10, I guess I will talk with my sister and see if she is comfortable having my niece sit in an area by herself if there are a few rides she doesn't want to ride.

I'm not sure what Universal's policy is, but I'd expect kids that age not be allowed to sit by themselves officially. Rider swap is easy to use. First you all can go in your group but your niece and your sister will go to the rider swap room while the rest go on. Then your sister can go on while another adult waits with your niece - and two more people can go with her. My older kids loved child swap because they would get to do a ride twice in a row without waiting at all the second time. My youngest never minded it either - they have tv's in the waiting area and he liked that he was with us. It also helped us never to try to force a child on a ride. And - unlike one of my trips at Disney - they let us use rider swap for a child who didn't want to do the ride. (I had one trip at Disney where 3 different CM's wouldn't let me use rider swap for my barely 40" child who was too scared to go on the 40" rides!)

 

[squirrel]

I'm not sure what Universal's policy is, but I'd expect kids that age not be allowed to sit by themselves officially. Rider swap is easy to use. First you all can go in your group but your niece and your sister will go to the rider swap room while the rest go on. Then your sister can go on while another adult waits with your niece - and two more people can go with her. My older kids loved child swap because they would get to do a ride twice in a row without waiting at all the second time. My youngest never minded it either - they have tv's in the waiting area and he liked that he was with us. It also helped us never to try to force a child on a ride. And - unlike one of my trips at Disney - they let us use rider swap for a child who didn't want to do the ride. (I had one trip at Disney where 3 different CM's wouldn't let me use rider swap for my barely 40" child who was too scared to go on the 40" rides!)

I would be travelling with just my niece. I would find it hard to believe she can't be left alone at 10 since I have to pay for an adult ticket for her. I would only do what my sister thinks is safe and comfortable with.