Ride wait times and how long to stay?

[Mousefan mom]

Hello,

This summer we are planning our first trip to Universal (we are seasoned Disney people). We plan to only do Universal this trip, but I am wondering how long to stay? I know its much smaller than Disney (and we can easily stay there a week and not get bored). We are not big water park people, although I could see a day of pool hoping and City Walk built in.

Also, I've downloaded the app, and the ride wait times seem to always be high. According to a lot of the You Tube vlogs I've found they comment that you often don't even need EP, and to wait until you get there and see if you would actually need it. Yet, each time I check the ride waits are so long. At Disney there are rides that are long, but there always seems to be some shows you can see or rides to do that frequently have less than 20 minute waits to fill the time...is this the case at Universal?

 

[damo]

If you want the best experience, stay onsite at one of the three deluxe hotels and EP is included. Usually wait times will be under 20 minutes with the unlimited express pass. Summer crowds can get pretty high, especially if the new Harry Potter coaster is open (as it is supposed to be amazing).

I would stay for a minimum of 3 full days.

 

[Mousefan mom]

Sounds good. We are a family of five, so it will be a tight squeeze with the 3 that allow EP. We debated on staying at Cabana Bay, for the extra room space, and just buying the EP if it was needed. We did plan to go during summer. I'll reconsider for one of the 3 hotels though. CB looks really neat through.

 

[AntimonyER]

We are a family of 5 and did Portofino Bay pretty easily. We brought an air mattress to avoid the roll away fee.

 

[macraven]

How many days do you plan for UO?

You could do 2 nights at the lower priced premier hotel and switch to Cbay for the rest of your stay

Or one night at a premier and rest of the stay at Cbay

When staying at one of the 3 premier hotels, the free unlimited ep includes your check in and check out days

 

[Spike101]

From all the research I've done for my forthcoming trip, and believe me I've done a lot, if you're a family of five going at a busy time, even booking one of the deluxe hotels for just one night would give all 5 of you EP for 2 days at the park, and that would save you a ton of money on buying EP for all of you if you think its needed when you get there.

Check the online crowd calenders for when you're going and do the maths on probable EP prices per day at that time of year vs the one night stay in one of the deluxe hotels, also having that room for the day will give you a great bolt-hole if you want to take a break at any point.

 

[schumigirl]

During the summer there can be longer lines of course, this is where EP is worth its weight in gold. Our wait times are always less than 20 minutes whatever time of year we visit, and a lot of the times we walk straight on a ride.....and have been “boooed” by folks in the regular line as we do repeat rides while some folks are still in the regular line. Of course incidents like the ride going down can sometimes happen and line can get longer than usual, but they’ll tell you this is the case.

You wouldn’t regret staying at any of the hotels with EP included. As of being bored, I doubt it.......there is plenty to do and with being so close you can easily head back to any of the hotels and have some pool time during the day.

The hotels encourage pool hopping unlike Disney.

We stay for longer periods of time and we never get bored with the parks.....

 

[sam_gordon]

if you're a family of five going at a busy time, even booking one of the deluxe hotels for just one night would give all 5 of you EP for 2 days at the park, and that would save you a ton of money on buying EP for all of you if you think its needed when you get there.

We went to Universal on 12/26. There were 5 of us. We booked one night at Port Royale for the free EP. OMG, SOO glad we did. I think the longest wait we had was maybe 15 minutes. If we would have paid for EP separately, it would have been ~$1k because of the day we went. Instead the hotel room was $600. We got to the park at 8am (could have been there at 7 with early entry, but not that easy getting 5 of us going in the morning). We left shortly before 5p, and only missed a couple rides that we had picked out earlier (and that was doing both parks). I will say all the 3D rides did get a little similar.

 

[macraven]

Royal Pacific?

 

[Scifidiner]

EP, 3 days.