Spent so much time planning disney have no time to plan Universal

[travelingmom4]

So tomorrow we are heading to Universal and Islands. We want to do every ride except Dr Suess ride. We have 2 days, tomorrow and Saturday. Lines app is telling us to go to Harry Potter area later in day. Should we just follow lines? Or is there a post on here that gives an order we should follow for the day if we want to hit everything?

How are lines compared to Disney?(we realize with it being Presidents Day weekend it will be busy, but will it be as busy as Disney?)

We will start at rope drop. We will be there until close. We will stop for a quick dinner and bringing in lunch. We have park to park tickets.

 

[bchbetha]

Don't wait to do HP rides. Sometimes rides break and you could miss out if you only reserve the evening for them. Ride your must rides in the morning. Visit Diagon Alley in the evening as well as the morning (evening bc it's really cool then).
Do you have express passes?

 

[travelingmom4]

Don't wait to do HP rides. Sometimes rides break and you could miss out if you only reserve the evening for them. Ride your must rides in the morning. Visit Diagon Alley in the evening as well as the morning (evening bc it's really cool then).
Do you have express passes?

No express passes unfortunately. Thanks for your insight. We kind of do Disney in 2 rounds. 1st round hit the headliners, 2nd time around hit the rest. I'm thinking the same with US and Islands then? Making HP first?

 

[GusGus77]

So tomorrow we are heading to Universal and Islands. We want to do every ride except Dr Suess ride. We have 2 days, tomorrow and Saturday. Lines app is telling us to go to Harry Potter area later in day. Should we just follow lines? Or is there a post on here that gives an order we should follow for the day if we want to hit everything?

How are lines compared to Disney?(we realize with it being Presidents Day weekend it will be busy, but will it be as busy as Disney?)

We will start at rope drop. We will be there until close. We will stop for a quick dinner and bringing in lunch. We have park to park tickets.

Since Presidents Day is February 20, I don't think that is a concern.....

 

[nighttowll]

If you have early entry because you are staying at a Universal resort or have booked a package through a partner hotel that offers this perk, do HP first to avoid crowds once the park opens.

If you don't have early entry, I'd ride the headliners in the rest of the park first as the early entry people will be in the HP section since that is the only part of the park they open early, and it will get crowded very fast early on. Then, use single rider to ride HP later in the day.

The only exception to this is if you are going to Universal primarily for HP only or are big HP fan, and this is your first trip. HP lovers can find themselves spending hours wondering around this area taking it all in. I think we spent 6 hours in the HP section our first trip. If this is the case, give yourself time to explore, shop, eat, play with wands, send owl post, watch the stage shows, take pics with characters, and ride the rides.

 

[TommyJK]

Since Presidents Day is February 20, I don't think that is a concern.....

I think they meant MLK Weekend and not Presidents day by mistake.

 

[travelingmom4]

I think they meant MLK Weekend and not Presidents day by mistake.

Yes I did mean MLK!! (Shaking my head in shame)

 

[TommyJK]

Looking at last years wait times for the Friday and Saturday of MLK Weekend, Friday was WAY slower than Saturday (Potter rides peaked at 20 minute wait times but didn't appear to have gone any higher than that).

Saturday was significantly busier with headliners at upwards of 60 minutes. So still not "Disney" crazy but quite busy.

Maximize your ride times tomorrow and enjoy the weekend!

I'll be hitting up our first park day on Sunday.

 

[TnTWalter]

go to touringplans and check their touring plans [they're free for the basics]...have fun.

 

[travelingmom4]

We went Friday and Saturday. Saturday was crazy busy imo. But we decided to follow the lines app from touring plans and I think it worked out really well. We hit virtually every ride and show except Sinbad. So I think the lines app worked well except the wait times were way off. We followed the universal app for wait times. Oh, and we had baby swap so a couple of us had time to ride most rides twice.

So lines ap does have you going to HP later, I think it worked out well. Since we were able to ride a lot of the other rides by 10am. They let us in at 8:50 both days too which I think helped us get a jump up on others that arrived at 9. Then we were at HP by 2ish both days. The second day we skipped the train and walked from hogsmeade to Diagon Alley. Glad we did, the wait was long and the walk wasn't too bad.