Thanksgiving Weekend Report

[dmanwi]

We did two days at Universal - Thanksgiving Day at IOA and Sat Nov 26th at USO. We had teenagers and an 11yo. We used Touring Plans which we thought worked really well. The only lines we waited in were for the Potter rides which we did not mind considering the queues were really cool.

We stayed off-side and did non have express pass. We debated between doing both parks in one day vs two separate days. We thought these days would be busy so decided to go over two days. We also decided to save money and not buy park to park tickets.

In the end we found the parks really not busy at all. We did not do any of the roller coasters (except for Mummy). We were able to tour both parks and each day were done by 5pm. We could have easily done both parks in one day. We did the Seuss and Simpsons areas but would for sure skip them next time considering the ages of our kids. We also did not do any meet and greets which could take up some time.

Potter, Kong, Spiderman, Minions, and Jurassic were our favorites. Everything else did not really impress us all that much. The Marvel and cartoon areas of IOA were really rather boring.

If I did it again I would definitely do one day. There were really no rides other than the ones I mentioned above that I would care about if I missed.

Excellent: Spiderman, Kong, Jurassic, Bilge Rats, Potter rides, Minions, Potter, Sinbad Show, Animal Actors, Mummy, Shrek 4D, Transformers.
Meh: ET.
Bad: High in the Sky, Cat in the Hat was absolutely AWFUL! Men in Black, Terminator.

This was our first trip to Universal and probably our last. We find the Disney parks so much better with the exception of Potter.

 

[policycobb]

I am planning a trip this Thanksgiving, normally a Disney family over fall break. Can you compare Disney crowded to the Thanksgiving Universal crowd?

 

[Lisa0620]

Not the OP but we did Disney TG 2014 and Universal TG 2015, so maybe I can help you. I kind of expected Universal to be less crowded than Disney from things I had read, but found the crowds to be comparable. The first couple hours most everything (except headliners like Gringotts and Despicable Me) are walk ons and then the parks get uncomfortably crowded for most of the afternoon through closing. I kind of missed the late nights at MK, everything closes so much earlier at Universal. Sunday and Monday are doable without express pass, but I think it's definitely worth it to get express pass for later in the week, even if you have to book a throwaway room to get it. Our TG Disney trip was fun, but we really felt limited in what we could do by the crowds and only having 3 FP+'s. We decided after that trip that Disney is only worth the money for us if we can go at lower crowd times like Labor Day. We've now done both TG and spring break at Universal and love it during high crowd times. The walkways and restaurants are definitely crowded, but with express you don't feel like you have to rush to stay ahead of the crowds so it's just a more relaxing experience. We tend to make our Universal trips 5 days instead of the 7 we do at Disney because the 2 parks start to feel a little repetitive to us after about 3 days (mostly our own fault because we're ride wimps and have to skip a lot!) We're heading back this Thanksgiving again with the same extended family group from our 2014 Disney trip and I can't wait to show them Universal this time!

 

[policycobb]

Thank you. We do have express passes for Universal. Staying at Royal Pacific. We have only been once for a quick two days at the parks for my DD's 11th birthday and it wasn't crowded. I was concerned about not being able to enjoy anything. Sounds like we should have a good time.