Universal Plans on Touring Plans

[soniam]

We will be at Universal for the first time on Sat-Mon, 3/14-16. We are staying at RPR and have 3 day park hoppers. We will be using EE. I am using Touring Plans and have used it before for WDW and DLR.

I was thinking of using their 2 park/2 day with hopper plan for the first 2 days and then then fill the 3rd with repeats, anything missed, and browsing/shopping in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. However, the plan looks kind of weird and jumps between both parks on both days. Has anyone used this plan or think it looks okay?

I have heard HP areas get crowded. Should we just browse/shop each one when we do the rides, or save it for later in the day or for our 3rd day?

Thanks

 

[johde]

I've look at the 1 day/2 park plan and skimmed the 2 day/2 park plan. The parks are very close together and park hopping between them is very easy. At most it's a 5-10 minute walk through City Walk. The Hogwarts Express connect the 2 sections of the WWOHP together in the back of each park. By park hopping each day on the train you get to experience both journeys from Diagon Alley to Hogwarts/Hogmeads and Hogmead back to London (the journeys are different). The basic structure though looks good. You may want to copy it over to the Personalized Touring plans and customize it for any attractions you want to add or delete and to evaluate/optimize to get an indication of timing for the days your interested in.

If you want to see a slightly different take on things, Orlando Informer has a 3 day/2 park touring plan primarily for onsite guests that features recommended break times to go back and enjoy the resorts. (unfortunately Dis does not allow direct linking to the site).

 

[soniam]

Thanks for the info. I had thought that maybe the plan was broken up like that in order to ride the express both ways. I'll take a look at the other plan too. I am definitely customizing the TP plan, because my family won't want to do some of the big coasters. DH and I are not huge coaster or water ride fans. DS will be 9 and won't/can't do all of the big coasters.

Do you think that Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley will be really packed during mid-March? I am trying to decide if we just want to just do the rides in each HP section first thing during EE and then leave the HP section to do rides in the rest of the park. We would then go back later during the day or even on our 3rd day and do the shopping and browsing. I am concerned that we wouldn't be able to get back in easily due to crowds. I seem to be getting conflicting views of the crowds. Some things say it will be very busy and do everything you want in the HP section first thing. Others say that they are not as busy as they used to be and you should be able to come an go.

 

[lazer]

Sharing our experience in October:
The HP shops seemed to be crowded all of the time during our week stay. Especially considering the fact that if Gringotts is down, many people hang out in the area and wait for it to be back up. Shopping during Early Hours was a big help for us. Diagon Alley gets crowded fast and a lot of people are just standing around, so we found it more manageable in the morning. And, we took full advantage and had ice cream for breakfast one day!

 

[soniam]

Sharing our experience in October:
The HP shops seemed to be crowded all of the time during our week stay. Especially considering the fact that if Gringotts is down, many people hang out in the area and wait for it to be back up. Shopping during Early Hours was a big help for us. Diagon Alley gets crowded fast and a lot of people are just standing around, so we found it more manageable in the morning. And, we took full advantage and had ice cream for breakfast one day!

Thanks! That's what I needed to know. Since we will have EP, wait times for the non-HP stuff may not be too bad.

Love the ice cream for breakfast idea Hopefully, the weather won't be cold. That reminds me of the Bridget Jones movie. In Germany, it was called Schokolade fur Fruhstuck (Chocolate for Breakfast).

 

[johde]

I'm a Universal veteran of sorts but I'm only visited once since Hogsmead opened and that was late in the Christmas/New Years madness. So, this is based more on second hand knowledge.

The middle of March will be busy. The 2 middle weeks in March are prime Spring Break weeks for Colleges. It won't be Christmas/Easter insane but busy. Trip reports from Thanksgiving weekend will probably give you a good indication of hot well WWOHP handles the crowds.

Like lazer said, the shops at Hogmead I know are small. Everything I've heard has said Forbidden Journey has been running well and doesn't have the gargantuan lines it once did. And both at both Harry Potter rides you want at least a little bit of a line so you can enjoy the themeing inside the Castle/Bank.

Also, the parks are beautiful at night and I've heard the Harry Potter areas are especially so. That's one reason why they've got the evening visits to the area. That and the crowds die back down closer to closing.