US/IOA 11/7-11/9 was great for crowds. How is Veteran's Day?

[suebo]

Hi there,

My DH and I went to US/IOA (without the 3 DD's) on Nov. 7,8,9. There were no crowds and it was awesome. We could just ride everything as many times as we wanted with little to no wait. We were impressed! We always do Disney with our kids and thought that US/IOA would have too many thrill rides for them. After seeing how well themed and how laid back everything was with lots to do for the kids, we want to bring the girls back the same time next year. My question is did anyone go on Nov. 10-15? They have that time off from school because of Veterans Day and we could sneak away but I'm wondering if alot of people go at that time. Anyone go then or know what the crowds were like at that time? Thanks, Sue

 

[Bowen9475]

We were in Florida November 7 - 14 this year. We visited US on 11/8 and 11/11(Veteran's Day) and IOA on 11/9 and 11/12. We had our three kids 8, 5 1/2 and 2 with us. We had a really good time. The parks were a little busier than I expected but not too bad at all. We feel we saw everything we wanted to and some favorites more than once. The kids really enjoyed Seussland and the Marvel Superhero area.

 

[suebo]

thanks for your reply.

That's the answer I was hoping for. Our girls are 9,7,5 and I think that would be a great time to visit. We would just have to rescedule their parent/teacher conferences. So, what was the average wait time for the biggies like hulk, dueling dragons and Dr. Dooms fearfall? Not that any of my girls would do any of those but it would be nice to switch off with my husband and try to squeeze some of those rides in. We both said that we would be happy just doing kid stuff when we went back with the kids since we did everything to our hearts content this past trip but..... another ride on the Hulk would be great. When we were there the wait time would say 15 mins. but by the time you walked all the way through to the front of the line, it was more like 5 mins. of just walking.

At Universal, we both agreed that we didn't feel the need to do Terminator, BTTF, Jaws, Twister, earthquake, etc. unless the kids wanted to. The only must for us would be The Revenge of The Mummy. Did you do that? We just loved that! We rode it 4 times.

 

[Bowen9475]

We were lucky - we got parent conferences in before we left.
The longest wait we had was for The Mummy which my husband and I rode together but neither of us liked it very much. We did The Hulk twice one day and once the second day. All three were maybe a five minute wait with the walk time included. We didn't try Dr. Doom. The older kids liked ET, Jaws and Earthquake. Our 5 year old did Twister with us and none of the 3 of us were very impressed. I waited in line by myself for Dueling Dragons which said it had a 15 minute wait. I waited at least a half hour, the line not moving most of the time, and finally left the line without riding. We also waited for about 20 minutes each for Jimmy Neutron and Shrek but the kids liked both of them. We had almost no wait the first time we did Men in Black and waited about 40 minutes the second day because the kids really wanted to ride again. We hit Seuss Landing about 10:00 one morning and walked right on all the rides. We used the Express Pass a few times and it helped, especially for JP River Adventure, but for the most part it wasn't needed. Hope that helps!
PS - We had my sister in law with us which enabled us to ride a few things together which was a big treat. She also kept the 2 year old so we could take the other two on some of the rides he couldn't do that they could.

 

[fractured]

We were there too, on 11/6, 11/7, 11/9, 11/10, and 11/14. The crowds were very light, as you noticed, except 11/14. They had some kind of high school band day going on, and those kids were hitting the coasters hard. We followed the sage advice of the experienced- get to the park just before opening and you will not have a problem. We rode everything we wanted multiple times. We often left the park around 2pm as we had seen and done all we wanted. We never used the express pass once (Okay, the last Sunday we tried to get passes for one last ride on the Mummy, but they were all out)The coaster lines were not bad at all from opening until about 11:30 am. Basically all rides were walk on until that time frame.
ETA it is my understading that In FL, Veterans Day was celebrated on Monday, 11/15. Here in Ma we always celebrate it on the actual day. I guess this is not the case in Fl. Let me know if I'm wrong.

 

[nymomof3]

for everyone that was there did you stay onsite or off site, cause with fotl you should of been able to do everything and not wait to long. please let me know as i am going over easter and was hoping with fotl it won't be that bad. thanks