What time did universal parks hit capacity today 3/15?

[javaj]

Anyone know what time the universal parks hit capacity today? Thanks

 

[bchbetha]

Per Twitter:
Today, March 15th at 11:42 am, Universal Studios Florida & Islands of Adventure have reached capacity. We anticipate reopening later this afternoon. For updates, please call our capacity hotline: 407-817-8317

 

[abnihon]

Does the app usually alert you?

 

[Gizmo74]

Anyone know what time the universal parks hit capacity today? Thanks

Not sure but we stood in the stand by line for about 10 minutes at 3:50 pm and got in. Once inside the park doesn’t feel very packed so for sure they are still limiting how many they let in. But also the parks usually start thinning around this time anyways. We have express pass thanks to our annual pass and it has come in handy so far.

 

[abnihon]

Not sure but we stood in the stand by line for about 10 minutes at 3:50 pm and got in. Once inside the park doesn’t feel very packed so for sure they are still limiting how many they let in. But also the parks usually start thinning around this time anyways. We have express pass thanks to our annual pass and it has come in handy so far.

The wait times were insane!! Maybe all the people were in line. Lol.
It motivated me to book onsite and get the unlimited express pass for our April trip!!

 

[Gizmo74]

The wait times were insane!! Maybe all the people were in line. Lol.
It motivated me to book onsite and get the unlimited express pass for our April trip!!

That might be the case. We don’t even look how long the line is using express pass. We haven’t waited long for anything. We have been getting here right at 4 pm.

 

[javaj]

Thanks!

Per Twitter:
Today, March 15th at 11:42 am, Universal Studios Florida & Islands of Adventure have reached capacity. We anticipate reopening later this afternoon. For updates, please call our capacity hotline: 407-817-8317

 

[keishashadow]

The wait times were insane!! Maybe all the people were in line. Lol.
It motivated me to book onsite and get the unlimited express pass for our April trip!!

We were surprised how busy the 1st partial week of May was in Orlando.

The rest of the month has been predicted to be a bit of a zoo at all the parks.

Hope it’s just spring break/local schools out (I think) phenom. Otherwise, summer will be a bit challenging even for those staying onsite.

 

[NorthernCalMom]

We're going in early April, so I figure it'll be busy. We have Park-to-Park ticket and are planning to visit both Universal Florida and Islands of Adventure (with a heavy focus on anything Harry Potter and maybe a few other rides thrown in for good measure). We're early birds and are trying to Uber from our Disneyworld resort in the early morning. We've never been to Universal Florida before and have so many questions:

(1.) If one of the parks reaches capacity, will we still be able to use our park-2-park ticket to hop, or will that mean they shut down the Hogwarts Express until the crowd level has gotten low enough for them to let people back in?

(2.) We'll be there April 2, which is Good Friday. Given that it's likely to be packed, would we be better off starting in Universal Florida and then hopping to Islands of Adventure or vice versa?

TIA for helping us figure this out!

 

[abnihon]

We're going in early April, so I figure it'll be busy. We have Park-to-Park ticket and are planning to visit both Universal Florida and Islands of Adventure (with a heavy focus on anything Harry Potter and maybe a few other rides thrown in for good measure). We're early birds and are trying to Uber from our Disneyworld resort in the early morning. We've never been to Universal Florida before and have so many questions:

(1.) If one of the parks reaches capacity, will we still be able to use our park-2-park ticket to hop, or will that mean they shut down the Hogwarts Express until the crowd level has gotten low enough for them to let people back in?

(2.) We'll be there April 2, which is Good Friday. Given that it's likely to be packed, would we be better off starting in Universal Florida and then hopping to Islands of Adventure or vice versa?

TIA for helping us figure this out!

I’m in a similar position - going for the first time Tuesday April 6th in the middle of a Disney week and mostly focused on Harry Potter. This board (and Universal app wait times) convinced me to move on-site to Universal for 1 night to get the unlimited express pass you get with top tier hotels. You can also buy express pass but prices are crazy! For my date it is $279 each on top of our tickets! It ended up being cheaper to pay $613 for a Royal Pacific room and cancel a night at Pop (which saves $241)
There are lower tier hotels that get early entry but not unlimited express pass. But still an advantage if you’re early birds.

(I’m still learning so others may have better advice) but if you don’t want to move on-site or pay for express pass and really only care about the Harry Potter stuff I would get there early, get a virtual line spot for Hagrid’s on your phone at 0745, run to Gringotts ride in Diagon Alley, explore there, take Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade and then ride Hagrid’s with your virtual line spot and the other Harry Potter rides and explore Hogsmeade. The problem is by mid morning during spring break every line seems to be 1-2 hours including the Hogwarts Express!

Also interested in hearing other answers to your first question but I think you’re fine as long as you don’t exit park and try to re-enter. But good question!

 

[GabrielMom]

Has Volcano bay hit capacity? We are currently at Disney, went to blizzard beach cause we weren't going to be able to be at volcano bay at opening, we have one more water day planned and need some crazy river!

 

[NorthernCalMom]

Also interested in hearing other answers to your first question but I think you’re fine as long as you don’t exit park and try to re-enter. But good question!

Just read elsewhere that, yes, capacity closures only effect people who try to enter either park from the outside and that the Hogwarts Express will keep running, so here’s for both of us. Based on the wait times I looked at so far, it definitely makes sense for us to start with Universal rather than IoA, since we’re from CA and this may be our only shot at Gringotts & Hagrid’s. If we have to face a long line for Forbidden Journey, so be it (especially since I remember from riding it in Universal Hollywood—kids & I have done it at that time, husband, who was stuck at a conference, didn’t—that the line is quite fun once you enter the building).

Feel free to contact me via private message, abnihon, if you want to exchange touring plans!

 

[KirbyLouWho]

We were surprised how busy the 1st partial week of May was in Orlando.

The rest of the month has been predicted to be a bit of a zoo at all the parks.

Hope it’s just spring break/local schools out (I think) phenom. Otherwise, summer will be a bit challenging even for those staying onsite.

There are two cheer competitions back-to-back from May 1-6, (one of which is brand new to the sport) in the universal area, so that probably accounts for the uptick. One was originally supposed to take place inside IOA but had to be moved to the convention center due to volume, but most of the cheer families are still staying on site. We're there for the All Star Worlds those days.

 

[keishashadow]

There are two cheer competitions back-to-back from May 1-6, (one of which is brand new to the sport) in the universal area, so that probably accounts for the uptick.

Are you saying there are competing competitions going on at the same time, one at WDW & another at U this year?

No offense, hope they are dividing the normal pool of attendees instead of attracting a much larger pool of people. It may make it very difficult for non-onsite folks to gain access to the U parks other than near rope drop. Haven’t looked at the WDW park reservation calendar for May lately, know pickings are slim currently thru end of month.

 

[KirbyLouWho]

Are you saying there are competing competitions going on at the same time, one at WDW & another at U this year?

No offense, hope they are dividing the normal pool of attendees instead of attracting a much larger pool of people. It may make it very difficult for non-onsite folks to gain access to the U parks other than near rope drop. Haven’t looked at the WDW park reservation calendar for May lately, know pickings are slim currently thru end of month.

Sort of... I don't know how much you personally know about All Star Cheer, but in case anyone else here is interested...
there are a LOT of end of year competitions in Orlando. Most of them are owned by the mega company (read: monopoly ugh) Varsity. This year at ESPN things kick off in mid April
16-17 Quest Championship
17-18 UCA International Championship
22-23 National Dance Team Championship
24-25 High School Nationals
27-28 College Nationals
30-5/1 D1 Summit
5/2-3 Dance Summit
6-7 Dance Worlds
8-10 Cheer Worlds
13-15 D2 Summit

Now, Varsity has seen that the numbers for both Summits have been insane the past few years. They wanted to make it more exclusive again, which I totally get. The thing is, they picked the exact wrong way to do that. Instead of giving fewer bids to attend, or requiring teams to win regional titles to move on, they simply dropped all the youth age teams from Summit. The cheer parent world went into a frenzy. This resulted in two things, 1) gyms being compelled by angry parents to put more kids on junior aged teams (which this year because of the year of birth requirements can technically have kids anywhere from *6 to 16*), and 2) gyms and teams looking for other options besides Varsity.

In steps a group of Independent Intellectual Properties (Deep South/RedLine/ AllOut/etc). They already had one end of season event called The One that is May 1-2 that allows teams to earn points at smaller competitions and use them to attend. When they saw how Varsity had changed Summit, they saw an opportunity, they started offering bids to a new event The Allstar Worlds which will be May 3-5. They're including mini through senior level teams, are keeping costs WAY lower than any of those Varsity events, but keeping the number of bids lower than Summit. Even still the number of teams that decided to go there instead was more than they anticipated so they have moved the venue. I should also say those attending these two events have been given the option to buy park tickets through the event hosts. We were told however that there are a finite number of tickets being sold through them ( I believe 7500 / event). If we buy through them Universal is supposedly guaranteeing our ability to enter the parks whether we stay on site or not, but unlike the Varsity/Disney events they're not requiring us to buy park tickets to see our kids compete so not eveyone is going that route or even staying on-site.

So the tl;dr is, pool of people are split out over a total of 12 events, BUT they're all in Orlando & all clustered up together on the calendar. So yeah. No offence taken because I don't make the schedule, just help my kid do the thing she loves. I realize it's going to be bananas down there for several weeks.

 

[keishashadow]

So the tl;dr is, pool of people are split out over a total of 12 events, BUT they're all in Orlando & all clustered up together on the calendar. So yeah. No offence taken because I don't make the schedule, just help my kid do the thing she loves. I realize it's going to be bananas down there for several weeks.

That’s actually a fascinating read for those of us not in that world. I had all DSs. Their sports competitions pretty cut & dried, thank goodness!

OT, but goes to increased crowd speculation

I’ve been invested in GD’s sport of USA gymnastics since she was four y.o.. competition is heavily sanctioned by national committee in all the states. Strict, but nice that the rules are cut & dried to point it makes things easy. You basically need to qualify to go to state competition, then onto nationals.

She‘s participated in highly competitive, invitational events held in FL, along with international teams, mostly Brazilians. Not manadatory but, nice exposure for the girls who want to experience it.

The last one was the end of March in Daytona where she came in 3rd overall her level . There were competitors from out the US btw. Not quite sure how that happened

DH & I skipped it due to social distancing concerns as to the number of participants. FL is rolling differently than my state & many others, guess that accounts for the large numbers of attendees this year...all the pent up energy

However, the number of participants in gymnastics even pre-pandemic is nothing on the scale of what you mention above. Good luck, have fun!

 

[cfoxga]

I’m in a similar position - going for the first time Tuesday April 6th in the middle of a Disney week and mostly focused on Harry Potter. This board (and Universal app wait times) convinced me to move on-site to Universal for 1 night to get the unlimited express pass you get with top tier hotels. You can also buy express pass but prices are crazy! For my date it is $279 each on top of our tickets! It ended up being cheaper to pay $613 for a Royal Pacific room and cancel a night at Pop (which saves $241)

I believe $613 is a "Seasonal" rate, which is basically full price. Keep an eye out for an AHP rate, which would probably in the $375 range. While it does require an annual pass, you'd still probably come out ahead. Unfortunately, the APH rates were grabbed up a couple months ago, but you might get lucky and snag one before your trip...