Will Islands of Adventure actually be decent on Harry Potter weekend?

[qa4ever]

Hi, we are going the first week of Feb/last week of Jan, and are looking for two days to do Universarl.

One day will either have to be Saturday the 30th of Jan, or Sun the 31st of Jan. The 31st actually shows Islands of Adventure as green. Will it actually be decent?

We don't mind doing all the Harry Potter stuff on another day, but if both parks are going to be wall to wall people, maybe we will extend our trip? Overall, the next weekend looks slightly higher crowds though. Will the following weekend be worse than the 30/31 Harry Potterfest one?

Please advise!

 

[bumbershoot]

We have been there during the weekend. It is NOT something that messes up the parks. The people there for the event are all sucked into convention rooms and other things. They aren't actually all out en masse in the parks. If they are, they would be skipping the events they paid for.

The people who don't pay for the packages then have to stand in line for the events they want to see, which takes even MORE peopel out of the parks.

Seriously, this isn't a big "go on all the rides" weekend, it's a "stand in line to go inside of buildings and be AWAY from the park to see/experience things those suckers in line for the rides are missing" weekend for the attendees.

Two possible/sometimes/could-happen type bonuses of being there for the weekend: hot butterbeer was started during/for the weekend in 2014, and then thankfully came back. Also, there's the tiny possibility of actor-sightings. We got to meet, by total chance, Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), and she was sweet and kind enough to stop and take a picture with us. That doesn't happen on a normal weekend.