WWOHP/IOA Dec. 19-20 - 9am arrival?

[PrincessV]

Anyone care to shake the Magic 8 Ball?! We'll be visiting IOA, (specifically for WWOHP but will want to see more of IOA, as well), Dec. 19 or 20 for the first time. The park opens at 8am and I just KNOW we won't get there that early!

Our priorities are:

*The FJ queue - not necessarily to ride, as we likely won't (don't think my DS is up for it.)

*FOTH

*Exploring the WWOHP scenery and shops.

*Spiderman

*Jurassic Park

And a few more would be nice, but not imperative.

Any thoughts? If we arrive around 9am, do you think we'd be best off hitting the FJ queue right away? We really want the time to fully explore the queue, but we don't want to get stuck in there for 3 hours, either. I keep hearing that the shops get very busy later in the morning - should we hit those next?

Thanks for the help!

 

[damo]

There is a separate line if you just want to view the castle and not ride. Ask the attendant before you get in line.

 

[PrincessV]

There is a separate line if you just want to view the castle and not ride. Ask the attendant before you get in line.

Oh wow, even better - thank you for telling me!

 

[stwyatt]

we were there the weekdays before thanksgiving--usually a pretty quiet time, but with WWOHP everything is different. You should be okay for spiderman and jurasssic park--really anything in IOA except WWOHP. I would look at the FOTH line each morning after we had done FJ and it was not too bad--but if the parks are busy, you may have trouble just getting into the WWOHP without a wait. I can't imagine the parks being that busy on the 19th, 20th, but i couldn't believe how busy they were for our time there.

 

[nodoubtrock]

if you go in the separate line for FJ castle tour, you miss the mirror of erised, green house, house points, a few statues, talking portraits room (you see a different one), entrance to dumbledore's office, and close up view of things in his office such as the pensive. Just fyi.

 

[PrincessV]

we were there the weekdays before thanksgiving--usually a pretty quiet time, but with WWOHP everything is different. You should be okay for spiderman and jurasssic park--really anything in IOA except WWOHP. I would look at the FOTH line each morning after we had done FJ and it was not too bad--but if the parks are busy, you may have trouble just getting into the WWOHP without a wait. I can't imagine the parks being that busy on the 19th, 20th, but i couldn't believe how busy they were for our time there.

Those are my thoughts, too. It's a very quiet time of the year, but I expect everything to be a bit heavier at WWOHP.

if you go in the separate line for FJ castle tour, you miss the mirror of erised, green house, house points, a few statues, talking portraits room (you see a different one), entrance to dumbledore's office, and close up view of things in his office such as the pensive. Just fyi.

UGH, thank you - we're definitely more about seeing all of those details than riding the ride, so this is good to know!