Help me plan time at Universal Studios!

[Anonymous]

If they are Harry Potter fans, go to the wand shop as early as you can, then proceed from there.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to mention this in my last post. What some regular US visitors say to do is to check how much it will be to get a one night at one of the on-site hotels, pick the cheapest rate, even if you are staying off site. Make sure you actually check into the room. And you will get your front of the line passes cheaper than buying them and it will give you 2 days of them with one night It will also give you a place to rest or relax during the day if needed. Parking might be included, I'm not sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forgot to mention this in my last post. What some regular US visitors say to do is to check how much it will be to get a one night at one of the on-site hotels, pick the cheapest rate, even if you are staying off site. Make sure you actually check into the room. And you will get your front of the line passes cheaper than buying them and it will give you 2 days of them with one night It will also give you a place to rest or relax during the day if needed. Parking might be included, I'm not sure.

We are going in October and this is what we did. Instead of buying the passes separately, we are staying at Royal Pacific. It was around $280 per night and we get the express passes for free plus 1 hour early entry for Harry Potter. We thought it was worth the ~$100 per night premium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forgot to mention this in my last post. What some regular US visitors say to do is to check how much it will be to get a one night at one of the on-site hotels, pick the cheapest rate, even if you are staying off site. Make sure you actually check into the room. And you will get your front of the line passes cheaper than buying them and it will give you 2 days of them with one night It will also give you a place to rest or relax during the day if needed. Parking might be included, I'm not sure.

We are going in October and this is what we did. Instead of buying the passes separately, we are staying at Royal Pacific. It was around $280 per night and we get the express passes for free plus 1 hour early entry for Harry Potter. We thought it was worth the ~$100 per night premium.

I'm the previous poster. Just to clarify, I meant still keep your off-site hotel plans but take 2 days out of your trip and just book the least expensive hotel on site and still spend the nite off-sight, get up early and check in so you can get your front of the line passes and then do the parks for 2 days. Then check out and go back to your original hotel. When we were there it would have been $90 a person to buy the express passes (plus HP wasn't included) each for the four of us for one day. For about $200 you can just get a room and get the passes for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forgot to mention this in my last post. What some regular US visitors say to do is to check how much it will be to get a one night at one of the on-site hotels, pick the cheapest rate, even if you are staying off site. Make sure you actually check into the room. And you will get your front of the line passes cheaper than buying them and it will give you 2 days of them with one night It will also give you a place to rest or relax during the day if needed. Parking might be included, I'm not sure.

We are going in October and this is what we did. Instead of buying the passes separately, we are staying at Royal Pacific. It was around $280 per night and we get the express passes for free plus 1 hour early entry for Harry Potter. We thought it was worth the ~$100 per night premium.

I'm the previous poster. Just to clarify, I meant still keep your off-site hotel plans but take 2 days out of your trip and just book the least expensive hotel on site and still spend the nite off-sight, get up early and check in so you can get your front of the line passes and then do the parks for 2 days. Then check out and go back to your original hotel. When we were there it would have been $90 a person to buy the express passes (plus HP wasn't included) each for the four of us for one day. For about $200 you can just get a room and get the passes for free.

$90 x 2 < $200

Why would you go through the trouble of booking a hotel room that you are not going to use for passes that cost less than the cost of the room? Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

OP here. For four of us, the express passes would cost $90X4 = $360. I had not thought of buying a separate onsite hotel room just to get the passes.

[Anonymous]

Is it really worth $90 per person for express passes in addition to the $90 ticket? Crazy!

[Anonymous]

If the goal is mostly HP use it still worth paying for the Express passes? They are not applicable for HP rides. Also do folks recommend the unlimited Park-Park tickets? Or the cheaper ones that only allow one entry per park per day?

[Anonymous]

Are the interactive wands worth it?

[Anonymous]

You want to get the park to park tickets for sure, don't just do one park per day because it is easy to jump back and forth on the train plus you want to be able to ride the train and you can't if you only do one park a day tickets (they check before you enter the turnstiles).

If the goal is HP then you want to have the on-site HP express pass that will allow you to bump to the front of the line and maybe even do it early. But if you are going during the week at a down time, you may not need express passes. It's one thing to wait 25 minutes up to 45 minutes for a ride (I think that is normal and doable) but if the wait is 60 plus minutes then you need them. When we went last week, we never had to wait more than 40 minutes for HP but Minions has the long wait consistently. I am an earlier poster and I want to stress checking out the crowd predictions for when you are going to see if it is worth it and having a plan as to what to ride first. Get there first thing at opening, do Minions (if that interests you) then do HP. If you can get to HP area before 10, you will be fine. In US, for HP I would do the ride first and then look around and take pictures and buy the wand and grab a snack. Then I'd check out what is going on in IOA as for timing of HP on that side. If the waits aren't long, I'd take the train over. If the waits are long, I'd stay in US and make HP in IOA my first stop the next day.

My dd has the interactive wand. Is it worth it -- H*** no! But was it cute and kept us busy trying to do the spells -- absolutely. It's just now that we home, it is pointless but if we ever go again, we'd take it back and use. I will say that the HP part of the parks are crazy crowded and there is no way you can do all of the spells or even half. We only did 5 per park and the lines for that were 4 or 5 deep, plus it takes awhile to make them actually work.

[Anonymous]

I'm taking DD who is 11 on Monday and we have the 3-day Park-to-Park, staying onsite at Cabana Bay and already have reservations for the Three Broomsticks and Leaky Cauldron breakfasts. We have the HP early admission passes. We also got passes to the American Express Lounge - is that worth using?

We get there early in the day on Monday and want to make the most of the remainder of that day since it a non-park day for us. Are there spas at CityWalk, and what are not-miss places there to spend the afternoon? Any suggestions for dinner? We'd like one nice one the first night before gearing up for early for the parks. This is a rare trip for DD and me alone, without DH and DS. We are both Harry Potter nerds. TIA.

[Anonymous]

A three-day park-to-park ticket will cost you the same as a two-day: https://www.undercovertourist.com/orlando/universal-orlando-resort/ , so definitely do a third day at Universal rather than pay for one-day passes elsewhere.
(I've bought Disney tickets from Undercover Tourist multiple times, they are a completely legit outfit)

You must have a park-to-park ticket to ride Hogwarts Express, as it connects the Harry Potter sections in each of the two parks.

The Express Pass, whether bought separately or included with an on-site hotel reservation, does not work at any of the three major Harry Potter attractions.

[Anonymous]

So is there any point in buying the Express pass if the only interest is Harry Potter rides?

[Anonymous]

I get that we need the Park-to-Park tickets .. but I would still really love to hear advice on whether to have unlimited Park-to-Park tickets (you can enter as many times as you want) or a regular Park-to-Park (one entrance per park, per day.) The unlimited is much more expensive but perhaps we need those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forgot to mention this in my last post. What some regular US visitors say to do is to check how much it will be to get a one night at one of the on-site hotels, pick the cheapest rate, even if you are staying off site. Make sure you actually check into the room. And you will get your front of the line passes cheaper than buying them and it will give you 2 days of them with one night It will also give you a place to rest or relax during the day if needed. Parking might be included, I'm not sure.

We are going in October and this is what we did. Instead of buying the passes separately, we are staying at Royal Pacific. It was around $280 per night and we get the express passes for free plus 1 hour early entry for Harry Potter. We thought it was worth the ~$100 per night premium.

I'm the previous poster. Just to clarify, I meant still keep your off-site hotel plans but take 2 days out of your trip and just book the least expensive hotel on site and still spend the nite off-sight, get up early and check in so you can get your front of the line passes and then do the parks for 2 days. Then check out and go back to your original hotel. When we were there it would have been $90 a person to buy the express passes (plus HP wasn't included) each for the four of us for one day. For about $200 you can just get a room and get the passes for free.

Be warned that the least expensive on-site hotel doesn't offer the passes.