Help with Wizarding World of HP??

[DarcyLongfellow]

Hey!

DH and I decided kind of last minute to drive down to Orlando TODAY and go to WWOHP for two days for our anniversary.

I'm usually a total overplanner, but I've done basically nothing to prepare. Neither of us has been to Universal since we were teenagers.

I know to buy the park hopper (or whatever they call it) passes so we can take the Hogwarts Express.

But can you help me on everything else? Which park first? What rides first? What order? Any restaurants we need to hit?

We're planning pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday at the two parks. If we spend the whole time at HP, that's fine, but if there's anything else we should see at Universal or IoA, tell me!

chilerellanos? just?

Thank you!!!

[just]

I'm not experts like most of the people here - I just love me some harry potter! I know that it's Halloween Nights right now at universal which is supposed to be amazeballs so you might want to think about getting tickets for that.

I had a plan on which park which day for when I went, but looking at the calendar both saturday and sunday are moderate days and both days are allowing early access to residents to Universal. With the added element of early closing in Universal for Halloween night I don't know the best strategy. Maybe someone else can help with that.

Whichever park you go to for opening each morning, I'd probably head straight to the big HP ride in that park - so Gringotts for Universal and Hogwarts for IOA. Do the full queue for both of them at least once, because that's where the fun lore stuff is if you're a HP fan. After that, the single rider line for both of those are awesome. The Universal app is a good way of checking out wait times for rides in different areas of the park.

The food in the two harry potter restaurants are theme park food, but slightly better than other places. I prefer the atmosphere in the three broomsticks (IOA) rather than the Leaky Calderon, but both are cool, and over two days you could eat in both if you wanted.

I didn't like butterbeer (either frozen or not) but I'm in the minority I think. I did like pumpkin juice though. I did think that the actual beer styles were fun in the bar in Diagon Alley.

I have a meeting and will pop back later.

[just]

ooh and cowfish in the citywalk is nummy!

[DarcyLongfellow]

just, and chilerellanos, Thank you both so much!!!

Nope, not staying onsite. We actually had trouble finding a room anywhere because apparently the Halloween events are so popular (I knew they were popular, but I had no idea it would make booking hotels hard!).

I really appreciate all the tips. I'm not a coaster person at ALL, so I'm wondering whether or not I'll enjoy the rest of the parks. It'll be a fun trip no matter what though :-)

[curbsideprophet]

Check the park hours closely. We were there in Oct and the on party nights Universal closed pretty early. We were still able to get all we wanted to do done in one day but it did impact how I scheduled things. We only had one day, so it may not be as big a deal over two days.

Do you subscribe to touring plans? You can on universal for a few bucks.

[just]

How was it? Did you have a blast? DarcyLongfellow,