Universal Help!

[revolution]

Tell me all the things.

We have 2 park passes with the Unlimited Express. I figure if we are going we are doing it up as we might not go again.

How do I plan this? Which side do we start at? What do I need to know. I have no meals planned. Do I need to?

Ugh. I can plan WDW easily and it's fun to plan but I'm lost with where to start for Universal

[TamiTaylor]

Harry Potter or thrill rides? What are your must-dos?

[Wines Not Whines]

We went to Universal in August. We focused on the Harry Potter parts of the park, but we also checked out the rest of the park. Are you staying on-site? I highly recommend it, both because it’s convenient and also because you can use the Express Pass for lines, so you don’t have to wait as long for rides. We didn’t plan much else in advance. I’m not sure you need to, unless you’re going at a very busy time like Christmas. We didn’t make any dining reservations. We mostly ate in the City Walk area.

[revolution]

Mostly Harry Potter because of the tween. But open to anything!

We aren't staying onsite but we did purchase the express pass. I choked on the cost but I coughed it up anyway.

[mainelyfoolish]

With the Express Pass, you don’t really need to plan anything. Since you’re not staying onsite, you might want to start in the park that doesn’t have the early opening for on site guests. Getting to the park early is beneficial, but that’s true at every theme park. If you want to eat at one of the Harry Potter restaurants, your wait will be shortest is you do an early lunch around opening time.

[revolution]

Nov 11, 2019 10:31:09 GMT -5 mainelyfoolish said:

With the Express Pass, you don’t really need to plan anything. Since you’re not staying onsite, you might want to start in the park that doesn’t have the early opening for on site guests. Getting to the park early is beneficial, but that’s true at every theme park. If you want to eat at one of the Harry Potter restaurants, your wait will be shortest is you do an early lunch around opening time.

This makes me feel better. We will be there this week and I've done nothing. Except tickets

[VacayVaca]

The newest ride is Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. Since it's new, there is no express pass line for it. It's not a huge capacity ride and the line gets long immediately and stays long all day. I would aim to enter Islands of Adventure and immediately get in line for Hagrid's.

The Express pass works on almost all the other rides in the park (including all the other Harry Potter rides) so you don't have to do any planning for those.

Make sure to eat lunch at the Harry Potter restaurant in either park. The one in Diagon Alley is bigger and has more food selections, but there's different food on both sides. We bought the dining pass at lunch last time, and it's a surprisingly good deal. For $25 you get lunch plus a drink (a glass of tea, pumpkin juice, cider, lemonade or other options) and then two drink/snack credits that can be used later in the day. The credits can be used throughout either park and work for butterbeer, which is around $7 per serving.

[Wines Not Whines]

I loved the frozen butterbeer.

[stephm0188]

You really don’t need to plan anything with Universal.

Hagrid’s is amazing but incredibly unreliable. We rope dropped it three different mornings and only got on once. It’s been requiring a lot of maintenance resulting in it being closed more than it was open during our trip.

Lanyards make managing your park ticket and hotel key easy for park hopping and rides. Pack light- most tides require you to put your stuff in a locker.