First timers to Universal. Crowd levels look scary (June 26 - July 3), but the Park Wait Times on touringplans.com don’t look so bad. Are these accurate? Thanks!
A 10 at uni has similar wait times to a 7/8 at wdw. There are shows and lots of non ride attractions. Over easter longest waits were RRR and DM hitting 2hrs mid day. They increase wait times for exp pass lines to reduce standby lines. Queues didn’t start to build until about 11 am and it got quiet around 6 pm. Single rider is very good also. With Kong opening and Hulk reopening at some point Ioa will be very busy . I predict Kong to have 3 hr waits which means usf might be a bit quieter. If you have exp pass you don’t need to worry about wait times they will be a third to a half of standby at most but lots of time exp is 5-10 min wait.
1 Like
I noticed those park levels as well and yet on my touring plans they were saying wait times of 5-10 mins which seemed weird to me. We are going to be at universal for 2 days doing 1 park each day on July 2 and 3. I bought unlimited express because of those park levels. I was worried those plans were off but if a 9-10 park level corresponds to a wdw 7-8 level, that makes sense. Any thoughts on Kong? I have it in my plans to do twice but not sure when to hit it. I imagine everyone will be heading there at rope drop
Kong will be nuts. It will not have exp pass and waits will be similar to 7 dwarfs or A&E when they opened at wdw. RRR wait hit 45 mins with exp pass mid afternoon and the same with Simpsons. I thought my kids had done Simpsons twice after being told once only but when DH went to investigate TM said exp wait was about 30 mins. The new guidance for staff is to let exp line increase once standby reaches a certain level to keep standby levels manageable. Transformers exp was very quick at all times ( under 10 mins)as was Mummy and Spidy. Only RRR DM and Simpsons had longer waits with exp pass.
Last year, we were there June 29th thru July 1st. In all, we spent about a total of 2 full days spread out over three actual days at the park. We had EP and I found that the crowds were quite manageable using EP. We were able to reride several favorites, but there were a couple things we did not get to at all. All in all, I feel that we accomplished more than I had anticipated, given that it was the summer and the week before a major holiday.
Thanks! Do you think it would work without EP? We are a family of 6 so have to stay at Cabana Bay. To purchase them separately seems over the top expensive.
That would definitely be way too expensive! Are you planning on being in the park all of those days or only a couple? I would think that if you were there for several days and focused on different sections of the park each day, you will be fine. The lines will get long, and I have no experience with Kong, but making a touring plan and using it as a guideline for what times of day to hit which things should help you.
Also, using early entry and coming back for the last couple hours before park close will help immensely. One of our nights, we got in line for EFG one hour before the parks closed. We went through the line, rode EFG, walked to HE, rode HE to IOA, got in line for FJ and rode FJ all before the parks closed. And none of those take EP. It was the most successful hour of our trip!
1 Like
are you staying on site in a delux? you get EP included