Hi,
New to making a plan, sorry if this is a stupid question…
Is it possible to make a plan that includes park to park access? Our plan would be to start the day in one park and finish in the other. Is it possible to make a touring plan for this? As when I have tried I seem to have to choose one park or the other>
Thanks.
Ali.
Just make two separate plans and adjust the start and end time. Example Park 1 8am-noon, park 2 noon-6pm
You might want to try starting with one of the two-park touring plans like the one below, then you can add or remove attractions as you desire.
https://touringplans.com/plans/958637
BTW - The other half of this plan can be found by clicking on “Link to Day 2” near the top of the plan page.
Thanks guys!
are you staying at a deluxe and have access to Express Pass?
Hi everyone,
I’m new to Touring Plans and got another question related to this topic: if I want to start at Universal Studios, then go to Island of Adventures using the Hogwarts Express, then return to Universal Studios, I’d need to create 3 separate plans? Would the “optimization” procedure work for the 3 plans as one (optimizing the whole day at the parks together)? This would be a great feature to have…
Thanks,
Daniel
Well, I’m not convinced you need a Touring Plan at all for Universal. (I abandoned using the TP almost immediately once we arrived because we found it unnecessary.)
Anyhow, you don’t have to create 3 separate plans. Just put a long break in the first plan. Schedule your second plan to take place in the confines of that break. So two plans are fine.
You cannot optimize an entire day split across two plans. Instead, you have optimize your first park, get the approximate time for when you will be in the second park, then optimize your second park after updating the adjusted time, etc.
But, as I said…it just is easier to wing it. 
Thanks for your input, Ryan! Much appreciated!
I’m considering the plan for Universal because I’m going with my 8-year-old kid (no Express Pass) and would like to confirm my idea for our first day will work well…
He is a big fan of Harry Potter. So, my idea is to use the first day (which will have to end around 3PM) to explore that universe (on both parks). Some questions that I’d like to answer are:
Thanks again for your insights!!
Cheers!
Daniel
I was starting to try the tool here and it seems that whenever I add the Hogwarts Express to the plan I cannot add any other attraction after that. As the Hogwarts Express finishes outside the part, it shows “N/A” for the walk time to the next attraction. Because of that it seems it breaks the software as all other times for the subsequent attractions appear as “N/A” and the totals go to over 9000 min… Any ideas to deal with this?
Add a return trip on Hogwarts Express. I’m not sure if it would have to be before or after the “break” in the plan but it would get you back into the park.
When it comes to the Harry Potter areas, it can take as long as you want or as short as you want. Personally, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, and can easily spend an entire day doing nothing but Harry Potter, watching the shows, shopping in the shops, doing the spells and riding the rides. On one trip I spent 6 hours in Diagon Alley alone, not even counting the time I spent in Hogsmeade.
I always start in Diagon Alley so that I can see things the way Harry did in the books, continuing over to Hogsmeade after he had done all of his shopping in Diagon Alley.
That worked perfectly, paulasc! Thank you!
Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, rebeecky! I’ll create a plan starting from Diagon Alley and see how it looks. Thanks a lot for your input!
Cheers!
Daniel
Our whole family is a huge Harry Potter fan (I’ve read the books through 4 times myself…mostly…well, book 7 is a chore and least favorite of the series, but that’s a topic for another day!).
Anyhow, our trip in February, we did all of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade (starting from park opening) by 3:00 pm. You can read our full trip report here: Trip Report, Universal Feb 5 through 9
Now we were there when crowds were lighter, but I still think you can get through everything easily in a day since there are really only 3 rides (Forbidden Journey, Gringott’s, and Hippogriff). The train is kind of a ride (definitely an experience) and needs to be ridden both directions for a complete experience. The rest of the time will be “experiential”…that is, doing Olivander’s, exploring Knockturn Alley, etc.
You might even have time to do Skull Island or another ride. But if you start in Diagon Alley and then end up back there, you will want to pick rides in the Universal Side. Spidey and Kong are both on the IOA side. Our two favorites at Universal were The Mummy, and Rip Ride Rocket. When you exit Diagon Alley, head to the right to do those. Or, alternately, if you head right to exit, you can hit up MiB (which is a lot of fun) and The Simpsons.
Skull Island is probably one of my favorite non-coaster rides at either Universal or IOA, but you can easily experience it another day. While it was too scary for my wife, DD14 and DS8 to ride, my DS15 and I rode it twice.
Just wondering if you think it would be too stressful to try to pack both parks into one day? We are doing our short trip in December and want to go to UOR but if I give it 2 days then I have to cut out a WDW day.
One other option would be to see how our day goes and if we feel we need more time, we can add a day onour check out day since our flight leaves at 4pm We could go back into UOR for the morning. We are staying onsite at PFB so will have express pass and the CL look low (I think a 4 or maybe even a 3)
When in December are you going? It will depend on the overall crowds.
I think 1 day is probably a challenge. You will feel rushed and will have to make hard choices in terms of what to do/not do. 2 days is enough to get through most things. We did 4 days, but left by 3:00 each day and did several things more than once.
Happy planning!
I missed that you said you would have the Express pass. What ages of kids? I mean, will you want to do, for example, Seuss Land, etc?
They are 13, 11, 7. The older 2 are thrill seekers. Low crowd levels, 4 and I think a 3.
We should really plan on the 2 days I know but I hate cutting out a WDW day! (If we cut one out then we will only have 2 . one will be MVMCP, the other is a park hopper day to fit in as much as we can).
I was wondering if we have one full day at UOR and then have the next morning from open until about 1pm, if that would be enough?
The ages are tricky, because you are straddling pretty much all the rides. If your youngest was, say, 10, then you could easily skip some of the younger things. But I imagine at 7, riding Red Fish, Blue Fish and The Cat in the Hat ride at least would be desirable.
I think with Express Pass, you MIGHT pull off a single day if you really decide ahead of time what are must-dos and what to skip. I have recommendations, but only you can know your own family
Must dos, Universal:
Highly recommend, Universal:
Skip (unless you have time), Universal:
Must dos, IOA:
If you have time, IOA:
Any others I haven’t mentioned are more of the “if you have time” variety, and person preference.
ETA: I forgot to mention that this list doesn’t include the sight-seeing aspect, particularly for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As mentioned before, you could spend a lot of time on JUST that (doing Olivander’s, exploring Diagon Alley, etc). So you will have to be quick about that kind of thing if you go a single day.