Hi!
Each time i customize my USF TP, it has us riding Gringott’s (EFG? lol) around 7pm vs RD. When I put EFG at RD and evaluate, it says the wait will be double what it will be in the evening.
Do I trust the TP and not worry about getting to USF an hour before park opens? (We’ll be staying onsite w ExPass, so only the HP attractions are really the only ones for which we’d arrive pre-RD.)
I’m using the 2 parks, 2 days…if it matters.
Thanks!
I don’t see any reason to not trust the optimized plan. Since IOA will be having early entry, there will be people who are riding the HE over to London and beating you to EFG, so the RD crowds may be much greater than the evening.
Thanks @brklinck!
See, my original plan WAS to enter IOA during early park entry, ride FJ, and get in line for HEx to DA. But the Touring Plans guide & online article say you’re better off arriving an hour before USO official open since it unofficially opens at 8:30am but most don’t realize that. It says you can go inside and get in line for EFG at 8:30a, well before the first wave of HEx riders arrive.
But the TP can’t account for being let in early…it says the wait will be be 41 mins at 9:02am vs 19 mins around 7pm…hence my decision: get to USF early or just chill and ride later?
I was noticing the same thing. We are also on-site and have park-to-park passes. I am just trying to make a few morning plans to get us started and thinking we won’t need to follow a TP too closely after doing the WWOHP areas. I think we are going to try RD at USF for EFG at least one day and just assume there will be extra time in our plan to explore DA.
You can use “Hogwarts express arrival” to cut out some walking time if you want to simulate being in the park early. But the problem with doing Gringotts at rope drop is that it’s a gamble, even during early entry. If the ride doesn’t start running on time (a frequent occurrence) the rest of your plan is shot. Saving it for lunchtime or late evening is much safer.
Well I would rather sleep in…I like the “ride it in the evening” plan better! 
Thanks so much @skubersky for sharing your insight and experience!
We stayed onsite in late May and never got up early for EPA. We did have Express Passes, which are useless in dear Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, so most rides were walk ons as expected. In Diagon Alley we found the 7 to 9 o’clock hours to be delightful. We rode Escape from Gringott’s with a 20 minute queue and then waltzed onto the train to visit an empty Hogsmeade. The evening hours were far more productive than the EPA hour we experienced last time we visited and we loved having a bit of a lie in each morning.
So, we did arrive at USF between 8:00a and 8:15a two of the days we were at UOR for the scheduled 9:00a opening. Both days, park staff made an announcement before 8:15a indicating the Early Entry park was at IOA, not USF. I was amazed how many people got out of line and went to IOA! Both days, they started letting guests into USF at 8:30a. The first day we went to Despicable Me and basically walked right on, then went to Diagon Alley and still had a short wait for Gringott’s. The second day we went straight to Diagon Alley and were actually riding Gringotts’s before 9:00a (although it has been reported that it would start running before 9am, it did while we were there.) The PhotoConnect photographers were not set up in the queue when we rode before 9:00a. We were able to ride Despicable Me later that day with Express Pass and had no wait, even with a 50 min posted time for normal stand-by. We loved being in Diagon Alley early in the day before the crowds were crazy. We got some great pictures and were able to do spells with the interactive wands without having to wait in lines. We wanted to get back there for evening, but DH does not love to go back to the parks once we have left for the day, so never got back. Next time, I think we will plan some days to sleep in and go for evenings at both WWOHP as I have read such good things about both in the evening.
@Skubersky, is that why the TP’s frequently push Gringotts toward the middle of the day, even if it means having a 40+ minute wait? I’m taking the family for the first time in late August and will have an Unlimited Express Pass because we’re staying at the Royal Pacific, so it seems silly that the TP’s consistently have us riding Transformers first thing and Gringotts with a massive wait. I was wondering if there was something that I was missing as a Universal noob.
If you flip though the actual wait time graphs from past days, you’ll see that Gringotts’ queue usually crashes around lunch time, then builds up again through mid afternoon before dropping again. Unlike most headliners, Gringotts is not a good choice for early morning unless you are the first in the queue (and not even then if it has opening issues). Of the optimizer is telling to to wait on Gringotts I’d listen.
Also, the whole Gringotts queue experience (including preshows) takes at least 20+ minutes, so a 30-40 min wait isn’t bad at all.
Fair enough… in the Optimizer I trust!