Hello! We will be at UOR on Christmas Day & Boxing Day, and hoping to get some advice/tips and tricks for the peak holiday season.
Dining:
- There are a few quick service places in the parks I’d love to eat at (specifically Minions Cafe and Leaky Cauldron), but I was wondering, since we have limited park time (two partial days - aiming to be in the park by early afternoon on Dec 25 and likely leaving early afternoon Dec 26 to transition over to WDW) if it’s worth attempting to wait for QS, or if making reservations for table service restaurants would be the wiser choice?
- How does mobile ordering work during peak season? I know at places like Minions Cafe for example they don’t let you in unless you’ve mobile ordered; does this mean that you can order well in advance and show up to a short/reasonable wait?
- We’re looking at Toothsome for the vibes and Mythos since it’s in the parks and the food seems to be generally well-reviewed, but I’ve also seen a lot of reviews of both places mentioning slow service-- should we be looking at alternative options, particularly with our limited park time?
Nighttime Shows:
- Ideally we would want to catch both the Hogwarts light show as well as Cinesational on the night of Dec 25, since I doubt we’ll be able to stay in the parks until dark on the 26th given that we have to haul all our luggage over to Disney and check in at our second hotel. What would be the optimal way of ordering the parks to try to see both? I’ve seen a lot of advice to see Cinesational at USF first, then bolt over to IOA to catch the last Hogwarts show, but since we’ll be going in winter when presumably it gets dark out faster and they’ll start the light shows earlier, do you think it’d be possible to see Hogwarts first, then go over to see Cinesational?
Express Pass:
- Luckily, we are staying one night at Royal Pacific and will have Express Pass Unlimited for both days. What are the Express wait times like for peak seasons-- should we be expecting to stand in line for 30-60 min per ride? (I’ve made a touring plan for our UOR days but the wait times seem a lil too short to be accurate, e.g. mostly in the ~5 min range.)