I’m making some last minute changes to my WDW trip in two weeks. I have one day for Universal with 2-park tickets. Which day would be worse for crowds - MLK Day (Monday, 20th) or Rock the Universe (Friday, 24). We want to accomplish as much as possible in one day and will buy Express Passes. HELP?!?!
I don’t know the exact answer, but if I were you I’d check as many crowd calendars for Universal as possible, starting with TP. Theirs seemed pretty accurate for our trip.
I have checked crowd calendars and also Universal’s pricing for Express Pass. Looks like Friday may be best, although park hours are much shorter. Thanks for your response! I think you responded to my last one on CRT too. I’m second guessing so many of my decisions last minute. 
I have never been during either time, so unfortunately I can’t give you an answer based on experience. However, I can tell you that if you will have express pass, that will help immensely and you may want to go for the day with the longer hours over the shorter hours.
IMHO - If you buy Express Pass it really shouldn’t matter. However for the sake of debate - I’d go on Friday to the Rock the Universe event than MLK Weekend.
With MLK you with get both locals & tourists on a holiday weekend all over both parks.
The people who are there for the Rock the Universe concerts will converge on the “Production Central” lawn at USF, leaving the rides there and at all of IOA less crowded. (Just avoid that area - RRR / Jimmy Fallon / Shrek / Despicable ME about an hour or show before the shows start and the rest of the night.)
1 Like
I would go with longer hours instead of shorter unless there were a huge difference in crowds since you want to do as much as possible. I found Universal’s hours to be very frustrating b/c I was used to WDW’s very generous ones for Thanksgiving week. We had U closing both parks at 8 pm versus Disney leaving MK open until 1 am most days of our visit there, and other parks mostly around 9 or 10.
Friday closes at 6:00 vs 8:00 on Monday. The crowd calendar is a 9 for Monday and 6 for Friday. The cost of express passes and hotels is higher on Monday than Friday, which indicates to me that Universal also expects a higher crowd. So many factors. 