Crowds at Universal right now

[Goofy Pluto]

Hi everyone,

We head tomorrow on our way to Orlando and will be spending a good part of our trip next week at Universal. I wanted to ask how the crowds are right now, particularly at WWOHP and getting into the park at opening. If anyone has been to Universal in the past few days or the past week I'd be curious to know what it's like trying to get into the Islands of Adventure and WWOHP at opening and through the day.

Thanks.

[John]

We were just there last week (Islands of Adventure that is).

Would recommend arriving at park opening and immediately heading back to WWOHP and hopefully getting in line for the Forbidden Journey.

We ended up getting there about 45 minutes after park opening and had about a 20 minute wait to get back into the area.

From there, the line was already at about 90-120 minutes. Believe it or not, we actually got into that line which had extended back into Hogsmeade, and swirled out over a bridge to the left and then back into the area before heading towards the castle.

Wait time from there to get to the castle was about 20 minutes. As a family, we then made the choice to go single rider - which meant, rather than waiting another 100-120 minutes from that point, we walked briskly thru the single rider queue and got right on the ride.

So, our total wait time was probably less than 30 minutes - plus we had a frozen butterbeer while in line.

Afterwards, we ate lunch at hogs head tavern. BTW, little known is you can bypass the long butterbeer lines and head around the back entrance of the tavern and head straight for the bar to get your butterbeer inside - rather than waiting on the long lines outside.

Now, because we were on a cruise that had stopped for the day in port canaveral, time was of the essence so we bought Universal Express Tickets ($49 per person for the day we went - price varies) and literally did every major ride in the park and a few of the not major ones by 4:30 when we had to leave.

If you can swing it and you don't like waiting in lines, it's great. Of course, it does not get you access to Forbidden Journey but did work on the Dragons Challenge and Flight rides.

Crowds were busy - and lines were a bit long but the park didn't feel overly crowded. Much like EPCOT, it's spread out and handles it pretty well - but the Express Tics were a life saver.

BTW, by later in the day, we were able to walk right into WWOHP without getting in line (about 2 or 3pm) - so that might be another option.... do everything else and get in line for Forbidden Journey late in the day. Single rider really is the way to go if you don't mind getting split up.