I have been going on holiday to Florida for 12 years, my most recent visit being this month, and I have been lucky enough to be able to visit the Universal Orlando Resort many times, however, due to budget restraints we could only afford to do one day at Universal this time, so I have put together a little tips and tricks guide to getting almost all the main attractions done at Universal Orlando Resort in just one day. Please do bear in mind that these tips are all things that made my personal trip easier and just because it worked for me may not mean that it will automatically work for you to. Alternatively, there may be something I missed that really worked in you favour, if that is the case I would love to hear about it!
Before we start, I would like to clarify that our family only visited Universal Studio and Islands of Adventure and we did not visit Volcano Bay, purely because it did not fit in with our budget, but to fully experience and enjoy the resort would definitely recommend doing at least three days at the parks.
Tip 1: Stay on Site if you can
Of course staying in an onsite resort at Universal is not budget friendly, and if you are planning to stay for at least two weeks it could be very costly even when staying at the cheaper resorts. Not only do you get extra access hours when you stay onsite at Universal, but staying onsite will allow you to take breaks throughout the day when you are a little tired from going around the parks and if you need rest. The parks (in the summer when I visited) were open from 8am (early access) until 9pm which is a very long day without a break, so I would recommend gong back to your hotel after lunch or if there is a storm to wait for the thunder to stop. Even if you are not up to going to the parks at 8am exactly, if you go between 9am and 11am the parks are still relatively quiet with the longest queue in that time being about 20 minuets long.
I am not suggesting that you book out a room in a Universal hotel for the whole holiday (unless you would like to and you can afford it, if you can I am very jealous!); on our holiday we stayed in the Hardrock Hotel for one night which gave us express passes and early access to Universal Studios for two days. Since we were only spending one day at the parks, we spent a day enjoying the facilities in the hotel when we initially checked in and got a good nights sleep to do the parks on the second day - the day when we would check out. We even got free transportation over to City Walk via Water Taxi, but even if we did not want to take the transportation, the parks were a ten minuet walk away.
Tip 2: Get Express
As mentioned above, my family stayed in the Hardrock Hotel and so we got free Express Passes with our package, allowing us to skip the longer queue lines for all the rides (with the exception of Hargid's Motorbike Adventure). If you are not staying on site then getting an express pass is a must if you are spending one day at universal and you are wanting to do all of the attractions. Although the wait times at Universal were reasonable, for some of the more popular rides they did get up to 70 minuets at some points during the day, and you will not get all of the rides done that way.
In my opinion, getting our express passes through Hardrock Hotel was a much better value for money rather than outright buying an express pass on it's own since it only cost us about $100 more to stay in the hotel, but this will depend on the deal you can get and how many people you go with (since there was four of us going it was much better value to split the cost of the room between four people rather than just having two people share a room).
If getting an Express Pass is way out of your budget, I would plan accordingly and decide which attractions you must do on that day and which attractions you wouldn't feel bad about missing. Also, utilize the single rider line ON SOME ATTRACTIONS! This is key as most people come to the parks in groups of four, so for some rides the single rider queue is a longer wait than the standby. This is the case for attractions such as Hagrids and Hollywood Rip Ride Rock-it. However, rides like the Mummy and the Incredible Hulk are less likely to have all four people in the party go on the ride as they are thrill rides, so people will be more likely to utilize child swap on these attractions. Strangely Rip Saw Falls has also had a short wait queue in the single rider lines from past experiences too, so it is really a judgement call and how willing you are to stand in line for a ride.
Tip 3: Use Early Access Hours (if staying on site)
Early access into the parks is one of the great perks of staying on site at Universal (I promise that this post is not sponsored by Universal in any way! (I wish it was) I just exprerienced really great customer service from them!) Their policies change every time I visit, but for my 2019 visit we were allowed early access at 8am into Universal Studios to ride Minion Mayhem and Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. This is great if you are staying in a hotel that does not offer express as these two are (in my experience) the two most popular rides at Universal Studios. The Harry Potter areas (both Hogsmede and Diagon Alley) can both get extremely busy (see photo below) so getting early access here means not only that you will experience a shorter queue for the attraction, but the place will be very quiet meaning that you will get the opportunities to take photos that not many people will get the chance to do while the park is busy.
Due to the edition of Express Passes being available to use on both of these rides, missing the first hour of the parks opening is not a massive deal, but seeing Diagon Alley empty was a brilliant experience, and is very calming in contrast to visiting it at a busier time of day!
Tip 4: Visit Islands of Adventure first (preferably in the morning)
If you plan to use your early access hours from your hotel or not, I would recommend heading over to Islands of Adventure as soon as the park opens. I have found from my visits to Florida that it rains mostly in the afternoon, so it is best to take advantage of the nice weather and go to Islands of Adventure before any storms hit the area.
Islands of Adventure Mostly has outdoor attractions, so if a storm hits it would leave you with The Amazing Adventures of Spider-man and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey to ride. Both of these attractions are indoors, so they will remain open during inclement weather. It is also possible that the Poseiden show will be open during a storm since the entire show is indoors, however I have never been in this area during a storm so I am unable to confirm this.
I have seen storms in Orlando that have lasted for an hour and storm that have continued throughout the day, it is unpredictable. To make sure that you do not miss out on the amazing attractions offered in Islands of Adventure, make sure you visit it on a morning before you visit Universal Studios - especially if you are only there for one day.
Universal Studios has mainly indoor attractions, with the only outdoor attractions being the Kids Corner and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rock-it. Although it is not brilliant missing out on attraction due to bad weather, it is better in my opinion to miss out on two or three attractions being indoors at Universal Studios than to miss almost an entire park. Sue to the other attractions being indoors at Universal Studios, it is better to go there if there is inclement weather approaching rather than to stay at Islands of adventure.
Tip 5: Do each attraction as you come to it
This may sound like common sense to some people, but I've been to theme parks with people who want to do one ride at the entrance, then the next ride at the other end of the park, then the next ride back at the entrance again and ect. Not only will you end up doing more walking and get more tired this way, but you will be missing more time that could be spent on rides. It's not so back in UK theme parks, but the Universal theme parks are massive, so you will be adding miles onto your journey. I will be writing my recommended path around the park at the end of this post, but it would be easier to do Shrek, Minion Mayhem and then Rip Ride Rock-it as opposed to Shrek, Men in Black then Jimmy Fallon Race through New York.
Do each attraction as you come to it, then once you have completed both parks and all the attractions you want to do then you can go about as you please if you are still feeling energised enough to go around the parks.
Tip 6: Eat at a Quick Service Restaurant
There are many different places to eat at the Universal Orlando Resort, however if you are visiting the theme parks on one day I would definitely recommend visiting a quick service Restaurant. Although visiting one of the sit down restraints is lovely, it is better time wise to visit somewhere quick. If you are interested visiting one of the sit down restaurants on City Walk you can visit there any time without needing park tickets, so you a free to visit Hardrock Cafe and the other eating places there anytime. There is also free parking after six, so it is ideal if you want to eat out a little later. However, in the parks it is better to eat at Mel's dine in or places similar so you can continue enjoying the parks.
Although I would definitely recommend pencilling in a visit to Hardrock Cafe when you visit Orlando (maybe don't visit on the same day that you visit the parks unless you have a multi day ticket) as the staff were extremely friendly and the food tasted amazing. When we visited earlier this month we were served by TJ who told us lots of cool trivia about the Beetles since we sat next to lots of their memorabilia, so you know, thank you for the cool facts TJ! Plus they have really nice pulled pork burgers and their cheese fries are to die for!
Tip 7: Avoid popular rides with long queues
If you have been living under a rock for the past couple of months, you won't have heard about the grand opening of Hargid's Motorbike Adventure. Lines were as long as ten hours on the opening day, and although they have calmed down in the past couple of weeks wait times were still very long. It was a five hour wait when Islands of Adventure opened on the morning that we were going to the theme parks and by the time we got to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Hogsmede the sign said that it was still a four hour wait.
Pretty much it was a choice between choosing to queue for Hagrids and risking missing out on other opportunities in Universal Studios, so we ultimately made the decision to skip Hagrids. As hard as this was, it definitely was the best decision for our current situation as the ride had frequently broke down which could impact the wait time, and we could possible be leaving little time to do the attractions in Universal Studios meaning we may not be able to do everything. It was the case of spending time to do one attraction or multiple less popular attractions.
If you have more than one day at Universal, I would definitely recommend spending one day to get on the popular new attractions that may not have an express pass queue - at the current moment this attraction is Hagrids. I can assure you though that the outdoor sections of the attraction I managed to see look outstanding and I am devastated that I was unable to ride the coaster on this visit to Orlando.
Tip 8: Use the Hogwarts Express to Park Hop
The first time I rode the Hogwarts express, we queued in Kings Cross and travelled over to Hogsmede. Immediately after this, we did the reverse journey. Whilst this is not in any way a wrong way to ride the ride, I believe it is a much better use of your time to ride the Hogwarts express to Park Hop. It is a cool place to sit and take a break from walking around the parks (as there is a mini trek to park hop from the separate park entrances and would require walking through the Florida heat) and it is also an attraction in itself as well as a transportation device. It crosses of two things - doing an attraction and also transportation - so there really isn't a reason not to do this. You can read about my advice on how you can experience both journeys on the Hogwarts Express as well as utilising your time in the Universal Parks as much as possible.
My recommended route around Universal Orlando Resort
Here is what I believe is the best route to be able to experience each of the parks to the max with only a one day ticket. First of all, if you are staying in a resort, make use of your early entry into Universal Studios. Begin your day at Minion Mayhem and then move on to Diagon Alley to ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. This will mean that you can experience two of the parks most popular attractions whilst it is not busy, meaning there may possibly be time for you to experience both attractions more than once.
Depending on what time you get off these rides, you may have time to take photos in Diagon Alley while it is empty (which is a great opportunity, I would definitely recommend taking this opportunity as the area can get rather crowded later in the day). At 9am, ride the Hogwarts Express over to Islands of Adventure and do all the attractions at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, then move onto the Lost Continent, Suess Landing, Marvel Superhero Island, Toon Lagoon and then Jurassic Park to finish back where you started. Ensure that you make not of any rides that have broken down or may not have experience along the way.
Take the Hogwarts Express over to Universal Studios and do the following attractions in this order: Transformers, Shrek 4D, Hollywood Rip Ride Rock-it, Jimmy Fallon Race through New York, the Mummy, Fast and Furious: Supercharged, Men in Black and the Simpsons, ending up at the kids corner and ET. Again make note of any rides that you have missed.
Starting at 8am and with an hour break for lunch, we managed to complete both parks at 5pm, leaving shortly after due to inclement weather. If you are lucky enough to get this far without the storm, you should be good to go with any attractions that you have missed. This next part is up to personal preference, but if you have not been warned about incoming bad weather, I would recommend going over to Islands of Adventure via the Hogwarts Express and doing any attractions that you may have missed and then doing attractions you may have missed at Universal Studios - if you are intending to catch the Firework Display this will also work better in your favour (unless you plan on tackling Hagrids, then there is the possibility you may miss the Fireworks).
So there you go, that was my advice on how to tackle Universal Orlando Resort on a One day ticket. I apologise about the strange formatting of this post, there has been a few technical issues and t has not been allowing me to keep the same font for some reason, so this is a situation I will have to look into, but in the meantime, I really hope you enjoyed this type of post and if you are interested in any content similar to this in the future, please let me know! Thank you for reading!
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