How to ensure your trip to the Wizarding World is a success
While the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is not always packed wall-to-wall with guests, there are many times when it is. Furthermore, many people just don’t expect crowds at Universal like they do at Disney. This is a serious mistake, as lack of planning will ruin your WWoHP experience — and possibly your whole vacation. That is why I have created this page: to give you a specific strategy for how to deal with the crazy crowds inside the Wizarding World and, ultimately, how to avoid them.
Using the advice you can only find on this page, a successful and positive trip to the Wizarding World is practically yours!
Let’s begin
One of the important steps to successfully planning your vacation to Universal Orlando is to be very aware of what “season” you are visiting the parks. If you haven’t already, check out our crowd calendar to learn how crowded we expect the parks to be during your visit. Also, note the park hours, or expected park hours, during your visit. These two factors should greatly influence your overall approach to dealing with the crowds at the Wizarding World.
Below I will discuss the ideal set up for your visit to Universal Orlando and the Wizarding World. Please be aware that the advice given on this page is based on two key assumptions: (1) that fully experiencing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is your primary objective at Universal Orlando; and (2) you are going when crowd levels are expected to be busy or very busy.
The ideal set up for experiencing WWoHP when it is busy
When the Wizarding World is busy, it is crazy busy. It is not uncommon for the area’s most popular attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, to have a wait time of 150 minutes. Tied with that wait time is the wait for Ollivander’s Wand Shop. The other two attractions in the area, Dragon Challenge and Flight of the Hippogriff, are not quite as bad, but still may each have wait times 45 minutes or higher.
Coupled with the incredible lines for Forbidden Journey and Ollivander’s is the incredibly cramped nature of WWoHP boutiques, such as Zonko’s Joke Shop and Dervish & Banges. Busy crowds in the area mean, quite literally, packed people in the stores. Some of the stores even develop their own queues and wait times during the highest crowd levels.
For these reasons, the ideal set up for experiencing the Wizarding World when it is busy looks like this:
First, you need to have Early Park Admission. This is available to any guest staying at one of Universal Orlando’s on-site hotels. It is also available to any guest who books a Universal Orlando vacation package, whether or not the guest is staying on-site or at a Universal Orlando Partner Hotel. Please note that you must book a Universal Orlando Partner Hotel as part of a Universal Orlando vacation package to receive Early Park Admission.
Second, you need to plan on entering the Wizarding World at least three times. These three times must either occur at the very beginning of the day or in the last two hours before the park closes. This is what you will do during those visits…
Your
first visit will be used to experience either
Ollivander’s or Forbidden Journey.
Your
second visit will be used to experience either
Ollivander’s or Forbidden Journey, based on which one you already saw during your first visit.
Your
third visit will be used to
experience the shops.
A sample itinerary
You have booked a one night stay at Royal Pacific Resort, giving you Early Park Admission for two mornings. On your first morning you arrive at the hotel around 7:00am and check-in. You leave your bags with luggage services, get your park tickets and room keys, and you are off to Islands of Adventure. You arrive at IOA at 7:40am and soon enter with Early Park Admission. You choose to go to Ollivander’s on your first visit. You head straight to Ollivander’s. Depending on your luck, you are finished with Ollivander’s, and have purchased your first wand, by 8:50am.
Even though it is still technically Early Park Admission, Universal has already started letting the general public in (very common). By the time you exit the shop with your new wand, the wait for Forbidden Journey is already 90 minutes (very common during busy periods). Furthermore, all the shops are now becoming overcrowded. You leave set off to explore the rest of the theme park.
Because it is the busy season at Universal, Islands of Adventure is open until 10:00pm. So, you plan your second visit to the Wizarding World between 8:00pm and 10:00pm the same day. Now your priority is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. You arrive inside WWoHP at 8:00pm to find that the wait time for Forbidden Journey is 30 minutes. While it is not a walk-on, it is certainly better than 120 minutes, the wait time for the ride during most of the day. After going through the castle and riding on the revolutionary flight simulator, it is closer to 9:00pm and the crowds are really starting to thin out. You ride Forbidden Journey one more time as a single rider, letting you skip any lines. Then you take one more tour through Hogwarts Castle, but this time you skip the ride at the end so you can bring your camera and take pictures of all the rooms.
The next morning you use your Early Park Admission to be back inside WWoHP by 8:00am. For this last visit, your priority is the shops. You have about 45 minutes to enjoy the different stores before they get too crowded and it is no longer a fun, comfortable experience.
You can switch the timing up
The example above is one possibility. You could also visit the Wizarding World in the morning on your first and second day, and then in the evening on your second day. Or visit three mornings in total. Or three evenings. As long as you plan on three visits, and each one of the three visits is slotted for Early Park Admission or the last two hours before the park closes, you will be just fine.
What happens if you cannot get Early Park Admission
Arranging accommodations so you can have Early Park Admission is not feasible for everyone. If you are not able to get the EPA benefit, then the principles above still apply, but add to them this knowledge:
On the mornings you plan to visit, you want to be at the turnstiles 45 minutes before Islands of Adventure opens to the general public. It is a good idea to get there early, knowing that the park will start to let guests in around 8:40am. Know that when you get to Ollivander’s or Forbidden Journey, the wait time may already be 90 minutes or higher. However, since you are planning on just doing one of the attractions during each of your visits, you can at least know that you’ll be done with WWoHP lines once the attraction you chose is over.
If you cannot get EPA, plan on going through the shops during a night visit. Why? By the time you get into WWoHP as part of the general public crowd during a morning visit, the shops will already be too full to browse through comfortably. On the other hand, the crowds in the shops lessen during the last hour or two before the park closes. Not only are the overall crowd levels lower in the later evening, but by that time most people have already spent all the money they set aside for merchandise — so they don’t want to hang out in the stores.
VERY IMPORTANT – Check if WWoHP will be closed in the evening
My plan, although nearly perfect, does have an Achilles’s heel: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter closes early on the evening you planned your visit.
Although not an everyday occurrence, from time to time WWoHP will close “unannounced” and hour or two before the rest of Islands of Adventure closes. This usually happens because the area is hosting a special event. Therefore, if your plan involves an evening visit, be certain to check with Guests Services and make sure nothing special is happening inside WWoHP that evening.
What is the logic behind this ideal set up?
The logic behind the advice on this page is simple: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, during busy times, is extremely crowded from 9:00am to about the last two hours before the park closes. There is nothing stopping you from hanging out in the area all day long, and getting into any lines you want, but you will be doing so with thousands and thousands of other Harry Potter fans. The advice on this page is based on the notion that WWoHP is the main objective of your trip to Universal Orlando, and that you want to do everything you can to make sure it is a positive experience.
Also, remember that Express Passes are not very useful inside the Wizarding World. They work for Dragon Challenge and Flight of the Hippogriff, but they do not work for Forbidden Journey or Ollivander’s.
Is it always this bad inside WWoHP?
No, it is not. Again, use the crowd calendar to help guide your planning.
In any case, my goal is to have you prepared for the worst. I’d much rather have you go in with a solid plan on how to make your way through WWoHP with excessive crowds, only to find out it isn’t so bad, then to give you a quick do-this-do-that checklist, only to leave you without any real help as you are swallowed by Harry fans!