1 day at Universal or 2

Brian Shepherd

Mouseketeer
Joined
May 3, 2008
With Harry Potter land and Simpsons land, do I need an extra day at Universal? Usually only go for one. Will be going like August 23 or 24th
 
Both areas are kind of small. You won't need an extra day. If you get there early, there's no need for an extra day.
 
We were there last week (on Wednesday). I would say if you pay for express pass you definitely don't need an extra day. Otherwise, it depends on the hours for the park and the crowds. Being used to DLR and WDW, we were really shocked at Universal's limited hours. The park was open from 10 -7 (we had early entry so we got in at 9:30), and everything at City Walk closed at 9:00 p.m., even the restaurants. Even our restaurants at home don't close until 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. We did express pass and we were wondering how people without it could get it done in one day unless the limited hours unless it was really low crowds. I would say it was moderately crowded. The lines for the most popular rides stayed around 60 minutes most of the day. We did everything, but barely had time to fit it all in within the parks limited hours using express pass. Without express pass there was no way we could have covered everything.
 


https://www.isitpacked.com/crowd-calendars/universal-studios-hollywood/
In any case, if you don't care about the shows, you can probably get most done even without express pass.
The shows require a lot of time, and thus if the park is busy, you probably won't be able to hit everything in one day. If you wanted to see one show, I would recommend Waterworld.

Just get there early, and you should hit nearly everything.
 
https://www.isitpacked.com/crowd-calendars/universal-studios-hollywood/
In any case, if you don't care about the shows, you can probably get most done even without express pass.
The shows require a lot of time, and thus if the park is busy, you probably won't be able to hit everything in one day. If you wanted to see one show, I would recommend Waterworld.

Just get there early, and you should hit nearly everything.

That is probably true. We did all 3 shows. We really enjoyed all 3. DD especially enjoyed the animal show. We definitely could not have done all 3 shows and hit everything without express pass with the short park hours. We did the lower lot last, and were finishing up the rides there just before park close. We ate dinner in City Walk after the park closed at 7:00. It would have been fun to have more time in the park to take things at a slower pace.

Had we not done any shows, we probably could have done all the rides and the studio tour within the park hours. The shows were a highlight though. Seems like they were each about 20 minutes, but you needed to try to get there 15 minutes before the show started, and maybe 20 before Waterworld as it was pretty crowded and the express pass people get let in first. We did run directly from the Sound show to the Animal Show, and got to the animal show 5 minutes before it started with no issues getting in.
 

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