Just a little summary of how things were when we were there on Wednesday, October 20. I'm sure things are always in flux as the seasons and crowds change, but this is how it was for us on the day we were there.
When you enter Universal Islands of Adventure's main hub, you can go either direction to get to WWoHP that is the back right corner between Lost Continent and Jurassic Park. Obviously going through Suess Land and Lost Continent is the shortest distance, but it's also the "iconic" entrance with the Hogwarts Express. The Jurassic Park entrance comes in the middle of the WWoHP near the entrance to the castle then you would have to choose left or right again! Coming in by the train, the whole WWoHP lies before you.
We got there about 8:30 and the park was suppose to open at 9:00, there was no lines at the kiosk to get our tickets, but there was a short line at the ticket booth. They opened the gates early, just as we got our tickets, apparently nearly everyone else had their tickets already. It looked to me as though everyone was headed to WWoHP. There were LOTS of people and we thought it was going to be mega crowded, but the wave of people moved smoothly all the way to WWoHP and as they moved on back in the park, it was crowded but not in a maddening way.
The longest times we ever saw was 60 minutes on the Forbidden Journey ride. but after lunch it dropped to only 20 minutes and then up to 45 minutes in the late afternoon as everyone was trying to get in one last ride I guess. If you have someone in your party who is not going to ride, then don't get in the Locker Line to the right, it looked like a longer wait getting in there and getting a Locker than getting to the ride. If you have a "bag holder" in your group, just go in the line on the LEFT and through into the castle. If you don't have anyone who does not want to ride then take turns being the bag holder as it's quicker than the locker line to go through twice. When you get to your turn to get on the ride, hand over your baggage to your bag person and they go on and out the exit which will be the same exit you take after the ride and it dumps you into Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods gift shop. It was always very crowded because it was the ride dump, but there was never a line outside to get in that we saw.
There was, the whole day, a waiting line of about 40 minutes for the Ollivander's wand show in the Ollivander's shop. Then end of the line was at always the same spot every time we passed there. We saved that until the late afternoon when we started buying our stuff so we'd not have to carry stuff around with us all the day nor have to wait in line to pick it up at the front had we had it sent there.
I didn't think the presentation was all that great, but it was interesting enough. You can't actually buy a wand in Ollivander's, it's all for show, unless you were the kid picked for the demonstration. After the show you are dumped into the front of the Owl Post 'shop' where you can find and purchase a wand or a character wand, and where you can buy the postcards and stamps.
The acutal "Owl Post" where you get your Hogwarts stamp and mail your postcards/letters is outside under the pavilion at a little wooden podium. The pavilion is --The Owlery--be sure to take a little break here and look up there's all kinds of owls in the rafters and plenty of owl poo too!!!
. And on around from that podium is a little Dervish and Banges kiosk that you can shop at that has a few items, journals, the little suitcase, wax and seals and such. Before we went, I had heard there were other shop kiosk around the park, bu this is the only one we saw. Maybe they have more on days it's more crowded.
The Owl Post aka wand shop connects to Dervish and Banges whose entrance is behind Owl Post on the other side of the Owlery pavilion. There was always a line there too, but not a very long one, 10 to 15 minutes most of the time we saw it. So if you only wanted to buy a wand and not see the show, the Dervish and Banges entrance is where you'd want to go to save time.
Right after lunch there was a short line to get into Honeydukes. But like the Dervish and Banges situation, Honeydukes is connected to Zonkos inside and there was no line at Zonkos, and since you can get into Honeydukes via the inside of Zonkos why wait in the Honeydukes line??
The line for Flight of the Hippogriff goes by Hagrid's Hut, and it never was very long either 10 to 20 minute range.
The line wasn't long for Dragon's Challenge either by the time we went there in the afternoon, it was probably more crowded in the morning. It was a whole different crowd in there, like all adrenalin junkies and not many HP fans.....there weren't any stopping to see any of the cool display stuff. After the beginning of the entry with the triwizard stuff, the queue is quite horrible--or at least it was to me. I would not have wanted to be in there when it was crowded and had to have been in there a long time. As it was, I thought I was going to have to take out through one of the emergency exits!!! More than a little claustrophopic with long and twisting and winding tight little corridors and horrible noise and echo effects---worst spot in WWoHP IMO. Was I ever glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Lunch time, I already said about The Three Broomsticks. Crowded through the whole of the 11 to 1 lunch period, but not oppressively so. I never heard any complaints about the quality or quantity of the food and I thought the price was not unreasonable at all especially compared to what you get at other theme parks.
We made a quick jaunt over to Jurassic park gift shop, in the early afternoon in the hottest part of the day and what we figured would be the most crowded at WWoHP. Wish we'd had more time to see more, would have liked to have done the ride, but it was too far to walk over and have to walk back!! The place was nearly empty of folk. The nearest gift shop and the restaurant was practically empty. I got me a big emerald to go with my OZ key. It's round, wish it was rectangle, but it's still cool.
Back to WWoHP.
I only saw one Butter Beer cart and that was just past the train there in front of Honeydukes. They also had a cart with the pumpkin juice bottles, bottled water, some other drinks?? don't remember what, and later around lunch and in the afternoon, they had some fresh fruits--oranges and apples I remember seeing. We carried in our own personal bottles of water and filled them up at water fountains at various places around the park. It wasn't all that hot, so didn't really need a lot this trip.
Moaning Myrtle--well, that was a little bit of a disappointment. The restroom is just a big ole commercial restroom like you find at any mall or other places with large gatherings of people. And the same clamoring noises and echos of doors banging and people talking and the flushing and hand washing. You could catch a word or two of Myrtle's but it was mostly drowned out by all the regular bathroom noises.
At the Hogwarts Express, there's always a conductor there, and always someone taking photo ops with him, so it's hard to get a good pic of the front of the train. I guess he would have moved if asked, but that seemed rude, and I would never have dared do that.
The day we were there it seemed like there weren't many Americans there except us and some local Florida folk!?! There were a great many other English speaking folk, Australia, New Zealand, UK--and this was TERRIFIC because hearing all those British and other accents really aided the "suspension of belief" in an already magical place!!
As for shows we saw only one at the little stage area just past Ollivander's and below the entrance to the Dragon Challenge. No times were posted anywhere nor were they in the map provided by Universal. We caught the Frog choir but it was much reduced in size from what I've seen on YouTube. There were 4 students and a student director. Two of the students had the frog pillows. It was quite amusing, but the afternoon crowd gathered to watch were not very enthusiastic, no participation of any kind and very tepid applause. But the perfomers gave their all anyway!
Didn't get to see a Triwizard Spirit Rally, though we did see the performers in costume earlier in the day exiting after a performance. Again, no info was posted anywhere and we asked a wizard who was "patrolling" around in front of Ollivander's when the next show would be and he asked us which show had we seen and we said the Frog choir and he said the next show would be the Triwizard at the half hour, but it didn't happen. So we went on to other stuff and when we came back by asked the wizard again and he said the Frogs at 5:30 and the Triwizard at 6:00 for which we waited but neither happened again. So I don't know why all that mix up and what's up with no posting of the scheduling. Wasn't too upset after such a wonderful day that this was the ONLY thing we missed.
There are displays EVERYWHERE, the shop windows, over head in all the buildings and along the queues and around in the shops, so be always on the L@@K!!!
We started out of WWoHP about 6:30 as closing was at 7, but it didn't look like they were making people leave--wish we'd stayed a few more minutes and seen it in more darkness with the lights on......oh, well, maybe next time!?!?
Would I go again? In a heartbeat!! Was it worth the price including the travel to get there? You bet ya! Worth every penny!! I hope rumors of expansion are true and I'll surely go back for that, but even if they don't, I'd like to go back again after the last two movies come out to gather up some more souvenirs!! Even if you can't afford everything you want right then when you're there, you can get a look at it and know if it's something you'd pay the going price for and get later in the online store or the bay.
I still have a rather long list of wants that I didn't get to buy, but at least I got to see them and weed out some of the stuff. There was a little package of dragons I wanted real bad, but they were 25$ and looked about half way between Dollar Store and K-Mart quality. So I skipped on those and a few other things I thought I wanted until I saw them, and a couple of things I didn't know I wanted until I saw them!!
I've heard a lot of grumbling and groaning about the shops being so small. They are small, but that's really what make them special. The place won't always be butt-to-bellybutton crowded. And would you really want to shop in a Hogsmead shop that was as big as Wal-Mart??? ---I didn't think so.......
Oh, one more thing.....unless you're a stickler not to want to see any of the HP stuff till you hit WWoHP, there's a gift shop at the entrance hub that has things from each of the islands and it has a pretty good selection of HP stuff--you can get your first 'fix' here, or that last-minute-OMG-I-forgot-to-get-little-Tommy-anything gift on your way back to the parking lot!!
Oh, well, you're a real die hard HP fan if you've lasted this long in reading this post!! Thanks for listening. I'm done now
Shylaah
