Touring Strategy for Universal & Islands of Adventure

Since we never travel to Florida during peak seasons, we just wing it at Universal. First trip I had no idea what might interest me or where the crowds congregated, and I was with people who had an agenda (Harry Potter), so I just followed along. Second trip, I knew my way around a bit better, so in addition to following the Harry Potter crowd, I also made sure to hit a few attractions I wanted to experience, but I still had no touring strategy. Just "I want to be sure to see the stunt show," or whatever. By now I know my way around the Universal parks well enough that I can't imagine I'll need a touring plan for the next trip, whenever that will be.

But then, we no longer use detailed touring plans at WDW either. Since we never go during peak seasons and we know our way around the parks there's really no need.

We knew where we wanted to eat before we went, but other then that we waited until day of and just scheduled our day around the shows we wanted to see at Universal and went straight for WWoHP in Islands of Adventure.

We got there before park opening and bolted to Harry Potter, which was exactly the thing to do for folks wanting to do the HP stuff. We got in line for Ollivander's and were still like the 4th group to get in. After that, we went straight back to the castle for the Headliner Attraction, Forbidden Journey, then rode the other two coasters, then back to Forbidden Journey two times, then lunch at Three Broomsticks, then Butterbeer (YUM!), then other HP shops, then just basically followed the park around to the front counterclockwise. That was the ONLY strategy we used and it worked out fine with us. We would have messed up if we hadn't done HP in that order, however! The lines were Loooong by the time we were leaving that section. We went during Spring Break 2012.

I've been several times to IOA, but only once since HP has been open. Knowing that everyone would head for HP first, we opted for the comic lane...rode Hulk, Spiderman, etc. We waited for like 5 minutes for all of those rides. We made it over to HP in the afternoon and still only waited 30 min to ride it. Not too bad. I just avoided the crowds as much as possible. Where the crowd was we went the opposite direction.

BTW, if you have not been to IOA during Christmas, you should! The grinch is in his lair and you can go down and meet him. It's so fun and he is seriously so mean!!! I will try to find a pic.

We had the exact same experience. We headed straight back to WWoHP and got in line immediately for Ollivanders and still had to wait about 30 min as we had 3 or 4 groups ahead of us. We enjoyed a butterbeer while in line so it wasn't too terrible, but I'm hoping they fix that system as part of the expansion because there needs to be a better way to get people moving through there!