Universal's Crowding

[Mad Dog]

How do you think crowds will be this Sunday? Less than what it has been I'm sure. Most tourists should be flying out this weekend I think.

This morning's TP lines look fairly busy. I'll post an afternoon count for a better feel...One interesting point since I've been monitoring the times all day since Dec. 26th is that the lines have generally remained fairly long (60 to 70% of the afternoon line times) up to the last hour of the evening. So it appears that a large crowd that is more tourist oriented than the slower period crowds (made up of a lot of locals) has a better tendency to stay in the parks until 10 or 11 PM. The night line numbers were very similar to WDW during this period. The only WDW park that stayed open later than Universal was the Magic Kingdom......So it will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings, but if is indeed getaway day, that may play into the levels.......Note: Touring Plans crowd predictions for Sunday are an 8 for the Studios and a 7 for IOA (1 to 10 with 10 being the busiest)

 

[shiekra38]

What if everyone is waiting for Harry Potter weekend?

 

[Mad Dog]

TP lines at apx. 3:10PM....Parks sound busy. Weather must be nice, the water rides have long lines.......Bilge Rat Barges 45 minutes, CIH 50, Doom 45, Dragon Challenge 40, Forbidden Journey 75, Hogwart's Express 75, Hulk 60, JP River 60, One Fish 45, Pterandon 60, Ripsaw Falls 75, Spider Man 80......DM 110 minutes, ET 45, Gringotts 75, Hogwarts 45, MIB 45, Mummy 45, Rip Ride 50, Simpsons 40, Transformers 90......One point for early to middle of next week, most college kids are still on break...

 

[MillenniumDragons]

Does anybody have a certain time schedule when going to Universal (i.e. which park first, which attraction first)
I usually head to IOA around opening and go straight to Hulk. Then I usually end up at the Studios around 1 PM. Thoughts?

 

[Mad Dog]

We always go on ET as our first ride when on vacation. It's a nostalgic thing with us.

 

[sjago13]

I always do hulk, doom, spidey, cat if I feel like it, then rockit, transformers, mummy. After that we just do whatever we feel like. Then do diagon, train to hp and then hit up water rides before we go if we wanna do them. And if u do Popeye or dudley in the last hour on a slower day they just send u up express and on Popeye they don't make you get off.

I do the above if I arrive for opening and don't have early entry. If I go later in the day I usually start out at the studios and just do marvel last.

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

Does anybody have a certain time schedule when going to Universal (i.e. which park first, which attraction first)
I usually head to IOA around opening and go straight to Hulk. Then I usually end up at the Studios around 1 PM. Thoughts?

Depends what time of the day I go. If I go in the morning, start at USF with Gringotts. If it's afternoon, start at IOA with Spider-Man.

 

[Obi Ubamba]

I start with FJ at IOA, then do JP, Toon Lagoon, and Marvel. I then do USF.

 

[Mad Dog]

What if everyone is waiting for Harry Potter weekend?

Looks like Royal Pacific is already all booked up and the Standard Rooms at Cabana are unavailable. Might be a strong moderate sized crowd.

 

[Mad Dog]

Saturday's Jan. 3 Touring Plan line results (1 to 10 scale, 10 being the busiest)....Universal Studios 9, IOA 9.......Magic Kingdom 7, Epcot 7, Animal Kingdom 5, DHS 5 (each WDW park came in two levels under the TP projections)

 

[Nick]

Saturday's Jan. 3 Touring Plan line results (1 to 10 scale, 10 being the busiest)....Universal Studios 9, IOA 9.......Magic Kingdom 7, Epcot 7, Animal Kingdom 5, DHS 5 (each WDW park came in two levels under the TP projections)

I don't want to come off rude here, but you put wayyy too much stock in TP numbers and their ride time predictions. While it is a well calculated system, it's never smart to put so much stock into one source. You need to look around from place to place.

Basically, Great, so TP is saying it was going to be packed at Uni yesterday and only mildly crowded at WDW. You always post projected wait times from their site/app. You need to being some form of factual information to the discussion as well though. Uni very well have been, i'm not trying to bring that down, but what i'm saying is bring facts to back up your claims basically.

 

[Mad Dog]

I don't want to come off rude here, but you put wayyy too much stock in TP numbers and their ride time predictions. While it is a well calculated system, it's never smart to put so much stock into one source. You need to look around from place to place.

Basically, Great, so TP is saying it was going to be packed at Uni yesterday and only mildly crowded at WDW. You always post projected wait times from their site/app. You need to being some form of factual information to the discussion as well though. Uni very well have been, i'm not trying to bring that down, but what i'm saying is bring facts to back up your claims basically.

I don't really have a position or claims. Maybe a theory or guess. Just putting out info for discussion purposes. TP's info isn't perfect, far from it, but it's a point to look at. But they're probably generally in the ballpark. And these are estimated line times, not attendance, though they often might be a similar indicator. I don't see anyone putting real numbers up. Like I've said previously, the only real numbers would be those that the companies themselves have access. to. But, bottom line, looking at TP numbers is better than sitting around "guessing" what a crowd was. And that's often what we get. I'm certainly not an insider or expert, I'm just contributing to the discussion.....Leave me add an interesting note from Sam Gennawey's book on Universal/Disney. He said that Disney, in the 90's, used to divert up to 2 million a year of their attendance figures at Epcot to MGM Studios(DHS) to make it look like MGM was doing better than it was. Take that for what it's worth when we talk about attendance.

 

[NJBrandon]

I don't want to come off rude here, but you put wayyy too much stock in TP numbers and their ride time predictions. While it is a well calculated system, it's never smart to put so much stock into one source. You need to look around from place to place.

Basically, Great, so TP is saying it was going to be packed at Uni yesterday and only mildly crowded at WDW. You always post projected wait times from their site/app. You need to being some form of factual information to the discussion as well though. Uni very well have been, i'm not trying to bring that down, but what i'm saying is bring facts to back up your claims basically.

I don't want to come off rude here, but I'm going to come off like a rude a-hole anyway.

 

[Mad Dog]

Seth Kubersky just tweeted that he's at Universal & the holiday crowds are still there.

 

[Nick]

I don't want to come off rude here, but I'm going to come off like a rude a-hole anyway.

Well, sometimes you can't help it.

 

[Clive]

Seth Kubersky just tweeted that he's at Universal & the holiday crowds are still there.

Though Touring Plans is showing ride wait times are way down. Gringotts is only 60 minutes at noon, Rockit at 25 at 11:30. Those are super reasonable times I can deal with.

 

[Mad Dog]

Though Touring Plans is showing ride wait times are way down. Gringotts is only 60 minutes at noon, Rockit at 25 at 11:30. Those are super reasonable times I can deal with.

Great. Hope you have a fantastic vacation. I was just there in September and I'm missing it already. Yes, the wait times don't look all that bad today. Certainly not as busy as most of the past 10 days but still a healthy crowd.

 

[epcyclopedia]

Couple notes..

Had it mentioned to me today that capacity was hit 3 times over the holiday season.

Also, there have been more guests post 12/31 than expected, a lot more. From a staffing standpoint, today was the first day of "non-peak" but most offerings were still at higher numbers (shows, sets, etc..)

Tomorrow it goes to what January is supposed to be.. everyone is just sort of hoping all those people don't show up again tomorrow.

To answer the question i saw a-ways back.. Zax Bypass is a walkway on the "left" side of Suess Landing past Green Eggs and Ham and popping out behind Moose Juices / Goose Juice along the waterfront. I'll note that all of those (Moose/Goose and Green Eggs were open and feeding people! Most folks don't know it exists. When Hogsmeade is in resort-guest-only mode it provides a way to send resort guests on direction and provide a place to hold day guests (in Suess Landing proper).

As for "wait times don't reflect capacity" - in non peak seasons, i'd agree, as all operators (Disney, Universal, even SeaWorld) will run fewer vehicles to match projected attendance and a "reasonable" line. But we're talking about peak when they try to have every last vehicle running. Also, when you talk about "someone calls out and things can't be fixed" - that's a uniquely disney and their unions and "cast deployment" created problem.

Other theme park operators (uni, busch, hell - holyland) staff at a level Disney considered an excess. Disney has a computer that says "you need exactly this many people and statistically there will be X callouts so that will be staffed too." It's too rigid, and when things fluctuate you have an all-stop because you're missing a vital position. I've worked in attractions at Disney and shut down a ride for the day because they used CDS (the computer system) and it was wrong and broke a union rule on staff movement/breaks and thus the ride was shut down per the union policy and everyone working went home paid for the rest of the day.

At the other parks there's people in offices looking at microsoft excel trying to figure out staffing. They say things like "ugh.. that guy David is probably going to call out so I'll also have Dan come in, and if David bothers to show up then I can have Dan do other stuff.."

There's a lot of "inefficiency" in the other park operators outside of Disney that actually leads to better guest experiences (no one HAS to be somewhere at some exact moment the way the avg Disney CM does per the computer) and happier workers. Just ask anyone at Disney how CDS stands for "Cast Dehumanization System."

Side note: I still seriously have my doubts that thing next to JP is Kong - or at least any Kong we've seen installed anywhere else. It has singular continuous catwalks in relatively low ceiling rooms and if you assume those follow a track or path or something they don't correlate to any known Kong attraction. Just sayin.

 

[MillenniumDragons]

Yeah it was crowded today but nothing overwhelming. Gringotts around 9:30 was around 45 min. Mummy around 10:30 said 15 minutes but it was close to being a walk-on. Transformers was every bit of 45 minutes. The Hulk's queue went outside the building (Flash back to me asking why they kept the outside queue in another thread) Most attractions were 30+ but no more than an hour. (USF AM/IOA PM) Except for Despicable Me, which was 100 minutes. Overall, a slightly above average day at the parks!

 

[Mad Dog]

epclcyopedia: Thanks. Some nice insights on the attraction operation. Great news that Universal did so well over the holiday season. This helps contradict those who, for the last two years, keep saying that Universal is falling short of attendance expectations.....More profits=more new attractions,a winning guest experience formula.