I'm thinking once that huge 4,000 hotel expansion opens up near Wet N Wild, they will have to remove early entry for hotel guests at Volcano Bay because to have the park to be at capacity within an hour after opening is already an issue. Now add 4,000 rooms to the already 5,000+, and Aventura...it would be a resort only water park.
So? If it ends up being a resort only water park, it ends up being a resort only water park. Disney, with all of its rooms can't even sustain a resort only water park- so if universal could, all the better for them and all the better reason to stay on-site.
I'm sure two things will happen- crowds will slow a little and capacity will increase with the future expansion.
The new hotel rooms will offset some of that- but a 4th park will offset it even more.
The bottom line is, with 3 parks- UOR hasn't even gotten close to what all they could do with extra hours.
1- expand hours to VB/IoA/USF beyond just Christmas week and middle of summer instead of just VB/IoA or VB/USF.
2- expand to an extra evening hour in addition to the morning hour
3- expand the number of attractions. Open more of- or even the entire park instead of just HP.
Tons of flexibility.
If it ends up that Universal needs 2 water parks- they aren't land locked anymore and can easily put another park at site b.
Again- flexibility. Space. Land. A plethora of resort guests. All luxuries that are new to Universal.
They just might end all of those partnership deals with non Universal parks. They won't really need them after the hotel expansions.
For sure.
As it stands now- partner hotels get early entry- but only if they book a vacation package through universal. There are several hotels involved- so I'm sure it's a decent amount that come in via that option. Although I'd have a hard time believing they book 4600 (wdw rooms+ aventura) of those packages each trip.