Tips For Conquering Universal Studios Hollywood In One Day

Who says you can’t take 4 kids on an epic day trip lasting 16 hours and still have everyone come out alive? Not this gal. When the stars align, you can’t fight it, you just can’t. We booked our trip for spring break in Palm Springs, California, not knowing that a ‘short’ 2 hour drive (depending on traffic) would bring us to one of my bucket list items! That’s right folks, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened to the public the week before we arrived, with very little social media fan fare actually, however once I got wind of it, we HAD TO GO! And GO we did. As the newest attraction at Universal Studios, it was rumoured to be bigger and better than it’s older sibling in Florida. Here are my tips for conquering Universal Studios Hollywood in one day.

 

 

Tip #1:

Go off season. Of course, this is true of any high traffic tourist area but when it comes to theme parks, it makes all the difference in the world. Our visit was April 12, 2016 and it was perfect. The weather wasn’t crazy hot and the crowds weren’t insane however the park hours of operation are shorter in April (10am-6pm) and vary month to month so check the calendar online and plan accordingly.

 

Tip #2:

Redeem rewards points. I had no idea I could buy theme park tickets using my points cards. Brilliant. Or so I thought. I tried to use Airmiles to help with the cost of buying 6 tickets to the park but unfortunately, Airmiles Canada only deals in hard copy tickets (no e-tickets to print at home) for Universal Studios and they don’t offer anything better than a 3 week window for shipping and won’t ship to a USA address (I asked them to ship the tix to the house we’re staying at in California). What? Isn’t it 2016? Yeah, so learn from my mistake and plan way ahead if you want to redeem rewards points.

 

 

Tip #3:

Buy online. Ok, so the points thing didn’t work out. We still decided to suck up the cost and go for it. I mean, we’re here, so close, how could I pass up the opportunity to see Hogwarts in person?! We got tickets on the Universal website for a specific date off their ticket calendar and choosing a week day (vs a weekend) saved us $20 per person. Nice! No need to book days or weeks in advance either, we bought our tickets the day before and printed them out (thanks for being up to date with e tickets Universal). Just make sure you can commit to going on the day you pick, your tickets will only be valid for that date.

 

Tip #4:

Splurge on Front of the Line. If you can afford it, even though we did NOT, I highly recommend paying the extra cash to buy those fancy passes to wear around your neck.  It’s still going to be about double the cost of a regular admission price BUT you’ll see and do everything in 1 day that would take you 2 days to accomplish so really you’re spending the same amount of money to see everything in the park. Yeah, I can justify just about any luxury in life, it’s a gift. My husband hates it. The lines to go on rides were, on average about 30 minutes. Some rides were posting wait times of 60+ minutes, like the brand new Harry Potter ride. People with those magical passes simply walked up to the front, had their passes scanned and off the went to the front of the line while I watched them go by longinly. (sniff)

 

 

Tip #5:

Have an action plan. Grab a map or go online and check out all the attractions. If you don’t have a Front of the Line pass, you’ll have to prioritize which rides are a must and which ones you could live without seeing. We managed to see all the rides we really wanted to see and we only sat down to eat a quick bite for about 30 minutes.

 

Tip #6:

Stay till closing. I know it’s a long day, especially if you’ve got kids with you but closing time or rather the 15-20 minutes right before closing time is THE best time. The park starts to empty out and the lines die down really fast as people start heading for the parking lot and rush for home and hotel. We walked out of the Despicable Me experience at 5:45pm and the park was closing at 6pm so we made a dash back to Harry Potter to see if we could get on the one ride we wanted to go on but was 60+ minutes wait all day long. We hit the jackpot! There was NO waiting, NO line and NO other people on the brand new featured ride of the whole park. There are no words to describe how amazing this ride is. 5 seater cars face sideways and have walls between each person so you feel like you’re all alone. It’s a mix of live animatronics and 3D screens and (for lack of a better word) roller coaster that carries you through a visual experience with Harry Potter himself. Following him on his broomstick and encountering spiders, snakes and even dementors, it brought out uncontrollable giggling and cheering like I was 10 years old again.

 

 

Tip #7:

Spend wisely. We didn’t budget the expense of paying for 6 of us to go to Universal so when we decided to splurge and go, we made every effort to save money once we arrived at the park. We packed a backpack with water bottles for everyone and refilled them with the water fountains on site. We saved loads of money by bringing our own snacks, fruit and sandwiches and if we didn’t have to drive back to Palm Springs after the park closed, we wouldn’t have bought dinner on site but thankfully found an affordable place for dinner on the City Walk which is the business district just outside of the gates on the way to the parkade. The kids really (and I mean really) wanted a souvenir from Harry Potter but with the wands starting at $30 (up to $60) times 4 kids, they were out of the question. Like any theme park, the merchandise is displayed brilliantly and “no, honey” becomes a reflex so to compromise, each of our girls got to bring home their very own stuffy owl from the Hogwarts shop at $16-$19 each.

 

The day, the weather, the laughter, the smiles, the sleeping children on the 2 hour ride back to Palm Springs. It was all worth the price of admission.

Every penny.

Do you have a tip for conquering Universal Studios or any other theme park? Hit me up in the comments.