Wizarding World - Diagon Alley Discussion - Part 3

[TylerDurden]

So the Frozen thing hasn't brought out the marauding hoards to DHS?

Well thats like saying Diagon Alley didnt bring out marauding hoards to Universal.......he said both were dead on the same weekend. Nice try though.

 

[ldcarp7]

My wife agrees with me, universal resort on a whole was not as busy when potter phase 1 opened. We visited the parks in 2010 one month after phase 1 opened and could never get into the land until evening. We walked right into Diagon Alley twice today (early afternoon and evenings). Gringotts was a 2 hour wait and ride with 2 short down times while it was posted as a 3 hour wait. The area is beautiful but is lacking something for the general public to go bonkers over. To the common theme park fan it's just another land.

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There was never a wait to get into Diagon Alley from what I could tell today.

 

[TMH]

The area is beautiful but is lacking something for the general public to go bonkers over. To the common theme park fan it's just another land.

What about the huge fire breathing dragon and the fact that it's themed to one of the most successful and beloved franchises of all time?

 

[ldcarp7]

My daughter taped the dragon breathing fire and it was funny wtaching some of reactions. It amazed me the number people not wanting a picture in front of Grimmauld Place. My family loves the potter movies and books but the last movie was in 2011 and the last book a few years before that. The general public are what have done for me lately or I should say what have you done for me right now as connected as we are at the present.

 

[Lucky Planet]

Not even just that, but a decent amount of people on property went and watched the game. Felipe posted a photo of Finnegan's and they were packed. A lot of people stayed at their resorts and watched their or went out and watched off property.

where is this pic?

 

[Jakemeister]

On his personal Twitter.

If you wanted to compare the Frozen event, nothing at Hollywood was that successful over the past week. Diagon is better designed, and had better planning. The land opened with wait return times, which Hogsmeade did not. Strictly operations Diagon had it much more together.

 

[TylerDurden]

^nobody is disagreeing with that...

 

[Mad Dog]

I think I've read that Diagon's capacity is significantly higher than Hogsmeade. Does anyone have any solid numbers on the respective capacities?

 

[Frogki]

So guys, I'm planning to go up at some point in the next few weeks. It might sound silly but I wanted to get your take on the crowds - would it be better to go on the 29th this month or that weekend? If I go on the weekend I'll be getting an express pass by staying in a hotel but that won't help with HP crowds. I'm prepared for it to be crazy but I wanted to ask if anyone thought whether either of those dates is better?

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Comparing Diagon crowds to Hogsmeade crowds using waiting to get into the land and wait times for anything is a bad measure. Diagon is designed to easily handle what Hogsmeade couldn't. And then some. Everything I heard says this is bigger than the first. Can't say much more, sorry.

 

[sjago13]

So guys, I'm planning to go up at some point in the next few weeks. It might sound silly but I wanted to get your take on the crowds - would it be better to go on the 29th this month or that weekend? If I go on the weekend I'll be getting an express pass by staying in a hotel but that won't help with HP crowds. I'm prepared for it to be crazy but I wanted to ask if anyone thought whether either of those dates is better?

Well if you are on-site then you get in an hour early. So if you wake up early enough to be near the front you should be able to get on gringotts without much effort then be fine the rest of the day using the express pass on all not harry potter.

 

[Frogki]

I'd completely forgotten about the hour early thing. I'm going separately from the person who's getting the hotel room so we may not check in till later, but at least I know I can get in early the following day if I need to...

 

[kimlovesfl]

Diagon is bigger than Hogsmeade, and has more capacity, and if you are going at the end of the month, I would go on a weekend.

Don't forget, for Hogsmeade grand opening, people had a couple of months advance notice of opening day; for DA, it was 2 weeks. I think this has made the difference in crowds.

 

[Disneyhead]

I was there yesterday and the park was slammed. 175 mins for Transformers. 240 for Gringott's, 160 for Despicable Me. And the walkways were very crowded just trying to navigate the park. And this was around 7pm last night.

 

[spencem]

Anyone know how many cars they are running on Gringotts now? By the sound of it they must have more than 3 now if the wait times are down to 'just' 240 minutes on a very busy day.

 

[MrRoamer]

Has anyone tried doing the early morning hours for Diagon coming from Cabana Bay? Thinking about staying out there this weekend to do Gringotts early Sunday, but want to know if getting on the buses early has been particularly painful.

 

[Skubersky]

Anyone know how many cars they are running on Gringotts now? By the sound of it they must have more than 3 now if the wait times are down to 'just' 240 minutes on a very busy day.

Last I checked they were running 5 trains with 80-90sec dispatches, about 50% max capacity.

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Has anyone tried doing the early morning hours for Diagon coming from Cabana Bay? Thinking about staying out there this weekend to do Gringotts early Sunday, but want to know if getting on the buses early has been particularly painful.

I did it the first 3 days, you have to be on the very first 6am bus if you want a hope of riding Gringotts with less than a 2 hour wait.

 

[MrRoamer]

I did it the first 3 days, you have to be on the very first 6am bus if you want a hope of riding Gringotts with less than a 2 hour wait.

Thanks Seth, was this due to the capacity of Gringotts or the number of people trying to get on the buses?

 

[awhen]

Has anyone tried doing the early morning hours for Diagon coming from Cabana Bay? Thinking about staying out there this weekend to do Gringotts early Sunday, but want to know if getting on the buses early has been particularly painful.

We just stayed, and decided to walk to get ahead of the first bus. Left at 5:30am and got to the front gate about 5:55. We were probably among the first 50 people there. Nice thing about it is you use the Royal Pacific bag check which had no wait.

 

[Skubersky]

Thanks Seth, was this due to the capacity of Gringotts or the number of people trying to get on the buses?

Busses from Cabana Bay come at a steady rate and you should be able to get on the first one with no problem, but there will still be a bunch of other hotel guests at the gates when you arrive. I tried getting there 15min before early entry one day, and it took until almost the regular opening time just to enter Diagon, at which point the wait was already 2+ hours.