Univeral Studios in March

[Storygirl]

What are the crowds like at Universal in March? This year Easter is in April, so the online crowd calendars I've looked at are predicting crowd levels around 6 or 7.

 

We are trying to work out a plan for spring break. Our kids are enrolled in school, so we are limited in our travel dates by the school calendar. While homeschooling in the past, we were able to go to Disney during the off season, but that's not possible any more :mad: . We have never been to Universal, and while we hate to go during heavier crowds, planning to do Universal instead of Disney seems more manageable, since there are only two parks instead of four. We wouldn't be spending as many days at the park, fighting through crowds.

 

But it would help us make our decision to have some real-life feedback. We haven't settled for sure on going to Florida and could choose somewhere else instead.

[Lanny]

We were in Universal Orlando the last week of April 2016. That was not Spring Break or Peak season.  There were a lot of people there. Wonderful that you are going to UO, it is pretty spectacular. You MUST buy the tickets that allow you to visit both parks, so you can ride the Harry Potter train between them, and so you can see both parks.

 

NOTE; When we bought our tickets, the woman tried to upsell us to something that I think was very expensive ($100 per person for one day in both parks?  I cannot remember how much it cost) that I think allows one to be a VIP and go to the head of the lines.  I am not sure if that permits one to go to the head of lines in all attractions, or just some attractions.  We could not afford that, and we were not there during Spring Break.  If I was going to be there during  Spring Break or another peak season, and we could afford it, I would seriously  contemplate buying that VIP service. You will get to go on many more attractions if you do that. Something to consider...  My wife asked me what it was and I told her we didn't need it and that it was very expensive, but for Spring Break, I'd try to include that in the budget...

 

ENJOY UNIVERSAL ORLANDO!

 

NON-STOP ORLANDO...  We live in Colombia and will return, when our budget permits.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Lanny

[HelenNotOfTroy]

We were there last year in March and it was closer to Easter and the crowds were quite manageable. Saturdays are probably going to be busier with the Mardi Gras concerts.

[bettyandbob]

When I decided to do Universal I was also looking at school calendars. I was advised crowds were lower in August than spring break. Perhaps because it's hotter, more humid. I'm not sure the reason. Still crowded, just not as crowded. I don't know when in March your spring break is, but you could be overlapping college spring break season. Anyway, we decided to do August instead of spring break and it worked great for us. 

 

Because one of my kids has disabilities, we planned to try for a leisurely pace. We did 3 days of park hopper tickets. It was important to get there for early opening. That is included if you stay at a Universal resort, but I think there are some options to purchase early entry. The more expensive universal resorts also have express line privileges included in tickets. We found it was cheaper for us to stay at the "value" resort (Cabana Bay) and purchase express line privileges for our tickets. Understand not all rides have express line available. When we went none of the HP stuff had express line privileges. The other thing that made Cabana Bay better for us was the rooms there have refrigerators, while the rooms in the other Universal hotels did not. We purchased a fews things from the local grocery and had some meals in the room. 

 

Purchase your tickets ahead. I have a friend who just went. She said the ticket line moves slowly because every sale has a significant amount of time spent on upselling. You cannot go to the window with the option you want, pay and move on. Also, if you purchase ahead you can find deals and you don't have to spend 20 minutes listening to various upselling spiels while you want to get in the park. At the time we went, American Express had a really good package that beat everything else I could find. I'm sure the best options are different now. 

 

We did not go with a specific plan, other than show up to early admission time each day and get to Harry Potter World. Doing that for three days allowed us to cover everything and repeat a couple things at a pace we enjoyed. That pace included a mid afternoon break in the hotel and return to park early evening each day. 

[Ali in OR]

We went for spring break in 2014 (we also had no other options for different weeks)--about the third week of March. We went to Universal on Saturday when we got there--this was before the new Harry Potter stuff was compete, so we only did the one park with HP stuff. We then went to Magic Kingdom on Monday (staying with grandparents--no other option). In hindsight, Universal was delightful. Sure it was crowded, but not too crowded. I think our longest wait was 45 minutes. Great day. Disney, on the other hand, was a nightmare. So crowded it killed the magic. I haven't had any desire to return to MK, but I would definitely do Universal again, especially now that there is more Harry Potter.

[Lady Florida.]

Mardi Gras runs through the end of March. While the crowd isn't always large you might not want the kids around at night once the partying gets started. It's not quite as bad as real Mardi Gras, but there will still be lots of drunk people around. If you're there on a weekend night I would recommend leaving around 6 or 7 pm to avoid the party crowd.

[Lady Florida.]

Mardi Gras runs through the end of March. While the crowd isn't always large you might not want the kids around at night once the partying gets started. It's not quite as bad as real Mardi Gras, but there will still be lots of drunk people around. If you're there on a weekend night I would recommend leaving around 6 or 7 pm to avoid the party crowd.

[whitestavern]

We went the first week in March a few years ago. If you stay onsite to get the early hours and front of line passes (we did Royal Pacific as it was the cheapest way to get those benefits--and it was a great hotel) then you should be okay. There are a few rides where the FOTL pass doesn't work, like Forbidden Journey, but we rode that first, several times, without waits. It also clears out an hour or so before closing. There's so much to see in that line you don't mind spending extra time there anyway. We found the early admission and FOTL invaluable and wouldn't do Universal any other way.