"How to" guide for doing both parks in 1 day

[phamton]

I saw this post on rec.roller-caster a few months ago and thought we might be able to use this as a starting point to make up a guide for doing both parks in 2 days. We seem to get alot of questions about this here. Here is the original post in bold type (I will add my modifications at the end.)

Arrive to the parking lot of USF at 07:45am.
Parking garage opens at 8am.
Walk to the gate of IOA, get your ticket if needed and get in line.
For IOA, the turnstiles to the left are used first, at USF the ones to
the right are used first.
At 08:45am, they let people in.
Run to Hulk, get a front seat ride, go again.
As you exit Hulk, get an express pass for noon.
Ride Spiderman, and Dr. Doom, they will be walkons.
Continue to Rip Saw Falls, 5 minute wait.
JPRA, Popeye. You'll be soaked, but dry off.
Deuling Dragons, 5 minute wait. You can even wait for the front if
you want.
Continue back to the front of the park.
Go on Dr. Doom and Spiderman using single rider lines. To use them,
go up the exit of the ride and you see them.
Use your express pass for Hulk.
It is now noon, goto USF and do some shows.
Use single rider for MIB.

If you want to see Shrek 4d, then you start your day at USF.

What you do here, is go into the park, get an express pass for Jimmy
Neutron, then get in the Shrek 4d Line, and you'll be in the first
show. It's ok to let some people ahead of you, that way you'll be in
the middle of a row. Rows 2-4 are good in the middle. Come out of
Shrek 4d, use your express pass for Jimmy Neutron, then head over to
IOA.
Wait times will be slight longer than what I said above, but it can be
done. Hulk will be 15 minutes, so will Spiderman.

You see, most people arrive IOA at 11am. If you can be there when the park opens at 08:45am, you get 2 hours of short
waits until the crowd arrives.

I think starting at IoA is a better idea as IoA seems to get crowded much quicker than UO. It seems if you do head over to UO around 3:00 much of the crowd is headed out, either home or over to IoA.

My suggestion would be to stop at UO to get an express pass for Shrek for later in the day before heading to IoA. Then plan on going back to UO just before your fast pass is ready to expire. Ride Shrek with the express pass and then do the other rides and shows at UO.

Since most of us here have been to the parks often and at both busy and non-busy times of year, we could put together an itinerary for the newbies. It seems we get a lot of newbies to UO/IoA who think they have to choose a park if they just have one day. I did notice there was no quick eating places listed, so that might also be a suggestion.

Bev

 

[Flyfly_Eclipse]

Yeah, I've created an itinerary on my website. I don't remember if I did 2-park/1-day or not. And I haven't read them in a while to see if I still agree with them (may need some updating). But I agree 100% about getting express for Shrek and THEN head to IOA. My family would do the exact opposite if we were taking someone new. We'd have someone get express for Spiderman and meet us at MIB...but that's usually because most people we take wouldn't care much for the thrill rides IOA has to offer.

 

[phamton]

I agree with you Flyfly, we'd start at MIB too. But you and I are not the average park goers. In fact, we're both a little deranged.

I'm just trying to look at it from the point of view of a first time visitor. Say a Disney fanatic doesn't want to "waste" any days of a Disney vacation but to appease the kids, decides to take them for only one day to UO/IoA. We get so many questions here from people saying they will only be going for one day and which park should they go to. My answer is both parks! Now we just need a do-able plan for them.

So all you UO/IoA fanatics, let's give'em a plan and hopefully they will love it so much they'll want to come back again and they'll never refer to UO/IoA as that "other theme park" again.

 

[Flyfly_Eclipse]

Thus why I created ones on my site. I remember back in the day when I only had a single day for the parks. Yes. It used to be I'd go to one themepark for one day, once a year I went to IOA back when I was in 6th grade, and didn't get to return until the end of 8th grade. And then, when I did get an AP, we did a lot of the 2-park/1-day trips because we never stayed over night...never bothered until my mom found this website.

 

[robvia]

I posted that message in RRC.
Glad you liked it.

 

[rocketman23]

I take pride in my planning, but the man above me is the definitive commando for park planning. Kudos Rob...

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Great information. Thank you. But there's still nothing like FOTL for seeing both parks at a great pace, IMO.

 

[phamton]

Originally posted by robvia
I posted that message in RRC.
Glad you liked it.

I lurk on RRC and when I saw your post (on Aug. 14) I had to save it. It is excellent! I was going through my saved articles file in my newreader folder and read it again and thought this would be a great topic here. We do get a lot of posters asking how to do the parks in one day and you gave lots of great tips.

I hope you don't mind that I posted it here. You posted under a different name on RRC and your email address was munged.

 

[robvia]

Originally posted by phamton

I hope you don't mind that I posted it here. You posted under a different name on RRC and your email address was munged.

I don't mind. Yeah, my user name on RRC changes to make a statement. It's been NoFamilyRideForMe, recently changed it to FreeParkingKing when I found out SFA hired a guard at the church across the street because of my posts telling others how to park for free. And yes, my e-mail address also makes a statement. Everyone knows who I am, even when my name changes.

 

[susiebrown]

What is RRC? I would like to see this post. Thanks.

 

[robvia]

RRC is rec.roller.coaster
It's an unmoderated newsgroup. Thus people can say whatever they want about parks and people who run web based message boards. I use Agent to surf the group, and that's how I can change my name so often.
Goto www.google.com and click on groups.
Put rec.roller.coaster in the box and click search.
Some messages will come up, look at the first and click on the link that says rec.roller.coaster to get the message listing.
Or try this link below.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=rec.roller-coaster

 

[phamton]

I posted the post in bold in the first post on this thread but here is a link to the original post:
Tips for IoA in one day

RRC is a newsgroup (usenet) called rec. roller-coaster.

The best way to read newsgroups is with a newsreader but you can also read them through Google which is really an archive for newsgroup posts.

Here is the Google link for rec.roller-coaster:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.roller-coaster

 

[susiebrown]

Oops. I was scanning this thread quickly and missed that. Thanks again.

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Thanks for the links!

 

[phamton]

I noticed on this touring guide, it is geared towards the roller coaster rides (since it was written for a roller coaster newsgroup.) It leaves off many of the favorites though like Poseidon, Cat in the Hat, and some of the shows at IoA. I suggest for anyone who wants to spend the day at IoA to do the tour guide but after Dueling Dragons, stop at Oak Tavern to eat if it is lunchtime, if not go to Poseidon first and then do lunch after Poseidon. Then continue on to Jurassic Park (if you haven't eaten yet, you can stop at Burger Digs for a quick lunch but the food isn't nearly as good as at oak tavern in my opinion.). After Jurassic Park go to Suess landing. Then head back to any shows they may be interested in like Sinbad (which is seasonal).