Thanksgiving 2017 crowd help?

[Livelovedisney]

Hello everyone. My husband and I have been thinking about going to Universal Studios for a long time now and we believe we will be going this year with are little ones. My little girl is going to be 7 and little boy will be 5. We are planning on doing a superstar character breakfast. I was just wondering, how busy is it usually this time of year and what should we expect? Do characters here do autographs like disney characters?

Edit: Oh and when is the best time to buy our package? We plan on staying at the Hard Rock Hotel.

 

[BubbaQuest]

Hi hopefully someone else can help with character breakfast info. I haven't officially attended one.

I wanted to give you a heads up there isn't much advantage to buying a Uni vacation package here in the US versus buying things separately. Occasionally Uni Vacations will offer gift card incentives, and they have decent cancellation insurance if you plan on buying airline tickets through them too, but otherwise I'd recommend booking your hotel directly.

Feel free to look for specials on your favorite travel websites or maybe you already have loyalty discount points. Staying at the Hard Rock Hotel will give you all the onsite benefits regardless of how you book the hotel. You can then purchase your park tickets separately.

Uni occasionally runs a buy 2 days get a third day free special. However, I'm not sure if those have blackout dates. Personally I'd recommend waiting until Volcano Bay opens to see what happens. However, that probably means another ticket price increase sometime before summer!

Hope this helps.

 

[JS514]

Are you going the week OF Thanksgiving or the week after? I will always always always recommend going the week after Thanksgiving. We always stay at Royal Pacific, so we get the free Express Pass, but honestly it is not needed the week after thanksgiving. We just use them because we have them. I don't think I have ever waited in line longer than 15 minutes that week.

Now, on the other hand, if you are going the week OF Thanksgiving...it can be a little hectic. Of course it all depends, but that is one of their highest capacity weeks of the year. I would recommend either buying the express pass or consider staying in one of the hotels that offer it as a bonus. That can add a little unwanted cost to the budget, but I think it is well worth it to not have to spend upwards of 30-45 minutes in each line.

 

[Livelovedisney]

Are you going the week OF Thanksgiving or the week after? I will always always always recommend going the week after Thanksgiving. We always stay at Royal Pacific, so we get the free Express Pass, but honestly it is not needed the week after thanksgiving. We just use them because we have them. I don't think I have ever waited in line longer than 15 minutes that week.

Now, on the other hand, if you are going the week OF Thanksgiving...it can be a little hectic. Of course it all depends, but that is one of their highest capacity weeks of the year. I would recommend either buying the express pass or consider staying in one of the hotels that offer it as a bonus. That can add a little unwanted cost to the budget, but I think it is well worth it to not have to spend upwards of 30-45 minutes in each line.

Yeah, we're going to week of Thanksgiving. Mainly because that's when school is out. My daughter has the whole week of Thanksgiving off so we were wanting to make use of it. So far we're planning on coming back the (Wed) day before Thanksgiving Day.

 

[JoeCamel]

Yeah, we're going to week of Thanksgiving. Mainly because that's when school is out. My daughter has the whole week of Thanksgiving off so we were wanting to make use of it. So far we're planning on coming back the (Wed) day before Thanksgiving Day.

Have fun and bring your patience. You and thousands of your new, closest friends will enjoy a holiday in the parks