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I visited the park in early June. While I don't know what operations were like before, we had one bad experience and then opt for the Express pass, which was easily worth the investment! My wife and I started the day at Ferrari World to knock that park out. The line for Red Force wasn't extremely long, but we decided to wait in the single rider line to knock it out quickly... that was a mistake. We actually waited 5 minutes longer than the group of people who got in the regular line at the same time as we did. If they didn't have enough for a full train, they would go to the regular line to find a group of an odd number instead of looking for an even number and pulling from the single rider. It just wasn't efficient. Our experience with the Express Pass? Get it. It was well worth it and we had no issues with any of the operations. They would see us coming and put us on the train that was in the station or we'd wait just one train MAX. It was awesome. We were able to do the entire park in about an hour and a half; then spent the day choosing what else we wanted to ride. This doesn't add too much incite to your operations question, but that was our experience at the park! It was beautiful and well themed. You'll have a great time! Enjoy!

I’ll be at the park on the 6th, so I’m appreciating all the information! Barcelona is the last city on our two week European trip. I’m excited! Barcelona will likely kick off a near month for us. Hopefully Norwegian starts Madid or Barcelona from Denver as they have stated that they may. Southwest via Den from Tulsa and Norwegian across the pond. If not, I'll likely fly out of Memphis using points on United We're going from Tulsa to LAX, LAX to London. We'll be going through London, Paris, Rome, and Barcelona all with Chase UR! It's a final trip for us before we start to consider kids! My wife likes coasters and theme parks, but I had to convince her that we needed to do one park while we were abroad! Your trip sounds like a blast, if you get to PortAventura before I do, share the wealth of knowledge! Enjoy!

I’ll be at the park on the 6th, so I’m appreciating all the information! Barcelona is the last city on our two week European trip. I’m excited!

Hey, everyone. I'll be in Barcelona for a few days the first week of June, I decided to take day out and see PortAventura. I've only ever heard good things about this park, so I don't want to miss it. Plus, a place that combines two of my favorite things, roller coasters and Ferrari, I'll be there. Since I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to go back, I was looking in to their express pass system. More than likely, I'll be going to during the week, but don't know what crowds usually look like around that time. Since I'll only have a day, and I'm a first time visitor, I was just going to see if anyone had any advice or "plan of attack" for this park. Much appreciate, and thanks in advance!

I rode Cheetah Hunt this last January. It was also my 200th!

Our passes just came in the mail, so we're going to be there opening weekend!

After a fun filled weekend, I'm back from our trip! Thanks, again, to everyone who offered up some advice. We took most of it, and had a great time! Here's a TR for anyone interested! My wife, two friends, and I left Tulsa in the morning and arrived in Sanford/Orlando early in the afternoon. Because we arrived so early, we got to have some fun on Friday. Allegiant offers flights from Tulsa to Orlando for super cheap. Let me say, I'm not a fan of Allegiant, and you get what you pay for, but the deals are too good to pass up. We left the cold in Oklahoma for Sunny Florida! As luck would have it, it would be one of the coldest weekends on record for Florida, so that kinda stunk. With that being said, we landed in the afternoon and we starving. I surprised my wife by taking her to Culver's. Culver's is her favorite burger place, and we don't have them in Oklahoma. We have them in Missouri, and Texas, but not OK. Any chance we get to have it, we do. She didn't know they were in Florida so this was quite the surprise for her. When we were eating, my wife said she wanted to see the ocean, so we made the hour and change trek to Cocoa Beach. It was a nice drive (I forgot how many tolls are in Florida). We got to the beach, took some pictures, sat on the sand, and watch the Disney cruise ship depart in to the sunset. It was really nice and made for some good pictures. Shortly after we drove back to the Orlando area. I casually mentioned Mine Blower over at Fun Spot to see if it was spark her interest. One of the things I love about my wife is that she humors me in this hobby. She seemed excited to see another park other than the ones she knew about, so this was exciting. We rode Mine Blower and, although it was a fun ride, I found it kind of rough for being a relatively new coaster. I wasn't a big fan of spending $20 for us to ride once, but that's ok. I'm glad we did it. Fun Spot was an awesome park to walk around; very photogenic. We loved it and wished we could have spent a little more time there. It was getting late and we were getting hungry. Sea Dog Brewing makes some of our favorite beers, so to see that they had a brew house in Orlando, we had to go there for dinner and beers. It was quite the surprise for us because we knew it was brewed in Maine somewhere. The food was sub-par, but the deliciousness of the beer made up for it! If you get out there, they have a Maple Bacon Stout right now that I thought was awesome. 12% as well (It does a number seeing how OK has 3.2% beer). We started our day early on Saturday by getting to Universal Resort around 8am. We waited just a little bit before the park opened to anyone that didn't have early entry. It seemed that everyone was headed to the Wizarding World like most of your mentioned. We opt to head straight for Mummy, Transformers, and Rip, Ride, Rockit. We were able to knock out all those in the first 30 mins of being in the park! Mummy was great, and better than I remember the Hollywood being. RRR, was an awesome coaster and my first to feature a non-inverting loop. I really enjoyed it. So many break runs, but a good coaster nonetheless. We did the rest of the rides in the park, but all the 3D started to get to me. After being in the park for a few hours, we went over to the Wizarding World. All I can say is, wow! The amount of detail in everything is hard to comprehend. For someone who wasn't a huge fan of HP, I was in shock. My wife absolutely loved every aspect of it, and would have spent all our money at Diagon Alley if given the opportunity. If you are even the smallest fan of the HP books/movies, you'll love it and I would highly recommend it. Since it was so cold, we were able to really appreciate the warm Butter Beer. It was delicious, and We really enjoyed it! We were very thankful that Universal has Single Rider lines, The Gringots coaster had a wait for 180 mins... yeah, no thanks. We did single rider, got to ride together, and only waited 15 mins. This was the case with most of the rides! I'll leave you with some pictures before I post next about the rest of our day at IOA. Enjoy! Early morning flight to star the day! The iconic Universal globe. The Universal Studios Entrance. We were there on the last day of the holiday celebrations. Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit! I'd always wanted to have a beer a Moe's. The Krusty Burger was not good, and I wouldn't recommend it. My wife was super excited to be at The Wizarding World! Diagon Alley There are people everywhere with the interactive wands. We saved the $50 and watched them. The Knight Bus attendant did an amazing job of staying in character when anyone would ask anything. Surprise of the trip, and boy was she excited! The Dark Arts Shops. Even at 45 degrees, we had to try the frozen Butterbeer. Escape From Gringotts Again, the detail is amazing here; Nothing was overlooked. People without Park Hoppers thought it was an attraction, it was quite confusing for them. The Hogwarts Express was something out of the movie! Very well done! Cocoa Beach! Artsy fartsy. My wife, friends, and I at Fun Spot! Perspective shots can be fun.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone! It seems that Fun Spot is a can't miss! I will add it to my list for sure! I'm pretty excited because I have never been to any of these parks. I'm really looking forward to it! I will be sure to post a TR when I return! Until then, thanks again!

Hey everyone! After watching the awesome video of the Hogwarts Castle Christmas show that Robb put up, I decided to give my wife a trip to go see it as a Christmas gift since she is a big HP fan. Our flight lands at noon on Friday and departs Monday morning (1/5-1/8). Since the trip so quick, I wanted to get some opinions on maximizing some time. We're going to do Universal on Saturday since it's the last day of the show. I'm assuming the crowds will be big because of Christmas break and such; accurate assumption? I've never been to Universal or IOA; we'd like to be able to get all the coasters and rides in, but we're not expecting to. Also, I wanted to shoot over to BGT to ride some of those coasters. Crowd wise, would it be best to go Friday evening, or Sunday? I'm just looking for some helpful hints to maximize our time! Greatly looking forward to the trip! Should be an awesome surprise for her! Thanks in advance!

Go ahead and me me to that list well! I'm really excited for this!

Iron Rattler at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

bobbie68, Sluggo77, and roflstomper, I appreciate the advice! Both help a ton! Thanks! Everyone in my party has a season pass, so we will avoid this bullet!

I read a few pages back on this thread, but thought I would just ask the question. I'll be in the Boston area in a few weeks and was going to make my first trip to the park on Tuesday (7/18). For the locals, what are the crowds like during the week on a summer? I want to be able to hit all the major coasters, but won't have all day to dedicate being at the park. What's the best way to handle this park? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I'm really looking forward to this park! Thanks again!

Three weeks from today, I'll be up at Six Flags New England then Six Flags America a couple of days after that!

I'll be in the park tomorrow for a few hours in the afternoon. We have some business in Dallas, so I figured, why not get in to try and ride my first S&S Free Spin, and probably try to get a ride on NTAG and Mr. Freeze as well!