Ontario folks. Ride comparison Wonderland/ Universal

mommymanda

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
After three Disney trips my family is requesting we try Universal. I've been okay with this and starting the research. However a new issue has come up.

Yesterday we hung out at Canada's Wonderland. My family of 5 ended up separating. Hubby and 14 year old took off for the day and rode all the big thrill coasters. Myself, my 9 and 5 year old spend twelve hours hanging in the kid areas.

This has me wondering. Since one of the things I enjoy at Disney is we can stick together. Even if someone doesn't want to wait and go on a specific ride there are things to do while waiting near by. Not so much at Wonderland (lol took us 40min to reconnect/find each other for lunch).

My 9 year old is just starting to enjoy somewhat faster rides, but not ready for large coasters. My 5 year old would probably go on anything...but is tiny and had to have me on half the Wonderland rides still (He was sooo not impressed by this).

So for the sake of comparison, will we come across similar issues at Universal? Will my family vacation need to be splitting the family? Are my younger ones going to be able to ride a lot? Obviously two different parks, but I'm looking more for the comparison of rides.

TIA


Oh and one other question. Does Universal have so many 'up sell' items? My biggest Peeve yesterday was after spending the funds to walk in the gates, everything my kids looked at doing cost and extra fee. I became exhausted trying to explain to them that "no that ride is not part of the park". Lol I want to be more prepared if its happening at Universal too.
 
You may find yourself splitting up at Universal. We stayed together but at the expense of doing the big coasters.

As for upsells, I think Express Pass is a giant upsell. Now that EP is offered at Harry Potter, I think you really need it. I like that at Disney, armed with a good plan, you can do very well as far as touring. At Universal, I feel you need to throw money at them in order to avoid lines. I don't like that. Staying onsite at a deluxe avoids paying directly for EP, but you are still paying. For our stay in January, we are at Cabana Bay because Royal Pacific is $454 usd plus tax per night. Crazy expensive and that hotel is not worth that price. After this January trip, I won't be back. I don't like the throw money at the problem scenario. Same reason I don't go to Wonderland.
 
We have had season's passes to Wonderland in the past and we went to Universal for the first time for March Break 2016. At the time, my kids were 11, 8, and 4 (although all approaching their birthdays). My then 4-YO had to sit out of a lot of rides OR even if he met the height requirement was too scared. Despite that, the line theming itself at Universal is much better than Wonderland where the only ride that has theming is Guardian of the Mountain (or whatever it's called) so he was mostly happy. We used Child Swap alot and it was great. And we spent 50-75% of our week (we went for 7 days - 5 in the parks) in Harry Potter land where the rides weren't an issue at all because there's so few rides and so much else to see and do (interactive wands!!). The only time we split up was so he could do the Seussland area otherwise we were together the whole time.

At Wonderland, we ALWAYS split up. My older two love the thrill rides where as my little guy is still into the Dumbo style rides. This summer, we're doing Universal again and I expect we'll still split off for Seussland but he'll also be up for more of the bigger rides. Your 9 yo should be fine on everything. You'll still need to accompany the 5 yo on most things though.
 
We have done Wonderland and Universal, both several times. We split up more in Wonderland than Universal. My noncoaster son likes a lot of the motion simulator rides like Transformers and Spiderman. We do still split up some, but not too often. We still like Disney better though.

I think at Uni, there are only a few rides your 9 and 5 yr old may not be able to/want to do. We split for Rip Ride Rockit, Dragon Challenge and the Hulk. Oh and the Mummy (which depends on the kid). Everything else we were able to do together although my noncoaster/motion sick DH sat out some rerides of the Simpsons and Minions.
 


How tall are your 9 and 5 Year olds? That will give a good indiciation on what they can and can't ride.

One good thing is that almost everywhere you go at UO and IOA, next to a taller thrill ride there is typically another attraction(s) close by that smaller ones can go on so you can plan to stay together as a group, and just maybe do mini-splits (one set goes to Ride A, while the other set goes to Ride B). For example, the bigger folks could ride Hulk while the shorter ones can ride Storm Force or Spiderman. Bigger folks can ride Rip Ride Rockit while the smaller ones check out Shrek or Transformers etc.

When is your planned Trip? Are you staying onsite or off-site? That'll give a good indication of expected wait times for the rides (i.e. if EP is recommended or not). Unlike Disney which seems to no longer have a "slow" period, there are still lots of timeframes during the year that Universal has relatively lower crowds with lower wait times.

If you give some of the about details I can make some decent reccos as I've done Universal many times.
 
I think what you mean by upsell is paying extra for rides and experiences after entering the park, like to see the dinosaurs at Wonderland. Universal doesn't have that. You'd pay for midway games and if you don't have a park to park pass, you'll need one to ride the Hogwarts Express. But other than that, you don't pay more for the rides, that I can recall.
 
I think what you mean by upsell is paying extra for rides and experiences after entering the park, like to see the dinosaurs at Wonderland. Universal doesn't have that. You'd pay for midway games and if you don't have a park to park pass, you'll need one to ride the Hogwarts Express. But other than that, you don't pay more for the rides, that I can recall.

While you're right, I would make note of the interactive wands. If your kids want to go around casting spells in Diagon Alley or Hogsmead, then buying wands is a stiff hit to the pocket book :p
 


Also, the playspaces in Universal are pretty awesome. IMO, almost worth the cost of admission for the right age group. The Jurassic Park playground and the Curious George playground are all awesome. And Seussland is very cute and well done. We didn't make the time for the Trolley Ride until our 3rd visit and really regretted that - it was super cute.

I don't remember much upsell, although I did pay for a carnival game (my son loves them) so he could win a cute Minion.

Like a PP said, those wands are crazy expensive though. And likely a must have. Especially to do all those interactive spells. And so is butterbeer. Frozen butterbeer has climbed to ridiculous price levels - and I doubt it has slowed down sales. So there's your upsell.

For food, we found Mythos almost comparable in pricing to quick service and it was great food!
 
How tall are your 9 and 5 Year olds? That will give a good indiciation on what they can and can't ride.

One good thing is that almost everywhere you go at UO and IOA, next to a taller thrill ride there is typically another attraction(s) close by that smaller ones can go on so you can plan to stay together as a group, and just maybe do mini-splits (one set goes to Ride A, while the other set goes to Ride B). For example, the bigger folks could ride Hulk while the shorter ones can ride Storm Force or Spiderman. Bigger folks can ride Rip Ride Rockit while the smaller ones check out Shrek or Transformers etc.

When is your planned Trip? Are you staying onsite or off-site? That'll give a good indication of expected wait times for the rides (i.e. if EP is recommended or not). Unlike Disney which seems to no longer have a "slow" period, there are still lots of timeframes during the year that Universal has relatively lower crowds with lower wait times.

If you give some of the about details I can make some decent reccos as I've done Universal many times.

Trip won't be until next summer. We have always travelled to Disney within the last couple weeks of August and enjoyed the 'slower' crowds. That will most likely be our plan for Universal as well. As for on or off site I am leaning towards on, but still looking into it. If on it would be Cabana Bay probably.

I think what you mean by upsell is paying extra for rides and experiences after entering the park, like to see the dinosaurs at Wonderland. Universal doesn't have that. You'd pay for midway games and if you don't have a park to park pass, you'll need one to ride the Hogwarts Express. But other than that, you don't pay more for the rides, that I can recall.

Yes that's what I was looking at. It had been years since I'd been to Wonderland. I knew of the midway games and warned the kids ahead. I was not expecting the Dinosaurs, extra rides other games etc. lol heck they even wanted $5 to dry off after water rides. It was ridiculous to me. I will look into the wands at Universal and get an idea. Kids always get one souvenir from a trip, maybe I can balance the wands as that.

As for food, I know that's a given anywhere and costly at parks. I'm thinking I will either purchase Universal gift cards to cover that or just bring cash. Again its tricky to figure out because we've always had 'free' dining at Disney so took a lot of stress off the trip.
 
Trip won't be until next summer. We have always travelled to Disney within the last couple weeks of August and enjoyed the 'slower' crowds. That will most likely be our plan for Universal as well. As for on or off site I am leaning towards on, but still looking into it. If on it would be Cabana Bay probably.

Looking at the wait times for different rides during this same period last year, and you're looking at upwards of 30 minute waits for most headlining attractions. So it's a pretty decent period to go without really needing express pass. Cabana Bay is fantastic (IMO). Our kids really loved it. 2 giant pools. One with a big slide and the other with a Lazy river. They have a bowling Alley that has cheap mid-week daytime rates. There's a Starbucks right in the lobby. The food court is quick service with TONS of choices and the prices aren't that bad. Plus you can buy refillable mugs for the freestyle machines. They're $17 USD for free refills the entire length of your stay and you can also use them with the ICEE machines in the food court.

Personally I would reccomend staying on site as all of the onsite hotels have the early entry perk plus are ~10 minutes to get to the parks. The deluxe hotels (Royal Pacific, Hard Rock, and Portofino Bay) also come with "free" unlimited express passes, but their rates are quite a bit higher than Cabana Bay.


I will look into the wands at Universal and get an idea. Kids always get one souvenir from a trip, maybe I can balance the wands as that.

This is what we did. They're $50, but we agreed that it would be the kids souvenir for the trip, and they used them for a couple of days in the parks casting their spells at the interactive wand locations (there are dozens).
 
Trip won't be until next summer. We have always travelled to Disney within the last couple weeks of August and enjoyed the 'slower' crowds. That will most likely be our plan for Universal as well. As for on or off site I am leaning towards on, but still looking into it. If on it would be Cabana Bay probably.



Yes that's what I was looking at. It had been years since I'd been to Wonderland. I knew of the midway games and warned the kids ahead. I was not expecting the Dinosaurs, extra rides other games etc. lol heck they even wanted $5 to dry off after water rides. It was ridiculous to me. I will look into the wands at Universal and get an idea. Kids always get one souvenir from a trip, maybe I can balance the wands as that.

As for food, I know that's a given anywhere and costly at parks. I'm thinking I will either purchase Universal gift cards to cover that or just bring cash. Again its tricky to figure out because we've always had 'free' dining at Disney so took a lot of stress off the trip.

FYI: Universal also charges to dry off after water rides if u want to use the family dryers. We just wore dryfit clothes and eventually dried off. Their water rides completely soak u to the skin - but are so worth it! Best rapids ride we've been on!!

They don't have those special rides/Dino walkthrough that Wonderland upcharges for though.
 
We got wands for each child and they got well used while we were there. Best investment. One tip broke (4 year old chewed it up) and they replaced the wand for free. We've still got them for this year's trip and they are quite precious to my kids who don't usually take care of anything (chewing 4 year old aside). We went during March Break but focused on getting there for RD and didn't have any issues getting on the rides we wanted without the Express pass and there were crowd level 10 days that week. We stayed offsite at a condo about a 10 min drive from the parks and it was fantastic.
 

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