Is it possible? YES!

Is it easy? Depends on the time of year you visit the parks, and also depends on how flexible you’re willing to be throughout the day. But generally, it’s pretty easy to ride all of the rides at both Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure in under two days!

We visited Orlando in the beginning of March 2022, so the school trips and spring breakers were just starting to crowd the parks. But no fear! We rode all the rides in both parks over the span of 1.5 weekdays (Wednesday-Thursday), and then did it all over again over the span of a 2 day Friday-Saturday stretch.

Key points in our strategy to ride all the rides:

• No Express Pass was purchased or used.
• We purchased Park To Park passes because the full experience of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was a priority and a Park To Park ticket is required to ride the Hogwarts Express. Of note, a “Buy 3 days and get 2 extra days free” deal is usually available, which gives you 5 days of park access .
• Plan your trip based on the estimated crowd levels. We used various Universal Orlando Crowd Calendars which estimate how busy the parks will be at the time of your visit. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the slowest days of the week, followed by Mondays and Thursdays, followed by Fridays. Unsurprisingly, you can expect especially huge crowds on weekend days.
• Make sure you arrive at the parks right at time of opening which is usually around 8:00am or 9:00am. This allows for the most time to squeeze some rides in before more people mosey on in to the parks in mid-morning. Arriving after 10:30am ensures longer wait times and more rides missed.
• If checking off all the rides is a priority for you, strongly consider packing a lunch and forgoing sit-down meal experiences in the park. This saves time for rides and also allows for more flexibility to head over to a different area of the park when a certain ride’s wait time goes down. That said, our party did opt for a sit-down lunch at restaurants for both days (one meal at Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade and another meal at Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley) and we still had no issue getting to all the rides within 2 days.
• Monitor the wait times on the Universal Studios app. Wait times fluctuate widely throughout the day. You can also set up alerts to be notified when a specific ride’s wait time drops below a given threshold.

How To Ride All The Rides At Universal Florida And Islands Of Adventure Without Express Pass

Here was our strategy:

Islands of Adventure:

• Start your less busy day (per the crowd calendar, or whichever is your non-weekend day) in Islands of Adventure. This park has more of the bigger rides that generate longer wait times. We started off with The Incredible Hulk Coaster, followed by The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, followed by Doctor Doom’s Fearfall. All of these rides had a 5 minute wait time at the beginning of the day. After this, we just progressed clockwise through the park.
• In Islands of Adventure, everyone will rush to Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure first and we never ever saw the wait time dip below 60 minutes even during the early park admission hour, so just bite the bullet and don’t bother trying to beat the crowd. The single rider line for Hagrid’s ride is actually a good option, despite the fact that the coaster seats two people per row. If the end of the single rider line only reaches the top of the staircase leading downward into the indoor area, you can expect around a 25 minute wait.
• Islands of Adventure is also home to the Jurassic World VelociCoaster which is both a relatively new ride and absolutely amazing, so wait times can be astronomic at times. We noticed wait time for the VelociCoaster goes down particularly during mealtimes, so wait for it to hit 30-40 minutes when everyone else is eating lunch and then go for it. Velocicoaster reliably overestimated their wait times so a posted 40 minute wait ended up being 25-30 minutes. Especially at this lower wait time, the single rider line ended up taking longer than the standby (normal) line, probably because the VelociCoaster seats two people per row. Pro tip: request the front row! It seemed most people did not know this was an option, but there is a small sign at the front of the line designating a separate line for the first row and the coaster experience is so elevated in the very front!
• Skull Island: Reign of Kong is a 4D ride in a simulated truck. Wait time for this one is very hit or miss. The ride breaks down frequently and wait times can end up being double what is actually posted if they are “running at reduced capacity.” A plus of this is if the ride breaks down while you’re on it, you are often compensated with a free Express Pass to be used on any single ride. Kong was a hard ride to predict in terms of wait time, so just watch for when the time goes down. I did not find the ride enjoyable enough to wait more than 25-35 minutes for.
• Water rides will have the shortest wait times in the morning, with longest wait times in early to mid afternoon.
• Start one day in Islands of Adventure and take the Hogwarts Express from Hogsmeade Station to King’s Cross Station to end your day in Universal Studios Florida. Start a different day in Universal Studios Florida to take the Hogwarts Express the opposite direction from King’s Cross Station to Hogsmeade Station, ending that separate day in Islands of Adventure. I recommend you take the Hogwarts Express anytime it’s at or below a 20min wait time. The train wait times were often actually much longer than the posted wait time, so steer clear if the posted wait time is 40+ minutes. The ride is different both ways (going from King’s Cross to Hogsmeade is better).
• Don’t forget to watch the nightly light show on the Hogwarts Castle in Islands of Adventure! Shows start around sunset and repeat every 20 minutes.
• The Harry Potter areas in both Hogsmeade (Islands of Adventure) and Diagon Alley (Universal Studios Florida) each have an Ollivander’s wand shop as well as the Ollivander’s Experience during which an actor portrays a wandmaker and helps a young visiting witch or wizard find a wand. If you’re wondering which one to stand in line for: the experience at Diagon Alley is a bit more interactive and fun to watch versus the one at Hogsmeade.

Universal Studios Florida:

• The day you start in Universal Studios Florida, ride Despicable Me Minion Mayhem first. Follow this immediately by the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. Both of these are fun rides and have the absolute shortest times at time of park opening.
• Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts has a very fluctuating wait time. Wait times can go from 85 minutes down to 30 minutes…literally over the course of a few minutes. Anytime you’re poking about the shops in Diagon Alley, just keep an eye on the ride times in the app and strike when the time is right.
• A lot of the smaller rides in Universal Studios Florida (Men In Black Alien Attack, Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, Transformers: The Ride 3D, Fast and Furious – Supercharged, E.T. Adventure) can reliably be expected to go down to 10-20 minute wait time multiple times throughout the day.
• When you need a break from rides (or your feet need a break from standing in line), take advantage of the many sit-down shows in Universal Studios Florida! Kids and families will love the Animal Actors on Location show. The Bourne Stuntacular action stunt show is mesmerizing, well done, and one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen (we watched it three times during our trip…). The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a surprisingly memorable and also very well done short show performed throughout the day on the outdoor stage within Diagon Alley.

Here are some fun memories of our trip to Universal Studios Orlando and Islands of Adventure!