We just did one USH day in the middle of our DLR in January to let my DD see HP world since she is a big fan. Take note that HP “world” is not a “world” in my book. I looked at it online and prepared my daughter for the reality, which is that there are only TWO rides, a restaurant, and some shops in HPW. I figured she heard “world” and was thinking it was the size of DCA or something!! There is nice theming in the area, and if you are willing to shell out $80 or so for the interactive wand, you can spend more time going around that area and using the wand to move things in shop windows etc. We ate at 3 Broomsticks, and I was not impressed.
Regarding your ride questions, basically every ride there with a few exceptions, is a motion simulator due to lack of geographic space to build big rides like coasters. My DDs and husband ride every ride at DLR, DCA and all the parks in WDW without a problem, motion simulators, coasters, eveything. They were all motion sick when we left USH. It was just way too many motion simulators in a row for them. I can’t do motion simulators at all, so I could only ride the short coaster (think Barnstormer at WDW) in HPW and that was it.
Another thing to note: we don’t let our children watch Simpson, Walking Dead, Mummy etc, so those areas were completely lost on them. The theming in the rides didn’t do anything for them, and again the rides were all motion simulators. We did like the animal show. We didn’t see the other shows because the shows all seem to run at the exact same time, and we didn’t want to wait 2 hours until the next showtime to see other shows since everyone was feeling queasy. We didn’t do the studio tour because my children have not seen many of the movies and because it was about 40 degrees outside and the trams are open-air.
For us, USH was one and done, but I am glad my DD got to see HPW. We took a Lyft from GCH, and we went on a Saturday to avoid some of the traffic and some of the crowds at DLR. It took about 40 minutes to get out there and 70 minutes to get back. It ate into a lot of DLR time to me! But again, worth it for my DD to see HPW one time.
We did get the Unlimited Express Pass, which is worth it to me if you only have one day and want to do a lot of rides. They also offer a cheaper Express Pass, but you can only skip the line once per ride.