Express Passes... How necessary?

[AXiDMonica]

Hi everyone! I've been around (as a lurker) for a while but always on the WDW side.

So... I come to you all for advice. DH and I have decided to visit Universal for 3 days this March. (I haven't been to these parks in a while so as you can imagine, I have many Qs.)

My Q for right now: How necessary is an Express Pass? We don't mind waiting in lines, 120 minutes is our max. Do you think we would be able to do one whole park a day without the Express Pass?

Dates are March 6 (IOA) & 7 (Studios).

Thanks!

 

[Laketravis]

We just got back from what I would consider the busiest time of the year.

The longest waits we saw were:

Despicable Me: 100 minutes
Forbidden Journey: 75 minutes
Escape from Gringotts: 60 minutes

Those were peak times while we were in the parks, and the last two you can't use EP anyway. Often they would drop to 45 minutes or less.

EP was good for attractions like Spider Man and Transformers when the wait was 45 to 60 minutes - we would get thru the EP line in about 15-20.

But if you are okay with waits up to 120 minutes then you probably don't need Express Pass for the dates you are talking about.

 

[nighttowll]

We went last March for spring break. We had the EP, and they were nice, but with planning we could have made do without. It will depend on what type of tourer you are, how long you are willing to wait (15 minutes is about my max), and what all you want to do. For repeat rides over and over again on the coasters / headliners, the EP was great. For peak crowd times like mid afternoon when the lines were longest, having EP was great.

However, we could have only ridden everything once, made rope drop which we never did, and toured the headliners first in the morning before long lines built up. We could have used the single rider line and saved shows for the crowded afternoon times. We could have taken shorter meal breaks.

We basically just wandered around without much of a plan doing things as we came to them. For that kind of touring, they were needed. On our last day, however, we didn't have an EP. We stuck to mainly "2 tier" attractions, shows, and other non-waiting activities and still had a great time. We only ended up waiting in one long line that day, but we had already done all the headliners by this point with the EP so...

We did see some long wait times posted, 45-90 minutes in the afternoon and sometimes earlier for really popular rides, but most weren't too bad 15-30 minutes. Nothing like I expect Disney was at the same time.

You may want to check the Florida spring break schedule as well. It is either the first or second week of March and will make a huge difference as to crowd levels.

 

[AXiDMonica]

Thanks so much for your posts. They are very helpful! I think we may just stick to a good plan and making it to the parks early.

 

[CTDisneyfan816]

Depends on how much time you have and how crowded the park is. If it's a holiday I would tend to say very necessary. If it's during a quiet season then I wouldn't spend the money.

 

[CTDisneyfan816]

We just got back from what I would consider the busiest time of the year.

The longest waits we saw were:

Despicable Me: 100 minutes
Forbidden Journey: 75 minutes
Escape from Gringotts: 60 minutes

Those were peak times while we were in the parks, and the last two you can't use EP anyway. Often they would drop to 45 minutes or less.

EP was good for attractions like Spider Man and Transformers when the wait was 45 to 60 minutes - we would get thru the EP line in about 15-20.

But if you are okay with waits up to 120 minutes then you probably don't need Express Pass for the dates you are talking about.

One of the reasons I don't go during holidays. If I saw lines like that I would definitely get the express pass and probably skip the Potter rides. though Escape From Gringotts is probably my favorite ride there.
I thi

 

[Bertie9396]

We were at USO on December 31. It was a cloudy, coolish day with a little bit of rain so maybe we lucked out but we didn't have EP and did everything on our wish list. Our longest wait was the Despicable Me ride. Wait time was 120. We hit Harry Potter area first thing in the morning. I am not a HP fan so it was a huge waste for me but my family loved it. If you can hit the park first thing in the morning, I don't think the EP is worth the added expense. We left around 8 pm and then it was super busy, so I would have wanted an EP then.