We are staying at the Hard Rock Hotel for a few days with a 4 day 2 park pass.
These are the crowd levels:
Jan 21: USF 7 and IOA 5
Jan 22: USF 3 and IOA 4
Jan 23: USF 2 and IOA 2
What are your thoughts on saving about $500 to move to a different resort and not using a Universal Express pass?
THANKS!!
With four days, and the crowd levels on the 22nd and 23rd what they are, I don’t think you’ll need Express Pass at all. The 21st will be busy…but you could focus more on taking things in and the “lesser rides” that day.
We did 4 days without an Express pass in February of 2018 with CLs of 2-4, and we got through everything no problem with minimal waits most of the time. We were at the parks at RD and left each day by 3:00 pm.
Express pass is amazing! However it’s not needed on those dates - based on the CLs you’re seeing.
Best part is… you can always buy an Express Pass at the park. You don’t have to be an on-site guest to get this. You can go and if after an hour or so you feel the park is crowded you can buy them all over the park.
If you want your vacation to be relaxing, with absolutely no time pressure, I would keep the Express Pass. However, if you feel that spending the extra $500 is not something you really want to do and you are willing to plan and structure your trip a little bit more, you could do without the Express Pass
Make Personalized Touring Plans based on what you want to do and optimize them with and without the XP. If you are still able to accomplish everything you want to with acceptable waits without XP, then you can probably switch resorts and save the $$$.
I’m having express passes for the 5 people in my group for four days, and I am paying and extra $400 for my group for crowd levels of 3-5.
You really don’t need them with those crowd levels.
I went there with CL 6 and 8 with express. I felt like express was worth it (we had the hotel express). But I agree with everyone who is telling you that you don’t need it. If you’ve been to WDW you can compare this—the Universal’s idea of a CL 5 is a lot less people than a WDW CL5.
We did USF on a CL4 day (in a tropical storm) and IoA on a CL5. Absolute pleasure with EPs, and much like staying on-site at WDW, we wouldn’t do it again without them (this is in the context that we did everything on the trip on a budget - a single night at RPR for EPs was worth it).
Sure, we’d (probably) have got to see everything (and we did see everything - except the DA shows due to rain) without them as the opening hours are quite generous, but just being able to walk onto rides like Hulk, RRR, Mummy or FJ twice in a row while there were substantial lines, and of course to skip even small lines for everything else was a huge bonus.
EfG, Kong and DDR in particular had moderate waits (20m+) even with EPs, so I wouldn’t like to try it without. If Hagrid’s, or the new raptor coaster gets EP this will be even more of a no-brainier for us if we had limited time there.
However (after all that!), with three days, two at low crowd levels, I’m pretty sure you will be fine without if that’s best for you.
I’m sorry. I am racking my brain and can’t figure out what this stands for!
Dudley Do Right?
Aaaahhhh!!! Yes, that’s probably it! Thank you, it was driving me crazy!
That is most certainly it, sorry!