When I press “Optimize my Plan”, as expected everything is re-ordered and the app selects when to use the universal express passes. But If I set the order I want, and press evaluate. it also automatically selects when the universal express passes are used. As an example, I set my upcoming plan for Epic to go to Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry twice. I put it as the first thing, and then once later.
Without the passes enabled, it says that my first visit at 8:04am will have a wait of “0 minutes” and my later visit will have a 94 minute wait. Great, that means I should use my pass for the second one. But if I enable passes, it uses the universal express pass at the first visit, saving me exactly 0 minutes and using it up for later.
Is there any way to better configure this to do the express passes the way I want?
Hi! Sadly, there really isn’t a way to do what you want. However, as a frequent Universal traveler I can say that with Express Pass (UXP) you’ll have no issues doing everything you want. It’s a “true" Express Pass. It’s not hard to do all the major attractions at both parks on one day with UXP.
I use TP for Universal frequently. Here’s my advice..
Make a touring plan that doesn’t use UXP. The average actual wait time for an attraction when using UXP is 33% - 50% of the posted expected standby queue.
You will have a pretty good idea of what you wl be able to do.
Then make a plan that does use UXP. At any tine you want to do a ride in standby make that step a “meal” at a nearby location for 50% of the predicted standby at that time of day.
It’s not a perfect system, but it gives you at least an outline of your days.
For any attractions that you don’t want
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Look at this topic for a discussion of the issue in: EPA plus Express pass TP issue
The last post offers a potential workaround. You could also send a message to the Original Poster of the Topic to see how they ultimately dealt with it during their trip.
Thank you this is helpful. It definitely points to an issue with the algorithm, but it’s also a bit surprising that “Evaluate” is not a read only action but instead also “optimizes” by automatically assigning the express passes. None of the workarounds in the thread is great, and I can’t be the only one with early access and an express pass (especially since this is what you get when you stay at the resort… well not for Epic, but at least in general). Spending a lot of time following the last work around on that page is an improvement at least. I can get a decent plan… but wondering what will happen when I’m on the app and need to re-optimize as the day happens.
I understand getting an algorithm to deal with every situation is difficult, and this is a particularly challenging one, but this would be 90% better if it just let me assign which item in my queue I’m using the express pass for and then it told me what it estimated was going to happen. No optimization algorithm required at all!
Touring Plans is a great resource, but I’d love to see some updates to this functionality.
I do expect to go on every ride we care about with my express pass, but what I’m really trying to figure out is what rides should my daughter and I try for a second (or third) standby ride and how can we optimize (almost certainly putting those at the very beginning and end if they are popular rides).
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