What are the 2 or 3 longest Express Pass queues I’ll wait in while at USF? How long will they be?
How about IOA?
We are first time Universal visitors in April with UEP for two days (Park to Park both days). Our Monday visit will be USF at predicted level 5 and Tuesday will be early entrance to IOA with predicted level of 3. After our initial visiting of respective Harry Potter areas I would like to prioritize which rides to do next so as to wait the least amount of time and hopefully hit all open attractions/shows. I believe Minion Mayhem is worst, but would love some input from folks who’ve been recently with EP.
Even minions isn’t bad at USF. I went on a day with a 10 and nothing with EP was bad in USF at all. Minions may have been 15-20 and Jimmy Fallon as well. Simpsons can sometimes get long-ish and maybe 20-30. Transformers was another one that was sorta long at like 15 min.
IOA Dudley Do Rights we waited 30 min. Hulk can close entirely if the line gets too long and you’ll have to do the first part of the line regardless if you have EP or not but once they reopened it was only like 10-15 min even with that first part. I think we waited 15 min for Spidey
Edit: What you may have to wait for is lockers and there is no express for lockers so rides with lockers include RRR (everything has to go in here, literally everything) and same with Hulk with everything has to go in. Mummy, Hagrids, Forbidden Journey Gringotts and MIB bags have to go in lockers.
Edit 2: The longest thing we waited for was Bourne which has no EP and we had to wait through one full show plus some. Like we tried to make the 3pm show arriving at 2:45 and we had to wait for the 3:30pm show.
I haven’t looked at the latest info on what rides are open during EA, but for our trips Minions was open during EA. It is right inside the entrance, so it is easy to pop in for a walk-on EA ride on your way back to the HP area.
Also, the app does have an option to tell it that you have express passes. So, it will optimize accordingly
Yeah but it says a lot of stuff is a 1 min wait with EP which isn’t realistic. It takes longer than 1 min to get a locker, longer than 1 min to walk onto the ride even if there is literally no line…etc
Edit, what I tend to do is create the plan saying I have EP because this will order things based on walking less since it knows you’ll have less line and so criss-crossing is less important. Then I evaluate as if I didn’t have an EP pass. If everything is 20 min or less wait I figure this is a nice padding and gives time for bathroom breaks, lockers, etc. Then if I’m faster than that I’m excited. Because in the past when I’ve optimized with EP and it took way longer and I didn’t get to each lunch till 2pm because I didn’t want to backtrack I was grouchy! ha ha
It’s hard to tell, the traffic through Express ebbs and flows more than FastPass lines due to having no return times. The general rule of thumb is expect the Express to reduce the posted wait time by at least half, so a posted 60 minute wait means the Express line will be 30 minutes or less (usually way less).
From what I’ve seen the follow attractions always have a long Express line: Gringotts, Reign of Kong, and Spider-man.
I have not been since COVID, but it has been my experience that Minions does have a long Express Pass wait. However, as already suggested, if you go during early entry, you can get through quickly.
Our longest EP waits at Christmas were at Bourne, Shrek and Mummy when they made us wait in the main line before entering the point where EP was set up. Bourne was 45 min. Shrek was bad at about 50 min. My kids were sure they had forgotten us and wanted to get in the main line because they kept seeing the non-EP line move. Fast and Furious posted EP wait times of over an hour. I refused to wait that long, espcially bc I heard the ride was not great. We ended up doing it first thing one morning instead. After riding it, we definitely made the right call. I would have been so upset if I had waited an hour for it as it was not worth it.
Again, I have not been since COVID, so I don’t know if the lines are any different, but if you haven’t already heard it elsewhere, you want to go through the full line of Forbidden Journey at some point if you are big Harry Potter fans because the express line every time I have gone in it has missed quite a bit of the fun movie stuff. if you happen to be going on a night when the parks are open somewhat late, I’ve had the best luck getting in this line right before park close and just taking my time walking through and seeing everything at my leisure.
Haven’t read all replies, but I found EP does nothing to minimise your wait at The Simpson’s ride. That queue sucks whether you have EP or not.
We also waited an eternity in the EP line for the Dudley Do Right Log ride.
Why is the line long here? Everyone tells me this attraction is bad. Is it slow loading or something? Or is it like a show where you just have to wait for the previous one to end?
It (Simpsons) has depended for me but I’ve waited 30 min or so for it with EP and other times waited 10.
I think any of the ones where you have to wait to go into a theater can be slower loading than the constantly moving ones. It’s also probably mental because you’re actually not moving versus constant movement
Me too with Dudley in Oct. we waited 30 min with express. I wouldn’t haven’t done it had I known. It was one of the biggest factors in me not getting back to Harry Potter for lunch till 1:30 I think and then an hour line for that
Fate was on your side. That seriously may be the worst ride I’ve ever ridden. My entire family from teens to grandparents (who like roller coasters like hulk) thought it was awful. It was the butt of jokes for days.
In my experience, the longest EP waits at USF have been: F&F, Shrek, & Simpsons. Minion mayhem can get backed up, but it’s usually not too bad, especially if you do during early entry.
Since the reopening, Hogwarts Express has been really bad for waits due to loading only one group per train compartment.
At IoA, Kong always seems to face a long wait, and FJ, especially during early entry can be long as a lot of the crowds who decide they don’t want to wait for Hagrid’s choose to go to FJ instead. I waited close to an hour for FJ during early entry in December.
