I hope that Universal Express is not like Fastpass...

[Melanie1001]

where it lengthens the lines to the point of absurdity...I was quite upset last December at Disneyworld...the Fastpass people did nothing but slow down the regular lines...you either had a Fastpass or were waiting over an hour! It made it much much harder to get on rides you wanted to, usually one full side of the queue was taken up with FastPass people...Someone please tell me that Universal has done a better job of this...I'm heading there the first week of December and don't want to have a rather frustrating time like I had at Disney

I'd rather not have FOTL or UE or whatever, and just have regular queue lines! Oh well, perhaps it won't be bad, last time we were there first week of December there were no lines pretty much anyway...

sorry for the rambling guess I'm tired tonite LOL

 

[fboy9287]

really the way they do it it does not lengthen the lines too much. The only ride that it does lengthin would be spiderman. But that always has a long line. If you use your express pass right you will avoid long lines. I have never waited longer than 20 min in a line at ioa-ever.

 

[willydoit]

Was there a week ago, my advice would be get there early and use Express for 2nd rides on yor favorites. We also used them for the three water rides so we got our soaking all at once! Make the system work for what you want to do, that's why they use it!

 

[Melanie1001]

I guess my biggest problem is that I don't want to have to 'schedule' times for rides...if I want to ride it I just want to ride it, period...

call me a purist but thats just the way I look at it...somehow making an 'appointment' to get on a ride kills the fun

 

[fboy9287]

really you have such a huge time frame that you can almost forget about your pass to this ride.

 

[Gaston]

I liked the Express passes...most of the time I got them and the first time slot was right at the same time...so I just walked on in. Very cool..

 

[ceb29]

I've never been to USF, but I loved Fast-Pass at Disney. I think it works out pretty well, ecspecially if you have young children. It's not pleasant having to wait in line with tired cranky kids (mine or anyone else's)! LOL

 

[cj2000]

Just returned from Disney & Universal. Let me just say that the estimated wait times for the rides at Universal are WRONG. The estimated wait time for Spiderman was posted as 20 minutes, well we waited for about an 1-1/2 hour. We got an express pass for the Hulk Coaster and the return time was for 4:25pm--it was only 12:00pm (totally insane). We decided not to ride the Hulk Coaster because we were exhausted from the heat. One advantage of the express pass over Disney's fastpass is that you can hold up to 3 express passes at one time (if you hold a 2-day or more pass) as oppose to Disney which you can only hold 1 fastpass at a time.

 

[fboy9287]

i know that this i wrong (but) if you really don't want to wait just go in. most of the ride attendents don't look at the time. (yes i am a very bad boy)

 

[ScottOKW2K]

From Cj2000 :

One advantage of the express pass over Disney's fastpass is that you can hold up to 3 express passes at one time (if you hold a 2-day or more pass) as oppose to Disney which you can only hold 1 fastpass at a time

Actually, this is not true. Though the fastpass info states that you cannot get another FP until you use your last one, the actuality of the system is that as soon as active time window is in effect, you can be at another FP distribution point getting a FP. I know, because I did this numerous times last week. Example, I have a FP good at Haunted Mansion with a 11:00 to 12:00 return time. At 11:00 I get a FP for Splash Mountain, and then walk over to HM and use my FP to ride there. The FP system only checks your ticket when you GET the FP, they could care less if you actually use it.

Personally, I think the system works pretty good. My two trips previous to this were late Nov. '99 and early Nov. 2000, both low season. Our wait times for rides were pretty short then. Well, last week we were there in the peak summer season and we felt that by using FP and paying attention to the wait times on other rides that we rode just as much with hardly any wait times at all. Now if we could just get FP's for Dumbo .