2 days with no express pass

hamilkm

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 22, 2015
We are taking a family trip to Disney and universal the first week of January. There will be six of us. It will be my mom who is 55 and then the rest of us range from 30 to 14. I am planning to stay offsite in a condo at Windsor Hills. We were able to get a great deal on a 3 bedroom and staying offsite is what is allowing us to go to both Disney and Universal. We will be driving. I am planning 1 day for each disney park. My mom and I are AP holders but the rest have never been. I was planning to spend the last 2 days of our trip (January 8-9) at universal. We are planning to buy 2 day park to park tickets from UT. Will it be possible for us to see most of both parks with no express pass. We plan to do rope drop to close if possible. It is possible that my mom might skip one of the days and stay at the condo. She just recently had back surgery so I'm afraid most of the rides there may be out for her. I would appreciate any tips anyone has. We are new to Universal but are excited to try it out!
 
I will tell you that Early-Mid January isn't as slow as they say it is.Tour groups start arriving right after the New Year and it makes it quite busy.You will be able to see a lot depending on your priorities but not all.Keep in mind the parks close early in Jan ( not unusual to see a 6 or 7pm closing) and a lot of the shows run on shorter schedules and often at the same time making it hard to see them all.
 
I will tell you that Early-Mid January isn't as slow as they say it is.Tour groups start arriving right after the New Year and it makes it quite busy.You will be able to see a lot depending on your priorities but not all.Keep in mind the parks close early in Jan ( not unusual to see a 6 or 7pm closing) and a lot of the shows run on shorter schedules and often at the same time making it hard to see them all.
My group will be more interested in rides than shows! We will definitely try to catch a couple, but our main reason for adding Universal is the teenagers/ early 20s members of our group wanted more thrill type rides. I really wanted to stay onsite, but we just couldn't budget it for this trip. Hopefully one day!
 
Early in the morning and closer to closing is when I've found it pretty easy to get on most of the rides. When my friends and I go, we hit Islands of Adventure first as close to park opening as possible. Depending on what you're looking to do, it should be fairly easy to hop on most rides with minimal wait. With that said, we're not Harry Potter people, so we don't really do much in that part of the park, but it is the area that fills up the quickest, regardless of the time of year. The early times let you hop on the rides in the Marvel section of the park (Hulk, Dr Doom's Fear Fall, Spider-Man) with minimal waits. After about 11am, the wait times start to jump up. At about 4-5pm, the parks start to thin out as the local crowd starts to head home and the wait times drop again. After five, things really thin out and there are barely any wait times.

If you get their equivalent of a park hopper pass, you can bounce between the parks on the Hogwarts express. Besides being a neat "ride", it's a nice way to get between parks while sitting down in an air conditioned cabin. In January, it probably won't be that hot out, but sitting down for 15 minutes after a lot of walking and still getting somewhere is a nice treat in itself. The main Universal park seems to have more motion simulation rides than standard coasters. If those are your thing, it'd probably be a decent idea to start at US and then work your way over to IoA as you hit all of the rides you're looking to do.

My friends and I did a two day Universal trip and managed to see a fair amount of the park in that time. There are pretty decent sized areas of the park that we were able to skip out on because of their focus towards the younger crowds, the the whole Seuss area, and the older comic type area between the Marvel section and the Jurassic Park area. Also, we're not Harry Potter people, so our time in that section was limited to the Dragon Challenge roller coaster and hopping on the Hogwarts Express to get over to Universal. If you're skipping the shows at Universal, it's also a more manageable park. With a little planning (not anything like WDW planning), you can see a good deal of both parks in two days.

I have an AP for Universal and have gone a few times (it helps living 2 hours away) and have never purchased the Express Pass. I think the longest wait we had on our last trip in April was just over an hour for the Rip Rocket Rollercoaster because we would make it to that area of the park right around lunch, when it's packed with people. The early park time had us on Hulk in about ten minutes and then hopping on the ride again when we were done. Also, if you don't mind who you're sitting next to on the roller coasters, use the single rider lines whenever possible. That'll cut a decent amount of time off of your wait, and can be as quick as express pass lines in some cases.
 


Glad this does seem remotely doable. I also have a second question maybe someone can help with. If I book 1 night at a deluxe resort do I get express passes for 2 days? Check in day and check out day? If so this might be doable for us. They will let us book 5 in a single room. That would just leave my mom without an express pass but I don't foresee her using it very much. She could drive back to the condo to stay and let the rest of us who like to do rope drop to close stay the one night at the resort. If we could go by the desk early to get out passes knowing the room would not be ready I think I may can swing this!
 
registered guests at the onsite deluxe hotels get the ep for free.
it is valid the day you check in and out of the hotel.

that gives you 2 days with unlimited usage of the express lines.
 
Yes, one night gets you express pass for both the check in and check out day.

Also see if there are single rider lines still. I go with kids who don't want to go by themselves now, but used to go with my husband before we had kids during the busiest season. (As in, we went three years in a row over Christmas break, including New Year's Eve in 1999 even). We found we were able to easily do all we wanted with some smart touring and single rider lines.
 


I was at Universal this year during that time frame. I'm going to agree partly with RMulieri. For the most part, slow time hadn't started yet but it wasn't Christmas busy. That entire week, at least 1 of the parks if not both of them stayed open until 8:00 (which is relatively late be Universal Standards). With a good touring plan, you can definitely see the best of both parks in 2 days during that time. I was there 4 days, and even though I didn't get to everything, I rode my favorites multiple times. I was staying at Cabana Bay so I had Early Entry but not Express Passes. I was also travel solo so single Rider was no problem. The key is to have a good plan of power riding for the first 2-3 hours of the day (up through lunch). In the afternoon, slow down and sightsee, see some shows, and ride large capacity rides, then in the evening (after 6:00ish) start hitting the headliner again.
 

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