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Best times for rides without Express Pass?

jenhelgren

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 13, 2010
This will be our first trip to Universal and we are staying onsite with Express Pass but I know not all rides accept EP. I would love to hear from some Universal experts about the best times of day to do the non-EP rides. Are evening as good as mornings, etc? As always--THANK YOU!!
 
We've had great luck early morning on the no EP Potter rides. Also single rider lines are very effective....though I always recommend riding the regular queue first, when possible.
We've not really tried these at the end of park hours, so no comment there.
 
Is there a list of those rides? (Besides "All the Harry Potter stuff")?
 


First thing in the morning or later in the evening usually are the best times. As a PP stated do the regular line at least once. Kong, EG and FJ all having great queues. Another thing about all 3 non express rides is the lines almost continually move so even a 45 minute wait doesn't feel really long.
 
We just came back from a split Universal/Disney vacation. Stayed at HRH so we had EP. We did the HP rides and Kong about an hour before closing and only waited about 15-20 minutes
 
I wouldn't chance waiting to do Gringotts or Forbidden Journey until end of night. If the ride breaks down, which isn't uncommon, you'll have missed your chance to ride. That would have happened to us and Gringotts.
 


It still had single rider too. They were putting a sign up for it that came through a side door
 
I used my Express Pass at Kong today, and later on I used the single rider queue. It turns out that they start as one queue, and then split into two further into the building. Something worth noting is that the single rider queue, at least this evening, was drawing a LOT of riders. The wait was well over half an hour. They also had a sign out clarifying that single rider was available, which I did not see on Monday, so I suspect that they do not always offer it. (This is true at Spider-Man and Gringotts as well.)
 
Depends on the ride

I stay onsite and get free ep
I also go solo

Some rides I use the ep line and other times use SRL

I usually find shorter regular lines the hour before park closing or before 10 I. The morning

Some rides around lunch hour have reasonable wait times
 
I'd like to say that once you do see the queue, that unless you want to see it again, I recommend using single riders, especially with Gringotts. Even if it's early morning, or late evening.

As that line typically Gringotts a long wait and can be partially outside. Sometimes even when it comes to a 30 minute wait, which isn't too bad at all. Also, the single rider line frequently fills up quickly (especially on that ride). So, while it can seem not that much of a wait, just save yourself a little time with going through the single rider line. As it is often shorter of a walk. So while it says "5 minute wait time" for the regular queue and it doesn't seem much, it often feels as if you're literally walking for that long, or even longer, so to save yourself even more time in the future, it's good to use single riders even when wait times are low. In the time you're walking through the whole queue to get to the ride, you could be half way through the ride already if you do the single rider line (especially if there's not that many people, or no one in front of you).
 

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