Confused about the Express Pass

[miste76]

I'm curious if the Express Pass (the free one similar to WDW FP) works as well as FP at WDW or if there are problems with it. Can anyone tell me what the pros & cons to this are? Also, please tell me what the cost is if I wanted to get the single ride premium ticket... (sorry, not sure of all the names of these things yet - I'll get all the new lingo down soon)
There's 3 of us, Mother, Me (29) and sister (15) going in the middle of July... I'm thinking that we want to go on as much as possible, but we have 5 days... we're prepared to get there early (before park opening to make a mad dash to certain rides) and when we do this at Disney... my sister and I can hit all the big rides and be out of the park by 12. Mom and I aren't so big on the roller coasters - what would be your suggestions on these extra premium tickets?

 

[Metro West]

The EP works very similar to FP at Disney. Since you aren't going to do the coasters, I would not advise purchasing the EP Plus upgrades since you aren't going to be taking advantage of all the rides. Also, depending on the crowds, you may not even need one to begin with.

There are pros and cons to both EP and FP. With the EP, they only distribute a certain # of passes and the bigger rides like Spiderman and ROTM might run out early in the day..if it's really crowded. If that happened, you'd have to wait. The FP distributes a lot more passes but the wait time can still be fairly long. We had a FP for Space Mountain one time and the stand-by line got through quicker than we did. Other than that, they are pretty much the same animal.

Again, if you can do the bigger rides like you do at Disney, I doubt you'd have too many concerns about wait times.

 

[buzz2400]

We go right after 4th of July and have been able to get on all the rides, even roller coasters. The key is to get there right when it opens. If you are going to IOA, everyone tends to go left to incredible hulk. The one thing about their fast passes is that they give you time options of when to return. If you are not going on the roller coasters I would go left and start with spiderman, that way you will be ahead of the pack. If you are going to universal, get there when opens and do shrek. This line tends to get very long and I beleive there is no fast pass. If you are not going to ride the roller coasters then the premium pass thing is not a really good value.

 

[BostonDisneyKid]

A couple additional things worth noting on this subject ...

Are you staying at a Universal resort? If you stay at a Universal resort (PB, HRH, RC), FOTL is free - just bring your room key to the parks (along with your purchased pass for entry) and that gets you in the FOTL. I am a DVC member but we usually stay at Universal Resorts for the first weekend of our trips and get FOTL and then change resorts on Sunday (best usage of DVC points).

Another thing worth noting is that they only sell so many per day. I am uncertain of the exact formula as to how many for the particular day but it was based on vacancies in the resorts somehow. One of the staff at the Hard Rock Hotel had explained it to me a while back when they first introduced the FOTL.

 

[Bruce in PA]

First of all, please note that this took place two years ago. Things change quickly, and much of this may no longer apply.

But when we visited USF/IOA in late June of 2003, the free Express Pass not nearly as effective as Disney’s Fastpass.

Back then, Shrek 3-D was brand new, so that may have contributed to the problems we had, but when we arrived at USF about a half-hour after opening, the Express Pass waiting line was already out of control. (It’s possible that Shrek is now no longer offering Express Passes now that they’ve opened the 2nd theater; I’ve seen that mentioned, but have not seen it confirmed.) Machines were constantly breaking down, park guests were completely confused about how the system worked and there weren’t enough USF employees around to help keep things moving efficiently.

After making it to the front of the the Express Pass line, I got a return time of 7:00PM, which was about 9 hours later.

Luckily, that was the only experience we had with free Express Passes during that trip (we had Express Pass booklets through a Kodak camera offer, but they didn’t include Shrek -- and, no, that offer is not available now). But that long, hot morning was bad enough that when we return this summer, we’re probably going to buy an Express Pass booklet so that we don’t have to bother with potential problems at the free Express Pass machines this time around.

Yes, it will cost us a bunch more...but the time we save will be well worth it.