early admission

[bkline]

On the usoinfo.com website, it says that guests park priviledges include early park admission on select days. Is there such a thing and does anyone know which days?

 

[gschmerl]

They haven't had the "early admission" since the 9/11 attacks. With the on-site privilege of the magic room key, you don't need the early admission.

 

[Flyfly_Eclipse]

Ah yeah, back in the day when they had early admission...

I only experienced that because my aunt had an annual pass and complained until her daughter and I could get in early too (we only had one-day/one-park passes, but SHE had an AP. It was nice having the park during a much less crowded time...it's too bad they don't do that anymore, but that was back before they had the Express tickets...back then you also had a piece of paper allowing entry into the Express line once per ride.

But, if you stay onsite, you'll have FOTL and you'll have enough time to satisfy you w/o any early entry.

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Universal use to have early entry???? Man, I wish I would of taken advantage of that back then......

 

[BarryHom]

A while ago, when Universal Express first appeared, any multiday passholder could enter the park at 7 am (yes, 7 am!) and use their Express passes from 7-10 am. The Express pass was a sheet of paper that listed all the attractions open during Universal Express. The ride op would check off the ride on the list when you entered the queue. Then you could ride with a minimal wait (usually 5 minutes or less).

I remember doing a lap around IOA and finishing at around 9:30. It was also weird riding Popeye at 9 am! It wasn't warm enough yet to get that wet! Also, the only ride ops that seemed to check off the box on the Express pass were at Spider-Man. The rest of the time you could just ride over and over again without a wait. The checkboxes seemed to have been most enforced between 9-10 am.

The best part of this (other than avoiding the long lines) was that you got to skip the entire Earthquake preshow and head straight to the ride. The bad part was the long lines on some of the rides at 9 am. I remember Spider-Man had a 30 minute line when they let the one day ticketholders in. The Hulk had a 20-30 minute line right at opening too.

This system was discounted when the main purpose of the Express -- increase sales of multiday tickets -- didn't really increase those ticket sales. It evolved into what we know of Universal Express today.