Express pass not so Express?

[jenmsmith]

We’re on our Universal vacation right now and booked a room to receive Unlimited Express Pass. This is our first time using it. It’s a busy spring break couple of days, but we’ve never waited less than 20 minutes. We waited 29 minutes before entering the Despicable Me preshow. Express time wait for us was 45 minutes for Rip Ride Rock It. 25 minutes for Gringotts and 30 minutes for Forbidden Journey. 20 minutes for Spider-Man late in the evening.Is this normal? They’ve been less than the standby times, but not even close to walk-ons.

 

[Captainkidd76]

Express isn't walk-on, just like Fastpass. During crowded times, waits are naturally going to be longer. If you haven't waited less than 20 minutes for anything, my guess is there are many rides you are skipping. Nothing in Seuss Landing will have that long of a wait. Men In Black, Kang and Kudos, Horror and Make Up Show, ET. None of those would have long waits with Express.

 

[TommyJK]

What were the posted standby times of those rides that you mention? During super busy times (like right now for spring break) it'll never be close to walk on.

As the previous poster mentioned, it is similar to FP+. The longer standby is, the longer Express wait will be. I know I've waited 20-30+ minutes for Disney Headline attractions with FP+ when the standbys were posted 90+ minutes at the time.

In the past I've found that Express Pass in general saves you about 75-85% off of standby time.

For me I don't measure it in terms of how much time did I wait using Express, but how much time did I save!

25-30 minutes for Gringotts or FJ is an "express" wait if you consider the standby lines at the time I'm guessing were over 90 minutes.

45 minutes for RRR using express seems high though. Was the ride down at all during the wait that may have added to the time?

 

[J'aime Paris]

We just got home from our Florida trip yesterday.
We visited the parks March 9-March 13, including a partial day at Volcano Bay.

Our ride waits never exceeded 20 minutes for EP (and most were less), even though posted wait times were anywhere up to 100+ minutes.

 

[schumigirl]

Oh my goodness we haven’t waited anything like that right now! Yes EP was never designed for anyone to just walk in a ride.......

The idea of EP is you should be on a ride in less than 20 minutes, that’s the target........obviously excluding breakdowns and incidents.

We’ve been here since the 9th and in the park most days and although regular lines have been long the EP has been just fine.........

Minions is averaging 80 minutes and longest we’ve waited was just under 10 minutes........RRR was 55 minutes and we walked straight on..........FJ was 65 and again, a walk on for us, more or less the same for Gringotts, we did that one twice in around 20 minutes with walking time to ride.........

Ironically our longest wait was for the trolley train in Seuss Landing.......we waited 20 minutes with EP for that one......not sure if there was an issue or not........

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

That is interesting. I was there last week, and I thought the EP waits were remarkably short, especially when compared to the stand by lines. Someone here posted that you should expect the EP wait to be 1/2 the time of the normal wait, but I found it closer to 25% or less.

The only longish wait I had was when Rip Ride Rockit went down just as I was getting into the EP line. I probably waited 30-40 minutes for that one, and they cycled empty cars through before loading again.

 

[bumbershoot]

We waited 29 minutes before entering the Despicable Me preshow.

That ride is rough, because the line is always going to include all the ore-ride stuff. And then you can indeed get caught in a line before you get to that.

What was standby?

not even close to walk-ons.

No one should ever expect EP to give you a walk-in experience. Especially not as spring breaks start.

I even had walk-on experiences our first trip (amazing how few people come out in the morning when it’s 28 degrees!!!), but I would never expect it for a future trip.

The only longish wait I had was when Rip Ride Rockit went down just as I was getting into the EP line.

Been there done that. So not fun. Not an exciting line experience lol.

 

[AntimonyER]

We had a 45 minute wait in at Hulk with EP back in november, And Gringotts was a 15 minute wait just to get a locker, plus an estimated 30-40 minutes for EP according to the team member (posted standby time was 120min). (We didn't ride to verify). We had waited about 30 minutes earlier that day tho (with a 75 min posted wait), and the line was longer this time. EP will cut your wait down, but on those truly ridiculous days, you are still going to wait.

 

[Disxuni]

I expect that some of these wait times, especially RRR are due to technical difficulties. The aim has always been at most 20, however things happen, but from my experience EP always been a lower wait time than that. I expect that Spring Break is definitely the contributing factor into these wait times. The higher the wait time, the higher the EP wait will be. So, I suspect technical difficulties, wait times, as well as other unseen circumstances / loading wheel chair individuals into vehicles as being the cause.

Also, there might be an increase in new employment due to the season, which unpredictability in queues might throw people off in the ratio on how many should go forward until holding off the line. Not sure on if that's possible as I do not know how training works there, or their employment rate, but just another theory. As it could even not necessarily be new employees either, but generally employees just might stick to a certain formula and unpredictable wait times could throw them off, or they simply do just keep doing business as usual regardless of what happens. Kind of like any employee, or position, it depends on who you get.

 

[jenmsmith]

Thank you all. Good information.

The standby waits were all posted at about double what we waited. So I appreciated having “much less” wait, but I was expecting my experience to be more in the 20 minute or less realm. It sounds like sometimes people do have that short of a wait during busy seasons. We just must have hit everything wrong. I don’t think technical difficulties were the issue as the standby line moved if ours didn’t. It seemed more of a team member loading issue. The ratio of express pass loaded vs standby was usually about 50/50, where at Disney it’s 80/20 or even 90/10. The team members also didn’t seem to adjust for a building express line like Disney usually does for a building Fastpass line. Maybe we had lots of new team members.

We still had a good time. However, I didn’t get as much use out of the EP as I thought. Maybe we’ll give it another try next time and have better luck.

 

[DisLiss]

My hope for EP is a 50% shorter wait. Sometimes you don't get that much, though, if a ride is very popular, or a slow loader, or if people just all decide they want to ride something at the same time. It would be nice if it were a better ratio given the cost, but in order to make that happen they'd have to sell less at an even higher cost, and I already think it's high enough!

 

[Disxuni]

The ratio of express pass loaded vs standby was usually about 50/50, where at Disney it’s 80/20 or even 90/10.

Yeah, now thinking about it, while it's been a little while since I've been to Universal, I definitely have noticed since getting my AP that Disney has a tendency to push the FP line a lot more than I noticed Universal would from my past experiences. Normally, it isn't a problem, as I've always had low wait times for EP, but in high peak seasons if they stick to that ratio and do not adjust, then it's going to increase the wait.

 

[georgina]

I like that Universal has a more even split between express and regular line. It sound to me like the OP's experience of all 20 minute waits is unusual, we were there Thanksgiving and the weekend after and did not experience many long waits in EP line.