Maximizing a One-Day Epic Trip with Express Pass – Need Advice!

[redsox786]

Hi there!

I’m looking for some advice on planning a one-day itinerary for our trip next month. We’ll be a group of three adults (no kids), and we’ll have Express Passes.

Best day to visit? We’ll be going in August and can choose between a Friday or Sunday. Any thoughts on which day might be better crowd-wise?

Arrival time? Since we won’t be staying at a Universal hotel, Early Park Admission isn’t an option. What time would you recommend arriving? Will having Express Passes give us some flexibility with timing?

Battle at the Ministry strategy? This is the top must-do for my wife. I’ve seen mixed advice—some suggest heading there first thing, knocking it out early, then using Express for the other rides. Others say to wait until later in the day when lines tend to drop. Would love your take on this.

Priority areas? With Express covering most rides except for three, are there any sections or rides you’d recommend tackling earlier in the day?

Lunch timing? I’ve read it’s best to avoid 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM for lunch. Any tips on the best time to eat or places you’d recommend? We'll be skipping the Atlantic and Blue Dragon.

Any other tips? We’d love to make the most of our one day—any other advice or insider tips would be much appreciated!

Thanks so much!

 

[marmentrout85]

Hi there!

I’m looking for some advice on planning a one-day itinerary for our trip next month. We’ll be a group of three adults (no kids), and we’ll have Express Passes.

Best day to visit? We’ll be going in August and can choose between a Friday or Sunday. Any thoughts on which day might be better crowd-wise?

Arrival time? Since we won’t be staying at a Universal hotel, Early Park Admission isn’t an option. What time would you recommend arriving? Will having Express Passes give us some flexibility with timing?

Battle at the Ministry strategy? This is the top must-do for my wife. I’ve seen mixed advice—some suggest heading there first thing, knocking it out early, then using Express for the other rides. Others say to wait until later in the day when lines tend to drop. Would love your take on this.

Priority areas? With Express covering most rides except for three, are there any sections or rides you’d recommend tackling earlier in the day?

Lunch timing? I’ve read it’s best to avoid 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM for lunch. Any tips on the best time to eat or places you’d recommend? We'll be skipping the Atlantic and Blue Dragon.

Any other tips? We’d love to make the most of our one day—any other advice or insider tips would be much appreciated!

Thanks so much!

Ok we did 2 days in a row at Epic about 3 weeks ago and our first day we had Express so I'll kind of use that day to try and answer these based on our experience. We did stay at Helios though so I can't necessarily speak on arrival time. And I will note that during Early Park Admission we did Mario Kart and Yoshi right off the bat (we also had a toddler in tow who could actually ride both). I was surprised to find out that Express was accepted during Early Park Admission which was super helpful for us actually since the line for Mario Kart was already an hour like right away. Ok, with that out of the way....

Best Day to Visit: Weekends seem to be the lowest crowds (compared to weekdays, surprisingly) so I'd go with Sunday. We went on a Friday/Saturday and Saturday seemed less crowded/lower waits than Friday.

Battle at the Ministry strategy: I probably wouldn't try to do this first thing as that's when the longest waits appear to be. On our Express day we got in line around 1pm (at this point we had basically used all our Express rides other than Stardust) as we saw that it had been down and had just opened back up. It was a posted 120 minute wait immediately upon re-opening but we waited 60 (even with a small delay). Now, on the next day, I got a straight walk-on around 8:45pm (it was a posted wait time of 15 minutes!).

Lunch Timing: I don't think that timing was a big difference for us but it was more about WHERE you chose to eat. Pizza Moon seemed pretty slammed no matter what hour of the afternoon/evening. Burning Blade Tavern was not busy at all and had much better food than I expected, so that was a nice gem to find. Also had a great quick meal from one of the counter service stands in Berk. We also ate at Cafe Lair De La Sirene around 11am on our 2nd day and it was not packed at all and I thought the food was quite good. Le Gobelet Noir is also very under the radar if you want to get away from the crowds.

Priority areas: This is tough since we did Super Nintendo World during EPA so I don't know when we would have gone here if not first thing. I guess I'd still go there either first or last, though. First in the sense that you could hope that not a lot of people are using Express for Mario Kart first thing.

The more I think about it I'd probably start off at Isle of Berk (prioritizing Hiccup's Wing Gliders before the other attractions) , then jump over to Dark Universe and get Curse of the Werewolf out of the way since Monsters Unchained won't get very long lines no matter the time. Then maybe try and hit Ministry of Magic Mid-afternoon and close out the evening at Super Nintendo World and Stardust Racers.

My biggest advice: Be prepared to adjust on the fly the morning/day of. Constantly check the app THAT morning (and all throughout the day), even while you're waiting at the front entrance gates. Sometimes it will say that X attraction doesn't open until 10am and then 5 minutes after 9am you'll see that X attraction is actually open MUCH earlier than anticipated. You also might see that X attraction is "Delayed", then 5 minutes later notice it has a posted wait time. It's really sort of the West West out there as far as opening ride predictability goes on some days.

I'd specifically keep an eye out for Mine Cart Madness. Many days the app will says it opens at 10am instead of 9am with the rest of Super Nintendo World for early park admission. Some days, it in fact, doesn't open until after 10, but some days it opens much closer to 9am. So, if it's, say, 9:45, and you see that it still is showing "opens at 10am" instead of showing a posted wait time, then I'd probably head over to Mine Cart Madness first as it will then truly be like you're "rope-dropping" that ride.

 

[FrancisK7]

Battle at the Ministry strategy: Now, on the next day, I got a straight walk-on around 8:45pm.

That's amazing and a great hack.

 

[Gracedis1]

We waited until 8 pm to ride Battle at the Ministry and it went down and didn't come back up.

 

[tony67]

We waited until 8 pm to ride Battle at the Ministry and it went down and didn't come back up.

Yeah this is the risk - I feel like it its up and running mid day you need to go then.

 

[Gurkensalat]

That's amazing and a great hack.

It IS amazing, but not a hack, just pure luck...

 

[Keyser]

Hi there!

I’m looking for some advice on planning a one-day itinerary for our trip next month. We’ll be a group of three adults (no kids), and we’ll have Express Passes.

Best day to visit? We’ll be going in August and can choose between a Friday or Sunday. Any thoughts on which day might be better crowd-wise?

Arrival time? Since we won’t be staying at a Universal hotel, Early Park Admission isn’t an option. What time would you recommend arriving? Will having Express Passes give us some flexibility with timing?

Battle at the Ministry strategy? This is the top must-do for my wife. I’ve seen mixed advice—some suggest heading there first thing, knocking it out early, then using Express for the other rides. Others say to wait until later in the day when lines tend to drop. Would love your take on this.

Priority areas? With Express covering most rides except for three, are there any sections or rides you’d recommend tackling earlier in the day?

Lunch timing? I’ve read it’s best to avoid 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM for lunch. Any tips on the best time to eat or places you’d recommend? We'll be skipping the Atlantic and Blue Dragon.

Any other tips? We’d love to make the most of our one day—any other advice or insider tips would be much appreciated!

Thanks so much!

I can't answer all of these, but will mention what I can; we had our Epic day last week... Hopefully it's in time to help you.

Arrival time: I would suggest arriving early regardless. We did have Early admission, but they didn't check this for us as far as I could tell (unless maybe it was tied into the ticket system somehow; we never had to show our room cards or anything). We went to Ministry of Magic first (which was not an "early entry" ride, so there was nothing we were actually getting "early" besides getting in line for MoM...). If they let you in the front gate, it would at least save you walking time if you are there early.

Battle at the Ministry strategy: All I can do is relate our experience. We arrived early, went straight to this ride and got in line. They informed us that the ride would have a delayed opening but didn't know for how long. It turned out to be a very long wait for us, but it did come up, and they opened up part of the line "early" (with an announcement that the movement did not indicate the ride was open, just that they were going to let people fill in space). In the end, they announced the ride would open (there was a huge cheer) sometime after 11, and we were off the ride a little after noon. But, we did get to ride it, thoroughly see the queue (some parts for much longer than we cared to...), and enjoyed it. The ride also announced it was closing at 6 p.m. that day, and the times I checked the wait in the app it was either over 2 hours or delayed (again!). Frankly, if we hadn't waited like that, I'm not sure we would have gotten to do it at all (and this was the ride we most wanted), but it really did eat up a lot of our time, and we missed other rides we'd have liked to do as a result.

Priority areas: Again, based on my experience, I'd recommend outdoor rides as a priority, especially in August. Afternoon/evening thunderstorms were frequent, and there are a lot of rides that affects. For us, starting around 5:00, they closed tons of rides: we missed riding Stardust and Werewolf, and never got to Dragon Racer's Rally or the water ride (we kind of chose to skip those last 2, though). In retrospect, I'd have saved things like the shows and Bowser's Challenge for later, in favor of more outdoor rides earlier.

Lunch timing: It seemed like everything was busy the whole time (except the places in Dark Universe), but we were still able to eat just fine. One suggestion is to use mobile ordering; seemed to work well for us. We actually really liked Spitfire Grill, so much that we went back for dinner after already having had lunch there (though 3/4 of us got something different the second time), but that's not going to be to everyone's taste! We had one thing from Burning Blade, also, which was really good. At Spitfire, the mobile ordering basically let you walk to the window directly, and then they prepare your meal (not like other places where they fix it then bring it out or tell you if it's ready).

Main overall tip is that you need to decide on Ministry: if it is really your top priority, you might want to do it early, or there's a chance you won't get to it at all; like I said, the long waits later in the day, and the further delay and early close meant we probably wouldn't have made it if we hadn't done it first, despite the crazy long wait.