Park Express ticket is it needed at Universal?

[johnpozey]

I am taking my son ten for 3 days Wednesday January 21st thru Friday January 23rd. Looking for recommendations if I should purchase front of the line? I am thinking it will be OFF PEAK when I go in mid January....

 

[nighttowll]

I will be there at the same time, and I'm not getting an EP. I don't think it will be worth it. Hope I'm not wrong.

But the crowd levels are listed as low, and if you check the corresponding wait times for the individual rides there are only a few with waits projected to be over 20 minutes, and those are mostly the ones that don't take the EP anyway.

When we went this past spring the crowd levels were much higher than what is being projected for the end of January. We had EP, and they were nice because we had a few family emergencies that messed our trip up. But honestly, with a little planning, rope drop, and no ER visits, we could have made do without the EP and still not waited very long. Could the kids have rode the coasters over and over about 20 times each? probably not. But they still could have gotten a few rides on each caoster in. We didn't have the EP our last day which was a Mardi Gras concert day, and we still only ended up waiting in one 25 minute line all day.

 

[macraven]

wait and decide once you are in the parks.
you can buy the express pass in the parks if you find the lines to be longer than what you expected.

express pass is date and park related.
if you buy it in advance and find out it isn't necessary, there are no refunds.

 

[johde]

I agree with the previous 2 posters. I would wait until you get there to decide if you want to get EP or not. The only thing I would add is if you decide on your first day in the parks that you want Express Passes, you may want to upgrade your tickets to 2 day+1 free with Unlimited Express instead of buying a single day's express pass. Right now, 2 park Express passes are $56 per day per ticket (the second cheapest price available) for 1 trip through the express line. To upgrade your ticket for all 3 days to park to park tickets with unlimited express would be about $134 per ticket. Note: those are base on today's prices and the can and do change at any time.

 

[RMulieri]

I will be there that week( will have express since I am staying onsite) and can tell you that it is lower crowds but there are a lot of tour groups there at that time.