Single rider or express pass?

[jani3]

We'll be staying at RPR so we'll have the EP. If my DH and I are using the child swap, should we get in the single rider line if that's shorter than the EP line?

 

[damo]

I would.

 

[crewsn]

To bump this up.... I have a question in regards to this. In experience has anyone been able to get away with just doing early entry and single rider to avoid buying the express pass or staying at one of the onsite hotels that provides this?

I will be traveling with husband for a work conference in early June and possibly adding on a night or two at cabana bay so that we can do universal/IOA. I would prefer of course the cheaper option as this is just an extra trip not wanting to spend the extra money.

We are about to head to Disney for 8 nights on a family trip in November and kids aren't old enough yet to make Universal worth it so hoping to make this an adults only trip. So single rider would be fine to get shorter waits.

Though if having the express pass is essential I may just rethink this and do a day at Epcot for the cheaper option as an extra splurge.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

To bump this up.... I have a question in regards to this. In experience has anyone been able to get away with just doing early entry and single rider to avoid buying the express pass or staying at one of the onsite hotels that provides this?

I will be traveling with husband for a work conference in early June and possibly adding on a night or two at cabana bay so that we can do universal/IOA. I would prefer of course the cheaper option as this is just an extra trip not wanting to spend the extra money.

We are about to head to Disney for 8 nights on a family trip in November and kids aren't old enough yet to make Universal worth it so hoping to make this an adults only trip. So single rider would be fine to get shorter waits.

Though if having the express pass is essential I may just rethink this and do a day at Epcot for the cheaper option as an extra splurge.

While EP is very, very nice, it isn't absolutely essential most of the time. As long as you aren't going during a holiday week, you will really be fine without it. Two trips ago, DD and I visited during a moderately busy time, stayed off-site, and didn't purchase EP. I don't remember waiting in lines at all - we did single rider through everything we could.

For the record, Universal is just like anywhere else in Orlando - most people aren't staying onsite or paying for (expensive) extras like EP. Anyone responding on this board has serious planner tendencies, and I don't believe we are in the majority.

 

[pcstang]

Depends on what your are comfortable with as far as waiting. It's been fairly steady this week. Regular line for minions is 90 mins. RRR is 75 and mummy is 45 right now. Is express needed...no. Is it what we enjoy....yep. We did 8 days at Disney at the end of sept and waiting in line was terrible. We are done with it for a long time. No worries though, it's just 5 less people Disney crowds will have to wait in line behind. To add, single rider on RRR was further back than express and hardly moved before we got on.

 

[Luckybee]

To bump this up.... I have a question in regards to this. In experience has anyone been able to get away with just doing early entry and single rider to avoid buying the express pass or staying at one of the onsite hotels that provides this?

I will be traveling with husband for a work conference in early June and possibly adding on a night or two at cabana bay so that we can do universal/IOA. I would prefer of course the cheaper option as this is just an extra trip not wanting to spend the extra money.

We are about to head to Disney for 8 nights on a family trip in November and kids aren't old enough yet to make Universal worth it so hoping to make this an adults only trip. So single rider would be fine to get shorter waits.

Though if having the express pass is essential I may just rethink this and do a day at Epcot for the cheaper option as an extra splurge.

We spent time at Universal our last trips to Orlando. Most recently in May, and previously in Sept and Oct of last year.. We had EP for all of them either from staying Deluxe or purchasing the passes. In the future if we're not staying on property we'll might wait until we arrive to decide if we need the passes (we don't go during holiday seasons). EP is great we absolutely love it but that said, on our last trip we didn't need it at all . When I say didn't need it I mean for the rides we did, such as Mummy there were no lines whatsoever (well....5 min lines if anyone wants precision ). So spending the extra $ was a waste. The strange thing was that for the days we went TP's had the waits being much longer than what we saw for those days in the parks.

Don't get me wrong , it was great to simply walk right on everything....but the benefit wasn't a significant one. Now for the other trips back in Sep/Oct I was very grateful for having EP.

I did single rider for a few things since dh wont do certain rides. It was a walk on for almost everything ea time.

Keep checking everywhere for prices for the on property deluxes. When we were booking ours I could not believe some of the fluctuations I saw from day to day and site to site, including some pricing that had the deluxes down to similar pricing to CB.