Universal Express Plus Pass

[WDW-UK]

I have just purchased my Universal Express Plus which will enables you to ride all paricipating rides with little or no wait.

As I am going at Easter and taking our 5 year old daughter I thought that this was a must do.

The pass is an additional £19.50 each on top of the admission ticket which I know makes it VERY expensive day. However as I have read that the waiting times will be over 2 hours long, makes it a lot easier to cough up the extra money.

I sent an email to customer serives asking which rides are part of the "Plus" pass and they confirmed the following:

The only exclusion to the Express Plus Pass feature that I am aware of now is Shrek-4D at Universal Studios. There may be others, but Universal does have the right to limit or not allow Express Plus at any time for any ride or attraction without notice.

Universal Express/Universal Express Plus Attractions:


Universal Studios

1.Horror Makeup Show
2.Revenge of the Mummy
3.Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast
4.Men in Black Alien Attack
5.Back to the Future The Ride
6.Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time
7.Twister...Ride It Out
8.Jaws
9.Earthquake...The Big One
10.Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue
11.Animal Planet Live
12.E.T. Adventure
13.A Day in the Park with Barney
14.Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster


Islands of Adventure

1.The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
2.Incredible Hulk Coaster
3.Doctor Doom Fearfall
4.Storm Force Accelatron
5.Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls
6.Popeye & Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges
7.Jurassic Park River Adventure
8.The Flying Unicorn
9.Dueling Dragons
10.Poseidon's Fury
11.The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad
12.The Cat in the Hat
13.Caro-Seuss-el
14.One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish

The passes normally go on sale 1 hour after the park opens but you can purchase them in advance via the following link:

http://themeparks.universalstudios....al_express.html

 

[fizz13]

We just bought these on our trip a couple of weeks ago for our day at Islands of Adventure. We felt it probably was worth the money to be able to jump front of the line for everything. However, what annoyed us was that not all CMs bothered to check our passes or swipe them/ mark them so we could have used them over and over for the same ride. At times, we thought we could have gone through the line without the pass and no one would have cared.
Other point to note is that children do not reqire express passes and will be able to accompany you on your pass so don't waste money buying your kids these passes too.

BTW, Shrek is excluded because so many people can be accomodated in the theatre so that even if the line looks huge, once the doors are open, just about everyone will get in.

Claire

 

[vernon]

If you've already bought the pass and it's non refundable, then I'm sure you'll get good use out of it for that day. You do have some other options if you are able to return it, you may decide to keep it anyway and have one day where you get as much done as possible and then return to USF and queue with the rest of the rabble to get anything you missed or would like to do again. As you have worded it as I am taking our daughter, I'm not sure if you are taking her on your own or if there are other adults along on the trip. If you're alone then a lot of IOA is going to be off the list as your DD won't be big enough to ride, and you won't be able to "child swap her" if there are no other adults travelling with you to leave her with.

At that time of year, with busy crowds it's certainly a great help to be able to get all the rides done quickly. However, with your DD being 5 ( and I presume reasonably short) there is a lot of IOA she won't be able to ride on. If the idea is to let your daughter ride as many rides as possible you may be better to not worry about IOA and leave it for a later trip. Universal does have enough rides that are suitable for her to make that a worthwhile destination. They were running a "two parks in one day"promo not long ago, but I can't find any info on it at the moment. If they were running that, it could be worthwhile to buy the Express plus pass for Universal and by using the front of the line access you should be able to get through almost all of that park and still leave yourself a couple of hours to cover the things in IOA she would be able to ride (Suess landing she would enjoy).

If you do decide the current offer of "buy an adult ticket get a child free" 5 day pass is a good economic choice then you could spread your Universal/IOA days out over the 5 days and just make the best of the queues. I have found that at busy times of year the queue times at USF do get quite long and much of this is due to the express pass system. The good part of it though is that many of these delays don't really hit in the first couple of hours of the park opening. My feeling is that the USF hotel guests know that they can afford to have a lie in, start a little later and still cover all the rides using this benefit (which comes with their hotel room). For $119 (plus tax) per person for 5 days entertainment it isn't a bad deal, in your situation I would probably try to get to the parks REALLY early and try to get as much done in the first two hours as possible on the popular rides. If the queues then start building up take in some of the less busy or quicker loading rides/shows and maybe leave the parks by early/mid afternoon and go shopping at Belz or back to the hotel/villa pool for a swim. With a 5 Y old, 5 lots of half days at US/IOA ,may be a better way to experience the parks than two tiring LONG whole days anyway.

Your DD at age 5 will have a great time in the excellent kiddie play areas they have at either park. Sueuss Landing has a really nice little water play area that will keep her amused for ages as well as give her a chance to cool off. In US there is the Woody Woodpecker play area and I think a new one close to it called Curious George.