US/IOA Lines- Will I be frustrated?

[MagicRat]

We are frequent Dis visitors but haven't been to Universal in about 10 years. I talked my wife into taking the kids (12yo DD and 10yo DS) to US/IOA for a day after we get off our Dream cruise in a couple of weeks. We are staying at Disney and are buying our US tix from Costco (3 days/2 parks/valid for 3 years) but now I'm getting concerned from reading the boards that I'll be very frustrated by waiting on lines while all of the express pass folks take those lines. I like and make good use of fastpasses at Dis and I'm feeling like I'm going to regret the US trip if we're constantly waiting on lines. Am I making more of an issue than it needs to be? My kids are not huge thrill ride fans but want to see Harry Potter and do Spiderman, Simpsons, etc. I want to try the coasters and can probably do the single rider lines. Any thoughts?

 

[Bluer101]

If you are going to be there in a week or two I would not worry to much. It should not be to busy. Besides they load express and regular at the same time. Also some rides have separate carts for express and separate for regular.

Forgot to add: yes use the single rider line for you, real fast.

 

[damo]

Do the big things first thing in the morning. Save the shows and water rides for later in the day when it gets busy. Follow the same rules you would at Disney by getting to the parks before rope drop. The park will open 15 minutes earlier than posted.

 

[vleeth]

I think if you plan ahead and get there early you should be able to avoid standing in terribly long lines.

 

[2girlsmom]

We've been to US/IOA several times now, only once did we have express pass (weekend after 4th of July) and even there, the lines overall weren't awful. Every other time, including a couple weeks ago, we have been without express. Most of those trips, it really didn't matter, as off season I don't think it is bad, we routinely had waits in the 15-20 minutes as the longest, and many things were walk on or nearly so. This last time wait times got up around 60 minutes for a few things towards the end of the day. I just pulled up my wait times app right now, at IOA, the longest waits are Spiderman, FJ, and Ripsaw Falls at 30 minutes, Pteranodon Flyers and Hippogriff are 25, and Jurassic Park is 20. Everything else at IOA is 15 or less. On the USF side, RRR is 45, Simpsons is 35, MIB is 30, Disaster is 25 as is Mummy. Everything else is lower. These are the posted wait times in the middle of the day, so not too shabby. Is express faster? YES, but with wait times like these, I would personally not consider it worthwhile to pay for.