After saving your hard earned money for your once in a lifetime trip to Universal Orlando; the last thing you want to do is wait in line to get on your favourite ride. Over the years I’ve discovered lots of tips to get you on that ride a little bit quicker. Some of you, like myself, will be crossing the Atlantic and most likely will spend more than a few days at Universal but others may only have one or two days there. Standing in a long queue in Florida’s heat can be exhausting combined with walking miles around the parks.

9 Tips to help reduce ride waiting times at Universal Orlando

• Buy an Express Pass –  Most rides and attractions have an express queue as well as the regular line. The only rides that don’t take them at the time of writing are Pterandon Fliers at Islands of Adventure and Fievel’s Playground at Universal studios. You wont necessarily get on the ride immediately but you shouldn’t have to wait much longer than 15 minutes. They last for one day only and prices vary according to the season. There are a few choices of pass. The basic Express Pass is valid for use at all participating rides once only, whereas the Unlimited Express Pass gives you unlimited use at participating rides. You can buy a pass for each park separately, or for Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure together. You can also buy an Express Pass for Volcano Bay. Prices are on top of your general admission tickets. Universal Orlando also sell the complete package with Park tickets and Express Pass combined. Express passes are scanned in the queue so there can be no queue jumping. These Express passes are not valid at Halloween Horror Nights which is a separate ticketed event and also has it’s own Express Passes.
• Stay at a Universal Premier Hotel – Portofino Bay, Hard Rock Hotel or Royal Pacific and you automatically get an Unlimited Express Pass included for each guest booked into your room for the length of stay. Just join the Express Riders queue and get your room Key card scanned. Yes, it is expensive to stay at a premier Hotel but it compares favourably to staying at a cheaper hotel and buying everyone a pass each day. One night gives you two full days to use your pass. This is our favourite way to eliminate waiting times and we usually stay at the Royal Pacific.
• One hour early entry – for all Universal Hotel guests with park tickets. Each day you get early entry to the Wizarding World of harry Potter at whichever Park has early opening that particular day. Also early entry to Volcano Bay. This gives you chance to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey or Escape from Gringotts an hour before the general public are admitted. Even when the general public are let in you’ll have a head start on the other rides and will be one of the first to take the Hogwarts Express train to the other Park. Note: You need Park to Park tickets to ride the train as tickets and fingerprints are checked before boarding.
• Buying your tickets in advance – means you can go straight to the turn styles rather than queue to buy tickets then queue up again to enter the park. At the turn styles the bar code on your ticket is scanned and your fingerprint. This much match at subsequent visits. Downloaded tickets usually have a bar code also.
• Single Rider Line – Many of the rides have a separate queue for single riders. Last year we couldn’t get in at a premier Hotel to get the free Express Pass so it was the first time we experienced the single rider queue. We are normally joined at the hip but when we saw the wait times for Escape from Gringotts we gave it a try. We rode three times in about twenty minutes. Single riders are used to fill the seats on a ride; for example if there are four seats in a row and a family only has three members. We get to queue together and are only separated for the ride which is only for around three minutes at the most.
• Visit during term time – There isn’t really a quiet time and of course some parents will take their children out of school to go but its definitely going to be busier when the kids are on holiday. We generally go in September as the weather is still hot but it is a little quieter. However it can get busy when Halloween Horror Nights is on and the fact that universal Studios closes at 5pm for this event means less time in the park. This results in a queue for the Hogwarts Express to get to the Islands of Adventure if you have tickets for both parks.

• Ignore the rain – A few of the rides may close if inclement weather is due but the majority of them stay open. Many visitors will head home leaving the queues a little shorter. You can always take in a show or grab a bite to eat till the rain passes. An inexpensive plastic poncho comes in handy. They sell them throughout the parks but are expensive. Dollar shop ones work just as well.
• Be there early or stay late – The queues are shorter the earlier you get there and as it gets nearer to closing time those who took advantage of early entry will be ready for home and waiting lines get shorter again. We’ve often grabbed that extra ride on our way to the exit.
• A ride breaks down – It’s bad enough when a ride breaks down when you’re on it as has happened to us four times now over the years; but when you’ve queued for what seems like forever only to be told the ride has broken down, don’t despair. There’s usually a team member guiding you back to the entrance or a short cut to the exit and they’ll offer you a coupon with an Express Pass to one ride …Yippee. We’ve also been offered an Express Pass when riding Escape from Gringotts after it stopped at a crucial point for a while then carried on. Not exactly the best way to obtain an Express Pass when you’re wondering if you’ll ever be rescued; as there’s no way of getting out with your legs and body pinned down in the seat and you might need the bathroom.

So quite a few tips there to help you get on your favourite ride a little quicker. However there are a few cons. On some rides the Express queue and single rider queue take a completely different route to the general queue, which means missing out on some of the fantastic theming. It’s worth taking the general queue if its short especially on a ride like Escape from Gringotts where the queue is like a ride in itself; (not wanting to give anything away to those who haven’t experienced it yet).

Have you any more tips for beating the queues at Universal Orlando ? I’d love to read your comments.