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Originally Posted by mickeypops

We've just retunred from our 3rd trip to Orlando and had a great time.

The only part of the trip that really annoys me is the Univeral / IOA Express Plus ticket system.

We made three trips to these parks, getting there first thing to do some of the most popular rides first thing - this works quite well.

However, by mid morning the queues for all the popular rides was 40 minutes minimum and most went over the 60 minutes mark, up to 120 minutes for some. At this point there's no way you can get value for money for your ticket and you simply are not going to get on the attractions on your list.

So, Universal's solution to this over-crowding is to encourage you at every available opportunity around the park to purchase their Express Plus tikcet. This is going to cost you another $30 - $50 per person on top of your regular ticket price.

So, by this time, you'll see two separate queues for the rides - one for normal punters and one for Express Plus holders. On all the rides I saw, the Express Plus people were taking half the capacity of the ride, making the queueing time for regular ticket holders much, much worse - encouraging more and more people to shell out extra money for the EP passes.

In my opinion, a service that allows you to buy an (expensive) ticket in good faith, but then operates a system that makes it practically impossible for you to get anything like the full benefit of that ticket UNLESS you shell out even more money (making the plight of the regular people even worse in the process) is a very shoddy customer practice indeed. I can't think of any other business model that would allow it. Can you imagine if Tesco permitted you to go to the front of the checkout queue if you pay an extra fiver? Or similar at petrol stations if you paid an extra 20p per litre? There would be riots - but this is exactly what Universal are doing.

In contrast, Disney's Fastpass system is open and fair to all and it works brilliantly. Universal could and should do the same, but instead some genuis decided that they would rake in millions of extra profit by making people pay again for what they've already paid for.

Anyone agree / disagree?

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Plan your day better!

I managed 2xHulk, 2x Dr Doom, Spiderman, Bilge Rat Barge, Ripsaw Falls, Jurassic Park, Duelling Dragons Ice and Blue in that order before 10.30 on a saturday morning.

the only queue was 5 minutes for the Dragons

This was by far the easiest park to completely do everything worth doing before lunch.