How busy are the universal parks Oct half term?

[nicbev]

Only been August but just wondering how busy are the universal parks in Oct half term, especially with HHN on. Do you need to stay on site to get express passes or is it doable?
Many thanks

[blades]

We went last October Half term and the only thing to factor in is the Horror nights which mean the Studios shut at 5pm. We have always stopped on site but to be honest a couple of days it was virtually walk on everything in the morning. If you have never done it do the HHN these things fab we also did the Scareactor dining experience.

[Jimmy Mac]

We always go in October and weve never really had a long wait for anything except Harry Potter and the minions ride.

[keeley78]

We were there last October half term, didn't find it busy, we rode most things numerous times with very little queueing, the longest we waited was 20 minutes for hogwarts express but we practically walked on most rides, there were rides with longer waits throughout the day but we just went on something else with a shorter queue, the only ride that never seemed to get lower than 20 minutes was the hulk, we got there for opening on our first full day to ride gringotts but rode it again a few days later with minimal queue, about 10 minutes, express passes were certainly not needed, we did an overnight stay at cabana bay to get early entry for volcano bay which was great as that did get busy once open to offsite guests