Some help needed with Universal Studios, Orlando.

[Creamycoolerwithcream]

My DS3 has epilepsy and I'm in the process of booking a family holiday for next Spring. I want a family holiday to Universal Studios for my two sons who are teens and then probably a cruise. I was going to book one of the Universal hotels as saw they offered some sort of express pass. Does this mean the queues are shorter or are you given a time to go on the ride? Are the queuing areas shady and do any of you know if there is the option to sit down when queuing. We had an awful day out in Thorpe Park when my son simply got too hot in a queue, fell to the ground and had a seizure. I'm avoiding booking the trip in the Summer as think it will be to hot for him and want the Universal Studios part to go as smoothly as possible. We were planning on booking three nights at one if the hotels and spending a full day at each park. Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Creamy - the express pass for Universal means that your queue times are reduced - it's not like Disney where you get a specific time to come back with a Fast pass. If you are staying at a Universal hotel, I think they are included with that already, but you would need to check.

From memory the queueing at US is pretty good, apart from harry Potter which did require a long spell outside and you couldn't use the express pass with anyway.

I'd recommend contacting the Universal Studios customer services - when we were at Disney I know they offered a special queueing area for most rides if you had certain sorts of disabilities that were stimulated by the waits - so you may have had to wait the same length of time, but in a quiet room, rather than in the outdoors. I don't know if Universal has the same, but definitely worth asking, particularly if you are staying at the hotel.

Oh and Thorpe park is hell on earth. Worse queue system ever. We went with DS and had been to Alton towers the week before, the contrast couldn't have been starker. Alton Towers had a well organised way to manage queues and maximise spaces on rides, Thorpe Park did not. never again.

Hope you have a nice time in Florida.

Thank you for replying, every thing you said sounds really positive.

if you mail universal and give you mobile a nice Universal person will ring you back in person a few days later and talk through all the options.They were very good with the queries i had and i appreciated them ringing.

Thank you.

Express pass is properly worth it - plus staying on site is lovely! Hard rock is walkable, others you will get the boat. You won't be able to use express on Harry potter though. You also get inan hour earlier to hp world if you are a hotel guest - also really worthwhile!

Do you think two days will be long enough to do the majority or at least the best bits of each park bearing in mind we can't do really long days because my DS gets tired easily?

Hi Creamy - yes one day per park should be enough to do the things you want. We found Universal easier to navigate than Disney and also as you can get in an hour early then you could aim to be finished up by early afternoon - or as you are so close, you could take an afternoon break and then come back later.

Quite a lot of the rides at Universal are based on screen effects though e.g. Simpsons, Despicable Me, Harry Potter and not sure if they are suitable for those with epilepsy. So I'd definitely mail them so they can outline what ones aren't suitable and what provisions they have.

Thank you everyone for answering. The popping back to the hotel for an afternoon break could work well for my DS.

The US have spring break around the time of our Easter holidays. We went last Easter and it was very full so FOTL passes would have been invaluable.