Is Express Pass worth it for Curse of the Werewolf?
The short answer
Is Express Pass worth it for Curse of the Werewolf? Worth Express on busy days. At Universal Epic Universe, Curse of the Werewolf is included in universal express pass, with a typical peak standby wait of 30–60 min at peak. Curse of the Werewolf is the second ride in Dark Universe and the one that keeps the land's queues manageable: a spinning coaster with a 40-inch bar, so most of the family can ride, and a short enough cycle that the line turns over reasonably well. It is a good ride rather than a great one, and its wait rarely reaches the point where a skip is the right use of money on an ordinary day. On a normal day, ride this standby right after you finish Monsters Unchained — you are already in the land, and the wait is usually the shorter of the two. Save the Express tap for a holiday week, when Dark Universe backs up badly. The spinning is the thing to brief people on: the cars rotate freely as they travel, so the motion is unpredictable, and that bothers a specific kind of rider far more than speed or height does. There is a single-rider line here too.
Why we say “worth express on busy days”
Curse of the Werewolf is the second ride in Dark Universe and the one that keeps the land's queues manageable: a spinning coaster with a 40-inch bar, so most of the family can ride, and a short enough cycle that the line turns over reasonably well. It is a good ride rather than a great one, and its wait rarely reaches the point where a skip is the right use of money on an ordinary day.
On a normal day, ride this standby right after you finish Monsters Unchained — you are already in the land, and the wait is usually the shorter of the two. Save the Express tap for a holiday week, when Dark Universe backs up badly. The spinning is the thing to brief people on: the cars rotate freely as they travel, so the motion is unpredictable, and that bothers a specific kind of rider far more than speed or height does. There is a single-rider line here too.
Universal sells Express Pass as a date-priced day product, not per ride — the same date can swing hundreds of dollars between a January weekday and a holiday week, and the Unlimited tier costs more than the one-ride-each tier. You pay Universal directly and we never mark it up. What a guide actually does is work out whether your specific day needs Express at all, and if it does, which park to spend it in — because buying it for the wrong park is the most common way families waste money at Universal Orlando.
Planning Disney in the same trip? Universal's Express Pass and Disney's Lightning Lane work nothing alike, and the strategies do not transfer. Our Universal Orlando guide covers how the two fit into one itinerary.
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