Is Express Pass worth it for E.T. Adventure?
The short answer
Is Express Pass worth it for E.T. Adventure? Worth Express on busy days. At Universal Studios Florida, E.T. Adventure is included in universal express pass, with a typical peak standby wait of 30–60 min at peak. E.T. Adventure is an odd case: a slow, gentle suspended dark ride that draws a wait for reasons that have nothing to do with thrill. At 34 inches it has one of the lowest height bars at Universal Studios Florida, so almost every family qualifies, and it is the last ride still running from the park's opening day in 1990 — which brings a steady stream of adults with no children at all. Combine wide eligibility with nostalgia demand and a bicycle-style vehicle that loads slowly, and you get a queue that behaves worse than the ride's reputation implies. Ride it in the first hour of the day or in the last hour before close, when this corner of the park empties out, and only book a tap if you are visiting at a holiday-level crowd level with a small child who cannot ride much else. The detail that makes the ride land for kids: an attendant asks for your name before you enter the indoor queue, and E.T. says it back to you personally at the end — any G-rated nickname works, and getting that right is worth more to a five-year-old than saving twenty minutes. Worth knowing first: if your child has never seen the film, the aliens near the end look stranger than anything in the ride is trying to be.
Why we say “worth express on busy days”
E.T. Adventure is an odd case: a slow, gentle suspended dark ride that draws a wait for reasons that have nothing to do with thrill. At 34 inches it has one of the lowest height bars at Universal Studios Florida, so almost every family qualifies, and it is the last ride still running from the park's opening day in 1990 — which brings a steady stream of adults with no children at all. Combine wide eligibility with nostalgia demand and a bicycle-style vehicle that loads slowly, and you get a queue that behaves worse than the ride's reputation implies.
Ride it in the first hour of the day or in the last hour before close, when this corner of the park empties out, and only book a tap if you are visiting at a holiday-level crowd level with a small child who cannot ride much else. The detail that makes the ride land for kids: an attendant asks for your name before you enter the indoor queue, and E.T. says it back to you personally at the end — any G-rated nickname works, and getting that right is worth more to a five-year-old than saving twenty minutes. Worth knowing first: if your child has never seen the film, the aliens near the end look stranger than anything in the ride is trying to be.
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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