Is Express Pass worth it for Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon?
The short answer
Is Express Pass worth it for Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon? Express not needed here. At Universal Studios Florida, Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon is included in universal express pass, with a typical peak standby wait of under 30 min. Express Pass includes Race Through New York, and the measured waits make this close to the weakest tap in the park. Two things keep its queue from ever becoming a problem. It is a flying-theater simulator, so it admits large timed batches rather than trickling a continuous line, and it runs on a virtual queue — it was the first attraction at Universal Orlando to use one, so most of the day you are holding a return time rather than standing anywhere. The numbers are stark. Across crowd levels one through eight the standby wait tops out at 21 minutes, the floor is five minutes at every single crowd level, and only at the very busiest does it reach 47. On 28 December 2025, a holiday-peak day when Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts averaged 120 minutes, this ride averaged 10. Treat it as the air-conditioned sit-down between two real rides rather than something to plan or pay for. Get a virtual queue return time in the app when you arrive, carry on to Gringotts or Revenge of the Mummy, and come back when it tells you to — that is the whole strategy and it costs nothing. If your taps are limited, this is the ride to let take its chances, because the two queues at Universal Studios Florida genuinely worth buying past are Gringotts and the Mummy by a wide margin. Two things to settle before you commit the party: the 40-inch bar is low enough that most of the group will clear it, and the pre-show rooms are long enough that anyone expecting to board quickly gets restless — the ride itself is a short screen sequence at the end of a fair amount of standing.
Why we say “express not needed here”
Express Pass includes Race Through New York, and the measured waits make this close to the weakest tap in the park. Two things keep its queue from ever becoming a problem. It is a flying-theater simulator, so it admits large timed batches rather than trickling a continuous line, and it runs on a virtual queue — it was the first attraction at Universal Orlando to use one, so most of the day you are holding a return time rather than standing anywhere. The numbers are stark. Across crowd levels one through eight the standby wait tops out at 21 minutes, the floor is five minutes at every single crowd level, and only at the very busiest does it reach 47. On 28 December 2025, a holiday-peak day when Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts averaged 120 minutes, this ride averaged 10.
Treat it as the air-conditioned sit-down between two real rides rather than something to plan or pay for. Get a virtual queue return time in the app when you arrive, carry on to Gringotts or Revenge of the Mummy, and come back when it tells you to — that is the whole strategy and it costs nothing. If your taps are limited, this is the ride to let take its chances, because the two queues at Universal Studios Florida genuinely worth buying past are Gringotts and the Mummy by a wide margin. Two things to settle before you commit the party: the 40-inch bar is low enough that most of the group will clear it, and the pre-show rooms are long enough that anyone expecting to board quickly gets restless — the ride itself is a short screen sequence at the end of a fair amount of standing.
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.
Want your whole Universal Studios day planned like this?
A real guide routes your day, tells you when Express is worth buying and when it is not, and stays with you by message all day — from $75/hour on your first trip.