How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk: what is actually worth skipping the line for?
The short answer
How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk at Epic Universe has 3 attractions we track, and 2 of them offer Universal Express Pass. The land that holds the single attraction at Epic Universe that Express Pass does not cover. On our honest reading only one — Hiccup's Wing Gliders — is a clear case for paying to skip the line. 2 of the 3 have a height requirement, the tallest being 48".
What to expect in How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk
Three attractions with three different answers on paid skipping, which is unusual for Epic Universe — the park is otherwise almost fully Express-eligible. Hiccup's Wing Gliders is a suspended family coaster with a 40-inch bar, included in Express, and the ride the whole land queues for. Dragon Racer's Rally is the park's one Express exclusion: it carried Express signage during previews, the signage came down, and it has been standby-only since. Fyre Drill is an interactive boat ride with water cannons, no height minimum, and a wait that is moderate all day.
Is Universal Express Pass worth it here?
One tap, spent on Wing Gliders. Dragon Racer's Rally cannot be skipped at all, so do not build any part of your plan around it — this is the detail that catches people who bought Express expecting it to cover the whole park. Fyre Drill is Express-eligible and a poor use of it: what you would be buying time on is the least ride-like thing at Epic Universe, and it is best ridden standby in the heat anyway.
Worth the money in this land
- ·Hiccup's Wing Gliders — Usually worth Express, 60–90 min at peak
Offers a pass, but rarely earns it
- ·Fyre Drill — 30–60 min at peak
No paid line-skip offered at all
These attraction is outside Universal Express Pass, so the only levers are time of day and patience.
- ·Dragon Racer's Rally — 30–60 min at peak
The order we would walk it
Ride Dragon Racer's Rally in the first hour after opening or the last hour before close, because those are the only two windows where its line is short and you cannot buy your way out of the middle of the day. Put Wing Gliders on Express in the afternoon, when the land is fullest. Leave Fyre Drill for the hottest part of the day, when getting soaked is the point rather than the problem.
How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk with young children
The ladder here runs 40 inches for Wing Gliders, 48 for Dragon Racer's Rally, and nothing at all for Fyre Drill — so the 48-inch bar is what splits a family that rode the coaster together. Two practical rules beyond height: anyone under 48 inches needs a supervising companion on all three, and handheld infants are not permitted on Fyre Drill despite its having no minimum. On Wing Gliders it is the suspended seating rather than the speed that frightens nervous first-timers; a child who enjoyed Mine-Cart Madness is usually fine, and one who did not is not.
Height is checked at each attraction entrance rather than once at the gate, so a borderline measurement is worth planning around. Our ride height guide works the other way round from this page — it starts from your child's height and lists what opens up — and the crowd calendar covers the other half of the problem: which weeks make these queues worth paying for in the first place.
Every attraction in How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, ride by ride
Wing Gliders is the ride the whole of Isle of Berk queues for, and the reason is the 40-inch bar: it is low enough that most families ride together, which is rare for a land's headliner. It is a suspended family coaster, so riders hang below the track with their legs free rather than sitting in a car — a sensation that reads as far more thrilling than the actual speed justifies. Wide eligibility on a ride with a fixed cycle is the combination that builds a line, and this one holds a real wait from mid-morning onward.
This is the Express tap worth spending inside Isle of Berk, and the one to book for the middle of the day when the land is at its fullest. Two things to settle before you commit the family: children under 48 inches need a supervising companion, so an adult is spending a slot alongside each small child, and the suspended seating is what frightens nervous first-timers here — not the drops. If a child has already ridden Mine-Cart Madness happily, this is a fair next step; if they found that too much, it is not.
Fyre Drill has no minimum height at all, which makes it the one attraction in Isle of Berk that a whole family can do together regardless of how the kids measure up. It is an interactive boat ride where two teams work water cannons against targets and against each other, and the honest headline is that it is a water-fight attraction first and a ride second. That is exactly why it is a poor use of a paid skip: what you are buying time on is the least ride-like thing in the park.
Ride it standby, ideally in the hottest part of the afternoon when getting drenched is the point rather than the problem, and put your Express taps on Wing Gliders and Mario Kart. Plan for genuinely wet, not damp — the cannons reach a long way and bystanders on the walkway get hit too, so phones and anything paper need to be sealed before you board. Two rules that catch families out at the gate: handheld infants are not permitted, and anyone under 48 inches needs a supervising companion even though there is no height minimum to ride.
This is the one ride at Epic Universe that Express Pass does not cover — the single exclusion on an otherwise complete park list, which is why so many trip reports get it wrong. It briefly carried Express signage during previews before the park opened; the signage came down and it has been standby-only since. The ride itself is a rotating arm attraction where each rider controls the pitch of their own dragon, so how intense your ride is depends largely on what you do with the controls. At 48 inches it is also the highest bar in Isle of Berk, which splits families that rode Wing Gliders together.
Do not build any part of your Isle of Berk plan around skipping this line, because you cannot. Ride it in the first hour after the park opens or in the last hour before close — those are the only two windows where the wait is genuinely short, and the middle of the day is the worst of it. The practical sequence for the land is Wing Gliders on Express in the afternoon, this one standby at the edges of the day, and Fyre Drill whenever the heat makes getting soaked sound appealing. If you are checking heights before you buy anything, this is the ride that decides whether your youngest can do all three.
Have someone sequence How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk for you
A real guide works your party's heights, nap windows and the day's actual wait times into the order you walk each land — and tells you which passes to skip buying. From $75/hour on your first trip.