Is The Express Pass Worth the Price on Labor Day? \ Our Day at Island of Adventure & Universal Studios

We made it back to Islands of Adventure on Labor Day, Monday, September 2nd. We did have to check out of our resort that morning, so we made it to the park around 10:30am.

The first attraction we headed to was Jurassic World VelociCoaster. It had been down most of the day, the day before, so this was our priority. We got in line at 11:00am and exited at 12:07pm. This was WITH the Express Pass. The ride did go down while we were in line and was down for about 20 minutes, but fortunately it did come back up. We also had some extra magic given to us by a Universal Team Member and were able to ride twice.

Hagrid's was down when we got there and continued to be down until just before we left, so we never got to ride it this trip. After this, we rode Spider-Man until it started raining. We waited out the storm in the arcade and then headed to Skull Island and Doctor Doom's Fearfall®. After that, we saw that Hagrid's was up, but it was already a 90 minute wait, so we opted to skip it this trip, as we had to get on the road home soon. So we took the Harry Potter Train to Universal Studios so we could check out the new Dreamworks Land.

We didn't get to do much, even with the Express Pass, but we did get to ride VelociCoaster twice which made the day worth it. Would I pay extra for the Express Pass at Universal, absolutely not. However, it does make sense to stay at one of their deluxe resorts to have it included. Hopefully we will be back soon when it is less crowded.