My boyfriend and I visited universal studio and is...

My boyfriend and I visited universal studio and island of adventure for 2 days during Christmas. Some rides and shows were quite fascinating and beyond our imagination. However, between those rides were 35-155 min standing in the queues. EXPRESS LANES which offers chances to "get to the Fun Faster", as noted in the website, cost ~ $100 per person per park per day. We didn't purchase express. Instead, we spent a lot of time observing and coming up with a hypothesis of how the park plays behavior science and hide 50% of the truth to HURT the experience of normal visitors. Here are our findings: "Get to the Fun Faster" for express holders means "Get to the Fun MUCH Slower" for normal visitors. We did some quick math to estimate "how much slower".

Assuming there are 600 visitors waiting for a ride, which takes 10 visitors per minute. If you just reach the end of the queue, here is your waiting time:
1) If everybody has normal access, it takes 600/10 = 60 minutes
2) If 10% (60) of visitors have express access, 90% (540) have normal access, and our coordinating staff is kind enough to let 5 express and 5 normal would board the ride every minute:
2a) If you have express, it takes you 60/5 = 12 minutes
2b) If you JUST have normal, it takes you 540/5 = 108 minutes !!!!!!
(Does it sounds familiar? 105 minutes waiting time for Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure?)

Sometimes the coordinating staff favors express. Let's say they let 7 express and 3 normal in per minute (BTW, we did observe 9 express and 1 normal in some rides). What are the waiting time now?
If you have express, it takes you 60/7 = 9 minutes
If you JUST have normal, it takes you ... 540/3 = 180 minutes !!!!!!

No offense to whomever purchased express. After all, who stays calm when they see in the big screen that Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts takes 155 minutes waiting time? The strong psychological hint, the fear that the whole day would be wasted in queue, the expectations of kids and loved ones, and the glowing ads everywhere with the savior information "Get to the Fun Faster"...where the slowness is created by the faster express in the beginning. Ironically, a snake bites into its own tail.

Is the 155 minutes really 155 minutes? As we calculated above, the staff can easily manipulate it, or the system could be exaggerating to create more fear. Behavior science, a magic spell without Harry Potter's wand.

In our own observation, whenever the normal line is long, the staffs tend to go 50-50; whenever the normal line is short, the staffs tend to go 5% normal and 95% express (Eg for Kang & Kodos' Twirl 'n' Hurl, the staff always empty express lane before letting any normal lane visitors in. It had been 25 minutes waiting to start with. After 10 min, it was still 25 minutes. After another 5 minutes, the waiting became 15 minutes, before some normal lane vistors got furious and stormed out the queue)

There was never a note saying "express ticket holders might largely increase your waiting time and hurt your experience" before purchasing the normal ticket. Fair exchange doesn't apply here. You don't get what you pay for. You can only get a ticket with hidden uncertain caveat.

When airline companies offer free checked bags as COMPENSATION when there is not enough space for economy class flyers, what does the park do when their policies hurt normal visitors for real? Send them express ads hoping to EARN MORE MONEY. Even the express holders got ripped off little by little. The more express cards the park sells, the worse experience express holders have. In the end, everybody has express, and we are back to 60 minutes waiting time. Only the park earns MUCH MUCH MORE.

In short, universal parks hide the waiting time CAVEATS, trick visitors into additional PAYMENTS and PUNISH whoever does not obey. We won't go there again:)