Park passes useful, require planning

Orlando theme parks offer free passes that allow you to walk to the front of the line.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
In the magical world of Orlando where a hot dog costs $3.50 and an ice cream bar costs $3, there is something that's available for free and is quite useful.
It's a pass that both Disney and Universal Studios offer which allows you to cut to the front of the line on certain rides or attractions.
Amusement parks in Ohio are offering similar passes, but those cost money.
At the Orlando parks, all you need is your admission ticket. You place your tickets into machines near the entrance of the rides and you receive another ticket to use as an express pass for the ride.
Instead of standing in line for a half-hour or so, you go to another line and walk right up to the front. Your wait may just be a couple minutes, or it could be about 10 minutes if many other people are using the express line.
Either way, it's a timesaver .
One rule: The only catch is that you can have only one express pass at a time. The ticket will have a time printed on it when you can return and go to the head of the line.
On a recent visit to Universal Studios, our family learned a lot about the passes by trial and error, mostly error.
We got passes for Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time and were feeling pretty good about ourselves when we used the express line to pass the long line of people in the regular line. The problem was that the theater for Terminator is so big that probably everyone got in at the same time we did anyway.
Try, try again: We again tried to use the passes. We saw a line of people waiting to get into Earthquake so we got passes that reserved us a time an hour later.
When we returned, however, there was no one in line. We, and everyone else who showed up, went right to the front of the line.
Next, we tried to use the passes for Men in Black Alien Attack. That was a popular ride that had a half-hour line the last couple times we walked by.
Our plan unraveled when we realized it was too late to get passes. They stop handing out passes more than an hour before the park closes.
Keep trying: While the passes didn't work out for us, our advice would be to try to make them work for you. It can be frustrating to have wait to get to the front of the line but not be able to get on because the operator is admitting people from the express line.
Rides that tend to have long lines and would be good candidates for using passes include Men in Black, Back to the Future and Jaws.