From what I'm reading on Twitter, I'm hearing the scare zones are weak this year, that express is sometimes longer than standard lines, I hope that is not the case because I got ROF express. The houses are all mixed but AHS seems to be the most consistent positively received house.
I wouldn't worry nor would I take stock in people's comments. Personally, I think it all comes down to perceptions. I think a lot of folks think Express means instants access yet I think what Universal offers is to cut your wait in half.
You do save time and walking with Express. A lot of the houses I went to last night did a good job in that you didn't really see the other queue, so you might perceive that the other line is moving faster.
For example at AHS, I would hear every now and again 'are we in the Express line?' because the regular line didn't back up to where we were backed up to, so it seemed to move quicker, but that ignores that the regular line was just walking to a bunch of switchbacks in a sound strange that Express did not see until they exit the house.
We did not attempt all the houses, but most also had a bit of a queue after your pass was scanned which allowed them to have a consistent flow into the house from Express and general where at a merge point they could switch between the two.
I say this because last night was odd (to me) in that they check that your ticket is Express when getting in line, but I seemed to be behind a lot of folks that did not have Express when they got to the point of scanning the tickets...this slowed things down, but it had no effect of flow when scanned Express folks had a bit more of a queue to go through.
I think AHS was one place where it was not set up like this...so they kept letting the regular line go while the Express line had no one ready to take from, but this did not seem the norm at most of the others we went to.
If you can do S&S, I would say try and do AHS for S&S, otherwise try and do AHS later in the night as opposed to early on (Express or no Express).
Also, I think 'technical difficulties' is the catch all term used when they may need to close a house for awhile...if you are unfortunate enough to get caught behind one of those, your wait will be long with or without Express and (most likely) you will have no clue what's up for you will be told nothing if you are already in the queue....
Last night, we just had a bad start and some bad luck, but Express worked as it always has and we saw a couple of houses posted as 60 minutes where we waited less than 20 minutes with Express.