You might want to do the $9 subscription to touringplans.com Universal plans to help you decide whether to get EPs or not. I did that, started with their plans, customized them, and did plans both with and without EPs. That's what I did to help me decide. For our one park to park day, March 22nd, with EP it looked like a fun day. Without EP for just the one day at the busy time and for what we wanted to do, it didn't even look like it would be worth going -- way too many super long lines.
On the cost side, I feel your pain OP. We have a party of 11 going to Orlando and four wanted to do one Park to Park Universal/IOA day. A throw away room at Lowes Royal Pacific for one night was $745 a night (ouch - $186.25 pp). With just the one day, the gang aren't interested in doing repeat rides. A one time express pass (pass that only lets you do any EP rides once for the day) was $130 pp, so in our case a less expensive way to go. We do though going this way forgo the early entry perk too and we are just doing one day not two. With two days if you decide on the EP, you might want to do the throw away room as one room for one night gets two days of unlimited EPs for four people.
We are all staying together in lovely offsite condos for the week (offsite lodging has always been a great deal in Orlando for cost for quality IMHO). And we all prefer to stay together and not move too. Ever since 1971 when Disney first opened and we started coming down (I was a kid then), Orlando has been overbuilt.
I am spending $345 pp for each of the four for a park to park ticket, one time express passes, and taxes. A more days at Universal trip isn't in the cards now or in the future for the four people either. The four 20 somethings I'm getting these tickets for love hanging out with other extended family who don't care for Universal and want to do other things on the week long trip that the whole gang wants to do too. They don't want to cut out SeaWorld, our Disney days, our nature days, our chill out days (relatives in the area and we are staying at a great resort too). I love that about the four, so did do a splurge for them in purchasing the one day tickets and EPs. So it's $1380 for four people to go to Universal for the day. Makes all our other days and activities look like a bargain in comparison. Of course, more time at Universal means a much lower cost per day if that's something you'd consider or want to do.
We've done a park to park day at less busy times on occasion, and had a great day without the EPs. Our last one day visit though was a good five years ago in November.
Spring break has just gotten so popular. That's been our experience at spring break for the last 15 years in Orlando. I can understand. Central Florida weather is usually just glorious in March, and anytime some schools are out crowds are always higher. Despite the high crowds, March is still my favorite time to go because of the weather. This year too there is a lot of pend up demand for travel, and many people who aren't ready to venture internationally yet are staying in the USA. (That's our family in case due to a positive COVID case someone can't get back home - we are doing Orlando instead of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a spring trip for this very reason.) There are lots of people doing that I think, so no wonder our most popular USA national parks and theme parks are more crowded than ever.
This will be or 5th trip to US and we have only used EPs once and, for us, it was nice but not "all that" and definitely would not pay $700 for 1 night at a premier just to get it for 2 days. Especially since we will be at the parks for 3-4 days and we will not have any problems getting everything in that we want to do, even multiple times. If I was going just for 1 night, then I would pay the higher premier resort price to get EPs. Plus, our favorite 2 rides are not covered by the EP. We also do not have any issue waiting in a 60 minute line either, so if you do, then you may want to pay $$$$ for EPs.
