Having done both Hagrid’s and RotR this past week, I’ll take the former’s standby system over the latter’s virtual queue any day.
For our Hagrid’s day: arrived for normal park opening with Hagrid starting at 300 min wait. Knowing the time usually drops later in the day, we did what we wanted at USO and then a late breakfast at Hard Rock Hotel. Headed over to IoA and decided to jump in line for Hagrid’s with a posted 210 minute wait. We had hoped our experience from months ago still held - that the Hagrid wait times were inflated by as much as double. That was not the case and it was still a solid 3 hours in line. Looks like the wait times have become more accurate. A few stops and starts, but no break downs. They were pulsing the preshow room with smaller than usual groups as the standby line afterwards was almost backed up to the preshow area. Came off the ride and, despite several hours in line that we probably wouldn’t repeat, agreed it was worth it. We knew what we were getting into and it still delivered.
For our RotR day: up at 5:45am to get over to Hollywood studios and wade through thousands of guests packed in for a 7am opening when the RotR boarding group lottery would go live. Technical glitches with the Disney app and couldn’t get through for a few minutes when the lottery opened - a few minutes in we had success, but barely avoided the back-up boarding group cut-off. Essentially, all normal BGs were gone for the day in less than 5 minutes. We left right after - because all of the people there headed to rides and many opened with 90+ min standby times and eliminated any rope drop advantage as all the people in the virtual queue dispersed elsewhere. Spent the day rearranging plans and checking status to see if we would be called. Finally we were around 5pm, when we had to get back to the park and get in line - where we waited in line another hour before hitting the pre-show elements that start the ride. Exiting the ride 90 minutes after getting in line, we all agreed that while we were glad we did it, we would never do that again so long as they’re running the virtual queue.
FWIW - we had our own challenging experiences with Hagrid’s the week after it opened - twice standing in line over an hour and suffering breakdowns while never making it over the bridge (and getting soaked by summer rains in the process). Didn’t make it onto the ride until a few months later on another visit. The standby experience has been frustrating at times but we still found it easier and better to plan around than the experience with the VQ system for RotR. With the VQ, most people seem to focus on the benefit of being able to go do other things instead of waiting in line. What’s overlooked is how a VQ can negatively interfere with what you can do or plan for that day, as well as the overall impact on park experience with all the guests tethered to the park via VQ and essentially in two places at once.
