Hagrid's Coaster Queue Updates / Questions / Reviews

[yulilin3]

Is it possible for one person in party to jump out of line at Hogsmeade to put it in a locker or would that be frowned upon?

it's a tricky thing. Me personally if they have been in line with you all the time and they just hang back to put it in a locker and then rejoin, I wouldn't have a problem

 

[SaintsManiac]

Are they particular about saving spots in line? I'm wondering if my husband can go to IoA next week at 8:00 to get in line, while I take my son to US to play with his wand in Diagon Alley, then ride the train over and join him in line. We are staying at Hard Rock, so will have early entry to US and Express Pass for Hogwarts Express.

I wouldn't do it. I already told my kid she waits the full time. Period.

 

[MeridaAnn]

Is it possible for one person in party to jump out of line at Hogsmeade to put it in a locker or would that be frowned upon?

Yes, the line goes right by the lockers so that you can put your things in them. When the line reaches that spot, they let you go to the locker if you need to before heading into the official queue.

 

[CPanther95]

Are they particular about saving spots in line? I'm wondering if my husband can go to IoA next week at 8:00 to get in line, while I take my son to US to play with his wand in Diagon Alley, then ride the train over and join him in line. We are staying at Hard Rock, so will have early entry to US and Express Pass for Hogwarts Express.

I think it's pretty universal at all amusement parks that everybody is particular about other people cutting in line.

 

[DurangoJim]

My daughter has type 1 DM and as such we carry a small backpack with her emergency supplies with us. I understand that we can’t take the bag on the ride but I don’t feel comfortable having her stand in line for three or more hours without the supplies. Is the locker station close to the end of the line or is it likely she’d be unable to have the bag in line with us?

 

[TommyJK]

My daughter has type 1 DM and as such we carry a small backpack with her emergency supplies with us. I understand that we can’t take the bag on the ride but I don’t feel comfortable having her stand in line for three or more hours without the supplies. Is the locker station close to the end of the line or is it likely she’d be unable to have the bag in line with us?

You're allowed "fanny packs" on the ride provided they have 3 prong clasps that secure them around your waist. Would her medical supplies fit in one of those?

 

[DurangoJim]

You're allowed "fanny packs" on the ride provided they have 3 prong clasps that secure them around your waist. Would her medical supplies fit in one of those?

Most likely! Thank you for the insight!

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Of course this ride is great. Universal makes all the potter rides amazing. They would be foolish not to. They save the crappy ones for other areas of the park. That train is never late

 

[Chumpieboy]

I saw this today and couldn't help but think that this seemed more like a Disney ride..I thought I read somewhere that some Imagineers left and went to Universal...maybe they worked on this...
Shows the full ride from the front in case you don't want to see it yet..

I read (forget if it was here or in another thread) that there was a lift hill that sometimes the cars wouldn't make it entirely all the way up and would roll back. They customize the thrust needed to the weight of the specific riders on at that time, and that if a car did roll back they could recover quickly without having to shut everything down and inspect and that this minimizes overall ride downtime.

Watching that video, I didn't see any hills high enough that this would seem to be a factor. Yes, I saw the part where the ride goes backwards (after the Weasley's car) but there you can clearly see the track switch.

Where is the lift hill where the unintended rollback happens?

 

[WDW2012]

I’m staying at Royal Pacific next week. I assume it’s better to be in line at IOA as early as possible rather than go to USF early entry and ride Hogwarts express over. There is no advantage to that is there?

When we were there Thursday and Friday (only rode Friday), they were not running the train until after 10:00 am so no, best bet is to get to IOA as early as possible.

 

[luvmy2boyzz]

I will be at UO Thursday and Friday. Yay I’ve been watching wait times on the app. It seems like it might be best to not rope drop this ride? For example, today the ride was delayed at open, wait started at 3.5 hours, dropped to 2.5 hrs at noon and dropped to 2 hrs right now. Even on Saturday that seemed to be the pattern, although waits never got as low as 2hrs. Idk how accurate the app is tho Anyone else keeping track? I’m starting to feel hopeful that I will be able to ride

 

[Spike101]

I will be at UO Thursday and Friday. Yay I’ve been watching wait times on the app. It seems like it might be best to not rope drop this ride? For example, today the ride was delayed at open, wait started at 3.5 hours, dropped to 2.5 hrs at noon and dropped to 2 hrs right now. Even on Saturday that seemed to be the pattern, although waits never got as low as 2hrs. Idk how accurate the app is tho Anyone else keeping track? I’m starting to feel hopeful that I will be able to ride

Weather delays maybe at the start of the day?

Certainly on my first day back I'll watch the news, check my weather app, and plan my attack from there!

 

[MeridaAnn]

I will be at UO Thursday and Friday. Yay I’ve been watching wait times on the app. It seems like it might be best to not rope drop this ride? For example, today the ride was delayed at open, wait started at 3.5 hours, dropped to 2.5 hrs at noon and dropped to 2 hrs right now. Even on Saturday that seemed to be the pattern, although waits never got as low as 2hrs. Idk how accurate the app is tho Anyone else keeping track? I’m starting to feel hopeful that I will be able to ride

I guess it depends how you calculate wait time at Rope Drop. For example, on Saturday, I arrived at 7:30, the park officially opened at 9, and I was on the ride at 10:30. So, yes, I was in line for 3 hours, but I only lost 1.5 hours of actual park time. So if you want to minimize the amount of time you are standing up, then maybe you can take the chance and hope that there's a 2 hour wait later in the day. But if your goal is to have as much time left for other things in the park, you might still decide that rope drop is worth it.

And there are other factors, too - what if you wait until that afternoon time, but then there are technical issues or weather delays at the time you wanted to get in line and then your chance to ride is gone. But, on the other hand, if you rope drop something else, maybe you can get a few other big rides done quickly while others are focusing on Hagrid's and you might save time that way.

Personally, I choose rope drop as the most certain way to get on with a lower wait time (and I'm planning to do it again next Saturday) but you might make that calculation differently than I do, based on your priorities and the weather forecast. [Side note that I always recommend checking the forecast for accumulation amounts here in FL, not just % chance of rain, because you could see a 90% chance of rain that's only for 0.01 inches of rain, and it's actually far less risky as far as getting on rides than a 30% chance of 1.5 inches, for example.]

 

[luvmy2boyzz]

I guess it depends how you calculate wait time at Rope Drop. For example, on Saturday, I arrived at 7:30, the park officially opened at 9, and I was on the ride at 10:30. So, yes, I was in line for 3 hours, but I only lost 1.5 hours of actual park time. So if you want to minimize the amount of time you are standing up, then maybe you can take the chance and hope that there's a 2 hour wait later in the day. But if your goal is to have as much time left for other things in the park, you might still decide that rope drop is worth it

Yes my boys and I are debating this. Trying to decide what the chances of getting optimal line placement at open is and how early we’d have to show up before the park opens. What I have noticed though is that Friday and today the ride did not open when the park did. It was showing on the app as delayed up until 11 am today. Not sure why that is happening? Weather delays are a bummer and hard to predict. It was delayed for weather almost all day yesterday, again according to the app. My wait threshold is around 3 hours so I am just happy to see that the 5,8 and 10 hour waits have dropped. We have express pass for all other rides so not too worried about missing out in park time if we hit this one mid-day.

 

[Disxuni]

Typically I wait until the end of the day, when most people watch the shows and most of the guests have left for the day. This might not be the best course of action right now, as I know the first few days they would close the queue in the middle of the afternoon due to the high wait time. They may not do that since the wait time has been down a lot compared to the last few days, but I do not know if they ever still close it just a little prior to the actual closing, so I wouldn't suggest that quite yet. However, once a couple of weeks, or a month passes, I would imagine just waiting towards the end of the day and hopping on shouldn't be an issue.

 

[ShadeDK]

Here now and trying to keep up with the wait times has been a mess between odd changes to posted times, delays and weather. Yesterday showed 240 to 280 minutes all morning then dropping to 120 minutes early afternoon (the extended queue through the park was taken down by then) - before rain moved in around 2:30 and shut it down most of the rest of the day. There were several hundred people waiting outside the entrance in the rain even hours later around 6pm. Apparently it did open up around 8 pm and then immediately went “to capacity” on the app.

When we went in today at park opening, the line started just across from Starbucks and we were told it would be a 7 hour wait. We skipped out but noted the extended queue was filled well back into Seuss Landing. The app didn’t even post a wait time. Extended queue was still up around 10:30. At lunch, we saw wait time posted at 150 minutes for awhile. Then it hit 100 minutes while we were in Citywalk and we raced back in - posted at 120 min by the time we finally got there, but the queue started right at the entrance and they seemed to think the posted time was too low and were on the radio about that. Got about 30 minutes in before it started pouring and they closed the ride - still closed now and looks like it might be a repeat of yesterday.

Very difficult to provide a best strategy this early while everything is working itself out. The good news though is that it seems the ride is moving people through very well when it’s up and not on a delay.

 

[Disxuni]

Even if it weren't for the fact that it just opened and will have technical difficulties, it would still be uneasy to determine the best method strictly due to the weather aspect.

 

[Sith]

Weather delays maybe at the start of the day?

Certainly on my first day back I'll watch the news, check my weather app, and plan my attack from there!

It absolutely was not weather related this morning. It was maintenance. We were in line since 7:30. At around 9 they announced ride would open at 10. Then around 9:30 they announced ride would not open until 11. We said screw it and went off to do other things. Ride opened right about 12.

I believe it did close for weather in the afternoon, though.

 

[atricks]

Just a heads up, Universal is planning for late morning openings of the ride for the next few weeks to sort out issues:

 

[TwingleMum]

Good Lord that will make things worse. They are halving the time you can ride. Yikes. There is going to be a lot of disappointed people.