Hagrid's Coaster Queue Updates / Questions / Reviews

[Liljo22]

Boarded about at 2:25 so almost the 210 minutes. Had an upset family waiting in line that long but all said it was worth it. An amazing ride.

 

[Chris401]

Been looking for a good time to jump on this but wait has been 300 mins to 240 mins all morning. Do I just need to bite the bullet and jump in line? Would single rider be better? My 8 year old is a little nervous about going solo so that’s a last resort.

 

[Ben E N]

Been looking for a good time to jump on this but wait has been 300 mins to 240 mins all morning. Do I just need to bite the bullet and jump in line? Would single rider be better? My 8 year old is a little nervous about going solo so that’s a last resort.

The wait time seemed to be shorter last night than it was in the morning. Not short at all, but more like 180 minutes around 7 pm. No idea if that will repeat tonight or not.
For reference, the wait was 360 minutes at 8 am today, so it is already going down.

 

[C&Jx2]

Has it been open during early entry? Or can you at least get in line during that hour?

 

[Chris401]

Just saw a sign that said Hagrid’s will close early today so I guess now or never.

 

[Ben E N]

Has it been open during early entry? Or can you at least get in line during that hour?

You can get in line then but it is not open. As of 7:15 there was an anticipated wait of 3.5 hours. Right before opening it at 8 they tested it and of course it didn't work. It didn't get up an running until after 9. My wife showed up at 6:40 and didn't get off until after 10.

 

[C&Jx2]

You can get in line then but it is not open. As of 7:15 there was an anticipated wait of 3.5 hours. Right before opening it at 8 they tested it and of course it didn't work. It didn't get up an running until after 9. My wife showed up at 6:40 and didn't get off until after 10.

Wow. There goes that plan lol

 

[Chris401]

Just saw a sign that said Hagrid’s will close early today so I guess now or never.

So shortly after I posted above they must have closed single rider. We got in the main line and have been in line for about 45 to 50 min? At least the line is moving. I’ll post again for benefit of everyone on actual timing. Currently we are next to flight of hippogriff version of hagrid hut. Not sure what that means for timing.

 

[Ben E N]

Wow. There goes that plan lol

Well it did involve an hourlong breakdown, and 3.5 hours is a whole lot better than what offsite guests had to deal with this morning.

 

[Disxuni]

SR line is a hit, or miss no matter how long the wait of the line is. For quite sometime now it's been reported that it opens and closes frequently. If it's open it doesn't stay for long.

 

[Liljo22]

SR line is a hit, or miss no matter how long the wait of the line is. For quite sometime now it's been reported that it opens and closes frequently. If it's open it doesn't stay for long.

On Saturday we were a party of 5 so an SR was added. He said that the wait was 150 minutes for him while we waited 190. I can see how SR can get to be just as long though. The line barely moves. When we got into the last room we got through all the switchbacks and the person who was at the end of the SR line break only moved about a 1/4 of the way up.

Also, the SR line goes down a set of narrow stairs so anybody with mobility/balance issues may want to avoid it.

 

[Chris401]

So shortly after I posted above they must have closed single rider. We got in the main line and have been in line for about 45 to 50 min? At least the line is moving. I’ll post again for benefit of everyone on actual timing. Currently we are next to flight of hippogriff version of hagrid hut. Not sure what that means for timing.

Took about 3 hrs 30 mins for a posted wait of 240 (it did drop to 210 while in line). SR line opened back up about 2 hrs in. Good times.

 

[Disxuni]

On Saturday we were a party of 5 so an SR was added. He said that the wait was 150 minutes for him while we waited 190. I can see how SR can get to be just as long though. The line barely moves. When we got into the last room we got through all the switchbacks and the person who was at the end of the SR line break only moved about a 1/4 of the way up.

Also, the SR line goes down a set of narrow stairs so anybody with mobility/balance issues may want to avoid it.

Yeah, the line gets insanely long and it barely moves which is why it closes frequently, because honestly, if they didn't regulate it and just let people in the SR line without closing it at all, it would probably be as long as the regular queue in terms of length, or longer, and then due to lack of movement the wait itself would be longer.

 

[MeridaAnn]

I don't get why they haven't switched to the virtual boarding queue for Hagrid's yet. Universal had the system all set up and ready to go for opening day, even though they didn't use it (if I recall correctly), and Rise of the Resisitance is proving that it works over at DHS, so I don't see any reason not to do the same for Hagrid's. I love this coaster, and I've gotten up really early several times in order to be able to ride it (I live about 2 hours away), but with the way the mornings are so unpredictable again and the rest of the day has such a long wait, it's really frustrating. I had been considering spending New Year's Day in the park, but I'm starting to think I'm going to pass for a while until they can figure something out and I'll spend my day off comfortably curled up on my sofa instead.

 

[Ben E N]

I don't get why they haven't switched to the virtual boarding queue for Hagrid's yet. Universal had the system all set up and ready to go for opening day, even though they didn't use it (if I recall correctly), and Rise of the Resisitance is proving that it works over at DHS, so I don't see any reason not to do the same for Hagrid's. I love this coaster, and I've gotten up really early several times in order to be able to ride it (I live about 2 hours away), but with the way the mornings are so unpredictable again and the rest of the day has such a long wait, it's really frustrating. I had been considering spending New Year's Day in the park, but I'm starting to think I'm going to pass for a while until they can figure something out and I'll spend my day off comfortably curled up on my sofa instead.

My guess is because it sucks up huge numbers of people. If you did a virtual queue, all those people who were waiting would then be clogging up the rest of the parks. Universal just doesn't have the space to accommodate all those people.

 

[Disxuni]

My theory still remains that the ride is too unpredictable for reliability to be able to use the virtual queue. As @Ben E N said other guests would be all along the rest of the parks. Which isn't the worst thing.

However, once they're done with that, then they'll come back, and what happens when they still have to wait, because of a delay, or can't go on at all, because the ride is fully shut down? Up side, got to "wait" while riding other rides. Down side, means if they might have waited in the first place, they would have just done their wait and got on already, or they would have been able to ride it instead of no ride at all.

If they can't handle a regular queue they can't handle a virtual queue.

 

[havaneselover]

We are in line currently. The posted wait time is 300 minutes. I think we have three hours to go. Tomorrow we need to be more efficient getting into the park.

 

[Liljo22]

My theory still remains that the ride is too unpredictable for reliability to be able to use the virtual queue. As @Ben E N said other guests would be all along the rest of the parks. Which isn't the worst thing.

However, once they're done with that, then they'll come back, and what happens when they still have to wait, because of a delay, or can't go on at all, because the ride is fully shut down? Up side, got to "wait" while riding other rides. Down side, means if they might have waited in the first place, they would have just done their wait and got on already, or they would have been able to ride it instead of no ride at all.

If they can't handle a regular queue they can't handle a virtual queue.

Unpredictable reliability is the reason to do a VQ. They don't have people waiting for hours to find out the ride went down again or weather is delaying it. Disney is doing the VQ for Rise because of this. They only have a couple of hundred guests to worry about rather than a couple thousand. We waited about 3 hours and it was a threat of rain all day. If I was 2 hours into it and the ride shut down, I would have been pissed.

 

[Disxuni]

Unpredictable reliability is the reason to do a VQ. They don't have people waiting for hours to find out the ride went down again or weather is delaying it. Disney is doing the VQ for Rise because of this. They only have a couple of hundred guests to worry about rather than a couple thousand. We waited about 3 hours and it was a threat of rain all day. If I was 2 hours into it and the ride shut down, I would have been pissed.

You can make the same statement if someone did VQ all day only to not be able to get onto the ride at all. The only good thing about VQ is the fact that you'd get to go on other attractions while "waiting". If anything goes wrong, it might lessen the blow to someone if they hadn't waited all day in line, but it might mean something to someone else. Especially if the attraction, let's say for example, was running smoothly all morning, or even into the afternoon and just as it was your turn it's down for the rest of the afternoon, or evening. I'm sure a lot of people would kick themselves if they had a chance on it if they just waited in the first place. Also, regular queues get a "ruby pass" if they close the ride, where as I doubt someone who waited in the VQ wouldn't get the same privileges. They'd have to either way, or VQ the next day.

It's just my opinion that you cannot have a VQ if the ride is as unpredictable as Hagrid's. On top of that, it will essentially make another queue and get even longer if there is a delay, so what's the point? I do not know how great VQ is for VB, but when I stayed at CB only a couple of months ago, I consistently saw lines outside of my hotel room of people waiting in line for this "virtual queue" for water slides. Granted wasn't that long of a wait, but the whole point is the fact that you're allegedly not waiting and in that case, they still were. When the parks first opened the lines were even longer and ridiculous due to the popularity and newness of the park. So, honestly, if you really think about, it wouldn't more than likely wouldn't work regardless. Disney clearly has a different method than Universal does.

 

[MeridaAnn]

You can make the same statement if someone did VQ all day only to not be able to get onto the ride at all. The only good thing about VQ is the fact that you'd get to go on other attractions while "waiting". If anything goes wrong, it might lessen the blow to someone if they hadn't waited all day in line, but it might mean something to someone else. Especially if the attraction, let's say for example, was running smoothly all morning, or even into the afternoon and just as it was your turn it's down for the rest of the afternoon, or evening. I'm sure a lot of people would kick themselves if they had a chance on it if they just waited in the first place. Also, regular queues get a "ruby pass" if they close the ride, where as I doubt someone who waited in the VQ wouldn't get the same privileges. They'd have to either way, or VQ the next day.

It's just my opinion that you cannot have a VQ if the ride is as unpredictable as Hagrid's. On top of that, it will essentially make another queue and get even longer if there is a delay, so what's the point? I do not know how great VQ is for VB, but when I stayed at CB only a couple of months ago, I consistently saw lines outside of my hotel room of people waiting in line for this "virtual queue" for water slides. Granted wasn't that long of a wait, but the whole point is the fact that you're allegedly not waiting and in that case, they still were. When the parks first opened the lines were even longer and ridiculous due to the popularity and newness of the park. So, honestly, if you really think about, it wouldn't more than likely wouldn't work regardless. Disney clearly has a different method than Universal does.

Oh, no, if they did it the same way as Rise of the Resistance, it would be *instead* of a regular line, not in addition to it. You wouldn't be able to wait in regular standby until your virtual queue group had been called. It couldn't be a choice between physically waiting or virtually waiting, or, you're right, that would cause even more problems. It would have to be the only way into the main line. If something happened that caused your boarding group not to get called, it would have also stopped you from getting on if if had been a physical line instead, but now you got to at least enjoy the rest of the park and you didn't actually lose that park time waiting for something that didn't happen.