I was finally inside the castle after about 22 minutes, and you are initially greeted by some beautiful art on the walls.
Again, more bird houses on the ceiling? These might just be for decoration, not sure.
There was a pre-show at this point if I remember right, where you are sprayed with water in typical Universal fashion!
I entered what I am calling the “egg room” since there were eggs on the side walls. It takes a bit of time to get through this room since the queue goes up and down.
At this point there was a recorded announcement about stowing loose articles, at first I was worried that it was going to be about a ride delay!
I believe the caves were next, you spend a bit of time in them so if you are claustrophobic, it could be a problem.
I checked the Universal app at 11:50AM and Kong was up to 50 minutes, Spider-Man at 35, and Hagrid’s down to 60 minutes. That was a good sign!
Finally out of the caves, we were in a cool room with a lot of posters and various items, including tubes of...Unicorn blood?
There were some TVs showing how the ride vehicles worked, and it seemed like if I wanted the bike (as opposed to the side car), I should load first.
My mom departed the line at 11:56 AM by the test seats in the last room before the ride loads, where it looks like a bike is driving on the roof. This room has a long and winding queue, so it can take a while even once you reach this room. She had waited 42 minutes at this point.
Once you are through this room and into the hallway where you see this sign above, it is almost your turn!
I’m glad they have lots of instructions to keep the loading process faster. By the second TV with the loading photos, a CM asked how many in my party. It was 12:02 at this point, so about 48 minutes into my wait.
I made it onto the ride at 12:05 for a total wait of 51 minutes, well under the advertised 75! Since I waited in the regular line, I got to choose the bike in the FRONT ROW and they put a single rider in the side car. I’m not sure if the single rider line is always open, so definitely ask. You do miss a lot of the queue from what I’ve heard.
I don’t have a ton of thoughts from that first ride since so much was happening other than it was absolutely
awesome! Easily the most thrilling ride I have done at Disney or Universal, since it’s a truly fast coaster but also has awesome theming. There are actually a lot of parts where you mostly see tracks, but this is where some of the accelerations occur and it is just unlike any other coaster I have ever been on.
I’m a major coaster enthusiast to the point where the big drops don’t do much for me anymore, so this ride was really unique and used more unique ways to provide the thrill factor. I don’t want to give too many spoilers, but if you are nervous about the drop track, it’s very predictable and doesn’t drop very far. No worse of a feeling than the drop on Splash Mountain!