Does the Universal Express Pass still NOT include Hagrid's Motorcycle ride?

[spewey]

I'm not a fan of virtual queues. I don't like being tied down like that. People forget how long it took for the HP rides to get EP. USO does it right IMO by holding back EP on the new in-demand rides. People will wait. We had a great conversation with a dad and his daughter in line at Hagrid's for an hour or so. Our experience is people are much more fine with waiting at USO than Disney hands down. At Disney everyone is a cranky mess demanding to wait less than 20mins for every ride and angry at the world (I exaggerate about angry at the world..but only slightly )

I'm not saying I love VLs, but that given the seemingly permanent (the ride opened in 2019) issues Hagrid's has with reliability and capacity, I humbly suggest UO try anything they can to address 2-3 hour waits that effectively exclude a portion of their audience.

I get what you're saying about being tied down - but with the current set up, isn't it worse? Given the sheer difficulty of getting on the ride, many (not all) feel that they have to plan their entire day around it - i.e. get up at the crack of dawn, line up at the gates well before EE, race to the back of the park, pray it opens on time (almost never does), make a decision to wait around to see if/when the line does open, etc? And when it does, most times you are in that line for well over an hour, or more - which is another way of being tied down.

I'm not at all suggesting a Disney-type set-up for US. Every other attraction seems to handle the crowds OK, even at peak times. But Hagrid's is a perfect storm - unreliable, can't seem to run anywhere near capacity, and tremendously popular. For good reason - it's a masterpiece. A technical marvel. One-of-a-kind. Everyone who goes to US should ride it. They just gotta find a way to make that possible.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I humbly suggest UO try anything they can to address 2-3 hour waits that effectively exclude a portion of their audience.

I get what you're saying about being tied down - but with the current set up, isn't it worse? Given the sheer difficulty of getting on the ride, many (not all) feel that they have to plan their entire day around it -

This isn't any different though than when the HP rides opened up. I remember being stuck for hours in the greenhouse room (and it was hot I remember that) for FJ back in 2011. I don't count it as worse..because I remember the past

We like to bounce back and forth between the parks personally speaking.

Hagrid's does suffer from reliability issues but good news is people have a chance to ride FJ and Flight of the Hippogriff without nearly as much wait as there used to be. People are generally speaking going to plan their days around the newest ride. People have done it for HP rides in the past, they do it for Hagrid's, they do it for VeliciCoaster. Over at Disney people plan their entire days around Rise and around Guardians.

I enjoyed Hagrids but in truth I think technologically speaking FJ has it better with the Kuka arm. I can't ride FJ anymore with my motion sickness but that attraction is one I would say everyone ride too..better that you're in the Hogwarts Castle..what better theming can you have

What I'm really trying to say is this IMO is a situation where I don't see it as a broken system. To do much else than just SB presently speaking will likely generate longer waits especially with the unreliability. It's why Rise is a disaster with waits with Genie+

 

[Skywalker3]

I never want the only option to be virtual. I always want a stand by option, no matter how long the line. I know way too many people who never got to ride Rise/resistance when it was Boarding group only. We always managed to get our BG, but the first time was so stressful, we decided that trip to not even try again for it. That was when you had to be in the park, and the drop was at 10. We got one, and the folks around us did not. talk about disappointed. Next trip, drops were at 7AM, and didn't have to be on site. Still super stressful. At that point, you couldn't pay for it , so if you didn't get a BG. tough stuff, you didn't ride. Imagine planning a big trip just to experience Star wars stuff, and you can't even ride one of the rides, because you missed a virtual queue. For Guardians, got BG every time we tried, but it's not as popular as rise, and you can just buy a spot. (and it's worth the money.) I've also waited in the Rise line at rope drop, and end of day, and glad for those options.
Longest line we ever waited in was for FJ, 1 hr 45 mins. Second most would be FoP, 1 hr 40 mins at closing, (also counting time in line at turnstiles, 1 hr 35 mins at rope drop same day) and have had many times where I've waited over an hour for that. Next longest, was 1 hr 30 mins for Toy Story Mania, this is years before the rest of that land opened.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I never want the only option to be virtual. I always want a stand by option, no matter how long the line. I know way too many people who never got to ride Rise/resistance when it was Boarding group only.

That's exactly why I don't want virtual, you're shut out or constantly looking for the time to go based on your virtual time.

When Jimmy Fallon had virtual going that was annoying enough (although no offense to it we didn't really enjoy Jimmy Fallon) but Hagrid's is way more popular than Jimmy Fallon.

 

[saskdw]

Some of us won't wait in line 2 hours for a ride so that means we don't get to ride it.
When people shell out big bucks for a premium hotel or the ridiculous charge for a daily express pass they expect to ride everything in short order.

My wife isn't physically capable of standing in a line for 2 hours and I just won't do it.

Did they do a virtual key at Hagrids at one point? I don't remember.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When people shell out big bucks for a premium hotel or the ridiculous charge for a daily express pass they expect to ride everything in short order.

Not every attraction will be included in every product. Disney doesn't have Genie+ for every attraction nor did it have it for FP nor for MP. In fact if you went to DLR especially with MP you'd be surprised at the number of attractions that didn't have MP.

Every person has their limitations on how long they would wait for. FOP had 4-5 hour waits when it first opened, Rise often has long waits and when it was under VQ that was the only way you'd get to ride it and it would still have long waits with the VQ. Remy had VQ same issue. Guardians the same way.

You're not paying a premium hotel presently speaking for EP access to rides that don't have EP access and you're not paying for EP access to rides that don't have it.

And to be the voice of reason here Universal's expectation is normally worded basically half the SB line. Most people at Universal don't expect to ride in short order, the expectations are tempered.

Forbidden Journey didn't have EP for 7 years and it was only in a out of nowhere move when Universal suddenly added EP to FJ, Gringotts and Flight of the Hippogriff all at once in June 2017.

 

[Skywalker3]

I do wish Hagrids wouls also have a VQ option w standby. We’ve only ridden Hagrids on 2 out if 4 trips last year because of all the hassle and long lines. We would rather rope drop other things. And don’t like lines that long. We’ll do it if we love the ride, or it’s new, but like most folks, prefer not. As it is now, we’ll probably skip Hagrid's on future trips unless it gets easier to ride. None of us felt it was worth the wait or hassle.

 

[glamdring269]

I want to say the last time we were at UO was in Oct 2019. We're heading back in Oct 2023 and had hoped Hagrid's would be on express by then but it might not ever get added. It kind of sucks though because the only real way to avoid waiting in a crazy line is to get there for rope drop during the early hours. However, once you're done with it you can basically knock the entire park out (both of them) in no time via express so sitting there at lunch with nothing left to do but nap time and/or ride repeats. And then the real kicker with Hagrid's... that ride goes down so often that there is a great chance you could be doing all of this for nothing. It's probably not as bad as it was back then but from what I've read it's still not the most reliable.

Happy medium for me would definitely be a virtual queue option. The problem with that is if you suddenly unleash however many people are stuck in a 2-3 hour queue upon the rest of the park then what does that do to other lines?

Tough situation for Universal.

 

[mom2rtk]

We are just back. Had Express Pass and never did get to ride Hagrids. Very disappointing. Never saw the wait below 130 minutes. Does diminish the value of Express Pass.

 

[DoryGirl1963]

We are just back. Had Express Pass and never did get to ride Hagrids. Very disappointing. Never saw the wait below 130 minutes. Does diminish the value of Express Pass.

Was the ride down the whole day you were there? I know it still has some down times but I thought it had improved...

 

[mom2rtk]

Was the ride down the whole day you were there? I know it still has some down times but I thought it had improved...

I wasn't aware of down time. That's not to say it didn't happen. The parks were just really busy the days we were there, likely because APs were unblocked.

 

[chad_1138]

Getting in line right before park close was our best experience last summer. Wait times were never the posted wait. One night it said 70 minutes and we were off in 30. Early entry is good as well if that is an option. Bottom line, there is no need to wait 2 hours to ride this unless you don't have early entry AND can't stay after close.

 

[spewey]

Was the ride down the whole day you were there? I know it still has some down times but I thought it had improved...

I think at this point it's unrealistic to expect Hagrid's to ever improve capacity significantly. The trains are small - I have heard they have 12 of them, and upthread someone mentioned they may have seen as many as eight on the tracks at once (which to me seems like the absolute max on a ride with seven blocks). But given how complicated it is, with all those launches and proximity sensors, how long can it actually run max trains until something goes down?

And that's not even including its unreliability. It is down regularly, almost every day at some point it seems. As I wrote earlier, I have no idea how that can be fixed, given its complexity. So the wait times may never come down (much); remember, UO is going into its fifth year of operating the ride, and it is (understandably, justifiably) as popular as ever. That's why I think a fresh look at how the crowds are handled is worth a shot. Certainly with the way things are now an EP line is not feasible. My vote is obviously for a VL but perhaps there are other approaches as well.

 

[mom2rtk]

Getting in line right before park close was our best experience last summer. Wait times were never the posted wait. One night it said 70 minutes and we were off in 30. Early entry is good as well if that is an option. Bottom line, there is no need to wait 2 hours to ride this unless you don't have early entry AND can't stay after close.

We just couldn't stay after close. We had left for the airport at 4:30 AM and were ready to be done sooner than that. If it said an hour or less we would have tried, but even half of 130 minutes was too long to wait at that point.

 

[saskdw]

Getting in line right before park close was our best experience last summer. Wait times were never the posted wait. One night it said 70 minutes and we were off in 30. Early entry is good as well if that is an option. Bottom line, there is no need to wait 2 hours to ride this unless you don't have early entry AND can't stay after close.

I want to say the last time we were at UO was in Oct 2019. We're heading back in Oct 2023 and had hoped Hagrid's would be on express by then but it might not ever get added. It kind of sucks though because the only real way to avoid waiting in a crazy line is to get there for rope drop during the early hours. However, once you're done with it you can basically knock the entire park out (both of them) in no time via express so sitting there at lunch with nothing left to do but nap time and/or ride repeats. And then the real kicker with Hagrid's... that ride goes down so often that there is a great chance you could be doing all of this for nothing. It's probably not as bad as it was back then but from what I've read it's still not the most reliable.

Happy medium for me would definitely be a virtual queue option. The problem with that is if you suddenly unleash however many people are stuck in a 2-3 hour queue upon the rest of the park then what does that do to other lines?

Tough situation for Universal.

We did early entry and it was still a 60 min wait. It's a mass of humanity rushing to Hagrids when the gate opens.

We also tried park close. We got in line about 15 mins before park close in Mid-December. It was a slow night everywhere in the park except the Harry Potter area. The posted time was 45 mins and it took 60 mins to get on.

60 mins is really the limit I will wait and I'm not thrilled about getting up that early on vacation. If it was just me and my wife (our adult son was with us this trip) we probably wouldn't have road it. Disappointing when you are shelling out big bucks to stay at their premier resort.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We are just back. Had Express Pass and never did get to ride Hagrids. Very disappointing. Never saw the wait below 130 minutes. Does diminish the value of Express Pass.

That's interesting because neither my husband nor I felt waiting for Hagrid's (or VelociCoaster for my husband) diminished the EP. Granted we got EP because we stayed at RP but we also were paying quite a high rack rate for it (one night was $471 although that nets 2 days of EP. We toured one day without EP, two with it.

We were there when Seuss High in the Sky only had 1 track running due to construction that caused that attraction to be stupid high in waits.

I don't think USO is as bad about wait time inflation as WDW but we did find a bit. Like our day without EP we attempted to ride Hagrid's during Early Entry but it went down shortly after we entered the line, they closed the line off for newcomers and shortly there after just gave the choice of leaving the line which we did. We then went to VelociCoaster. I didn't ride that but kept an eye on if Hagrid's reopened which it did. The posted wait was 60 mins and we were out of the attraction completely back at the lockers in 40mins. Two days later we rode Hagrid's (well my husband did I sat that second time out but went through the line with him and waited for him at the child swap area) at the end of the evening entered the line at 6:50pm posted 75mins wait was out close to that maybe 65mins total.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We did early entry and it was still a 60 min wait. It's a mass of humanity rushing to Hagrids when the gate opens.

We also tried park close. We got in line about 15 mins before park close in Mid-December. It was a slow night everywhere in the park except the Harry Potter area. The posted time was 45 mins and it took 60 mins to get on.

60 mins is really the limit I will wait and I'm not thrilled about getting up that early on vacation. If it was just me and my wife (our adult son was with us this trip) we probably wouldn't have road it. Disappointing when you are shelling out big bucks to stay at their premier resort.

If 60mins is your wait I'd say you need to wait several years before attempting the high profile attractions at either Disney or Universal. TBH and I don't mean this rudely but that's an unrealistic expectation. Any attraction that opens up new that is very high profile, very high demand is going to pull high waits for quite a while. Most of the time I generally say "you know let's wait a bit before going" like I really want to go to Epic Universe if it does indeed open in 2025 but I also may want to wait too because I know it will be a long wait. Yes Hagrid's has been opened since June 2019 but the waits are down from what they were in the beginning and we've had blips in time with the pandemic where the crowds weren't there for a while. FOP routinely has 1 hour waits very often and that is also down from the 4-5hour waits it got and that attraction has been opened since May 2017.

I do think they likely should have built a longer queue but probably had issues with space, there really isn't much space there. I mean we were in Sinbad's theater lol. But when you go through FJ and see just how long the queue can be you know they built it knowing it would command a very long wait. Over at Hogwarts Express that's the same way, they have a long winding back and forth queue and the inclusion of food/drink options to purchase also says something.

 

[mom2rtk]

If 60mins is your wait I'd say you need to wait several years before attempting the high profile attractions at either Disney or Universal. TBH and I don't mean this rudely but that's an unrealistic expectation. Any attraction that opens up new that is very high profile, very high demand is going to pull high waits for quite a while. Most of the time I generally say "you know let's wait a bit before going" like I really want to go to Epic Universe if it does indeed open in 2025 but I also may want to wait too because I know it will be a long wait. Yes Hagrid's has been opened since June 2019 but the waits are down from what they were in the beginning and we've had blips in time with the pandemic where the crowds weren't there for a while. FOP routinely has 1 hour waits very often and that is also down from the 4-5hour waits it got and that attraction has been opened since May 2017.

I do think they likely should have built a longer queue but probably had issues with space, there really isn't much space there. I mean we were in Sinbad's theater lol. But when you go through FJ and see just how long the queue can be you know they built it knowing it would command a very long wait. Over at Hogwarts Express that's the same way, they have a long winding back and forth queue and the inclusion of food/drink options to purchase also says something.

60 minutes was my limit and we rode Hagrids 3 times last year.

 

[mom2rtk]

That's interesting because neither my husband nor I felt waiting for Hagrid's (or VelociCoaster for my husband) diminished the EP.

And that's fine. I'm sure there are widely varying opinions on this.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

60 minutes was my limit and we rode Hagrids 3 times last year.

Right but we know it's been longer than that. We rode twice once with a 40min and once with a 65 mins. It was slow otherwise around the park. As completely expected the two rides at IOA gained the most wait times with exception to Seuss because of the one track running. When someone tells me they won't wait more than 60 mins but also expects to ride the most in demand ride at a theme park that is also gaining more and more attendance I will respectfully say that's unrealistic. It really just means wait a bit more til the popularity drops more. Not that I think anyone actually wants to wait in line but expecting is different.

USO appears to take the stance of waiting until waits are consistently around X (whatever that number is varies on what it is and also likely what they have coming down the pipeline for the future) before adding EP onto it. But when they do add EP onto an attraction it typically speaking at that point is a good overall experience for both EP users and SB users. Put it too soon and you're not going to make both sides happy, you would probably see more of the issues Disney has but likely more because EP can be in the version of Unlimited so accounting for a rider who has zero limitations on when they can ride it (unlike FP/FP+ where there was still a finite number of passes given) adds to that. I think VelociCoaster is getting more ready for EP to be added just based on wait times.

And that's fine. I'm sure there are widely varying opinions on this.

I'm sure there are it was just an interesting connection made because Hagrid's presently isn't included in EP if it was I totally could see where you're coming from because it would take away from your ability to use other attractions included in the pass that which you are paying for separately or paying for via your hotel stay.

If you were at Disney at say Rise and it didn't have VQ, didn't have LL and was just simply SB would a high wait there such as 130mins make your purchase of Genie+ or a LL for another attraction diminished?