First on Hagrid Coaster opening day

[drumrunner13]

In your opinion, what is needed in order to achieve first in line for the Hagrid Coaster on opening day? Careful planning? Extreme willpower? Sheer luck? Or a combination of the three? I know in order to pull this off, one must be willing to basically “camp out” at bag check. But which bag check will prove to be most beneficial when it comes to getting you to the IoA front gate first? The main City Walk bag check or the Margaritaville bag check? Do they open simultaneously? And even if someone was to be the first at IoA front entrance would that even matter? I mean would EE guests at Universal Studios land the first ride upon exit of the Hogwarts Express? Does express pass factor? What about guests staying within the resort, will they have special privileges? Seems to be a lot of variables to consider...thoughts anyone?

 

[keishashadow]

It may very well go into soft opening well before the official posted day.

Check to see what park has EE that day. If in Islands they will obviously have the jump on getting back to the land first.

Express may or may not be offered for the attraction. Haven’t seen it posted here but do a search of the forum

 

[Bethany10]

We will be there the week Hagrid opens purely by coincidence. I would agree with the previous poster, I'm betting it's going to be going into soft openings that week. I'm waiting for them to announce early entry for June, but if they follow the same pattern Islands will open at it's normal 9:00 time. Who knows, they may switch it for that week and let us in at 8. Either way, you'll be fighting the EE people who can board Hogwarts Express from the Studios side and be IN Hogwarts while the day guests are still walking back, or if they open Islands early that day then those people are already there.

The only thing I can offer you is that our little family of 4 will be staying as far away from the commotion as possible. Now watch, my 13 year old will think it's amazing and want to stand in line for 6 hours to ride it.

 

[zebsterama]

We were there a few months post Gringots/Diagon opening.

Stayed at Hard Rock - we’re in line at 5:30am (or so) to be one of the first groups on in the am.

By coincidence we’re back in July; we will be following the boards closely to find out what the best strategy is to beat the queue early in the am.

We’ll be staying at Porto Bay this time around.

I hope the Universal staff tries to keep things a little bit more orderly this time around.