Hagrid's won't be available during early entry starting Jan 3rd

[TommyJK]

According to Orlando Informer, Hagrid's will only open with regular park opening hours and will not be available during early entry hour from Jan 3rd through at least Feb 28th.

Just a heads up for those going during that time if you need to adjust your early entry rope-drop strategy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1476641561559588866

 

[mom2rtk]

Well that really stinks for those of us paying to stay onsite.

They need to add it to Express Pass then.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

We arrive the 3rd and that was our plan. I wonder why.

i also wonder how early they’re going to let people in the queue? It would be really annoying if they open it and you have to spend early entry time hanging in line.

@mom2rtk, they really should add it to Express. That would be amazing.

Edited to add that I don’t know how they’d keep people from basically lining up outside Hagrid’s the moment EE starts which makes this awful. They should have switched to US side having early entry. Unless it’s going to be VQ the whole time and you won’t be able to line up because there isn’t standby.

 

[JoyW]

I noticed this yesterday on Universal's site. I can't make heads or tails of it. I figured they would want to start getting guests out of the way as soon as they could, and wouldn't want a line building up for an hour. How exactly is it going to work?

I agree with you, @PrincessWithABlaster, my worry is that every day of our trip next week, the line will start at the beginning of EE, and there will be zero chance of riding with less than a 60 minute wait during our trip. Our first park day is 1/4, and it is our first trip, so my plan was already pretty tenuous, but riding Hagrid's first thing was definitely part of it.

ETA: Or will they go to virtual queue all the time now? What time does that open to try to grab a spot, anyway? So confused reading about the sometimes on, sometimes off thing.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I think coming into the slow season, it won't be as big of an impact. The line will balloon first thing (possibly starting at the beginning of EE). Of course, if you hit it at 9:15am on a 9am open, you'll have about the longest wait possible... But by late morning or afternoon it should have reasonable waits. It was effectively 20-30min waits weekdays in late Oct by afternoon, and Jan/Feb are not as busy as Oct.

All bets are off for holiday weekends though!

 

[soniam]

Maybe they need some time for maintenance, or it's been running for too many hours a day, or staff shortages.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I think coming into the slow season, it won't be as big of an impact. The line will balloon first thing (possibly starting at the beginning of EE). Of course, if you hit it at 9:15am on a 9am open, you'll have about the longest wait possible... But by late morning or afternoon it should have reasonable waits. It was effectively 20-30min waits weekdays in late Oct by afternoon, and Jan/Feb are not as busy as Oct.

All bets are off for holiday weekends though!

Except this first week of January isn’t that slow. They’ve been bumping up the Express Pass prices so Universal isn’t expecting it to be slow. I’m thinking of waiting until the end of the day and the wait will at least be outside of park hours. Unless they’ve been inflating the wait times in the app, on days with similar EP prices, the shortest waits I saw were maybe 45 mins.

 

[JoyW]

Except this first week of January isn’t that slow.

I would tend to agree. The day before 1/3 is actually blocked out for seasonal passes, which most of my group will have, so I would expect the rest of the week to be pretty brisk as well. With the 1st on a Saturday, I would have expected most to check out on Sunday, but that doesn't seem to be what Universal expects, since they have Monday blocked off as well. Again, this is our first trip, but i I would have thought the biggest crowds would be checking in last Sunday or Monday and checking out Sunday, 1/2. I guess not, though?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

They don't seem to post low waits for Hagrids all that often, but in reality a lot of the "50min" waits are more like 30min. Plus the darkness of the night makes for a great ride! Even before that hop in line a minute before closing time, the line should die out in the evenings.

But you're probably right about there still being significant crowds that first week. Universal knows their ticket sales/hotel bookings.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I guess not, though?

It’ll definitely be slower next week than this week. Some days this week had EP sold out completely. And it looks like Universal expects it to get less busy as the week goes on, but yes, Mon is a blackout date and Tues and We’d are showing pretty high prices for EP (179 and 169). For comparison, this past week had prices as high as $300. In slow seasons there as low as $109. So not terrible crowds this week but not slow.

They don't seem to post low waits for Hagrids all that often, but in reality a lot of the "50min" waits are more like 30min.

That’s good to know. Thank you.

 

[mamamelody2]

Wow, not a fan of this decision.
But oh well, what can we do? DH and I are supposed to arrive 1/15. I'll be honest, I wasn't planning to do early entry more than once (we'll be there a week) anyway. I am confused why they would do that, though.

 

[Pooh's World]

Might have to do with staffing issues and staff not wanting to wake up that early.

 

[nycdisneygal]

ugh that changes my strategy for the upcoming trip!

 

[Ariel620]

I’m at Portofino now. The desk told me that Hagrids will still open early tomorrow, but not any days after that. It was still open early today (as announced), but the app said it wouldn’t open early even today. So tomorrow I plan to walk by and see if it’s open before heading to velociraptcoaster (even though it is announced that it won’t open early tomorrow). Hopefully the front desk is correct and not the announcement.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I’m at Portofino now. The desk told me that Hagrids will still open early tomorrow, but not any days after that. It was still open early today (as announced), but the app said it wouldn’t open early even today. So tomorrow I plan to walk by and see if it’s open before heading to velociraptcoaster (even though it is announced that it won’t open early tomorrow). Hopefully the front desk is correct and not the announcement.

We’re going to early entry Tues so would love it if you could report back on the situation tomorrow.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

It looks like it wasn’t open this morning and was at 120 mins when it opened at 9 - I assume from people lining up during early entry. No VQ. Trying to figure out a plan for tomorrow. We don’t want to sit in line through early entry so maybe we’ll join the line at 8:30.

 

[Ariel620]

We’re going to early entry Tues so would love it if you could report back on the situation tomorrow.

Hagrids was not available for early entry today. Which made velicicoaster wait much longer. Yesterday we rode velicicoaster twice by 8:15, but today we rode it once by 8:20 with the same time park arrival (7:45).
Also the people who went to Hagrids at 8 and waited were very disappointed because they unfairly got put to the end of a different line at 9

 

[Ariel620]

It looks like it wasn’t open this morning and was at 120 mins when it opened at 9 - I assume from people lining up during early entry. No VQ. Trying to figure out a plan for tomorrow. We don’t want to sit in line through early entry so maybe we’ll join the line at 8:30.

Be careful where you line up. Ask someone. See my post

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Be careful where you line up. Ask someone. See my post

Wow. That’s really awful. It’s bad enough that they took it out of EE but to punish the people waiting without telling them they couldn’t line up early isn’t right.


Do you know if there was another place to line up or did you just have to go no sooner than 9?

 

[Ariel620]

I didn’t do it, we were at Velicicoaster, but we walked to Hagrids by about 8;45 and the line was insanely long. Posted 120 min.
But my impression was that some people lined up at Hagrids at 8, despite the many announcements that it won’t open until 9. Those people lined up near Hagrids. But the signs say Hagrids attraction entrance over by lost continent. That is where the line was supposed to start. So the people who lined up near the the ride at 8 got put to the end of the group near lost continent at 9. It seemed unfair , but I only saw it, we decided to skip Hagrids due to the madness (and my kids wanted velicicoaster more anyway). With 120 min I hope they open the vq but so far it’s not.