How important is early entry?

[disny_luvr]

We are staying on property and will have Express Pass. We do want to ride Hagrids. How important is it for us to take advantage of early entry or are we better off riding it later in the day even if we have to wait?

 

[chad_1138]

We are staying on property and will have Express Pass. We do want to ride Hagrids. How important is it for us to take advantage of early entry or are we better off riding it later in the day even if we have to wait?

If you don't want to do Early Entry, get in line for Hagrids right before park close. It is a much better night ride. And don't let the wait times at park close throw you off. My wife and I got in line with an 80 minute posted time at close, and waited 32.

However, if you want to minimize your wait, if you get to the entry gates about 45 minutes before early entry begins, and can walk quickly, you can be on and off very fast. We did Early Entry for Hagrids one morning. Got to the turnstiles at 7:10, they let you in at about 7:45. We kept up with the crowd, and were off the ride at 8:02.

Good luck whichever you choose!!

 

[Magical2017]

if you go to early entry, go EARLY. We did not time our early entry well. We arrived early, but not early enough. The line was long to get in to early entry and then by the time we got to Hagrids, the line was extremely long. We went later in the day and waited an hour. It would have been longer with early entry (waiting to get in the park, waiting in line). We slept in the rest of our trip.

 

[Mom2Anna&Elsa]

The only thing I would caution against is that Hagrid's is often down or delayed first thing in the morning. So you could get there only to be told the ride isn't functioning.

We were at the turnstiles 45 minutes before opening, only a few back, and were still off by 8:30 a.m. But while in the 'cavernous' area of the queue, the ride went down for about 10 minutes and we just had to hang there.

I've ridden it two other times during the afternoon and it went down for a bit while in line one of those times.

It's just one of those rides that still goes down quite a bit.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I agree with the above poster. Hagrid's goes down A LOT. Before yesterday, it had been delayed every single time I had ever done early park admission. EPA yesterday it was a 45 minute wait when I entered the park at 8. Queue went around the old Sinbad theater but the line was continuously moving. I was not all the way in the front of the crowd due to the bus at my hotel never showing up and I had to walk to City Walk/IoA. I was towards the front of the bridge but saw the crowd go all the way down City Walk.

I also recommend getting in line around typical meal times (so around 4-5:30 pm). I did that yesterday and waited 50 minutes.

 

[disny_luvr]

If you don't want to do Early Entry, get in line for Hagrids right before park close. It is a much better night ride. And don't let the wait times at park close throw you off. My wife and I got in line with an 80 minute posted time at close, and waited 32.

However, if you want to minimize your wait, if you get to the entry gates about 45 minutes before early entry begins, and can walk quickly, you can be on and off very fast. We did Early Entry for Hagrids one morning. Got to the turnstiles at 7:10, they let you in at about 7:45. We kept up with the crowd, and were off the ride at 8:02.

Good luck whichever you choose!!

We might just try to ride at the end of the night. That’s a good idea! We are coming over from Disney and once we get settled into our hotel, we are planning on venturing over to the parks for the night. We’ll try for Hagrids then. It would be great if we can do it our first night so then we don’t have to worry about getting on it OR if we really love it, we can maybe try to get on it again.

 

[disny_luvr]

The only thing I would caution against is that Hagrid's is often down or delayed first thing in the morning. So you could get there only to be told the ride isn't functioning.

We were at the turnstiles 45 minutes before opening, only a few back, and were still off by 8:30 a.m. But while in the 'cavernous' area of the queue, the ride went down for about 10 minutes and we just had to hang there.

I've ridden it two other times during the afternoon and it went down for a bit while in line one of those times.

It's just one of those rides that still goes down quite a bit.

I did not know that it goes down often. Thanks for letting me know. I think we’ll not worry too much about early entry. I’m hoping we have success riding it before park close one night we are there.

 

[disny_luvr]

I agree with the above poster. Hagrid's goes down A LOT. Before yesterday, it had been delayed every single time I had ever done early park admission. EPA yesterday it was a 45 minute wait when I entered the park at 8. Queue went around the old Sinbad theater but the line was continuously moving. I was not all the way in the front of the crowd due to the bus at my hotel never showing up and I had to walk to City Walk/IoA. I was towards the front of the bridge but saw the crowd go all the way down City Walk.

I also recommend getting in line around typical meal times (so around 4-5:30 pm). I did that yesterday and waited 50 minutes.

Good idea about riding during meal times!

 

[glocon]

We are coming down mid September this year.
How important will EE be then do you all think?
Will lines be long for Hagrid’s all day at that time of the year as well?
It will be a Monday to Thursday (leaving Thursday) if that matters.
Thanks!

 

[pearljammer]

We are staying on property and will have Express Pass. We do want to ride Hagrids. How important is it for us to take advantage of early entry or are we better off riding it later in the day even if we have to wait?

So we’ve done both during our 5 day pass last summer. We found quickly it wasn’t worth getting up early just to stand in line another hour+. Yes, everyone b-lines to this ride. There will always be a wait so prepare for it is the best advice I can give. Now if you are willing to ride separately, you can take advantage of the single rider line. But what people aren’t a fan of, which we saw, was people in single rider hoping to get in quicker and then when they are in line to actually ride (after merging) they then try to shuffle around to ride with other “single riders”. But if you really don’t mind who you sit with, that’s an option. You likely know express pass doesn’t work on that ridE nor does it work During early hours so it’s all one line. We will likely never rush to do the early entry again. That’s just us.

 

[mamapenguin]

We are coming down mid September this year.
How important will EE be then do you all think?
Will lines be long for Hagrid’s all day at that time of the year as well?
It will be a Monday to Thursday (leaving Thursday) if that matters.
Thanks!

Yes the line will be long all day. We like going in September. My rule is if the wait time is 60 minutes or less get in line. (Only for Hagrid’s, I won’t wait 60 minutes for anything else)

 

[cschaaf]

I agree with the others that said for EE to be ‘worth it’, plan to arrive no later than 30 minutes prior to EE start. 45 early minutes is even better. Particularly at IOA and if you want to ride Hagrids.

Even though that might lead to a longer total wait time (wait for rope drop + whatever the queue is by the time you get there), we prefer doing EE this way for a few reasons.

1. If I wait 45 minutes before the park is open, that’s 45 minutes that falls under the ‘Non-park time’ category. It’s 45 minutes that I couldn’t have used for anything else park related.

2. If we can get one ride on Hagrids in the morning, that opens up the option of multiple rides in a day. I think it’s more fun at night, but what’s even more fun than riding it at night is riding it multiple times in a day.

3. Downtime for Hagrids can happen at any time (EE is certainly not immune). If we try at EE and it’s down, we have the rest of the day to try again later. If we wait until an hour before close and the ride goes down, we may lose our only opportunity to ride.

Ultimately, I think EE and EP are ‘more important’ the shorter your trip is. If you have 5 park days, for example, you have a lot more opportunities to look for short lines than if you only have 2 days.

Having EP also lessens the importance of EE, particularly at USF. We love doing EE, but if we have EP and USF is the only park with EE, we’ll rope drop IOA instead. There aren’t (currently) any rides at USF that don’t take the Express Passes, so there’s no real advantage to doing EE.