When I worked Ops at WB MovieWorld we had a walk thru attraction called “The Harry Potter Movie Magic Experience” It was a “tour” of set replicas with effects & such, but mostly a show.
I can tell you from my experience, the shows you got at the end of busy days were much quicker than in the morning or slower days! You get told to “speed it up” to get everyone off the clock ASAP
The night we did it, they closed the line more than an hour before park close. There was only one group after us and we were done right around 9:00 with a 10:00 park close.
Any recent experiences with this? We have EA for USF on our one day at Universal. I was planning to RD Ollivander’s (we’re focusing on Harry Potter) but according to the Universal website it’s not open during EA. I’m thinking if we’re already in USF for EA we could try to just get in line when it opens at 9am?
Anyone have any updates on Ollivander’s right now? It is a priority for my daughter, so I want to try to do it on EE. Wondering if it is still pre-sign up in park or if it is standby queue?
Ollivander’s is not available during EE. I would recommend getting into WWOHP and looking around / doing the ride, for the first 40 - 45 minutes of that hour. Then with about 15 - 20 minutes left, I’d head over to Ollivander’s to get in the queue.
Talk to a Team Member & verify that you can queue and that it’s not Virtual Queue only that day. (Universal is very “flexible” in how they operate day-to-day.)
We rope dropped USF on Wednesday. No early entry. Walked straight to Olivanders Diagon Alley at a comfortable pace and taking in the Diagon Alley reveal.
Third in line and they just had us go. Park opened by 9 and our family of 5 got thru by 9:30 or so. So fun and worth it!
SO HELPFUL. Thank you. What you did is my goal - go straight there from Rope Drop!!! Seems like that is the best option right now, if it is a priority for your family.
Are they still doing single family parties? Considering it is just my daughter & I, that would be amazing because she’d be guaranteed to be picked for the ceremony.
Yep!!! Only family units for each showing. She’ll love it!
If anyone was planning on waiting until the end of the day to do it, I wouldn’t. We walked by when there was about 3 hours left for park open. We travelled with another family that wasn’t sure whether to do the experience or just buy one. They had just closed the line for the day and it was two hours long.
We had EE at USF this morning and RD Ollivander’s. It was a good choice. We took the 7am water taxi from RPR and arrived at the turnstiles around 7:10. When the park opened at 7:45 we were about the 4th party in line at Ollivander’s. They were only doing one party at a time so my DS7 was chosen which was absolutely thrilling for him.
The line built quickly and they cut it off for VQ, so I was glad we did it first thing. When we went back later in the day it looked like a pretty long line. My DS was also very into spell casting so it was a great flow for him to get the wand first in such a special way.
We went on 12 April (not the most recent report for you unfortunately, but another data point). Here’s the trip report if you’re interested (12 Apr - USF RD). That day there was no EE, but we were in the RD crowd (0900 official open), just inside the arches, so not at the front of the crowd. Our first stop was going to be Ollivander’s as well. When we got there however, the line had built around the corner and was about 12-15 groups. We opted not to wait. After riding Gringott’s and wandering Diagon Alley a bit, they started taking reservations for later in the day. We got one for 1430 and when we came back, we waited for 1 minute before going in as the only folks (group of five) for a selection ceremony.
How do you get on the registration list when it is open?
Two TMs came out with their PDAs when the line became long. It was wrapped around two corners at that point. So I hopped in then end of the line ~0940 I think when I saw what they were doing. It was right after the first show on the stage in Diagon Alley had sound issues and aborted the showing.
They added Ollivanders to Early Park Admission. We went for EP admission at Universal this week and went straight to Ollivanders to get in line & were able to do the show being 3rd in line. They were still doing single parties. By the time we got out of our show around 8:45, they went to to scheduling & were almost booked for the entire day. So if this is a priority I’d consider doing this at Rope Drop or Early Park Admission.
Thanks for the information! That’s exactly what we plan to do!!
First time Universal.
On our next trip we’re hitting IOA in the late afternoon/early evening of our arrival day and then spending the next two days at Universal: thinking IOA and then USF. We’d like to Ollivanders on or before that first full park day.
Could we do Ollivanders in the late afternoon/early evening or is that too late?
Is the recommended practice to RD it?
But if we RD it, doesn’t that louse up getting on the non-Express E-tickets Velocicoaster and Hagrids?
Do Arrival day. Wait shouldn’t be too bad and full sun messes up the wand locations
Any new updates on Ollivanders? Is there a sign up now (Nov/Dec 2021) or is it stand by?
We went Friday 11/26 in Diagon Alley and it was standby. We only waited a few minutes that night around 8pm. I noticed the lines are much longer during the day.
If you don’t want to do the show, you can just walk into the shop and buy a wand.