Had to think about what you meant, then realised I’d blocked out that memory for a reason! What a tiny crowded little building that was…and basically impossible to complete the trip without either hitting someone or being hit by someone with an errant locker door or elbow - especially if on a corner. All while everyone is rushing to get into the line!
At least they are the fingerprint lockers, IIRC? We didn’t like the barcode scanning ones as our increasingly wet tickets started falling apart after a few locker trips. Especially didn’t like that DDRRF has no free ones at all!
At Hagrid’s or in general? Certainly there are barcode-based ones at RRR, EfG and TM at USF, plus DDRRF at IoA, and fingerprint ones at TFJ and I think Hagrid, but I can’t remember for certain what the remaining rides used, sorry! But I’m sure both types are in use if that helps at all?
Yeah, I was asking for in general, not just Hagrid. It was just confusing to me why we have everything put in a locker, but we have to make sure to have our ticket out so you can get everything out of the locker. What if your ticket falls out or something when your riding, lol?
It’s definitely a mix of fingerprints and barcodes. My favorite (sarcasm) was at Gringotts where we used the fingerprint, it popped the locker and the person next to us accidentally elbowed it closed while emptying their locker and we couldn’t reopen. Had to find 2 different locker attendants to open it.
I used a running belt for bypassing the lockers at Hagrid’s (and all universal rides, since I didn’t go on Hulk or RRR), it was totally worth it! Specially when we caught Hagrid reopening during the day, we were able to skip 90% of the people who were waiting.
Yeah…we locked ours in on RRR, was inevitably going to happen as I was keeping it in my wallet. We had to describe what was in the locker before the CM opened it, she then verified and then had us scan the retrieved ticket to double-check. I’m amazed we managed to do this only once
Edit: sorry for my part in turning this into “Tracking Hagrid’s Locker opening problems”…
Disappointing that they are still having so much downtime and problems. I thought for sure they’d have it all worked out long before our Spring Break trip…now I’m wondering if this ride will always be “flaky” and impossible to plan around.
I would just like to say that this darn ride has taken over my subconscious. I actually had a dream the other night that I was in the line for this ride. But not the real line. In my dream the line was in a covered plaza, with a bathroom and snack vendors and trees and it was beautiful. The line was fairly empty, but I kept walking and walking and never seemed to get to the ride. Then my alarm went off. I never got on it!
See, in my conscious mind, I go back and forth. I see optimistic reports on the chat app and decent timed waits on the app, and I feel confident it will go well. Then I see a random report about someone waiting three hours and then the ride going down and I panic again. Since this ride is the main reason I am going and I am not sure when I will be back, it is the main focus of my trip. I will now be going on a hunt for Felix Felicis! (And as I type this, I realize that may be a good souvenir of my trip if we make it on!)
We have the Grinchmas breakfast at 8am. There are people on Facebook telling my sister that it will ruin our chance to get in Hagrids. I am hoping to do the breakfast and to at some point get on Hagrids too.
This is accurate! Even with no one in it there is so much line to walk through. Much of it covered, but you really can’t believe how many rooms and things are on the way.
As ever, all the data is taken from the fabulous folks at Touring Plans. Left axis is Universal’s average posted wait time at that time of day, while the right axis is the percent of days on which the ride was open and operating at that time.
The past two weeks have been hit-or-miss for Hagrid’s. Four of 14 days saw significant morning downtime of an hour or more (including November 10th when the ride didn’t open until after 1pm). on the other hand, we had a “perfect” day on November 21st, with the ride open continuously from park open to close with no downtime.
If you’re ok playing the odds, actual timed waits at rope drop seem to hover at ~60min or less for those liners who hit one of the days when Hagrid’s opens with the park. For non-gamblers, that early-afternoon/1pm slot still seems to be best.
Also – I wanted to say that this update will be the last one I do. I start my drive down for my trip on Friday the 29th, and return home on Sunday the 8th. So at the very least the next two Saturdays I will not be able to update. And while this has been a labor of love, it’s not one I’m going to be able to continue once I get back with no trip upcoming. If anyone is interested in taking over, let me know and I’d be more than happy to send you my spreadsheets! Otherwise, thank you to everyone here for their enthusiasm – it’s made preparing for my trip feel like a community experience, and I truly appreciate you all.
Glad you had fun!
