Good morning from Universal Epic Universe, where the theme park is celebrating its official grand opening. Guests lined up late last night to experience the grand opening, and with opening day excitement comes large crowds – or at least, long wait times. The clear “winner” this morning in the wait time game is Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. The ride opened at 9am to a 5-hour wait time and we were on the streets of Wizarding Paris to get a first-hand look at opening day.
Harry Potter Ride Opens to 5-Hour Wait Time at Epic Universe
Universal held guests just outside of the attraction entrance for a few minutes following the 8am opening ceremony and then began pre-loading the queue for a 9am opening. Wait times started at 150 minutes before changing to 240 minutes and ultimately settling in at 300 minutes. Operationally, Universal used a portion of the Le Cirque Arcanus queue to keep guests out of the sun until they had to shift the queue fully outdoors again to begin using the queue for the show again.
The Operations Team was on top of their game this morning, seemingly managing crowds with ease. That said, crowds were certainly smaller than I was anticipating for opening day. The long wait time likely reflects a lack of hourly capacity as we have heard that the ride is still struggling with reliability.
Universal Orlando tested and then ultimately dropped a very unpopular Virtual Line for Battle at the Ministry, offering guests the ability to choose for themselves if the ride is worth the wait.
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