Potter Rides Finally Getting Express

Very curious to see pics or reports from the lines - curious to see where FJ's lines back up to.

 

Yes, it should be interesting. FJ's stand by times have been considerably shorter since the refurbishment, so it may just return to the times that were there before the refurb. Those weren't too bad.......Edit...Just checked 11:18 AM times, FJ 15 minutes, Gringotts 45 minutes

 

If everything is working it's an extremely high capacity ride. It'll actually probably load more people per hour as a big issue with capacity was guests with bags at the merge point. Get stalled long enough and it runs out of guests getting on the ride. Now it has two viable guest streams. Before it only had disability access as a secondary with some readmits mixed in, which you couldn't just flow into the boarding line.

I imagine the policy is "send express, send express, oh no you have a bag - send standby until they get their crap together, send express..."

 

So, talk was that it was going to use the "Tour" line. Do you know what sights we'll be able to see on that version of the queue? Just curious, since I enjoy FJ queue so much, that I'll probably skip Express as long as stand by is in the 20 to 30 minute range. .......

 

After the lockers it (theoretical line) goes through 2nd portrait gallery and up the stairs, walks along the front of Dumbledore's office, along the back of dark arts, and then into the common room and such.

Essentially it skips the dungeon, gardens, greenhouse, Oxford corridor, that professor painting where he talks about billiwigs, and the original portrait gallery.

 

Thanks for the reply & info....That sounds interesting enough to use for an alternative since it still has some nice queue aspects......Update Edit: 2:50 PM Stand By Times...FJ: 40 minutes...Gringotts; 55 minutes....doesn't sound bad for 4th of July weekend.

 

From a story standpoint - many more people should know what's going on. The old setup had everyone in the express queue going through as fast as they could walk and the standby doing the same once past the infernal bird statue.

This slows down both paths.

 

This was the castle tour, correct?

 

Technically, yes. Was actually always meant to be express.

 

Kings Cross setup:

 

Credit where credit is due. Atta boy @Muggle148

 

Well...



Going to need a little more to understand what's going on, but it seems after the lockers everyone goes down toward the gardens and greenhouse via the dungeon but then express loops back.

In theory this is a good idea if express gets long. The position right outside the dungeons was a mess with just disability access.

 

I'm very curious where they spent the time. From lockers to merge they seem to suggest was about 7 minutes - which is good pacing for both preshow rooms, but if it was all spent in one or the other - not so good.

The lack of singles suggests it's not running at peak day levels. So that'll be interesting to see too.

Also very curious how they open in the morning now. Resort guests should all have express, no? So they'd all be in the express queue during the early open and then at park open the standby queue starts filling.

Or not. Not really sure. Might just use standby until park open.

The old method was to limit vehicles operating in order to build the queue so that it could be controlled. So many people flowing into the ride would overwhelm it. So a small number operated until the interior queue reached the greenhouses and then the capacity would be upped. This would prevent it from being a mad dash through the castle once you got past lockers.

The photo shows dungeons as walk-thru empty, which means the line starts somewhere in greenhouse. Prior, interior was about 20mins with normal capacity. So I'm guessing it's now about 40 with 20 in the greenhouse.

 

If I remember correctly, the two coasters in Hogsmeade didn't use Express until the whole park opened. But it's been a while since I bothered to get up early for early entry, so perhaps that changed.

 

There are CBBR and SF rooms and offsite affiliates that get EPA but not express.

 

Sheesh, lazy git.

Just kidding. This is really awesome. I purchased the Express last time (didn't stay onsite) and was able to ride just about everything by going ride to ride. The exceptions were FJ and HE. Sadly, Gringotts was closed due to issues and I wasn't able to ride it. This will alleviate that problem. I waited 45 minutes for FJ (no big deal) and 35 minutes for HE (could have walked faster to UNI).

 

We love to repeat ride Gringotts. It's not unusual for us to do it four or five times in a day. So our plan was to do the regular queue, which we really enjoy, if the line was 20 minutes or less. If more than 20 minutes we'd hop into the single line which is generally pretty quick.....Now, everything will be much easier. And we'll be able to ride together all the time. .....I can't do FJ more than twice a day, so we always did the full queue if the line was 30 minutes or less. Never did the single line on FJ. ....But, as I said before, the biggest advantage will be HE. I'll be jumping from park to park constantly. Gotta love the ambiance of that train & train stations.

 

Just to clarify, it's unlimited rides on all the Harry Potter attractions with the Express? At Hollywood's Gate A, you can only do front of the line once per attraction.