We also got lucky yesterday - the ride was down the majority of the day because of the bee problem, so I’d pretty much given up on the idea of riding. We headed over to IoA from USF at around 4.45pm and were in Port of Entry when my obsessive checking of the app paid off and I saw that it was open. We quickly headed over to Hagrid’s, with people literally sprinting past us as we walked up, and were in the queue by 5.05pm. We walked straight through to the caves just before the last room of switchbacks before boarding, got the second to front row, and were off the ride by 5.30pm.
We wanted to ride again but it was delayed shortly after, so we headed to Margaritaville for some drinks instead. We were sitting at the bar when I noticed it had reopened so we quickly downed our fresh drinks, paid and stumbled back over. This time we waited around 25 minutes and got the front row for a night ride, which I never expected with the ride closing early every day at the moment. By the time we got off it was 7.45pm and the ride was at capacity, or else we would have hopped back in line again.
The ride is incredible, and even better at night. I had high expectations but it easily surpassed them. I was pretty disappointed yesterday re the bees closing the ride for almost the entire day, but it worked out to our advantage in the end as they operated the ride into the evening instead. Hoping to get back on it either today or tomorrow.