General Discussion - Hagrid's Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure

[JungleSkip]

Dunno if anyone has speculated this, but perhaps they are testing this out now/early on a heavily popular ride because this is a system they're thinking of implementing more heavily (or entirely) for Epic Universe?

That would do a really good job of killing any excitement I have for Epic Universe, that’s for sure!

 

[Parkscope Joe]

It seems like they are interested in implementing the new system resort wide

I mean maybe for Fallon or whenever Mummy and F&F do it. But not in terms of every attraction.

 

[Mad Dog]

There's been a good number of different threads on the Hagrid Virtual lines issues on the Orlando Informer Community facebook pages lately. OI Community members are more casual Universal fans then we see here on IU,
but they're probably more representative of the General Public. Plus the site has a 'huge' number of daily contributors, way more than here. It's not unusual for a thread to receive many hundreds of comments the day
it's posted. The response has been universally anti Virtual Line. It's rare to find a poster that had a good experience, even if they got lucky enough to get a ride. The complaints usually are:
* People are saying they don't want to have to depend on their phones when they're in the park. They say when on vacation they want to get away from reliance on their phones.
*Comments say the phone Virtual System is too complicated and too hard to use.
.....I don't know who the Execs are that keep pushing this over reliance on high tech and phones. The mobile ordering express was also a fiasco, just causing longer food lines. They really need to stop this already. They've
been playing around with it for four years, and it's just a pain in the rear for people who want to experience a leisurely vacation.

 

[jseal777]

it hardly *HARDLY* works at volcano bay. What makes them think it will work in a *real* theme park:bolt:

 

[shiekra38]

it hardly *HARDLY* works at volcano bay. What makes them think it will work in a *real* theme park:bolt:

Hopefully they aren't thinking that..

 

[JungleSkip]

Managed to get on Hagrid a few times Friday, and was happy to see everything outside of the smoke in scene 1 working wonderfully. Last time I was on it was 2019, so it was also fun to see how much it’s grown in and looks more like a forest

 

[12th Man]

New virtual queue system is a-ok with me. I like how it’s easy to get (doesn’t require hours of research) and tells you exactly when you’ll be able to ride, dynamically adjusting if there’s any delays. A separate, but minor, issue is that it’s pretty hectic when entering the attraction area and the people scanning the QR code were overwhelmed. Seemed like it’d be pretty easy to scoot by them in the mess and get on the ride without a pass, as they weren’t checking them anywhere else in the queue. Hopefully they can figure out some orderly way to get people through.



Was my first time ever on the ride yesterday and OMG it was so much fun. Way more thrilling than I imagined.. just wow.

 

[knoxmyers]

Rode on Sunday, front row, I would say it was a perfect run, probably at this point my #1, took over Spiderman's spot (though that will most likely remain my consistent #1), grinned ear to ear the whole time!

The VL is still a debacle though, very chaotic at certain points. We stayed on site, so the line started as stand-by in the morning, got up to 90 minutes then went VL. Total wait time for us was about 2:45 (we got our link around 10), 2 hrs virtual, 15 in line to get scanned, then 30 in the queue. The scan line was just a mess. We were in line with folks that had no idea they had to get get a VL slot, there were others that misunderstood the time and thought they had that much time before "the slot" expired and would miss their opportunity. There was another line which I'm not quite sure what it was for, I think if was for people that opted to wait their VL time in a line. Really not sure, I was so keyed into getting our phone scanned that I couldn't quite make out what that line was.

I'm not quite sure what the end game is here with VL on Hagrid's. Is it that they're tight on queue space and dont want folks backing up so far into other sections of the park? Is it that they want everyone spending money while in VL (because frankly everything was packed and people were just sitting around waiting for their time to come up, taking up valuable space in tight quarters anyway, not really sure how much extra spending was going on, I think) or is there something else like laser focus testing for a park wide system?

Again, we got on, had what I consider a perfect run and had a blast doing it, just really curious about the endgame with VL here (as a comparison as well, we rode VC twice, 1st posted time 75 min: actual 45, second posted time 60 min: actual 35, those numbers are just amazing and already to its 1 millionth rider!)

 

[JungleSkip]

Agreed about the VL being a mess. Just a terrible way to handle getting on a ride. It’s better than ROTR’s setup, but not by much

 

[ReelJustice]

People want the option to wait. It gives them agency. It’s familiar. It’s how theme parks have been for generations. You take that away and it sours your experience and makes theme parks frustrating, unless you get lucky and manage to get a return time.

 

[devinp267]

Is it that popular? Are they running less trains to be more reliable? That queue is huuge idk why virtual is needed.

 

[Frank Drackman]

my daughter surprised me on SAT by asking to go to UoR -- I had no reason to turn her down. I let her mess with the app and care about the VL -- I guess she had read tips to check for a drop at 4 PM (we went later in the day) -- she lost it when nothing came up on the APP, I told her I had heard they changed to a new thing they are testing -- I feel bad for the front line as they are just slammed from all directions w/ questions (I advice any going to set up prior using the link that has been posted (vltest....)

my daughter, smartly, has a lot of tracking stuff blocked so we learned you need location services on the APP as well as on Safari (she uses APPLE, I do not) -- anyway, the poor thing loses it again as the APP does not work for her -- so I let her use my phone -- we did end up getting a spot within 20 minutes of setting things up properly, later, we could have gotten them a 2nd time coming up on the last hour while in the Studios.

I could see this all working well when enough folks know the rules as it was not difficult to use and then the we did not wait too long in the queue when our time came up -- I guess I say that for it worked for us, I still have not seen a pre show for the ride, not sure why it was not running Saturday (or if it ever does).

 

[SkiBum]

People want the option to wait. It gives them agency. It’s familiar. It’s how theme parks have been for generations. You take that away and it sours your experience and makes theme parks frustrating, unless you get lucky and manage to get a return time.

Disney forgot that, it seems. Wait times are just part of going to a theme/amusement park. It is also why the elaborate queues were built. I'm in the group that favors lines to wait in (your choice if you want to) with something like UNI's Express Pass, which has been implemented far better than Fast Pass.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Wait times are inevitable. I think all this virtual tech should be going into improving the queue experience. For how much it cost Disney to implement FP+ and Volcano Bay virtual line, we could have gotten some additional rides and slides that would have made an actual improvement.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Wait times are inevitable. I think all this virtual tech should be going into improving the queue experience. For how much it cost Disney to implement FP+ and Volcano Bay virtual line, we could have gotten some additional rides and slides that would have made an actual improvement.

Preach.

 

[sjago13]

The virtual line is nice if you know how to use it. This system doesn't solve the problem of having each member in the party from grabbing a time but I like that they keep the wait to the inside portion of the queue once your time is up (about 20-30 min wait). My friend an I rode it 3 times yesterday after getting to islands sometime after 4. We could have kept reminding as it pretty consistently kept dropping times every 20-30 mins. Seems like it was attempting to keep the virtual line to about 90 mins or so as whenever we got a time it was for about an hour out. I think the main problem is people don't realize that times are being dropped regularly and just check once and give up. My only other observation is that it only seems to let you move your time back only if it is actively giving out times. So when it is booked up it doesn't let you adjust your time.

 

[WAJAS]

Wait times are inevitable. I think all this virtual tech should be going into improving the queue experience. For how much it cost Disney to implement FP+ and Volcano Bay virtual line, we could have gotten some additional rides and slides that would have made an actual improvement.

They were improving the queue experience for a bit. I don't know why that changed in their philosophy.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I would much rather wait in Fallon style queues (remove the reservation requirement and just go straight to a large pager style waiting area).

They were improving the queue experience for a bit. I don't know why that changed in their philosophy.

I thought that when Fallon opened and Disney opened the new version of Dumbo with its playground queue, the pager system was going to be the future.

 

[HandsomePete]

They were improving the queue experience for a bit. I don't know why that changed in their philosophy.

Because satisfaction scores didn’t budge. If the better waiting experience doesn’t manifest itself into a quantifiable response from guests or their responses in the text boxes of surveys, the pitch meeting for the next $1M check to plus the next queue doesn’t go so well.

Once you start segmenting experience satisfaction into the individual drivers (such as a meal - wait time, service quality, food taste, food temperature, etc.), there are some things that pan out to be closer to binary than on a spectrum. Waiting in a queue is one that pretty much settles out as acceptable/unacceptable as opposed to bad/good/better/best.

Edit: sorry, lost track of where I was… this has nothing to do with Hagrids:doh:

 

[shiekra38]

People want the option to wait. It gives them agency. It’s familiar. It’s how theme parks have been for generations. You take that away and it sours your experience and makes theme parks frustrating, unless you get lucky and manage to get a return time.

It seems like the queue doesn't hold the amount of people that want to ride it at any given time and normally backs up into the midway and to Sindbad...I don't know if they have any room for more queue, but if any ride needs it, it's this one

Is it that popular? Are they running less trains to be more reliable? That queue is huuge idk why virtual is needed.

Its got buzz behind it, it's based on HP, and it's much more approachable than Veloci in terms of thrill factor (or perceived thrill factor)