Though Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure has been open for almost a full month, it looks like the technical issues that have plagued this attraction since its grand opening are not going away any time soon. A few weeks ago Universal announced that they would start opening this attraction at midday, every day, and would be using the morning hours to perform maintenance on the ride to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible for as long as possible before they close the ride for capacity.
However, it looks like things still aren’t running with any kind of regularity, with Universal opening the ride sometimes as early as 11:00 am, as late as 1:00 pm, or sometimes not at all, which happened earlier this week, when the ride was not available for guests visiting the park at all.
Image: Universal
Though it seems clear that this attraction simply wasn’t ready to open this past June, Universal is still forging ahead with this attraction’s limited schedule, and in an effort to avoid frustration for guests who want to experience what, in our opinion, is the best ride in Orlando (when it works), here’s our guide to getting on Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure this summer:
1. Head to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter- Hogsmeade early
Though Universal hasn’t been opening this attraction with the rest Islands of Adventure, we’d suggest still heading to the park early, grabbing a Butterbeer and hanging out in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade as soon as the park opens. The attraction won’t be available at first and you’ll probably be dissuaded from loitering near the entrance of the ride, but if you can grab a seat outside one of the shops you can keep an eye on the Team Members out front, and can march right on up to the attraction once the green light is given to open the queue for the day.
2. Keep an eye on the Universal app
Image: Universal
Though the best thing you can do is stay physically near this attraction and keep an eye out for signs of opening, if you need to head to a different part of the park for some reason, you’ll definitely want to keep refreshing the Universal Orlando Resort app, which is updated within minutes when this attraction is open. Though the virtual queue function that was originally supposed to launch with this attraction back in June is still non-functional, if you are trying to keep an eye on this attraction while enjoying other parts of the park, you’ll definitely want to keep refreshing the app as often as possible so you can head over to this attraction as soon as it is open.
3. Don’t give up
Image: Universal
Universal’s opening schedule for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure has been extremely unpredictable. And while it can be frustrating to hear that the attraction is closed indefinitely (or worse not opening at all during the day), unless there is persistant, incement weather, our advice is that guests should still keep hanging around The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade and/or check the Universal app throughout the day. Even though a Team Member may tell you that this attration is not opening for the day, things change very quickly and we’ve seen Team Members reopen the ride for small amounts of time mere minutes after saying they would not previously, so its worth continuing to check in if you really want to experience this attraction.
Sadly we don’t know how long Hagrid’s Magical Motorbike Adventure will be on this limited schedule during the summer, and it looks like Universal doesn’t really know much either. We were really hoping that after a month this attraction would be running more smoothly, but unfortunately it looks like we’re going to have to keep waiting for Universal to work the kinks out of this new attraction.
