These Universal Rides Have Surprisingly Long Waits (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Hagrid's!)

It’s official — Universal Studios has reopened to the general public!

After going to the Passholder Preview earlier this week, where the park relied heavily on the Universal App for both Virtual Lines and mobile order, we noticed that a few rides in particular had noticeably longer waits. And, spoiler alert — they were not Harry Potter rides.

The attraction lines that seem to move the slowest for Universal using the Virtual Line are actually the rides that, pre-closure, had the highest capacities – – the bus rides.

We went on both Fast and the Furious: Supercharged, and Skull Island: Reign of Kong on Passholder Preview day, and while the ling was never particularly long, it took a longer time to get on the actual ride.

The reason for this is that, pre-closure, each ride vehicle could fit a large group, up to 60 people in a single vehicle. However, with health and safety procedures in place, the rides are currently being seated every other row, with one party per row. This means most ride vehicles are now being loaded with far fewer. As you can see from the photo below, only ten people would be loaded onto the upcoming vehicle.

Due to increased sanitation for ride vehicles between each set of riders and limited capacities in queues, a lot of rides had a slower moving line process than normal. However, on both our Passholder Preview and for the reopening, these larger capacity rides in particular seemed to have the longest waits, even with Virtual Lines in place.

So, if you’ll be going to Universal Orlando now that it’s reopened, be sure to still grab that Virtual Line for Hagrid’s — however, you’ll want to make sure to carve out a little bit of extra time to get through these typically fast-moving lines!