Everyone Complains About the Harry Potter Ride, But They're Forgetting THIS Tricky Epic Universe Attraction

If you’re planning a trip to Epic Universe and you’ve talked to anyone who has been before, you’ve probably already been warned about the Harry Potter ride.

Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry is known for having the longest wait in the park, but it’s also known for its incredible queue, ride system, and immersion. That means everyone wants to ride it, but it can be a bear to plan for if you’re not skipping the line with Express Pass. However, even though everyone warns you about this ride, there’s another attraction at the park that you need to be just as prepared to wait for!

With so much focus on Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, people tend to forget about the popularity of another ride — Mine-Cart Madness in Super Nintendo World. We track the average wait times for the rides each day, and the data shows that sometimes, Mine-Cart Madness is even MORE popular.

For example, looking at April 15th, Battle at the Ministry had an average wait time of 59 minutes throughout the day, while Mine-Cart’s wait time averaged at 63 minutes. The day before that, on April 14th, they had average wait times of 66 and 63 minutes, respectively. So it can even flop back and forth depending on the day.

Queue for Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry

Here’s the average wait times data for the rest of that week in April:

April 13th — 93 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 85 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness
April 12th — 99 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 102 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness
April 11th — 103 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 120 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness
April 10th — 105 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 128 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness
April 9th — 112 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 133 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness
April 8th — 120 minutes for Battle at the Ministry, 138 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness

For that week, the trend leaned toward Mine-Cart Madness being a longer wait overall. So what gives? Well, one problem with this attraction is that it has a relatively low capacity, along with a slow load-and-unload process. That means they’re moving fewer people through the attraction per hour than they are over at the Ministry of Magic.

Unfortunately, this also means that your wait time could involve a LOT of standing still. When waiting in line for Battle at the Ministry, we often find the queue moving at a decent speed (as long as the ride doesn’t go down), but for Mine-Cart Madness, it’s a slow trudge.

Another big difference in wait times between the two attractions is that Battle at the Ministry’s wait time often drops significantly in the evenings. This is largely in part to the “capacity” policy that’s heavily enforced at this ride — they may close it early if the queue gets too long, and they have signs around the attraction noting that policy. Because of this, guests get nervous and make sure to do it early in the day. Then, ironically, we’ve found the wait time getting as low as 30 minutes in the last two hours of the day.

We’ve seen 300 minutes for Battle at the Ministry before!

But Mine-Cart Madness is a pretty popular attraction to ride at night, meaning that its wait time doesn’t drop at the end of the day. It’s also popular as a rope drop option first thing in the morning. All those factors combined, and you end up with a HIGH average wait time.

Basically, if you want to hop on Donkey Kong’s coaster and you DON’T have Express Pass, you’re probably going to have to commit to a long wait at some point. Doing it at the very beginning or end of the day is your best bet, but it doesn’t guarantee you a short wait. There are just fewer effective strategies for riding this one overall.