There are multiple popular attractions in Epic Universe — numerous that get over 100+ minute waits easily each day, but there’s one that likely comes to mind that you think of when we say “most popular ride in the park.”
Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry is one of, if not THE most popular attraction in the whole park, and it’s easy to tell by the high wait times it gets day after day. We’ve heard people say that getting in line as soon as you can, especially during Early Entry, is totally worth it, but we’ve been wondering how true that actually is. We tested it out ourselves to see if this is actually the best time to ride this attraction, and you may be surprised by what we found out.
We did have Early Entry for our most recent visit, so we got in line for the attraction right at 9:30 AM, and they were still filling the queue. We got stopped in the outdoor queue part, before going through the floo, so we weren’t sure how things would look when we got inside.
When the ride officially opened at 9:45 AM, it did so with a 180 minute wait, and we knew we were in for an INTERESTING morning. Our reporter then checked back in with us at around 11:30 AM, which was two hours into her wait, and unfortunately, an announcement had just come over the loudspeaker announcing to those waiting that there would “be a delay” in their wait time. Prior to that announcement, she had been moving pretty normally for about 100 minutes, and was still a whole room away from seeing Winky the House Elf (she had just left the room with the talking portraits), which is a few rooms away from the end of the queue.
They finally made it to the ride at 12:24 PM, which was right before three hours, which would have been 180 minutes. However, the line did slow down because some lifts were down, but the delay was fixed while our reporter was still in line. Keeping that in mind, it’s possible the wait would have been closer to 150ish minutes if the delay hadn’t happened.
So, was it accurate? Well, it was pretty close, and that means that rope drop is NOT the best time to ride this attraction if you’re aiming for the lowest wait time. In fact, we recommend going later in the day, closer to closing (but keep a close eye out if the ride says it’ll close early — we don’t recommend waiting until the VERY end of the night, just in case the ride truly does close early, or has issues). The key should be going anywhere between 2-4 hours before park closure, which is when you’ll see MUCH lower waits. For example, here are a few comparisons from the past few days to show you what we mean.
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- January 30th: 165 minutes at 10 AM and 90 minutes at 8 PM
- January 27th: 210 minutes at 10 AM and 90 minutes at 8 PM
- January 25th: 135 minutes at 10 AM and 25 minutes at 8 PM
We’ll continue to bring you all the latest Epic Universe news to help you prepare for your trip, so stay tuned to AllEars!
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When do you prefer to ride Battle at the Ministry? Tell us in the comments!
We went to Epic 1/18/25 with early entry from staying at Cabana Bay. We got through security by 8:45a and waited for rope drop. Once that happened we walked straight back to the Harry Potter area and, while the line of people was run all throughout the streets, we were never loaded into an outdoor queue we just went straight into the building. I don’t think we stood on the same place more than 45 seconds until we were just outside the loading area. We were in, on, and out by 9:45a
It will be interesting to see how adding Ministry of Magic to the official Early Park Admission lands will impact this. It might keep out the NON-EPA folks who have been flocking to wait for Battle since they can’t ride the open rides. Of course, today, Feb 1, the first day of the new policy is NOT a fair test since the extreme cold changed EVERYTHING.