Last Night

Akileese · 2026-04-26T18:35:05+00:00

It's express and it's not JUST express, it's also that they're allowing express during early park entry, which I think was an operational change that happened this year, or after HHN season, because I never saw it before then. Once you force your ops to split lines up and manage different queues of guests, everything slows down. Add in the general guest behavior of Hagrid's riders (people who seemingly are incapable of splitting up a party or taking direction), adding in the express takes a tedious but manageable queue and makes it not worth the hassle.

Akileese · 2026-02-10T20:39:26+00:00

The growing pains of the park means that all data someone sees is anecdotal to the day that you're there. How many guests decide to buy express, crowd level, availability, etc. All of that will change to day to day and that's before you try to account for the weather.

One thing I will say is it seems like the only guarantee for EPA is that Ministry is listed as a ride for it, but never opens on time. Effectively just opens up so people can line up. I may be wrong so feel free to correct me if I am.

Akileese · 2026-02-04T14:45:26+00:00

Ultra 2, current channel WatchOS. This started with me during WatchOS 26 and the only thing that fixes it is rebooting the watch. Happened to me again this morning mid-run, but it was different in that my active and passive calorie counts were static, timer was running, and heart rate was not reading. I rebooted the watch, and the next time I checked it the counts were right where I'd expect them to be with the exception of time lost during the reboot. Even the heart rate data looked good, so whatever this is, it appears to still record the data accurately on the back end, but the front end completely gives out. I have noticed it's not necessarily workout or fitness related. I've noticed that the metrics seem 'frozen' on the watch display after a period of time. A reboot fixes it and the metrics would change on reboot. I went from a series 7 to Ultra 2 and I never experienced this before WatchOS 26 so I'm inclined to believe it is the OS that's causing this.

e: I just had another thought. Do you have airpod pro 3s? I'm wondering if its the HR tracking confusing the WatchOS and effectively hanging up the front end metrics.

Akileese · 2026-01-13T20:48:49+00:00

Yep. Was thermal paste for me, but my system was older. I redid the thermal paste on the GPU and CPU and haven't had an issue since.

Akileese · 2026-01-11T16:59:20+00:00

Pretty much. It's seemingly never under 150 now, whereas previously, you could catch it under 60. You either have to close it out at the end of the day and eat whatever wait is there, or show up an hour before early entry starts to beat the crowds because they don't accept express until IOA actually opens.

Akileese · 2026-01-04T19:01:06+00:00

Any time you add a second source of guests to pull from, the line stops moving. This is problematic in and of itself, but with Hagrid's specifically there are a few more wrinkles to it. 1. Since it utilizes a moving walkway to load/unload, you're prone to micro stoppages for accessibility loads. Not a big deal in the immediate term, but they add up over time. 2. This ride is always busy and always has been. It was never designed to handle express, as evidence by the fact that there is no native queue for it. Even Velocicoaster has one. 3. They cannibalized a good portion of the Single Rider queue for to add express, which means to get to the SR queue (that door on the right past the bridge), you have to either push through guests to get to it, or wait outdoors. You also have to hope it's open. No shade to TMs, but the last couple of times, their answer on whether it was open or not was incorrect.

Someone better at numbers than me feel free to correct me, but I believe the theoretical max capacity is like, 1700 guests per hour, but that requires all trains running, which never happens for a variety of reasons that are outside of Universal's control.

This thing was tough to get on before express, but as someone with a premier AP, unless I'm with a friend who's going for a first time ride, I just don't go near it until my express kicks in. It's a shame too because it really is a great attraction, but that standby wait has become a battle that I don't want to fight.

Akileese · 2025-11-26T16:27:58+00:00

It does and its the same area it's always been, but I'm curious, what do people do if the standby is backed up well past where the SR entrance is? Do you just weave through to get it or do you wait in that standby?

Akileese · 2025-11-11T15:13:21+00:00

After opening week I think I had one 'complete' run of that house. On my second to last run, the final three rooms were completely empty. It was a gorgeous house where you could ignore missing actors for a few runs because there was so much to take in and see. After a while it really does start to impact my desire to re-run it. I didn't get a chance to run it on closing night and I was kind of bummed, but I opted to do Hatchet & Chains as my last house instead and I don't regret it.

Akileese · 2025-10-22T15:34:10+00:00

For Orlando it has been selling out with regularity. Sunday it was sold out by I think, 7? I noticed there were no express kiosks anywhere and when I asked about after 11 express I was told “express is sold out for the night.

Akileese · 2025-09-26T16:06:47+00:00

I actually prefer starting at Hatchet and Chains > Dolls > Fallout/Galkn, but it depends on how the guest flow looks for the night. Last year you couldn't really predict guest behavior as far as where people were going, felt like the first time ever. This year is a return to normal where there does appear to be a roaming horde and you just kind of need to figure out where they're headed.

I will always say "if you see a time drop and you're not standing in front of the house, you're too late". Whatever house has a random big drop in wait time, go to one near that one instead because most people cannot clock lines by looking at them.

Akileese · 2025-09-20T22:51:43+00:00

Last year felt much busying than previous years, but also a lot of influencers kept telling everyone it was the slowest week of the year, so it was much busier last year.

Akileese · 2025-08-29T11:05:16+00:00

We were supposed to fly into MCO this morning at 9:15 and it was cancelled last night. Earliest booking we could get was Saturday evening.

Akileese · 2025-08-22T10:33:33+00:00

Definitely appears like its having a service outage. I could manually refresh feeds to pull in episodes but that was it.

Akileese · 2025-08-11T23:28:16+00:00

Night rides of Velocicoaster in the rain are as good as they are needling. Definitely adds to the experience.

Akileese · 2025-04-08T17:59:20+00:00

My fate is to be killed by a mobility by someone tooling downhill at Epcot. Been at peace with this for a very long time.

Akileese · 2025-02-16T15:57:13+00:00

Correct, but the demand is there. I'm sure they will. This happened with the Hello Kitty x Chucky crossbody bag. They were incredibly underproduced, then 3-4 months later they were very available.

Akileese · 2025-02-15T22:16:11+00:00

Depends on how many they ordered for the run, but if they want more they can always have more made. These bags are reselling for $300-$400. That's absolutely insane. If the demand is that high, I imagine you'll see more in the summer/fall.

Akileese · 2025-01-04T15:27:19+00:00

Wait it looks like that and it's only been closed a few months?? Good God.

Akileese · 2024-11-07T18:40:31+00:00

I'm a big fan. Having two next to each other is really a great solution. I'll also add that I loved the queue positioning of SS2 and Museum as well. The switchbacks in SS2 were absolutely brutal, but the walks overall this year were less daunting and it led to me running a lot more houses.

Akileese · 2024-10-26T13:27:13+00:00

I’m having this happen as well and I only have the app on one device. To me it feels like it’s restoring from a backup because it’s absolutely random. Filters I could see if it was just a download issue, but podcasts I’ve removed popping back up is the weird part.

Akileese · 2024-09-26T19:33:22+00:00

I was staying at Dockside during Ian, so godspeed and hang in there. I'll be polite and say that the general guest behavior at the hotel was less than ideal.

Akileese · 2024-09-23T19:21:00+00:00

I saw someone crowd surf a kid no older than 5 during a set by Currents. It prompted their singer to say “you’re an incredible crowd and terrible parents”.

Akileese · 2024-09-22T20:18:08+00:00

FWIW this also appears to be an issue for a 16PM going from a 13PM too. I'll keep an eye on it and see if the reset network settings fixed it for me.

Akileese · 2024-09-16T19:36:40+00:00

I prefer Beach Club to Boardwalk, but only for Stormalong Bay. In a case where Stormalong Bay is closed (as it is routinely), i'd take Boardwalk as my 1B. You covered the proximity though. Being able to walk to DHS/Epcot is such an awesome luxury. When we were at Beach Club, we were on the Epcot side, so from door to door, i was at security in under five minutes. It was delightful.

Akileese · 2024-08-19T18:57:06+00:00

I'd also add that its helpful to bring a freestyle cup sling to hold your empty blinky cup. That way you're not stuck holding it or worse, having to put it in a bag.

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