The Best Ride in the World? Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure Roller Coaster

Hagrid's Magical Creature's Motorbike Adventure Receives Rave Reviews on Opening Weekend. Ride-Through & Review.

The new motorbike-inspired roller coaster at Universal Orlando is a one-of-a-kind story coaster. It blends special effects with music and audio-animatronics, taking you on a magical adventure on Hagrid's enchanted motorbike. It’s also the most expensive coaster ever built, at $300 Million!

The ruins have a lot of small details to take in.

Some fans parked themselves outside the gates of Universal Orlando Resort at 2am or earlier Thursday morning to be among the first to experience the new attraction inside Islands of Adventure. Others waited 12 or more hours, weaving in and out of buildings and queues that started all the way outside of the park!

Our personal wait began at 6:00am at the gates and ended at 1:15pm, where we would finally take flight.

The Edge of the Forbidden Forest.

The Ride: Hagrid’s Magical Creatures begins with Hagrid showing you what you’ll be experiencing during your “Care of Magical Creatures Lesson.” Motorbikes are cloned and don’t seem to be the most trustworthy mode of transport, but that’s not stopping you from jumping aboard.

Main view of track from the queue.

Going through multiple themed rooms during the queue, with narrations by Rubeus Hagrid himself, you hear about what you'll be learning during your lesson and how the motorbikes work before finally boarding your motorbike or hopping in the sidecar. Hagrid is your guide on this roller coaster as you quickly take off after hearing some creatures around the grounds at the edge of the forest. The bikes lead you to the Blast-Ended Screwt, which ends up blasting riders as you make your way past.

Inside the queue there are details around every corner.

Hagrid suggests it’s time to head back, where things begin to go awry.
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(Spoilers next three paragraphs.)
The bikes uncontrollably take you into the Forbidden Forest, where you encounter Fluffy, the three-headed dog and some Cornish Pixies. The motorbike loses power as you travel out of a small cave, and you immediately head backward as Hagrid tries to repair your bike with a spell (but as Potter fans would know, he isn’t the best at magic). This portion of the ride uses the first “quick-switch” track made by Intamin AG in the world, where your coaster train heads back in a different direction than you entered, without the cars ever stopping. Imagine Expedition Everest, but you just roll back instead of stopping and waiting for the track to change behind you.

You travel backward into a dark cave, where you are trapped by Devil’s Snare and encounter a Centaur. The “Lumos Solem” command saves you from the snare as you fall vertically 17-feet down. This is done by the whole track segment free-falling downward and reconnecting with a separate track below. There are two different sides to this drop to allow a higher capacity on the coaster, which can accommodate a mind-blowing 12 trains at once on the track. The highest I’ve ever heard of by a long shot.

Screwts blast you as you exit the dark room, and Hagrid asks you to press the purple button on the motorbike, activating Dragon Fire and blasting you back towards Hogwarts as quickly as possible. This is the fastest part of the coaster, and the trees lined close to the track make it feel even faster. After a few more turns the bikes slow down, and a rare Unicorn is spotted along with a baby as you turn back into the station.
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The ride itself features 7 launches, a 70-degree track spike that takes you 65 feet into the air, and 5,053 feet of track.

The motorbikes fly past quests waiting in the outdoor section of the queue.

"Motorbike or Sidecar?": Sitting so high off the track versus a traditional coaster does give a cool sensation on the motorbike, and grabbing onto the handles makes you want to make motorbike burbling sounds with your mouth as you ride. It's motorbike for me but some looking for a more traditional seated position may enjoy the sidecar more. I also found the sidecar a bit uncomfortable on my back.

The largest drop during the journey may not seem like much, but is taken at enough speed to be thrilling.

Some S-Bends at the beginning of the ride.

A closeup of some sensors on the track, letting the computer know the train successfully passed over the hill.

"Was it worth it?": Yes! Standing in a queue for 12 hours might not sound fun to you, but the stigma around opening day is exciting in itself, the people you meet and memories you make are worth it. I personally never heard disappointment from anyone getting off the ride. The ride was loved by all guests. It's a perfect amount of action and thrill, with some of the best storytelling on a ride in the World. In the first three opening days we waited a grand total of 22 hours for four rides!

This experience is like no other ride in the world. It's better than expected and a must-ride for everyone during your visit to the Universal Orlando Resort.

Lines are much more manageable now that the opening weekend has finished, with wait times posting around 100-200 minutes throughout the day. Be aware the Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure will not open until midday for the next few weeks as Universal works on the ride to make sure it runs at the highest capacity possible when it is open for guests. The ride may close a few hours before the official park closing because of the high demand, so plan accordingly.

Trains "duel" one another here if they are sent out of the station at just the right time.

Take a look at the long queue, the pre-show, and the ride below!