Epic Universe Is Lying to You About Its Harry Potter Ride

Now that Epic Universe has been open for a bit, we think it’s about time to spill the beans on one of the park’s biggest attractions.

Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry

The more we visit Universal Orlando’s newest theme park, the more we learn. From new tricks to favorite eats, we’ve picked up a lot during our visits. We’ve also learned about some of the park’s pitfalls, including a misleading warning regarding a certain Harry Potter attraction…

Did you know you can actually gamble when it comes to your Battle At The Ministry ride-through?

Battle at the Ministry

Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry is the newest Wizarding World ride located in Epic Universe’s Ministry of Magic portal. The attraction lets you “travel” by “Métro-Floo from Paris to the British Ministry of Magic, where Dolores Umbridge is about to stand trial.” You’ll then get to “board a lift and join Harry, Ron, and Hermione as you journey deep into the Ministry’s many departments.”

Métro-Floo

When you get over to the portal, you may see signs around the area stating that the Battle at the Ministry ride is going to “close early that day.” And if you’re like us, that’s gonna make your heart skip a beat. Close?? Early???

Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry Queue

But here’s what Epic REALLY means when they put up that sign.

Since Battle at the Ministry tends to be the most popular ride of the park, they don’t want their Wizarding World team members having to work an extra 2-3 hours past closing time just to get the rest of the guests through the Battle at the Ministry line.

It’s a popular ride

So unlike MOST Epic Universe rides — where you can just get in line and get one last ride-through right up until closing — Epic Universe will mark The Battle at the Ministry “at capacity” if they see they’re two hours until closing time and the ride is STILL sitting at a solid 120-minute wait.

Queue for standby line at Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry

That being said, the ride DOESN’T ALWAYS reach capacity, and we’ve seen it close 30 minutes before the park was slated to close. In one instance, we noticed that since people scrambled to ride this one earlier — afraid that it would close before they got the chance to experience it — it was sitting at a 20-minute wait while the park STILL had an hour left to go.

The queue is HUGE

Would we wait and gamble on this strategy if Battle at the Ministry was our number one priority? No, probably not. Because — again — this line COULD reach capacity and close a whole lot EARLIER.

That being said, if Battle at the Ministry has a line that you just DON’T wanna mess with — or you were hoping to catch one more re-ride on it before wrapping up your day — then keep an eye on the Universal Orlando app so you can find out if this early closure strategy is gonna work in your favor.