CoasterEricHP

There's a train in the "owl's eye view" so that makes sense! I think the castle will go up on top of the big box. I just hope its not just eye candy and its something people can actually walk through. Doesn't look like it will be though. It would correspond with the "Owl's Eye view" art if it went on top of the box though. How are you looking at the picture? Like I said.. I'm really excited about the whole project and it looks amazing so far! My main concern is how much is going to be "eye candy" and how much is going to open for guests to explore. It was said JK Rowling had almost insane standards that the park had to live up to when they were choosing a location.. so I really hope Hogwarts isnt just for one ride! Guess we'll find out.. someday!

You know.. I was at the PRPS (Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society) Convention today in Hershey. They had people from Dorney, Morey's, Hershey, Busch Gardens, and Six Flags. Everytime I tried to talk to the Six Flags lady about ANYTHING she was either not there.. or talking on her cell phone. This was over a time span of four hours!! I never saw her talking to anyone but her cell phone! I just kind of laughed and thought to myself that her lack of caring is pretty much the standard Six Flag's attitude. Thats my little story of the day! All of the other park rep's were awesome!

^ Good try! If I remember correctly they are... 1. Merlinwood (down by the dragons) 2. Dark Forest (extended queue) 3. Castle Courtyard 4. Stained Glass Chamber 5. Merlin's Spell Book 6. Graffitti Room 7. Corridor of Candles 8. Rubble Room (with the water fountains) 9. Twisted Tunnel 10. Dragon's Gate 11. Merlin's Final warning 12. Illuminated Catacombs 13. Dark Catacombs 14. Dungeon 15. Choose Thy Fate Tower There's your Dragons trivia for the day. Anyways.. angeloco.. you're right on your placement. Hogwarts is going between Unicorn and JP. Everything else from Poseidon to the JP bridge will be redone.

That's awesome! I remember the NES version. I always got mad because it was hard and I can't remember ever getting past the water when you had to make the blob into a bubble. This game looks great! Wish I had a Wii... Eric

^ Me too. Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea has to be the one place that I REALLY want to get to someday. Robb, (or anyone), what do you think it would cost for airfare, tickets, and say... 4 nights at an on site resort?

That hippogriff idea is pretty cool! I still wonder if that massive building behind Unicorn is a new queue building or what? ^ That picture makes me miss working at Dragons! Can anyone name the 15 areas of the queue?

No one really knows what the "coaster in the box" really is yet! It obviously has something to do with the Kuka Robocoaster ride system.. The only things I have heard about it (which I have no idea if they are true) is that the track will be above the riders, something like a ride vehicle or prototype was hidden and tested inside one of the soundstages long before the announcement, and I heard that there's a temporary maintainance bay set up somewhere where they have been putting the vehicles together for months. Again, no idea if any of that is true... I don't think it will be considered a rollercoaster though. They can't have a tall height limit on it.. unless Universal wants to be dragged into the streets of their beautiful creation and slaughtered by angry Potter Parents. My guess is.. a ride with different "intensity settings" that can either flip and spin through the world of Harry Potter or be a gentle ride. I'm sure there will be amazing special effects and maybe some fast moving sections, but it wont be an indoor coaster. Besides, the best indoor coaster ever is right next door! Hopefully in a year from now we'll know! One thing we do know is that in 12 months you'll have a huge new coaster at USF.. and the world of Harry Potter at IOA.. Universal better get ready to expand because people are going to be knocking down the gates! (and if any Universal exec's are reading this.. bring the Comedy Club and Adventurer's club to CityWalk! Thanks! )

It's going to be interesting to see how they go with the whole Hogsmeade/Hogwarts theme. If they are basing everything as close to the movies as possible.. the world of Harry Potter is actually pretty bland and flavorless! At least I think so. There's a lot of cool stuff, but not an insane amount of color. Even in the artists rendition the snow covered area is very.. turn of the century London.. with a lot of warm but not over done colors. I hope they keep it that way and capture those aspects.. instead of Disneying up the color. If they do, darker paint on the dragons would actually look pretty sharp. Again.. making the artists rendering more than what its worth (but maybe not.. since everything from the facades on IOACentral.com, to Hagrids hut look just like the painting) the dragons on there look to be dark green.

There were four dragons in the Triwizard tournament so maybe the next poll will be for the other two and those would end up as the new theme for dragons. You would think that because the whole area is going to be brand new they would paint Dragons accordingly instead of having a faded coaster in the middle of brand new everything!

They look nice!! But they ARE missing the crime scene tape in the SFA parking lot.

Thinking about the Dragons retheme.. I don't think the change will be as dramatic as some people think. It makes the most sense with the current theme to just keep the dragons (except the poor statues...) and turn it into a Triwizard Tournament theme. For those of you non Harry Potter fans, in the Triwizard Tournament Harry gets chased on his broom by... a.. you guessed it.. dragon. Change around the front of the castle by adding on some tents, add a Dumbledore pre-show in the current Stained Glass Chamber, replace Merlin's Spell Book with the Triwizard Cup with cool special effects, change around some rooms to Hogwarts'ish stuff, and presto! Harry Potter theme. I do hope that with the retheme however they do a few things: 1. Paint the track/dragons to make them "darker" 2. Figure out a way to make the Express Line work! 3. I always thought some crazy mist in the pond underneath would add a lot to the ride. With Dragons though.. the height requirement isn't going to change.. so I dont think there's really a need to spend a ton of money on a complete overhaul when the ride isn't geared towards families. Ok some more food for thought.. in the last picture I posted. There's Hagrids Hut.. looking just as it does right now! But behind it, there's a building. To me that looks like a new.. and massive.. station to the Flying Unicorn. It even looks like there's an area for an outdoor queue. Then there's also a path leading into the now extended queue area between Dragons/Unicorn. It'd make perfect sense for the Forbidden Forest to go in there because it's already pretty wooded. Those are my latest impressions! As a disclaimer.. I worked at Dragons/Unicorn years ago so I have good overall knowledge of the area! But I dont have any insider info.. nor would I want to put anyone who still works there in that position! This is just what Im gathering from everything I see going on! Hagrid's Hut and new Unicorn building? Zoomed in Castle.. you can see the new entrance and people in line I'm guessing. Triwizard Dragon

Wow.. that's very accurate to the movies! This whole project confuses me in how it's all going to come together to be anywhere close to the renderings. There's a huge amount of work left to be done in the next year!! Including the retheme to Hogsmeade Village, the Forbidden Forrest, whatever will happen to the current Dragons theme... etc) I wish Universal would leak out just a litttttleee more information! I guess that might come out with the new movie though.

Tom Petty.. amazing.. but I'm biased

Wow.. the concert stage looks great! I love the kind of retro look going on. Also http://www.discoveruniversal.com/webcam.cfm has a webcam. The quality isn't the greatest though.. looks like a support for the lift or the first "not a loop" element is up though.

It does look like a castle spire.. or maybe the roof of Hagrid's Hut?! Since the retheme of the Flying Unicorn is being themed to Hagrid and that part of the Hogwarts "campus".. I'm wondering if the queue of the attraction will wind its way through the different area's of Hogwarts (which would be awesome).. or if there will also be a whole separate area in the castle that will be open to all guests. Can you imagine if they have a character dining/show that takes place throughout Hogwarts and ends with dinner in the Great Hall??! That would make the long waiting list at Cinderella's Castle seem like NOTHING and would be a must do for a ton of guests and people would pay! They could even hold it after park hours (in the offseason) and have guests take a boat from the Port of Entry to Hogwarts.. in the dusk/darkness.. it'd be HUGE! Anyways.. I do hope they can capture the creepy/scary atmosphere of some parts of the book in the ride instead of making it too kiddy!

I used to work at Universal and Disney.. Check out the University of Central Florida. They have a "theme park management" major. I think the school is called the Rosen School of Hospitality Management. I had a few friends at Universal that were going to classes there and they actually take trips to the parks to see how they operate, and they work very closely with Disney, Universal, Busch, and Wet N' Wild as far as management internships. Definitely something to check out! The best part is.. the campus (which is awesome) is 5 minutes down the road from Universal!

Awesome updates! I'm kind of sad I no longer work at IOA or live in FL! The next two years are going to be so exciting for Universal!! Plus Seaworld, and Im sure Disney will have something up it's sleeve. That has to be what the Dragons sign is for. It looks like the entrance of Dragons will be up almost where the castle is now when the construction is done. So once they start ripping up the rest of the Lost Continent, the lower Dragons queue, and everything in front of the ride (Hopefully not the statues!!) they'll reroute the queue across the old bridge?! Is that where the sign is? Sadly the line will still be close to the same length from there!

I LOVE APPLIANCES!!! Great TR so far.. and great job on the most frustrating mini golf course ever!

When I worked at Dragons we did use the overflow queue on a few days. Mainly over the holidays, horror nights, and spring break when we could only have 4 trains. One thing they need to do with Dragons during the retheming is to figure out a better way to do the Express queue... the new way down the stairs is almost as bad as the old way. The construction's looking good though!

I really couldn't tell a huge difference between Fahrenheit and a vertical coaster like Storm Runner... except that the airtime is amazzzzing! I'm sure Maverick is just as great.

I will miss you Alchemy Bar!! It does suck that the Enchanted Oak is gone. Although I'm sure the whole Hogsmeade/Potter area will be nothing short of amazing. From what I remember from reading the books the Three Broomsticks is a restaurant/bar type place in Hogsmeade. I didn't read the books closely enough to have a whole lot of details other than that! I'm sure someone else will. That concept art looks pretty cool though. I'm still wondering how Hogwarts will be done. I hope they figure out a way to recreate the Great Hall with the ceiling!

Incredible pictures!! When Steel Hawg was first announced and all the way up to about 5 minutes ago I thought it was an awful concept and a hideous coaster but it actually looks pretty awesome! It could just be your pictures though! haha. The downward barrel roll is just plain sick looking! There are so many cool things they could do with that. Imagine that element leading into a tunnel or something! *drool* Ok getting too excited. Great report.

Awesome TR! Makes me miss the old family vacations out there! Too bad the hotel we stayed at burnt to the ground! haha. I was amazed last year after having not been there for 5 years how much nicer the area surrounding the Boardwalk has gotten. Especially the northern part. No pictures of how awesome the ferris wheel is at night?! Again, great pictures and report!! Eric *had his first steps at Wildwood* Geiple

You're going to hate Millenium Force if you rank coasters strictly based on airtime and forces. Millie has floater air at best.. but the drop and the ride in general is pure fun! Then again.. I'm part of that weird group that ranks coasters based on how much fun I have on them over other factors.. which is probably why the parks that have a crappy overall atmosphere (Six Flags America.. ) could have an amazing coaster and because of the park the coaster doesn't seem as good to me. Now.. Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the complete opposite where rides seem to be better because the park is so awesome! Great report and pictures by the way!

Yeah when it launches in the station it gives out a similar SCREEEEECCHHHH that sounds like a person dying very traumatically. In my opinion they should just stop using the holding brake. I think it kind of ruins the last big drop. Save some electricity!