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nickbuol

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  • Birthday 08/18/1972

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  1. Same here. I did, however, just skip to the parts that Robb mentioned so that I could see the "coaster" parts. I still want some level of surprise when I ride it. The first part, at :44 in, must seem frightening in the dark as someone was screaming/hyperventilating pretty hard. Hehehe
  2. ^ Thanks. I know that some people have been wondering about this. For those that have ridden Gringotts, is the regular line "experience" worth going through one time? We are going in a week and a half (always arrive about an hour early with tickets in hand), but don't have early park access. It sounds like when they open the park, the wait is around 2 hours already. We will be at USO for 2/3 of the first day, and then a full day after that. Is it worth sitting in the full line to get the whole experience on the first day, and then just going to the single rider line the next day? Or should we just skip the full line and hit single rider both days? We do have 1 Harry Potter nut in our family, but she also understands the practicality of things too and if the full queue experience is just "meh" then we will hit single rider from the start. Thanks in advance for any suggestions on this.
  3. Good point. I forgot about that slogan. You are right again, Sir... I can't wait for even more expansions to the park beyond the current HP stuff. So much speculation on how their "5 year plan" could play out. Bring on the rides, Universal! We love 'em!
  4. Here is a crazy concept for the "Diagon Alley should have had more rides" arguement (either way)... Remember that this land is at Universal Studios. USO isn't the "rides" park, it is the "movies and shows" park. IOA is the "rides" park. My first trip to USO was back in 1996, and IOA was about 5 years ago. I live with a 15 year old Potter nut, have seen the Hogsmeade area back when it was the Flying Unicorn and not Flight of the Hippogriff, and so forth. Obviously when they re-themed IOA and added 1 ride, they saw what it did to attendance and profits. They needed something for USO now to really kick it into gear. So they added a themed land and 1 ride dedicated to that land. Throw in that people complained, or at least were disapointed when they couldn't actually ride the Hogwarts Express, and they had their idea for their first park-to-park ride system that fit the theme of both parks now. So depending on how you look at it, they both got 1 "cutting edge" ride and a lot of theming. It sounds like Diagon Alley received a lot more of the theming to push the bar up, but as previously mentioned by others, this is to simulate the movie scenes as if they were real life. So it is back to replicating a movie experience through sets, shops, small shows, just like the rest of USO. So in that aspect, while I too would love more rides, I understand why they did what they did, and it really is the same number of new rides as IOA got with Hogsmeade.
  5. Interesting that the current wait for Gringotts about 20 minutes ago was 100 minutes compared to the super long 450 minutes yesterday. Well, that is assuming that the tweets and wait time apps are correct.
  6. No, but it isn't bad at all either. 85m - Despicable Me 90m - Rip Ride Rockit 65m - Transformers 45m - Simpsons 40m - Mummy Everything else is 30minutes or less. So not Dead, but for peak season, pretty good. IOA is lower, but not dead either. Dudley Do-Right's is as 100m (which is normal) Forbidden Journey is only at 55m which is lower than the normal 90m and so forth. So yes, people either stayed away today, or are all in line for Diagon Alley.
  7. ^ I won't be there until the 27th of July, but I am pretty excited from what I've been reading. Granted I am not looking forward to the massive lines (peak season regardless of the expansion) or the stupid hot/humid Florida weather.
  8. No you don't... The line for Gringotts alone would consume most of your day. Today is literally THE busiest day that Diagon Alley will see. If I was in Orlando this week, I would rather go tomorrow when it will be busy, not not plain stupid busy like today, and still be one of the first (ok, first thousand) people to experience it.
  9. My family of 5 (the "kids" are 15, 20, and 21 with the oldest actually being my 20 year old's boyfriend) are going Sunday July 27th until about 5:00 (meeting up at a resort with other family for a "reunion vacation" of sorts) then all day Monday and Tuesday, and probably the morning of that Wednesday. We always get there about an hour before the gates open, and we already know that there will be a decent crowd already by then. Even so, I am trying to convince my family to do the single rider line, but they are reluctant. I told them "we are still going to spend 30, 60, 90 minutes in line able to talk to each other, and it is just the couple of minutes on a ride that we will get split up, but they aren't having it. I even told them that most rides don't accommodate families of 5 (targeted towards 4) and we aren't all going to sit together anyway... Ugh... I hate going during peak season.
  10. Also agreed 100%. But these are just small bit voice-overs of shadows of the Harry Potter and Hermione Granger characters that are already being portrayed and will have Harry Potter fans like my 15 year old a bad taste for them since they, as my daughter put it, "consider themselves to be 'too good' to do the parts." It isn't like it is video or another movie segment. Then again, you would also think that Universal would have access to enough sound clips and such to put together the audio needed to make it a more complete experience. In my career, I have moved upwards quite a bit in the IT field over the past 20 years since college, but there are times where I am called upon to do work like what I did 20 years ago. It isn't anything that I is in my job description, or even remotely in the realm of what my team even does, but I still jump in to get it done. It doesn't help me to "move up" in my career, but it does usually create a positive experience for the person that needed help. It doesn't mean that I am super excited about it, but I don't turn away from it either. Then again, I am in a group that provides support and help to others, so it is engrained in me to do what needs to be done. I would wager that most actors don't have that drive in them. Anyway, we should probably get back on track with this topic. I was just responding to another comment that was blaming Universal for failing to bring the actors back in. The new stuff looks like it is going to be amazing either way.
  11. Or maybe they're just ready to move on and make a name for themselves with other projects after a decade working on only one. If they don't distance themselves now, when do they ever finally get to move on? It isn't their fault that Universal and J.K. are clinging to it for eternity. (Not that I'm opposed, because I love(d) Potter and I'm 99% sure this new area is going to get me down to Orlando this off-season.) Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree 100%, but you would think that after a decade of massive popularity, consistent work (to make them better actors), and of course a good paycheck, that they would have some level of loyalty even to do some minor bit work for an afternoon or two. My point was just that it wasn't Universal that "dropped the ball" as it was being suggested, but it was the actors just not wanting to do it any more.
  12. You would think so, but Daniel has really been adamant about not doing great ANYTHING H.P. in interviews in the past two years. Emma just followed suit about a year ago. I also read somewhere (about 2 months ago) that his voice/pictures/video that are used for the promotional stuff is from other recordings done previously (some for Forbidden Journey) that since they were signed off on were able to be used for Diagon Alley.
  13. Daniel and Emma both have been trying to distance themselves from the world of Harry Potter for a few years now. Daniel openly says that he won't do anything Harry Potter anymore. So it is more the actors not wanting to do it than Universal not wanting to get them back. Funny how they completely turned their backs on the franchise that made them who they are today.
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