ka8911

Glad you had a fun time!! I agree about the awesome Falcon's Fury noises. I think my favorite is the "Falcon's Squeak" when the seats tilt!

Falcon's Fury has officially opened to guests!

Just had my first ride on Falcon's Fury at employee previews! It is OMFG AMAZING! The drop is INSANE! Well exceeded my expectations. Will be riding for the rest of the night!

Here's some video I took of Falcon's Fury testing this past Wednesday. Notice how the seats now begin tilting before the car reaches the top. Also, there's not much time left to catch the Summer Nights show, "Kinetix." It's a great show with a live band, singers, dancers, crazy acrobatics, and a fireworks finale!

Here's a pic I snapped with my phone the other day. Not the best photo, but it gives you an idea.

Thanks for the update! Looks like a "big smiles, just plain fun" kind of ride! Those animatronics really do look amazing. Can't wait to ride it, especially at night. The views should be fantastic!

Headed over to Busch yesterday afternoon. Took a few pics with my iPhone. Enjoy! They were working on a cool Falcon topiary. Ride sign looks nice. New stands look quite nice. Also what looks to be a fountain in the middle of the picture. Stopped by the new Twisted Tails Pretzels in Pantopia. I just had to get a bacon pretzel with beer infused cheese. It was pretty darn good! The new show "Burn the Floor: Untapped" is now running at the Desert Grill. This flamenco inspired dance show is a lot of fun! I took a ride on the skyride, and was surprised when I got over Rhino Rally. They were driving the trucks through the course, and running through load/unload procedures. Looks like they're getting ready to open for the summer. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

I agree... I can't believe how fast those seats snap back into place! I was expecting a soft return to the upright position... Not a neck breaking snap! I cannot wait to experience this bad boy!!! Wonder if the seatsare supposed to snap back that quick... Maybe the broken cylinder was caused by them tilting too quick? Seats are supposed to start tilting back in the pre-brake section making it a smooth transition. Right now, the seats are tilting back in the actual braking section. What makes you say that? I thought the idea was to have them kick out quickly in the brakes.That's what this video made it look like.

Was at the parks yesterday, got to IOA around 1PM. When I got there, Hulk wasn't running. The water below the cobra roll/loop was drained, and there was a large cherry-picker sitting under the cobra roll. I tried to take a picture, but an employee ran up to me saying, "Sir, no pictures!" When I left the cherry picker was gone and they were cycling empty trains. Anybody know what might have been going on?

^I rather doubt they will hide the supports in the waterfalls. In the concept art there are large root structures leading from the ground to the mountains, and connecting the mountains to each other. It looks like the support structure will be hidden in these roots. Also, it looks like some of the mountains may be touching the ground.

Very sad news. I really wonder how this happened. Correct me if I'm wrong(I've never seen Ka), but I remember watching a bit on it on the Travel Channel. I thought I remembered that they had a large net under the stage, and that at one point during the show a performer deliberately took an untethered fall from the top of the stage into the net.

Wow... Check out this jem from YouTube.

I'll e-mail him. Sorry, I imagined I needed to pay for my guest, I just wan't sure how.

Hey, so I was wondering about adding guests to my order. When I ordered my ticket, I just wrote my guest's name in the box that asked for my guests names. Is this all I need to do? Do I need to pay anything extra for my guest? Sorry, I'm new at this, we've never had a TPR event down here in FL!

Haha, you guys should check out some of the comments being posted on the employee testing video on Youtube. Apparently, Cheetah Hunt is already the worst, most dissapointing ride on the planet... and it hasn't even opened yet!!

Robb, I should have checked to see if anyone else got an email for the event. I usually get the newsletter from Universal, I'm trying to figure out why I didn't get this one. I checked my settings and junk box, nothing wrong there. As I said in the post above^, I was blowing off a little steam when I posted this last night. I soon composed myself and wrote a friendly email to customer service. I didn't blame them for the email, but asked them if I had somehow been withdrawn from the email list. Heck, for all I know maybe I accidentally did it without realizing. If I did I asked them how I could get myself back on. I am certainly not the kind to b*tch at customer service, they get enough b*tching as it is!

Mr.Morgan, Excellent advice, this is always the best thing to do in a situation like this. I already sent them a nice email. I understand that if I want respect from someone, I must show respect first. (I've been next in line behind the guy shouting at the poor customer service girl... Oh boy!) I was just blowing off some steam last night... Haha. As for the Forbidden Journey, when I first rode it during technical rehearsal, I was amazed. I'm real big on the technilogical stuff on these rides, so I was astonished by the KUKA arms; and once I figured out the screen turntables I couldn't get over how ingenious they were. So my first few rides that day I really loved, especially as I started to look and see all the behind the scenes stuff. My next visit I was much less impressed. I realized a lot of things now that the initial excitement had died down. I realized "Hey it's cool that I can see the behind the scenes stuff and see the KUKA arm next to me but.... I'm not really supposed to see that." And you see the arm next to you A LOT! I also found the projection scenes were very blurry and there was somthing just generally "off" with them. I think maybe the foreground (Harry and friends on their broomsticks) and the background (Hogwarts and what not) weren't synched up quite right. Whatever it was it made the projection "strange." It also seems to be what makes a lot of people dizzy and sick on the ride. I also found that the story.... well, there wasn't one. It was just a mishmash of "experiences" from the Potter movies. It moved along way to quickly and made for one disorganized mess of a ride. And then at the end a lame flat projection of Harry and friends tells us that we somehow did an honorable job and won something... Okay? In the end I think the ride is still very fun and a good experience overall. I do fantasize over "What if Disney had done it?" Haha, but as Universal's standards go, this is a great ride. I do think spiderman is better as an overall ride with a story that's actually there. My favorite dark ride is still definitely Indy @ Disneyland, but that's a whole different ball park!

Hey everyone, Just thought I'd post my little complaint here. So, my family and I live in Tampa, FL and we have been passholders at Universal/Islands for 7 years now. We have been very loyal customers and spent a lot of good money there. I was starting to wonder if they were ever going to have a passholder event for the WW. Imagine my excitement this evening as I found a fancy looking card in the mail that read (in the classic Harry Potter font) "After Hours Passholder Event- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter." "FFFFIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNAAAAAAAALLLLYYY!!!!!" I thought!! I was teaming with excitement as I read- "To mark the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 movie, we invite you to attend an Annual Passholder event in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Islands of Adventure.- Saturday, November 20, 2010 8pm-10pm... Space is limited... Premier and Preffered Passholders must RSVP..." Great, I thought. I wasn't worried at all about the limited space... I figured that if I just got the letter today, and I live but an hour away, the registration must have just opened today as well... Boy was I wrong... Once my father got home from work (around 8pm) I ran it by him and he was just as excited as I was. I ran to the computer and entered in the web address from the card... A wonderful, exciting page came up about the event. I entered in my passholder information and pressed enter... Here's what came up... "This event has reached capacity... We apologize for any inconvinience. Please check universalorlando.com/annualpass for other exciting passholder benefits and updates."....................... WTF??? Is this some kind of joke? I get an invitation to this event when it's already SOLD OUT?? Where's the logic in that? I would expect better treatment after 7 years of continued service to this place!! I then searched the web and found that registration had opened 8 days ago. Once again... WTF??? I recieved no email notification (and I'm on the passholder email list), no phone call, and I just got the card in the mail today! Was I expected to somehow telekinetically know that there was a passholder event?? My A$$!! So I'm not too happy with Universal right now... Thanks for reading, Andy "Universal really let me down on this one" McEwen

Here's the photo's from the Saturday a week later. The sun had slipped under the horizon and there was a large ominous florida thunderstorm hanging above.... 101_1054.bmp Oooo! Scary Wizarding World!! 101_1056.bmp Hogwarts looks AWESOME at night! You've got to see it in person!!! 101_1058.bmp It was actually really dark out in these photos but the lightning is lighting up the clouds!! 101_1060.bmp See? 101_1061.bmp Cool, huh? 101_1065.bmp WWoHP looks great at night 101_1069.bmp I'll leave you with this one! Thanks for reading! I recommend checking out the WW! See what you think!

Hey everyone, I thought I'd share my photos from back in early June (the 13th and 14th, i believe) of the Wizarding World. So I'm a little late... Big deal! Wanna fight about it?? I have been a passholder at Universal/Islands for many years and have been really looking forward to this. I had some family in town so we stayed at the onsite hotel "Royal Pacific" and went to the parks for two days. You can imagine my excitement when I was told that the land was open for technical rehearsal . The lines were amazing!! Spiderman was no more than a 20 minute wait all day. 10 minutes at most times! The lines always seem to be like this right around early June. As for the Forbidden Journey ride, after riding it 9 times now I must say that I REALLY loved it. It might just be because I'm a real sucker for technology and special effects on rides. I mean, when I figured out that screen turntable they created I was AMAZED. That is such an ingenious design!! I bet you that probably 95% of people on that ride have no idea what is actually going on when they're in those screens. That stuff just fascinates me... I must admit that the story was very convoluted. They really just tried to fit as many experiences from the movies into the ride as they could without much regard to a story at all... but you don't really think about that while you're on the ride. You're just having fun. And it's a hell of a fun ride, with some amazing special effects. And man... things really get surprisingly close to you. That first dementor gets me every time!!! So this report goes through my first day of the trip, then our early morning "hotel ERT" at WWoHP the next morning, and then a short night visit the next weekend. Enjoy! 101_0877.bmp Hogwarts! Oooh, aaah! At this point I still had no idea it was open! 101_0878.bmp Oooooh, aaaaaaahhhhh 101_0880.bmp So we walked by Port of Entry and there were some workers there saying the Wizarding World was open! We bolted straight for it of course!! 101_0881.bmp I see open gates!! 101_0882.bmp Open!! 101_0883.bmp Here we go! 101_0884.bmp WOW. What a sight! 101_0887.bmp Hogsmeade! The picture's crooked, big deal! Wanna fight about it?? 101_0888.bmp The steam coming from the Hogwarts Express was a great touch. It made for a very dramatic "adventurous" feel as you entered. 101_0889.bmp Ooooooo.... 101_0890.bmp Aaaaaahhhh.... 101_0891.bmp Hogsmeade really is incredibly well themed! 101_0892.bmp 101_0894.bmp There it is! Hogwarts is truly a sight to behold. 101_0895.bmp 75 minute wait? I didn't care! I was so darn excited to see what this ride was! I had kept myself from looking up anything about this ride, so I was clueless! 101_0897.bmp Hogwarts! 101_0898.bmp More Hogwarts!! 101_0903.bmp Here we are in the greenhouse. I felt this section could use a little more theming. It was like they needed more queue space so they threw this in there. 101_0908.bmp Moving along... 101_0909.bmp Hogwarts+Potterbox 101_0913.bmp 101_0916.bmp Mandrakes anyone? 101_0918.bmp 101_0919.bmp 101_0922.bmp OMG! We're going inside!! 101_0923.bmp It seemed like they had a lot of red-headed people on staff here. Wealeys maybe?? 101_0925.bmp You'll have to excuse the quality of my indoor shots. I just have a little $100 camera so bear with me! 101_0926.bmp It's the point counter thingy! Gryffindor's winning!! Why are they always winning?? 101_0928.bmp 101_0931.bmp I see Dumbledore's office! 101_0935.bmp Cool. 101_0937.bmp Very cool! 101_0939.bmp Now we go through some dark corridors with the talking paintings. I personally thought this effect was very nice. They had some sort of wax or somthing over the screen that made it look textured very much like an oil painting. 101_0941.bmp Hello Dumbledore's office 101_0942.bmp Dumbledore is talking to us! I thought he was dead now??? Hmmm..... 101_0943.bmp I was really impressed by the scale of all this stuff, these rooms seem to be full scale. I would LOVE to see blueprints to see how they fit this massive ride and this massive line all in one building. 101_0945.bmp 101_0946.bmp It's Dumbledore's memory thing! I want to take it and put it in my living room!! 101_0950.bmp The defense against the dark arts room. Did I mention this stuff is big?? 101_0953.bmp RAWR!!! 101_0955.bmp 101_0958.bmp So we got stuck in front of this bulletin board for about 25 minutes during a little breakdown. I still had no idea what I was waiting for... Oh, and there's no AT&T service in Hogwart's 101_0960.bmp Moving along into the Gryffindor common room, where you get a safety briefing from the talking paintings. Props to universal for giving them two different spiels to cycle through. Stops it from getting annoying. Once again, big sets! 101_0966.bmp The sorting hat animatronic was very good for universal's standards. 101_0968.bmp What's this?? 101_0969.bmp Little benches coming out of the wall?? That's it?!?! 101_0970.bmp Little did I know about the 20 feet of KUKA arm hiding behind that wall! There's somthing so cool about that to me, that your on the floor but you're really like 15 feet off the ground on this massive piece of machinery... 101_0971.bmp Now that I've ridden, how about another shot of Hogwarts?? 101_0974.bmp Back to hogsmeade 101_0975.bmp 101_0976.bmp We sat down to lunch at the Three Broomsticks. I recommend the shepherd's pie. Everything else was "okay" but the shepherd's pie was very good. I really liked the butterbeer. It was REALLY sweet. I'de recommend having it in the mornig or at night or for dessert, not in the middle of the day in our hot Florida sun. 101_0977.bmp These little displays were very cool. 101_0978.bmp 101_0979.bmp 101_0980.bmp 101_0981.bmp 101_0982.bmp Didn't get around to checking out the Olivander's show. Should be there again in a few days so maybe I will. I hope they have a better queue system because the little sloppy line they had out in the hot sun looked miserable! 101_0984.bmp Hogsmeade, Hogsmeade.... 101_0985.bmp Decided to check out this shop. It was hard to move in there it was so packed. I'm still not sure on how I stand on the size issue, the small size made it feel more authentic but it's also a MAJOR destination and is going to be swarmed with people all the time. I don't know.... 101_0986.bmp This book is SURLY! 101_0987.bmp 101_0989.bmp Let's ride Dueling D.... er... Dragon Challenge.... I'm NEVER going to get used to that! Sort of like "Hollywood Studios" it will always be MGM in my book! Anyways... 101_0993.bmp Hogwarts really has quite the presence over the whole area. 101_0994.bmp There was lots of press that day, including this helicopter! 101_0995.bmp 101_0996.bmp There's Hagrid's Hut! 101_0997.bmp And the Weasley's enchanted car 101_0998.bmp This neat little thing was in one of the windows, it had the dragon chasing harry around. 101_0999.bmp 101_1002.bmp Look, owl's! 101_1006.bmp The whole area looks really cool! 101_1007.bmp The channel 6 news team had an impressive boom. 101_1011.bmp Hog...Warts... 101_1018.bmp The next morning we headed over for our "hotel ERT." Not anywhere as cool as TPR ERT but, ERT the same. 101_1029.bmp On this morning the fence was gone... A moment of silence please for the late Wizarding World Fence...... Thank you. 101_1031.bmp WWoHP on a lovely Florida morning. Very nice 101_1037.bmp Oooo.... 101_1038.bmp Aaaahhh.... 101_1039.bmp Oooooo... 101_1043.bmp Aaaahhhh... So on this morning I got 5 more rides in bringing my tally up to 8! We spent the rest of the day over at universal and left in the afternoon.

My final tally for this weekend on Forbbiden Journey is 7 rides! What a great ride!!!

Hey everyone, I had a great day at Universal/Islands checking out Harry Potter land yesterday. I have some pictures to post when I get home, until then I'll just say that the forbidden journey is AMAZING and the whole land is just a lot of good fun!! My group and I are staying at the onsite Royal Pacific resort and when we came home last night we found a nice surprise. We got a sheet of paper saying that the hotel guests would get to come an hour early to the park (8:00) to have Harry Potter land to ourselves!!! About to head over now. This should be fun!!

Just thought I'de give a heads up that I'm heading up to Universal on Sunday and will be taking PLENTY of pictures of Rip Ride Rockit!!!! I will hopefully post them that night, if not then monday. I should get some good shots. Can't wait to see this thing!!!

Thanks for all the advice guys! It's well appreciated.

Yes, this is backwarsds!! I'm not that computer savy, okay?