ka8911 Posted August 16, 2010 Posted August 16, 2010 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.
ka8911 Posted August 16, 2010 Author Posted August 16, 2010 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!
tiger01 Posted August 16, 2010 Posted August 16, 2010 Nice TR! Looks amazing that ride! Wish I Could Visit Islands of Adventure because I really want to try out Dueling Dragons (opps) and the water rides! Sounds like a great park to visit!
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