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Orlando Trip: The Harry Potter Ride
15 years ago
I'm presently on vacation in Orlando and I went over to Islands of Adventure to check out the new Harry Potter themed area. This is a new section they added to the theme park and it opened just a couple of months ago. Thankfully, now that fall is here the excessive overcrowding by rabid Harry Potter fans has dissipated and you can now visit this themed area with relative ease. I'm a big theme park fan and I will say that they really did a great job with this addition. The addition reportedly cost $265 million and it shows. Everything is very nice done with lots of attention to detail. All the iconic elements from the books are there, all the way down to hearing Moaning Myrtle in the rest rooms.
The lion's share of the money no doubt went into the new dark ride/thrill ride "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey." The ride is outstanding and is by far the most technologically advanced dark ride to date. This ride will undoubtedly displace the Spiderman dark ride (also at Islands of Adventure) as the best dark ride in the world.
I don't want to spoil the ride for people who haven't been on it, so I'll just give you the intro: the premise of the ride is that Harry Potter & company have invited you and a few other muggles to join them in a game of Quidditch. So you can fly along, Hermione casts a flying spell a four seat "bench" so it can fly and carry you along. The ride system is pretty cool and is capable of giving a very convincing illusion of flight, high speeds, banks, and floating in the air. It uses a combination of HD video projection and practical sets that you fly through on a motion control rig. But it's nothing like old style simulator rides like Star Tours since you're not enclosed in a cabin. This is something new. You're just out in the "open air" with your feet dangling.
I've seen and ridden on pieces of the ride technology they use (most notably the Robo-coaster), but this is the first time I've seen all these elements combined together to make a really new kind of ride experience. The ride is also impressively long: the whole ride experience lasts 5.5 minutes and is much more intense than any other dark ride I've been on. There's also a very elaborate and detailed queue line that winds you through familiar sections of Hogwarts.
My favorite part of the ride is when you literally come face to face with a life-sized dragon. It's very cool and that's one of the unique things about this ride system: they can put things right in your face. And I'm not talking about 3D movie images either. I mean real physical set pieces and animatronic characters.
If you like theme park ride experiences, then this is something you'll definitely want to check out. They don't say how much this ride cost, but I'd say it has to be close to $100 million. It's one hell of a dark ride and the show building that houses it is enormous. It's a really great experience and I'm not even that big of a Harry Potter fan.
I've got one more week left in Orlando before I head out to the other side of the country to Rainfurrest in Seattle, and you can bet I'll be spending some more time at Islands of Adventure before I go!
The lion's share of the money no doubt went into the new dark ride/thrill ride "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey." The ride is outstanding and is by far the most technologically advanced dark ride to date. This ride will undoubtedly displace the Spiderman dark ride (also at Islands of Adventure) as the best dark ride in the world.
I don't want to spoil the ride for people who haven't been on it, so I'll just give you the intro: the premise of the ride is that Harry Potter & company have invited you and a few other muggles to join them in a game of Quidditch. So you can fly along, Hermione casts a flying spell a four seat "bench" so it can fly and carry you along. The ride system is pretty cool and is capable of giving a very convincing illusion of flight, high speeds, banks, and floating in the air. It uses a combination of HD video projection and practical sets that you fly through on a motion control rig. But it's nothing like old style simulator rides like Star Tours since you're not enclosed in a cabin. This is something new. You're just out in the "open air" with your feet dangling.
I've seen and ridden on pieces of the ride technology they use (most notably the Robo-coaster), but this is the first time I've seen all these elements combined together to make a really new kind of ride experience. The ride is also impressively long: the whole ride experience lasts 5.5 minutes and is much more intense than any other dark ride I've been on. There's also a very elaborate and detailed queue line that winds you through familiar sections of Hogwarts.
My favorite part of the ride is when you literally come face to face with a life-sized dragon. It's very cool and that's one of the unique things about this ride system: they can put things right in your face. And I'm not talking about 3D movie images either. I mean real physical set pieces and animatronic characters.
If you like theme park ride experiences, then this is something you'll definitely want to check out. They don't say how much this ride cost, but I'd say it has to be close to $100 million. It's one hell of a dark ride and the show building that houses it is enormous. It's a really great experience and I'm not even that big of a Harry Potter fan.
I've got one more week left in Orlando before I head out to the other side of the country to Rainfurrest in Seattle, and you can bet I'll be spending some more time at Islands of Adventure before I go!
