Harry Potter opens June 18th

[Pete]

Announced today, Harry Potter at Universal Orlando will open June 18th

http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter

Pete

[Neil]

Not quite Spring as they were originally saying, no doubt a lot of unhappy May/Early June visitors. On the plus side it will be open for our trip in October!

And then there'll be me having never read one of the books or seen any of the films wondering what everything is!

[Nottingham Nick]

And then there'll be me having never read one of the books....

You don't know what you are missing, Tink. They are smashing yarns for kids of all ages.

Nick

[Pete]

Not quite Spring as they were originally saying, no doubt a lot of unhappy May/Early June visitors. On the plus side it will be open for our trip in October!

Technically Summer starts 21st June, so they are *just* in Spring for the opening... but only *just*

Quite a clever little thing Universal have done here. Brought in a huge brand name and redesigned a couple of public areas and then just given older rides a facelift.....

[Darren Wheeler]

Hopefully they will have worked out any teething problems before October

Balls, just miss it..
Saying that it will be chaos for first 6-12 mths, being new.

Just done some research on any new rides and all they've done is rename "The Flying Unicorn" as "Flight of the Hippogriff" - what is a Hippogriff??

But they've also changed "Duelling Dragons" into "Dragon Challenge" and worst of all is changing the names of Fire Dragon and Ice Dragon to "Chinese Fireball" and "Hungarian Horntail"! WTF??!!!!

I'm gutted!! No more "fire is red and ice is blue, I'd turn back if I were you!"

[Neil]

I thought they had built a new ride for inside the castle, a 3D ride something along the lines of Spiderman but HP themed? I better pop over to The Dibb and see what is what.

I have also never seen the films or read the books, yet am still looking forward to visiting it when we go in October.

Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey (the ride inside Hogwarts - or rather the huge building attached to it) will be amazing. Let me say I've not even seen all of the first Harry Potter film and have not read any of the books - but this is the park that gave us the Spider-Man ride. That is 10 years old and still very highly rated & rightly so.

If you look over on the Dibb, there is a pretty good description of what the ride will do / the scenes it will take in from the films.

I head off to Florida in 6 weeks time and am hoping it will be soft-opening then - if it's not, then there is the excuse for a return visit in November

So will there be a plane with a new paint job called the Nimbus 2000 ?

So will there be a plane with a new paint job called the Nimbus 2000 ?

Have just had to Google "Nimbus 2000" - think I'll just stick to the Hulk coaster when I'm there - Harry Potter land will be lost on me.

Better not ask if Hedwig would qualify for miles then?

Been reading some reviews and looks like there are going to be a lot of unhappy people as the seats for the Forbidden Journey ride are apparently quite small.

The guy reviewing it said the test seat said 52" chest was maximum but it failed him (you get a green light for ok, red for not) yet he's sat in the same sort of seats at Disney and had loads of room - seems the seats are smaller so they can fit more on.

I've been looking forward to this for years but now looks like I won't be going to IoA at all because I am, as a couple of my clients have tactfully mentioned, built like a brick out-house.
If I can't get on the new ride pointless me going - done it to death and find Spider-Man etc. to be incredibly boring.

(oh, and for the record I have a 50" chest. Just. But still was told it was over 52" when I didn't fit into a seat at Busch Gardens in January even though I'd been fitted for a suit the day before so knew my sizes exactly)

A bit of a preview from today's Times can be found here