Tag: Hogsmeade Village


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Wizarding World of Harry Potter will grand open on June 18, ride details emerge

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Ricky
Category: Event, Movies, Theme Parks, Travel

(Photo: KEVIN KOLCZYNSKI, UNIVERSAL ORLANDO / March 25, 2010)

Now it’s official.

Universal Orlando Resort will announce today that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter addition to their Islands of Adventure theme park will indeed open on June 18.

We were asked to keep quiet on this date after we posted it early yesterday, but now that the Orlando Sentinel has posted it in an embargoed-until-midnight article, I assume the word may officially be spread.

The Sentinel’s fantastic article on their web site revealing new details about the Wizarding World. It includes the above image of Dumbledore’s office, faithfully recreated from the films.

More details surrounding the land’s main attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, have emerged from the Sentinel’s article:

  • “…guests will enter the Forbidden Journey ride through the dungeon level of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
  • “In the lowest level are items such as a statue of the one-eyed witch and the Mirror of Erised that, in Potter stories, reveals the heart’s desires.”
  • “Hogwarts is open to muggles for the first time [...] That’s reflected throughout the wait, particularly with talking portraits unaccustomed to having muggles — Rowling’s term for people with no magical ability — in the halls. The portraits, some as tall as 5 feet, address one another and guests, too.”
  • Dumbledore will appear in his office and speak directly to guests.
  • “The Dumbledore character is happy to greet guests — but wants them to sit through a lecture. Harry Potter (as played by actor Daniel Radcliffe) and pals Hermione and Ron intervene in the Defense of the Dark Arts classroom.”
  • Scenes in the ride will include a quidditch match, Dementors, and the Forbidden Forest.
  • The whole experience, from entrance to exit, is said to take an hour, though the exact ride time is unknown at this point.
  • “In some of it you’re touring the castle; in some of it you’re flying around the world of Harry Potter”

    Be sure to read the whole Orlando Sentinel article here for more details.

    As for the grand opening date of June 18… some Wizarding World-related vacation packages currently being offered hint at an earlier soft opening date of May 28.

    It is common for major attractions and expansions to open weeks (sometimes months) before the official grand opening to allow time to work out the bugs. When the Islands of Adventure theme park was first ready for the public, it soft opened in March 1999 but did not grand open until May 1999. Not everything within Islands of Adventure was ready for the soft opening, so it’s possible that only the Hogsmeade Village area of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter will be ready in time for a soft opening in May.

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