Tag: Universal Studios
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 347 – Goodbye Jaws
To say goodbye to the classic attraction, I rode Jaws six times in a row at Universal Studios, recording video, audio, and taking pictures all the way through. I’m working on a full tribute to the ride and its surrounding Amity area, which will close Jan. 2, 2012 to make way for something new. Whether it’s Harry Potter, Transformers, Madagascar, or something else, I will always miss Jaws, if only a little. It’s a ride I’ve enjoyed for the past 20 years or so.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 337 – Universal Orlando Christmas
Following a night of Christmas entertainment at SeaWorld, I visited Universal Orlando to take in all of their Christmas excitement in both theme parks, from Grinchmas to Macy’s Holiday Parade to the most excellent Mannheim Steamroller concert. Other than sitting down for the Grinchmas show, I was on my feet for somewhere around 5 hours – but it was worth it! It’s nice to see each of Orlando’s competing theme parks do Christmas a quite differently from each other. They’re all worth checking out.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 235 – Halloween is coming
As kids go back to school, there’s only one thing on my mind: Halloween. It’s the time of year when spooky decorations start replacing pencils and notebooks on store shelves and I spend way too much money adding to my collection. Now is also when I eagerly anticipate my favorite theme park event each year: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. My anticipation has been fueled in recent weeks with increasingly blood-stained cards showing up in the mail, as teasers for what’s to come. I look forward to spending many nights wandering the darkened, fog-filled Universal streets in search of a good scare or two.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 227 – Goodbye Jimmy Neutron
During another 1/2 price Wednesday visit to Dave & Buster’s, I spotted a group of people wearing “Closing Team” shirts for Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast at Universal Studios Orlando. The attraction is being replaced by a ride based on “Despicable Me” and it seems this group was at D&B to have some fun after helping to shut it down. I still miss Nickelodeon Studios and while the Jimmy Neutron attraction was never as good as the old Hanna-Barbara ride, it still held onto some Nick fun, particularly in the SpongeBob sequence. I’m not terribly upset over Jimmy Neutron leaving, but not excited about Despicable Me replacing it either. In between the two, I wish Universal would bring back Hanna-Barbara, if only for a week or two as a tribute.
Wizarding World of Harry Potter will grand open on June 18, ride details emerge
(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:
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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