Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Within Hogwarts Castle lies Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
Islands of Adventure
Area	The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Status	Operating
Opening date	June 18, 2010 (2010-06-18)
Universal Studios Hollywood
Area	The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Status	Announced
Opening date	2014
General Statistics
Attraction Type	Dark ride
Designer	Universal Creative
Theme	Harry Potter universe
Vehicle type	Enchanted benches (Robotic arm)
Vehicles	47
Riders per vehicle	4
Rows	1
Riders per row	4
Duration	5 minutes
Height restriction	4 ft 0 in (122 cm)
Track system	Busbar
Manufacturer	Dynamic Structures, KUKA
Ride Hosts	Harry Potter Ron Weasley Hermione Granger
Single rider line available
Amusement Parks Portal

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is an attraction at the Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida and currently under construction at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California. It is the signature ride of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter area of Islands of Adventure, and takes riders through scenes and environments in and around Hogwarts Castle from the various books and films of the Harry Potter series. Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative, described the ride as an in-depth look at the world of Harry Potter, which utilizes never before seen technology which transforms "the theme park experience as you know it". It opened with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter section on June 18, 2010. The attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood is expected to open in 2014.

Summary

This summary describes the attraction at Islands of Adventure. The attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood may have significant differences.

Entrance to the ride.

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey utilizes KUKA robocoaster technology, which allows the seats to pivot while being held above the track by a robotic arm. However, the ride is not a roller coaster but a scenic dark ride. The experience includes scenes such as flying around Hogwarts castle, encountering the Whomping Willow and a horde of Dementors, and being caught in a Quidditch match. The ride performs such movements as dropping, spinning around, twisting and turning. The ride does not go upside down, though there are a few moments when riders are flat on their backs. Over-the-shoulder bars are used to secure guests in their seats, and there is a single metal bar shaped somewhat like a parabola which gives guests something to grip. At the conclusion of the ride, guests exit into "Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods" gift shop. Universal Express Plus is not available for this attraction at this time, but it does offer a Single Rider queue.

Queue Area

The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom forms a portion of the queue.

To enter the ride, guests walk through the gates of Hogwarts and begin their journey in the dungeons where they see familiar items from both the movies and books. First, they enter through the castle doors and go to the lockers. Riders will then queue up outside in the green house and then enter the back castle doors. Fans will recognize such objects as the Mirror of Erised, the Hogwarts House Jewels, and talking portraits, and, as they proceed throughout the hallways, encounter various recreations of the rooms of Hogwarts castle, including the Headmaster's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and the Gryffindor common room. In the Headmaster's office, Professor Dumbledore extends a warm welcome to all Muggles, informing them that Professor Binns is hosting a lecture on the history of the school. Visitors move on, to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where Harry, Ron, and Hermione appear from under the Invisibility Cloak, urging guests instead to meet them in the Room of Requirement in order to sneak everyone down to a Quidditch match. Ron tries to perform a magic trick which goes wrong, resulting in one of several special effects to occur, such as snow falling down on visitors. Before continuing on, visitors receive a safety reminder from both the Sorting Hat as well as several paintings in the next two rooms.

Station

4 guests board an "enchanted bench" for the ride.

Next, riders board an "enchanted bench" inside the Room of Requirement, which lifts off the ground and through the Floo Network to take them on a journey with Harry. The ride combines real sets and audio animatronics with segments that utilize wrap-around projection screens.

Ride

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) in a scene from the ride-film of the attraction.

The ride begins with a dousing of Floo Powder from Hermione, who asks the guests to say, "Observatory" in order to successfully transport them to their desired location, and the enchanted bench flies off through the Floo Network to the Astronomy Tower. The guests then come out of the Astronomy Tower's fireplace into a set of the Observatory itself, where they look out through the open arches to the hills and lake right outside of Hogwarts' bounds. As the guests fly out of one of the Observatory's arches, the ride smoothly switches to a wrap-around projection screen and they follow Harry Potter and Ron Weasley around Hogwarts' buildings and towers to their Quidditch match. As Harry and Ron travel under a bridge, Hagrid yield the riders and asks them if they have seen a dragon. As Harry redirects the riders' attentions back to their journey, Hagrid's new pet Hungarian Horntail Dragon (which he lost, as per rumors told by the paintings and 'students' alike) ironically begins to chase the riders. The bench flies out of the projection screen and into a set of the uneven bridge that runs over the valley behind Hogwarts and, after falling out of a hole in the floor of the bridge, encounter an audio-animatronic dragon, which breathes false fire at them.

The riders descend into a set of the Forbidden Forest, where they encounter a figure of the large acromantula, Aragog, who spits fake venom (water) at them. As Hermione attempts to help the riders away from the acromantulas (using Arrania Exumai) and towards the castle (encountering many spiders on the way), they encounter an audio-animatronic Whomping Willow which swipes at them, conveniently knocking them into the Quidditch pitch. The ride once again returns to a projection screen as the riders become caught up in Harry's and Ron's game of Quidditch (which is tied). As Slytherin scores into Gryffindor's goal, Dementors begin to arrive at the Quidditch pitch, and Harry attempts to lead the riders away through the structure of the Pitch and back to the school, but their bench falls into the long-abandoned Chamber of Secrets through the hole through which Harry, Ron, Ginny, Fawkes, and Gilderoy Lockhart escaped in the second Harry Potter installment. The riders return to a real set as the Dementors pop out of the pipelines at them and chase them. The skeleton of the long-deceased Basilisk (killed near the climax of Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets) lies on the floor of the Chamber, and expels Lord Voldemort's Dark Mark into the air as the benches are drawn hazily into the mouth of Salazar Slytherin's statue.

Many Dementors emerge from the darkness while one descends and attempts to suck out the rider's souls. This effect is achieved by projecting the rider's faces onto a cloud of fog in front of the Dementor, blasting cold air towards the riders, and using a deep heart-beat played through the sub-woofers within the benches themselves. After shaking the riders out of the trance, Harry causes the Dementors to flee by using the protective Patronus charm.

After the final Dementor and while Harry uses his Patronus, the riders are thrust back into the final video dome segment, where the cliffs outside the Chamber of Secrets begin to cave in. They fly over the Black Lake, back into Hogwarts and through the Main Hall and Grand Staircase, where they are cheered on by a series of on-screen characters from the movies made to appear three-dimensional using the "squenching" perspective technique. Professor Dumbledore sends everyone back through the Floo Network to the Room of Requirement, where they exit their bench.

Restrictions

Test seats exist at the entrance of the queue.

While everyone is able to walk through the queue, all riders must be at least 48" tall. While there is no posted weight limit, riders can test whether the attraction accommodates their size by using test seats at the queue entrance and again at the end of the queue. If passengers are unable to secure the ride's over-the-shoulder harness, they are not allowed to go on the ride but can still walk through the ride queue. The seats at the beginning and end of the queue are equipped with red, yellow, and green lights that indicate whether or not the rider can be accommodated. Persons requiring modified seating on other rides may have difficulty closing the harness.

In an attempt to alleviate this problem, Universal has modified the restraint system on some of the seats to accommodate larger guests. These modifications will not affect the actual size of the seat nor will they provide a dangerous situation for other smaller guests. Guests who receive a yellow light on the test seats may sit in modified seating.

Production

KUKA robotic arms, similar to those used on Robocoasters (pictured), are used on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey in conjunction with busbar track technology.

History

In January 2007, rumors arose about the possibility of a Harry Potter themed island at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park. This was followed by further rumors that part of the project was codenamed "Strong Arm" in reference to the KUKA robotic arm technology it would utilize. On May 31, 2007, seven weeks before the release of the seventh and final Potter book, Universal (in partnership with Warner Bros.) officially announced The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Site preparation of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter began in late October 2007, with the construction of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey beginning in February 2008. Construction concluded in the first half of 2010. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey began soft openings starting on June 1, 2010. The ride officially opened to the public on June 18, 2010.

On December 6, 2011, Universal Parks & Resorts announced that they would be opening The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. They announced that one of the attractions would be Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

Ride mechanics

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey utilises KUKA robotic arm technology. The technology is already being used for other theme park attractions in stationary form (where it is bolted to the ground) and on a much smaller scale. The revolutionary part of this ride is that the robotic arm is mounted on a track. The downside to this intricate machinery is that if the ride breaks down, some guests are left stuck in an uncomfortable position, such as being tilted backwards in dark enclosed spaces.

Cast

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey features many of the main characters of the film series including:

• Harry Potter as portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe
• Ron Weasley as portrayed by Rupert Grint
• Hermione Granger as portrayed by Emma Watson
• Albus Dumbledore as portrayed by Michael Gambon
• Rubeus Hagrid as portrayed by Robbie Coltrane
• Draco Malfoy as portrayed by Tom Felton
• Ginny Weasley as portrayed by Bonnie Wright
• Fred Weasley as portrayed by James Phelps
• George Weasley as portrayed by Oliver Phelps
• Professor Flitwick as portrayed by Warwick Davis
• Neville Longbottom as portrayed by Matthew Lewis

External links

• Official Webpage