First things first: I am a Disney fan. Big time. So to say that this review will be free of bias would be an outright lie. I will do my best to be as objective as possible, but I'm not making any promises. Just think of this review coming from the point of view of a Walt Disney World annual pass-holder, and we'll get along just fine...
Now I had heard a lot about the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and have been a fan of the movies (my wife even more so), so I will not lie when I say I was really looking forward to our trip there. There were three of us total: Myself, my wife, and a good friend who is also a Potter fan.
Not being familiar with Universal Studios and the surrounding area, I was pleased to see how easy it was to find a parking space. Less guidance was offered than what you would find at a Disney park, but I didn't see anyone having trouble figuring out which yellow lines to park between. Parking was a bit pricy, but then so is Disney parking if you aren't a pass holder.
There is no tram service (Because of limited real-estate, Universal makes use of a multi-story parking garage), so the walk from the car to the entrance of Islands of Adventure was a long one, even with moving sidewalks and escalators (which were turned off when we were heading in).
A quick side note about parking: You have the option to pay an additional five dollars and upgrade to “preferred” parking. The only difference is that preferred parking is on the same level as the walkways over to the parks, so basically that extra fiver saves you a trip on an escalator.
Purchasing tickets proved straight-forward and the queues were organized. The ticket attendant was polite and helpful, even though she didn't laugh at my jokes. (harumpf) Ticket prices were comparable to a Disney day pass.
Getting through the turnstile into the park itself is on par with gaining access to any Disney park. In other words, we were stuck behind complete idiots who couldn't figure out the two step process of scanning their ticket and putting their finger on a fingerprint reader. After a moderate (and extremely annoying) amount of time where I was hard pressed to keep from bludgeoning the poor moron who was holding up the line, we made it inside.
This being my first time in Islands of Adventure, I will say that they do an excellent job with the theming of their “islands” (equivalent to the “lands” in The Magic Kingdom). I put a lot of importance on theming, as I believe it has the most affect on the suspension of belief that I enjoy when going to a theme park.
Using our park map, we were able to make our way to the entrance to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
If you are a Harry Potter fan, at first glance, expect your mind to do a double-take, then reboot itself, then just give up and return keyboard control to you..at which point you'll end up standing there for a couple of seconds and just saying, “Wow!” Visually, it is impressive. Again, I have to give these guys an A+ for theming. It really does look like you were just beamed into the world of Harry Potter.
Immediately to your right is a full scale replica of the Hogwart's Express train, complete with steam. A conductor is nearby for photo ops and to answer questions. He stayed in character when answering questions, and really seemed to enjoy his job. Our friend challenged him on his pocket watch chain that was visible, and inquired if it was attached to a real pocket watch. Surprisingly, it was. He pulled out a high quality pocket watch prop, which had indicators on it telling you whether the train was “on-time”, or “late”. Very cool.
The visual details of the buildings of Hogsmeade are impressive. Steep roofs, chimneys bent at odd angles, and snow caps along the rims all give it a very realistic feel. In the middle of the road just beyond the train was a cart selling butter-beer. (basically just cream soda with a whipped cream of butterscotch...but DANG...it's really good!).
At this point one thing becomes painfully obvious: It's crowded. And I mean crowded. Not only are there lines for the main attractions, there are also lines for drinks, lines to get into the stores, loose approximations of lines to get to storage lockers, and there was even a line in front of the Three Broomsticks restaurant, so you could get inside to stand in line to get food. Yes, it was a waiting line to get into ANOTHER waiting line!
Crowd control is something that definitely needs some work. One thing that Disney has learned to master is how to keep large crowds of people moving in the desired direction, whether that be through a ride, through a store, or through a park. (Well, dependent on people having sufficient intelligence to be able to figure out the whole card scan / “put-finger-here” concept...)
We decided to eat at The Three Broomsticks. (yes, we waited in “the lines”.) The wait wasn't all that bad once we got inside, and once we placed our order, it was ready fairly quickly. The theming inside was again very detailed, and quite impressive.
The food was actually very good, and reasonably priced for theme park food, in my opinion. I had the barbecue chicken and ribs combination (which came with potatoes and roasted corn on the cob). The chicken was flavorful and tender, and not overcooked. The ribs were also quite tasty, and fell off the bone, though they were a bit fatty at times. The corn on the cob was sweet, and cooked just right.
As I mentioned earlier, in order to gain access to the shops, you have to wait in a queue. Once inside, you understand why. The shops are small. Very small, in fact. While they are decorated to give you a feel for being in “the real thing”, so to speak, with the small size being a contributing factor to that “cozy, realistic” ambiance, it is totally unsuited for the volume of crowds it must cater to.
Aisles are very narrow, and there is very little open floor space. In one shop, there was only about 3 feet between a display island and the check out register.
The merchandise itself was another feature that I confess I was really stoked about. As my wife will attest, I am a serious “trinket” collector. If it looks cool, I tend to buy it. I have sword replicas, keys, helmets, maps... you name it. And yes, most of it is either in a box, or collecting dust in a corner. Suffice it to say, I was looking forward to getting my hands on some seriously cool Harry Potter junk!
I can't begin to tell you how disappointing the merchandise was for me. While some of the items were probably exclusive to these shops, I felt the quality of the items was lacking, especially given the price tags on some of them.
The T-shirts of decent quality were running $35 and up. Wizard robes of fair quality were pushing $100, and wands from Olivander's were around $35, and were little more than molded resin replicas (basically plastic). A remembrall was running (if memory serves) around $8, but was made of very thin, cheaply made plastic.
We did find some chocolate frogs (complete with 3D collectible card), which was kind of cool, and was made of solid chocolate. It ran around $10. Boxes of Any-Flavored Beans also were running about $10 as well, which was pretty excessive in my opinion for a small box of Jelly-Bellies.
The joke shop was also a bit of a disappointment. It was attached to the candy shop, so you could walk right into it from there without waiting in another queue. The items for sale were mostly old novelty items like chattering teeth, and Jacob's ladders. The selection was quite limited, with the same items being stocked in several different locations to fill the shelves.
A note on Olivander's wand shop. There is a short “show” that you can wait in line for prior to entering the shop itself. We waited in line in the hot sun for about an hour before gaining admittance. For the show, they only allow about 20-30 people in at a time, the inside of which is a pretty cool reproduction of Olivander's shop from the first Harry Potter movie.
The show consists of an actor playing the part of Olivander, who then picks a child out of the crowd and then proceeds to help her choose her wand. The show parallels the events from the movie, and ends with the wand “choosing” the child.
While this small show is cute to watch, and must be absolutely magical to the child who is picked, it was definitely not worth an hour wait in the sun for someone who has no children, or just wants to get into the store itself to browse.
My suggestion is to check the lines for both the show and for getting directly into the store. Pick whichever seems shortest, keeping in mind that it did appear that those who experienced the show got priority over those just waiting to get into the shop.
The entire area of the Harry Potter “land” is not really all that big. While they do make good use of space to simulate an area larger than it really is, the actual real estate is limited. There are only three main attractions to the area, and two of those are re-themed coasters.
Since the wait time was only ten minutes, we decided to ride the Dragon Challenge. We were stopped by an attendant, who said we had to store our belongings in one of the storage lockers nearby.
Being used to having pockets and bins for storage on the rides themselves at Disney, this was a new experience for me. I'm not critical of it, as it is just a different way of handling personal effects. Overall it seems to work, though if it is busy, trying to find and access a storage locker can be a bit frustrating. I was pleased to see that they don't charge for the lockers, provided you retrieve your belongings after riding the attraction.
The Dragon Challenge is an inverted coaster, with two separate tracks that run simultaneously. If you like roller coasters, then you will enjoy this one. The theming of the ride queue was excellent. Again, I have to give them credit for their attention to detail. Moving through you feel like you are literally walking through a dungeon deep under the castle; as you progress, the dungeon evolves into more natural caves, with subtle signs of its inhabitants. Along the way you pass the Goblet of Fire on a pedestal, and a chamber with candles floating above you (reminiscent of the great hall in the movies).
I was a bit disappointed once we got to the loading area of the ride itself. Leaving the queue, you are dumped out into an open area which became somewhat of a free-for-all to get to a slot. This may have been because the ride was not that busy yet, but it could have been more organized.
We did not make it to the other coaster, so I can't comment much on it, other than to say it appeared to be much milder than the Dragon Challenge, which is quite intense.
The big draw, of course, is Hogwart's Castle itself.
It is easy to see where the lion's share of their budget went. Hogwart's Castle is incredible. I hate to admit it, but approaching the castle from Hogsmeade was more impressive than approaching Cinderella's Castle at night from Main Street U.S.A. at the Magic Kingdom.
They make good use of forced perspective to give the illusion of size, and the detail and accuracy are amazing. It's like looking at a shot from one of the movies.
When we approached the line, the estimated wait time was 75 minutes. Since this was our main quest for this trip, we didn't think twice. Priming my camera to be ready for some serious “shutter-melting” action, we jumped into the queue.
If the outside theming of the castle impresses you, then the interiors will take your breath away. As you wind through the queue, you are taken to the lower levels of Hogwarts, passing the door to the potions class, a full scale replica of the Mirror of Erised, the door to the kitchens, etc.
We were moving along at a steady pace, when we were halted, and required to place all belongings into those cursed storage lockers...INCLUDING MY CAMERA!!! Now, while the storage lockers outside the Dragon Challenge were relatively annoyance free, this locker area is a living nightmare. The area is jam packed with people all trying to either find an empty locker to store their stuff, or people trying desperately to get to a locker to retrieve their stuff.
After beating our way through some people in an “every man for himself” moment (who knew nuns could swear like that?), we stowed our gear and jumped back into the queue. I was more than a bit miffed about leaving my camera behind...a feeling that only got worse the deeper we traveled into the castle.
One critical observation while waiting in a section of the queue that is outside (in a rough replica of the greenhouse of Hogwart's): No attempt was made on that side of the queue to hide the ride building. You look up, and to your far right you see the castle facade, and then to the left of that is nothing but a concrete stuccoed warehouse wall, and to the far left on the side of the warehouse, you can see the massive A/C units and air ducts.
One would think that after spending millions to do such an amazing job theming the entire area, a few more dollars (relatively speaking) could have been spent at least putting fake brick, vines, or something to mask the service building.
There has been a lot of hype and discussion about the living paintings. All of the hype is justified. They are amazing. Even close up, they have the texture of an old, cracked oil painting. The effect is very convincing, and I found myself briefly holding up the line while I stared at them, and watched them converse with each other.
Moving on, we pass through Dumbledore's office, as well as the Defense Against The Dark Arts classroom. In each case, the detail of the rooms are amazing. 3D projections of Dumbledore and Harry, Hermione, and Ron greet you and provide you with dialog that progresses the storyline of the ride. The effect is good, though I think could be improved upon. Their dialog was timed just about right so that you experienced the entire scene without it repeating while you were still in the rooms.
The ride itself is awesome. At the end of your walking tour through Hogwart's Castle, Harry, Hermoine, and Ron lead you on a whirlwind flight through the world of Harry Potter. You are seated in constantly moving cars that hold a total of four riders.
The cars are on a track suspended above, and can individually tilt back, forward, left and right to help simulate the high speed flight you are about to undertake. The actual speed of the cars is not fast at all (slightly faster than a moving walkway), but this tilting motion, coupled with multiple high definition concave movie screens you encounter as the ride progresses, does an excellent job of making you feel like you have been taken hostage by a possessed broomstick hopped up on caffeine.
Interspersed between these screens are full size (and in some cases, larger than life) animatronic scenes that will both take your breath away, and scare the beejeezus out of you. (Trust me; the first time a 20 foot tall Dementor comes lurching at you, it WILL make your eyes big...)
Your frantic flight will take you over and around the castle itself, into a Quidditch match, through the Forbidden Forest, into a close encounter with the Whomping Willow, and a whole lot more.
Overall the ride is extremely well done, with the only minor criticism I can give is that there were times when the large concave movie screens were a bit blurred to me.
This was one of those rare times that a 75 minute wait time was time well spent, and I would not hesitate to do so again.
Oh, and with regards to losing accessibility to my camera: We inquired with an attendant if we could go back through the queue just to take pictures, and just bypass the ride. It turns out there is a whole separate queue that they let you take, just for that purpose.
We reclaimed our gear from the locker, and did just that. (Once again, we had an incident where the goobers in front of us held everyone up because they couldn't remember whose finger they used to secure their locker...I kind of wish those nuns were still around so we could turn them loose on these people.)
I was able to go back through and take pictures, without the pressure of holding up the line. I was forced to retract all the nasty thoughts and curses I had bestowed upon Universal during my camera-less trek through the line the first time.
Overall, I would say that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a real treat to experience, particularly if you are any kind of Harry Potter fan. If possible I would try for a trip to the park mid-week, or during the off-season months, to avoid the crowd issues. Even if you can't do that, and you can tolerate the crowds, it is still well worth a visit.
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