Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Encyclopedia
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is an attraction at the Islands of Adventure
Islands of Adventure
Universal's Islands of Adventure is a theme park located in Orlando, Florida. It opened May 28, 1999 as part of an expansion that, along with CityWalk Entertainment District, the Portofino Bay Hotel, and Hard Rock hotel, converted Universal Studios Florida into the Universal Orlando Resort...

 theme park in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is the signature ride of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter area of the theme park, and takes riders through scenes and environments in and around Hogwarts Castle from the various books
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

 and films
Harry Potter (film series)
The Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...

 of the Harry Potter series. Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative
Universal Creative
Universal Creative is the research and development group responsible for designing rides and attractions for Universal Studios Theme Parks.It is Universal's equivalent of Walt Disney Imagineering. From 1968 until 1997, Universal Creative was known as MCA Planning and Development...

, 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.

Summary

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey utilizes KUKA
KUKA
KUKA is a leading German producer of industrial robots for a variety of industries - from automotive and fabricated metals to food and plastics...

 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
Dark ride
A dark ride or ghost train is an indoor amusement ride where riders in guided vehicles travel through specially lit scenes that typically contain animation, sound, music, and special effects....

. 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
Quidditch
Quidditch is a fictional sport developed by British author J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series of novels. It is described as an extremely rough, but very popular, semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches around the world...

 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

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
Green House
Green House, or variations such as Green Mansion, may refer to:*Green House , an innovative person-centered small long term care home.in Hong Kong...

 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

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

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
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

 and Ron Weasley
Ron Weasley
Ronald Bilius "Ron" Weasley is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. His first appearance was in the first book of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as the best friend of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger...

 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

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

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
KUKA
KUKA is a leading German producer of industrial robots for a variety of industries - from automotive and fabricated metals to food and plastics...

 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.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

) 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.

Ride mechanics

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey utilises KUKA
KUKA
KUKA is a leading German producer of industrial robots for a variety of industries - from automotive and fabricated metals to food and plastics...

 robotic arm
Robotic arm
A mechanical arm is a robotic, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints allowing either rotational motion or translational displacement. The links of the manipulator can be considered to form a kinematic chain...

 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
Harry Potter (film series)
The Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...

 including:
  • Harry Potter
    Harry Potter (character)
    Harry James Potter is the title character and main protagonist of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard...

     as portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe
    Daniel Radcliffe
    Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to prominence playing the titular character in the Harry Potter film series....

  • Ron Weasley
    Ron Weasley
    Ronald Bilius "Ron" Weasley is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. His first appearance was in the first book of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as the best friend of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger...

     as portrayed by Rupert Grint
    Rupert Grint
    Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint is an English actor, who rose to prominence playing Ron Weasley, one of the three main characters in the Harry Potter film series. Grint was cast as Ron at the age of 11, having previously acted only in school plays and at his local theatre group...

  • Hermione Granger
    Hermione Granger
    Hermione Jean Granger is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. She initially appears in the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as a new student on her way to Hogwarts...

     as portrayed by Emma Watson
    Emma Watson
    Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson is an English actress and model.Watson rose to prominence playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series. Watson was cast as Hermione at the age of nine, having previously acted only in school plays. From 2001 to 2011, she starred in all eight Harry Potter...

  • Albus Dumbledore
    Albus Dumbledore
    Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a major character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. For most of the series, he is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts...

     as portrayed by Michael Gambon
    Michael Gambon
    Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...

  • Rubeus Hagrid
    Rubeus Hagrid
    Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. Hagrid is introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as a half-giant who is the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts, the primary setting for the first six novels...

     as portrayed by Robbie Coltrane
    Robbie Coltrane
    Robbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...

  • Draco Malfoy
    Draco Malfoy
    Draco Malfoy is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. He is a Slytherin student in Harry Potter's year. He is frequently accompanied by his two accomplices, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, who act as henchmen...

     as portrayed by Tom Felton
    Tom Felton
    Thomas Andrew "Tom" Felton is an English actor and musician. He is best known for playing the role of Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series, the movie adaptations of the best-selling Harry Potter fantasy novels by author J. K...

  • Ginny Weasley as portrayed by Bonnie Wright
    Bonnie Wright
    Bonnie Francesca Wright is a British actress and fashion model. She is best known for playing Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter film series.-Early life and education:...

  • Fred Weasley as portrayed by James Phelps
    James and Oliver Phelps
    James Andrew Eric Phelps and Oliver Martyn John Phelps are identical twin English actors, best known for playing Fred and George Weasley, respectively, in the Harry Potter film series.-Early life:...

  • George Weasley as portrayed by Oliver Phelps
    James and Oliver Phelps
    James Andrew Eric Phelps and Oliver Martyn John Phelps are identical twin English actors, best known for playing Fred and George Weasley, respectively, in the Harry Potter film series.-Early life:...

  • Professor Flitwick as portrayed by Warwick Davis
    Warwick Davis
    Warwick Ashley Davis is an English actor. He is most notable for playing the title characters in Willow and the Leprechaun film series, as well as for his roles in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Harry Potter movies. Davis currently stars in the sitcom Life's Too Short, written...

  • Neville Longbottom as portrayed by Matthew Lewis

External links

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