The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Hollywood

[William]

While that would be completely awesome, Jo really isn't gonna be flexible when it comes to bringing her baby to life. She'll want things thematically and atmospherically correct, or she won't want it there at all. I'm sure Universal will try its best to bring what they can to Hollywood, but all I really see happening right now is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, along with some shops and a restaurant in Hogsmeade.

Keep in mind, I am a huge Potter fan. There simply isn't enough for me, ever. But if Universal is going to stay true to its history, they won't let Potter take over the park. Having the Forbidden Journey and Hogsmeade is already WAY more than any other franchise of the park has. The Simpsons has a ride and a shop. Jurassic Park has a ride, a restaurant, and a shop. The Wizarding World could have 1/2 rides, a series of shops, and a restaurant all within a fully immersive environment. See what I mean?

 

[Jerry 92602]

I agree and also when Universal takes down Water World I wouldn't mind that much if they put an amazing roller coaster but for some reason I don't think Universal would do that plus I like Water World a lot but I'm always going to sit in the front when I bring a towel of course.

 

[William]

I made the huge mistake of sitting in the WETTEST part of the soak zone without even knowing it. I was absolutely miserable.

Side note: if you ever want to sit in front of the middle section to see the plane land in front of you, DON'T DO IT. I nearly choked to death from all the smoke coming off of it last time.

 

[Jerry 92602]

I did it but the smoke didn't bother me as much for an odd reason

 

[smoaT]

I just wanted to ride Gringotts... I guess I must go to Orlando to ride that one

 

[William]

The plane's nose was right in front of me, and all the smoke that it produced literally went all in my nose. I was definitely coughing the longest in the audience. Haha.

I am DEFINITELY riding Gringotts ASAP. Universal Studios Florida is going to be one crowded park. Not only will they be welcoming this new Potter expansion, but the Transformers ride as well, along with a new Springfield environment with a flat ride and some themed restaurants. Maybe I'll have to wait a year or so before visiting. 

 

[William]

Breaking News: Diagon Alley in Orlando is no longer a rumor! Universal Orlando just confirmed over Facebook that the rumored London/Diagon Alley expansion is official and is slated for release in 2014, just as speculated. Here's what they posted just 2 hours ago:

"THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES: THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER – DIAGON ALLEY IS COMING TO UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT. 

Building on the global phenomenon that is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Universal Orlando Resort and Warner Bros. Entertainment today announced an expansion of historic proportion with the entirely new themed environment, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley.

Scheduled to open in 2014, the world’s first centrally themed, multi-park experience expands The Wizarding World of Harry Potter across both Universal Orlando theme parks and allows Universal’s creative team to bring an unparalleled vision to this unique project. The new area will bring to life some of the experiences and places found in and around London in the Harry Potter books and films, offering brand-new adventures for fans and theme park guests from around the world. 

Diagon Alley and ‘London’ will be located within the Universal Studios Florida theme park, which is adjacent to Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park, where guests now experience Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. The new area within Universal Studios will be just as expansive, immersive and authentic as the existing themed environment.”

They've also posted this picture:

 

[William]

It seems our chances of getting an indoor Gringotts coaster are getting slimmer by the second. In order to have Gringotts in the park, we would need another fully immersive environment themed to Diagon Alley, and to stay true to the books/films, Universal can't simply place Diagon Alley right behind Hogwarts castle. Universal Orlando will have The Hogwarts Express taking guests from one park to another in order to get the full Potter experience, making you feel like you're going from the busy London streets to the majestic castle tucked within Scotland. It'd simply be too odd to have those 2 different environments squeezed in right next to each other.

 

[Allen The Actor]

That's all I could think and talk about all morning. Kinda anticlimactic considering everyone has known the details for more than half a year. Universal has the worst kept secrets I'm super excited though, great concept art. Anyway, I can assure everyone 100000% we're not getting anything from this land, so don't have your hopesup. It's impimpossible haha.

Can't wait to hopefully go to Florida next year!

 

[William]

People are saying that they've announced it today (rather than later) because they want to prevent more info from leaking out. I don't really think that's preventable, though. Haha. I think a single phase for Potter and nothing else will be fine for us. Jurassic Park is a very popular franchise, but we still haven't seen a second phase added to the park. We may see some enhancements for The Wizarding World once it's been here for a long period of time, but a groundbreaking ride with a series of shops and a restaurant is plenty for us.

 

[smoaT]

Maybe, just maybe... I know it's not mentioned in the evolution plan, but what if they take down one of the parking lots and add another land to USH or do something to have Potter Phase 2... they should ditch the hotel and build attractions instead infront of the park, which is not going to happen since they hope to get a ton of cash with the hotel, but being realistic, who would want to spend like a lot of time in a hoten in USH since there are not a lot of attractions, even with Potter making it's apperance in some years... it will add just like 2 attractions...

 

[William]

Like I said, it's not just a matter of adding an attraction or two - you need an atmosphere built around it to give guests the feeling that they're actually walking through an environment straight from the movies and books. If they decided to add a Potter expansion in that location, there would only be room for one attraction and a shop at the very most. I like the idea of a new hotel right by the entrance a lot better. USH will not and cannot become a resort, but they may try to adding a hotel or two to go a mini-step in that direction. If Universal decides to sacrifice a hotel for an attraction or two, it'd be quite the backfire - the more attractions there are, the more people there will be. The more people there will be, the more hype there will be. The more hype there will be, the more people from around the world there will be. In order to keep all these people happy, we'd need more than a single hotel. I think anything Phase II related is nothing but speculation at this point, considering the fact that the first phase hasn't even begun construction yet.

 

[Allen The Actor]

Maybe, just maybe... I know it's not mentioned in the evolution plan, but what if they take down one of the parking lots and add another land to USH or do something to have Potter Phase 2... they should ditch the hotel and build attractions instead infront of the park, which is not going to happen since they hope to get a ton of cash with the hotel, but being realistic, who would want to spend like a lot of time in a hoten in USH since there are not a lot of attractions, even with Potter making it's apperance in some years... it will add just like 2 attractions...

William, you're totally on point. and smoaT, with all due respect, and i understand youre enthusiastic about more rides, (i am too) but you need to realize the realities and restrictions we have at USH with space and thematically. Especially since JK Rowling will NOT allow a stand alone ride, it has to be a land. And it would have to make sense to connect it to Phase 1. It's just mot possible on USH. Hell, we're not even getting a full phase 1. Lets be happy with what we're getting and not put all our eggs into one basket. I wanna see other things beyond Potter, and this is coming from a Harry Potter fan

 

[William]

I agree. What makes Phase II an even harder aspect of the franchise to recreate is Rowling herself. I highly respect her for the decisions she's made to keep everything extremely true to the books. If she didn't mind so much what they created or didn't create in Orlando, I don't think it would be as successful as it is today. The themed land in Orlando has been open for almost 3 years now, and it's still a worldwide phenomenon! I don't think the Wizarding World here will be as highly praised since we'll be the 3rd park in the world welcoming Potter into our universe, but it'll certainly change tourism here in California for a very long period of time. I honestly can't explain how thankful I am that we're even getting Potter at all.

Some parks (i.e.: Universal Orlando) should have their own exclusive attractions/aspects to keep things different. If we keep cloning attractions that are already available in Orlando, we'll eventually morph into a miniature clone of their parks.

 

[Jerry 92602]

I feel like in opening day, the actors from the HP movies should be there it would be AWESOME

 

[Jonathan]

Knowing USH we'll probably get the people who were the stand in's for the main characters!

 

[BehindTheTheme]

Just read a post from another Highly reputable theme park site(will call it BTT theme park junkies will know) stating a possible Phase II for Hollywood to be built after phase I. This was my first original thought when they announced WWoHP Hollywood/Orlando Phase II. I thought we would get something from phase II(i believed same time "2016") when WWoHP Hollywood maybe not the entire area but something. Now in Orlando Phase II of course is located in USF and not IOA that being said couldn't our phase II area also be located in a different area? I mean back when  WWoHP opened I didnt expect anything like that to come to Hollywood because of it size and scope but here we are 2013 waiting for construction to begin.

 

[Allen The Actor]

With the awkward hill location of the park, I don't see anywhere where we can realistically put anything from Phase 2 and make it make sense. Technically we can plop the gringotts ride anywhere, but I don't see us getting the Gringotts ride without the rest of Diagon Alley or Hogwarts express, and there's no realistic place to place it and make it make sense thematically, space wise, AND connect it to the future Hogsmeade.

I sincerely believe that, especially with JK Rowling being so picky in terms of themeing, without a connecting Hogwarts Express, and with no space in the park, I don't see where it could happen or happening at all.

The only significant thing to get from Phase 2 would be Gringotts and there's no reasonable place to put it, especially without a Diagon Alley.

I'm gonna say we're only getting Phase One and that's it.

Besides, even as a massive Harry Potter fan, I still don't wanna see 50% of our little USH become fully Harry Potter. Because if we get hypothetically anything from Phase 2, USH would literally become The Harry Potter Theme Park (plus a few other random rides).

Besides, i wanna see any additional expansion spots left in the park or any ride replacements (waterworld, special effects stage, animal actors, universal plaza, house of horrors, shrek) to be devoted to making an exciting new ride based on future (hopefully successful) Universal classic movies that will be as popular as BTTF and JP, or see new family dark rides based on Dr Suess movies or whatever new animated family movies Illumination Entertainment will make after the minion movie

 

[William]

I doubt Universal is even thinking about Phase II right now. Remember, the Evolution Plan isn't just surrounded around the Wizarding World - it'll involve a CityWalk expansion, new hotels, new parking structures, several new Studio Tour attractions, Universal Plaza, etc. Once Universal Plaza is finally wrapped up, they'll start focusing a bit more on Potter (in spite of the fact that they've still got Despicable Me on their hands), but I really don't think Phase II has even crossed their minds yet. We've had JP for a very long time, but still haven't seen a Phase II take place for that franchise because it's simply too big of a risk/sacrifice to do so. I think Potter's success will have to be off the charts for Universal to even contemplate the placement of an expansion.

I agree with Allen when he mentioned the whole Hogwarts Express deal - Rowling would definitely want that as a main feature in the expansion, and the only way for that to happen would be to have an awkward train track going all the way down to the Lower Lot, removing an attraction that's already down there, and placing a very small portion of Diagon Alley down there, which I think is a terrible idea. I'm even having a hard time typing that.  Potter is already going to consume a very large portion of the park with the Forbidden Journey and Hogsmeade. I think we should consider ourselves lucky that we're even getting Hogsmeade, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if they originally said that all we'd get is the Forbidden Journey with minor theming around the attraction, just like the rest of the rides we already have. For God's sake, Harry Potter isn't even a Universal production!! We're teaming up with Warner Bros. to bring Harry Potter to life! We can't afford to let a franchise take over the entire park, unless Universal is willing to turn this into the Potter Park.  :wacko:

 

[Allen The Actor]

^ Bingo I wanna see more Universal properties become rides. So let's not think of more Potter attractions but send good thoughts to the Film Production Department in hopes that a major amazing Universal movie will come out to spawn new rides