Universal Studios Part II - Harry Potter

I was most excited about visiting the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter part of Universal Studios - I had grand plans for buying all sorts of Ravenclaw stuff (you know I would have been in Ravenclaw), and generally having a grand old time pretending I could actually do magic and stuff.  Which would be cool if I could.  Damn you, real life!

Welcome to Hogsmeade!  The Harry Potter part of the park was by far the busiest part by probably about 5 to 1.  It was absolute mayhem.

This is overlooking the entrance to the Hogsmeade Village part - this is the quiet part.  Yes, I took this from a rollercoaster (albeit a tiny cat and mouse type one).  

The rollercoaster in question was called the Flight of the Hippogryph - it was great fun for a tiny coaster.  The front of the carriage was made into the shape of a hippogryph out of wicker, and Buckbeak watched on as you ascended the hill lift.

There was another rollercoaster as well, called the Dragon Challenge - two inverted rollercoasters (the ones where your seats are suspended under the track instead of sitting in a cart on top), which had a number of near-miss points in the track, including the dual loop above where the two cars ascend the loop together.  I am not a huge fan of inverted coasters due to my completely irrational but still completely inescapable fear of heights and particularly chairlifts - these are way too close to chairlifts for my liking.  After I had my eyes closed the entire first time we went on them, Stephen made me go on them twice more with my eyes open to try to cure me.  I did open my eyes and it wasn't so bad while we were moving fast, but somehow, I don't think my fear of slow-moving chairlifts will have been cured.

The best part of the park, however, was.... 

Hogwarts Castle.  It was really well done, and the Forbidden Journey ride inside it was by far the highlight of my trip.  They start telling the story as you are queueing for the ride (a great way to distract people from the fact that they're waiting) - Hogwarts is open to Muggles for an Open Day, and you are walking through the castle on a tour, through the main entry hall, and then through the Headmaster's Office, where a holographic video of Dumbledore tells you that the magical demonstration is cancelled and you will instead be going to listen to a lecture on the history of Hogwarts by the History of Magic teacher.  In the next room (the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom), you hear Harry, Ron and Hermione talking - they are eventually revealed to have been hiding under the invisibility cloak, and a holographic video of them tells you that they think the lecture will be boring, so they're going to make it so that you can fly down to the quidditch pitch to watch a match instead.  After this, you are loaded onto the ride - 4 chairs in a row in a bench format, with safety harnesses.

It's well-hidden during the ride, but this is effectively what you're sitting on:

Yes, a GIANT ROBOTIC ARM.  (This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.)  What's cool about the Harry Potter ride is that the giant robotic arms are on a track, so that you move through the ride along the track at the same time as being thrown around to avoid skeletons, dementors, and the Whomping Willow.  It gets better though - at various points in the ride, concave wrap-around video screens are placed in front of your chair displaying simulator-style video footage of you dodging dragons and flying around the castle, which your chair moves around perfectly with, making the ride a kind of hybrid between a traditional car-based ride and a simulator.  It is immersive, intense and brilliantly executed - I was absolutely blown-away by the ride and I highly recommend it to everyone.

(I'll stop ranting about how amazing that technology is now.)

Here's me with the Ravenclaw banner.  You can tell that I would be in Ravenclaw because I can't stop going on about how brilliant the technology powering that ride is.  I forgot to bring my scarf though - sadly, the items for sale in the shops there were all either Gryffindor or Slytherin - no love for the Ravenclaws (or the Hufflepuffs).

The Hogwarts Express was parked in the station, although sadly unable to take me to Hogwarts.  

The books are full of descriptions of unique food and drinks, and the theme park does its best to recreate some of them.  I bought a chocolate frog, which unfortunately melted before I got to eat it...

Although I did get a sweet collectible chocolate frog card!  They also had pumpkin juice, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour beans (and they do mean every flavour - ugh), and...

Butterbeer!  This is another example of brilliant user experience.  No one really knows what butterbeer would taste like, but people are expecting something that has a creamy kind of taste, with a head like beer, and that's a little bitter like beer underneath.

It was really tasty, and it matched the flavour that you would expect perfectly - it wasn't until later that we realised that it was actually just a generic soft drink (cola, but not as strong tasting) with melted ice cream on top, like an ice cream spider (or float if you're North American).  Once again, a brilliant execution, matching perfectly what people expect while using common ingredients.  Pretty tasty too!

All-in-all I highly recommend Universal Islands of Adventure - although I am concerned that they require your fingerprint to enter the park, which I find to be an invasion of privacy.  If you can get past that though, it's well worth the visit.