Hogwarts Herald

The latest news about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is a new land expected to open in the summer of 2010 at Universal Orlando’s Island of Adventure theme park, includes info on the ride inside the recreation of Hogwarts Castle. The ride inside the Castle is to be a robocoaster, which is a roller coaster that has cars on robotic arms that allow the vehicles to go different directions as it goes along the track. The robocoaster will go through different scenes inside the castle, but the specific scenes info have not been released yet. The magical experience of the ride will be enhanced with a themed queue that includes special effects such as floating candles and snow falling inside.

Besides just the castle the Wizarding World of Harry Potter will recreate Hagrid’s Hut along with the Forbidden Forest. It is not clear what other rides will be included in this Harry Potter themed land, but it is possible that they will incorporate two rides that were already on the area the new land will occupy. These two rides are the Dueling Dragons roller coaster with two intertwined tracks and the Flying Unicorn kid’s roller coaster. The possible changes to make these rides even more Harry Potter themed might be a tent outside the Dueling Dragons that recreates the scene of the champions getting ready for the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.

The area is to include a recreation of the village of Hogsmeade. Here there will be at least three shops and a restaurant. The stores are expected to include Dervish & Banges, which sells and repairs magical equipment, and Honeydukes, which sells wizard sweets. The restaurant is to be The Three Broomsticks.

Yesterday afternoon around 2pm part of Universal Studios Orlando theme park was evacuated due to a gas leak that was caused during construction of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter area that is expected to open in 2010. Theme park guests were excavated from the Lost Continent area of Islands of Adventures and the Fire Department was called as a precaution. The gas leak was rather quickly capped and the theme park resumed normal operations in less than half an hour.

Remember to comment this month and get an entry in the Hogwarts Herald February 2009 Contest to win a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter area of Universal Studios Orlando is still quite some time away from opening, as it is not expected to open until sometime in 2010, but there has been news that Hagrid’s Hut can be spotted there already. The rooftop of the structure that is Hagrid’s Hut can supposedly be seen from at least one place at the Universal Studios Orlando theme park. It seems that the Orlando Sentinal did some looking into what it could be. It definitely seems to be Hagrid’s Hut. According to the permits for building the Hut it appears that the hut will be mostly just seen from the outside by the general public. The hut is expected to be used to store props.

It definitely seems that they are going building a lot of the different structures. Some will probably be just for display and make for good photo ops in front of, such as the confirmed Hagrid’s Hut building. There will also be several buildings that have some sort of attraction or themed experience. This includes some of the wizard shops that will have adequately themed items that might not be quite as magical as the real stuff, but still fun. There will also be some restaurants based on places in the books, which will probably include being able to get butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks. There is also to be some rides. I think this includes one that is going to be inside the Hogwarts castle they are going to build. I just hope it is not some roller coaster ride and instead is some dark ride scene ride like a lot of the rides in Fantasyland at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom, as that would be much more interesting to experience than some thrill ride in my opinion.

Remember to comment this month and get an entry in the Hogwarts Herald February 2009 Contest to win a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.