Harry Potter rides at Universal Hollywood

So, this last week my best friend and I did a whirlwind tour of some of the theme parks around LA, including a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood. There's more than enough to fill several posts, but I thought I'd start with just a quick review of the two rides that are part of the new park addition, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Most of the point of this park, which is done up like Hogsmeade, is the ambiance and the shopping. Plus, Universal Hollywood isn't really as much of a theme park with a ton of rides and things anyway. So there are only two rides to speak of, and we eventually did them both.

As you might recall from my coaster review from Busch Gardens, I'm not actually a fan of roller coasters or certain types of thrill rides. So I actually hesitated to ride either of these at first.

As I mentioned in the article on Busch Gardens, I do a lot of research before I go to parks because it helps my coaster anxiety. But with these two rides, I didn't do that much because I repeatedly saw the same thing: the lines at Harry Potter are absurdly long. All the time. Just super long. At any other park, that would mean I would just say to utilize whatever their version of a fast pass system is. Everywhere else I've been recently has some kind of thing where you can get a ticket to come back during a certain time frame and bypass the longer line, so you spend that hour doing something fun instead of standing around.

Universal doesn't do that. You can pay almost double the price of your ticket to get a one-time front of the line pass for each ride, or you wait in line. That's it. Which is unfortunate, because we didn't plan on riding half the rides in the park, and didn't have that kind of money. So we both assumed that the Harry Potter rides were out.

Turns out we were wrong. I don't know what kind of luck we had, maybe it was because it was January and kind of cold, because it was raining off and on for a few days at that point, or because we were there at a different time of day than other people were, but it turned out there wasn't a problem with lines. When we got to Hogsmeade, the line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was listed at 80 minutes. Hard pass.

But Flight of the Hippogriff was actually only 15 minutes at that point. I passed at first because the butterbeer had made me sick to my stomach. Cyn rode anyway, and said she ended up sitting next to an eight year old who tried to make sure she (my friend, who has been on many, many coasters in her life) wasn't too scared. It was adorable.

But then later after we'd been wandering a bit I opened the park's app and saw that the line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was under 20 minutes. I couldn't remember details about the ride, because I hadn't researched much, but I decided to go for it. This was both a good and bad decision for a couple reasons.

First, for the bad thing that really isn't a bad thing, just that I didn't do what I should have. See, the long lines for the ride aren't as much of a problem as they seem because the queue for the ride IS an attraction in and of itself. The line winds around for a tour through Hogwarts itself. We joked that the wait for the ride was 20 minutes because it took that long to walk through it. And that's not really a joke, this video of the full queue is 20 minutes long:



The castle is amazing, and we didn't really catch most of it because we were trying to get to the ride before the crowds came. Which was fine, but we totally should have turned around and gone back through the queue just to stop and see it all. It was beautiful.

I don't have pictures inside the castle proper because I only had my cell phone and the light is too low for it to have worked well, but you can see it in the video.

What I can't embed a video of is the ride itself. I've watched two or three and none of them are worth it, they don't capture anything about the experience. First, because it's a very dark ride mostly but also because the type of car/restraints mean that a fixed camera POV isn't going to work at all, you'll miss most of what you see from looking around and being actually present on the ride.

Listen, I had no idea what I was getting into because I hadn't done my research. I was expecting a basic 3-D simulator ride, where you sit in a seat and it bounces around while a video plays in front of you. That is not at all what this ride is. You're in a car that has four seats, and you walk on a moving walkway to get into it. Then it's picked up at the end of the walkway, and your feet are dangling. At this point I'd love to know more about the mechanics, because it must be fascinating. But the ride becomes a mix of a simulator ride, where you're moving along with a 3-D video in front of you, and a traditional thrill ride. There are parts where you're being "tossed" around through the Forbidden Forest and a cave full of dementors, all using practical effects. There were some parts where I got a little antsy, but I would ride it again in a heartbeat. It was a ton of fun, and while I really hate waiting in lines, it'd be worth a longer wait for sure.

After we got done with that, I decided I'd be fine with riding the Flight of the Hippogriff after all. I mean, I couldn't let an eight year old be braver than me, right? Besides, the ride was less than five minutes.

The queue for this one is less built up, though you do get to walk past Hagrid's hut. Word of warning: the cars are tiny. I felt very cramped and uncomfortable, just because there was no foot room for me, and I'm super short. I can't imagine riding it if you're six foot tall.

We rode at sunset, and it was absolutely beautiful, you really get to see the park on this ride. It's also my kind of coaster, if it was a launch coaster instead of a lift hill it would be perfect, though I guess then you wouldn't get the nice sunset.



The whole ride is super, super short. And it's not that fast either. Actually, I ended up finding it kind of relaxing almost? It was just really pretty, and I could have ridden it longer. I can see why reviews say it's not worth a long wait, it definitely wouldn't be worth waiting more than maybe ten minutes for as an adult, but it's a fantastic coaster for kids.

So those are the two Harry Potter rides, more about Hogsmeade next week!

Special: Busch Gardens I'm Afraid of Roller Coasters Review - Verbolten and the Loch Ness Monster

Last weekend, my best friend and I traveled down to Williamsburg to spend some time at Busch Gardens for their Howl-O-Scream event. I'd been meaning to go for years, since the park is actually pretty close to us, but I haven't managed.

What's especially sad is that for only being a few hours drive away, I haven't actually been to this park since I was a kid. As in, I was too short to ride most of the rides and was extremely disappointed not to be able to join my brother on the Big Bad Wolf or the Loch Ness Monster. I didn't even get to ride the log flume because it was closed for repairs. Basically my big memories of Busch Gardens before last weekend was that we got caught in a huge thunderstorm, and that I couldn't do anything. Though I do also remember riding the train and the skyride.

Anyway, so I had two main goals for this trip: make up for lost time and hit every haunted house. I'll review the haunted houses and Howl-A-Scream in another post, but first, I want to go through the rides.

See, one thing changed in the 30-ish years since I'd last been to the park: I'm now afraid of roller coasters. Well, I would say less afraid and more anxious. Once I was tall enough to ride and tried out a few I realized that there were just significant aspects I just didn't like. No, not the upside down parts or even the big drops. I hate the lift hills and the slow parts.

Luckily I went with someone who is both likes coasters and doesn't mind people who don't. So there was no pressure to ride something I didn't want to, and all the support I needed to try anyway.

The first night, we mostly did Howl-O-Scream stuff but we did notice that there was a very short line on Verbolten when we went by, probably because there had just been another storm and people weren't back out yet.



Verbolten was on my list of things to try for two reasons: first, because it replaced the Big Bad Wolf and since I couldn't ride that one I'd have to ride it's replacement. Second, because it's a launched coaster and has no lift hill. It was actually another launched coaster that made me realize what my issues were with the lift hills, because I rode that one and loved it.

Now my first ride on Verbolten was actually at night, so I wasn't entirely thrilled with it. Honestly, I don't know that riding coasters at night really has much appeal to me. Though with Verbolten you can see in the picture that there's a significant amount of the ride that's actually inside a tunnel, so it's dark anyway. But the light show makes it more fun.



The first ride on this was interesting to me because first, it was dark so I didn't see the last drop really at all and missed out on the part that goes towards the water (a very similar drop to the Big Bad Wolf) and second because I was just on the cusp of thinking that I wasn't actually enjoying it when the ride ended. It was in fact the perfect length for me, just enough fun stuff but not too much. So I told my best friend we'd have to ride it again the next day during daylight.

Which we did, and I really liked it the second time around. Being able to see the outdoor track made it a lot better for me, and it made me appreciate that last drop so much more. Though I do think that for Howl-O-Scream they should put some spooky, eerie lighting just under the water at the bottom of the drop to make it look creepier. They should do that for any of the coasters that go near water, just some green underglow.

But anyway, my point is that Verbolten is a fantastic coaster, and it's especially good for people like me who may have some issues with the "thrill" rides but still want to do something fun. I'm pretty sure it doesn't go upside down (in the tunnel I have no idea what the track did). The only reason we didn't ride it again was that the line was so long. And even though I'd watched the ride video above before I went, there were still some surprises, which was great. I wish we'd seen a different theme, there are three random themes for the lights in the tunnel but we saw the Wolf theme twice.

The second day we were there, the first thing we did was head for the Loch Ness Monster.

Now, before I go to an amusement park I spend a fair amount of time researching the rides. So I knew before I went that of the five coasters at the park, the Loch Ness Monster had one of the smaller lift hills, and since I had wanted to ride when I was a kid, I kind of had to do it, even though it kind of scared me.

The Loch Ness Monster is actually over 30 years old, and the first lift hill is only 130' which is a good 40' shorter than the tallest one I've ridden. But it's claim to fame is being not just the first coaster to have interlocking loops, but currently it's also the only one still running with that feature.

Now as I said, I have no problem with loops so the interlocking loops actually looked like a lot of fun to me. The funny thing about this one is that at the top of the anxiety-inducing lift hill is just this casual little turn to the side instead of a big drop. It was actually a bit anti-climactic. There is a second lift hill, but it's really minor.



One thing I didn't expect was how much of the ride was in the tunnel that's midway through the trip. I saw the tunnel on the map, and I guess I hadn't watched a video because I thought it just went straight through. But instead it loops around inside a couple times in complete darkness, which was really disorienting but kind of fun. But since I didn't expect it, it felt a bit long and I was wondering if we were ever leaving the tunnel.

All in all, the two coasters that we rode were actually quite fun, and as much as I don't really plan to ride the Loch Ness Monster frequently, I'd go on it again. I'd ride Verbolten a lot more times.

For those who might be interested, the other three coasters in the park were struck off my list because of the height of their lift hills. Apollo's Chariot is about the same as a coaster I rode that I really didn't like too much, Alpengeist is much taller and a suspended coaster which I've never done before. And I'd ruled out Griffon because of the 205' lift hill but then I actually saw the ride in action and how it pauses at the top before a 90 degree drop and no thank you. But seriously, if you like coasters, Griffon is probably pretty amazing. Next time I go to the park I might try Apollo's Chariot.