Category — q. Reviews

Where to Stay    Resort Features by Price    Kid Appeal    Large Families

The Value Resorts    Art of Animation   Pop Century    Movies    Sports    Music

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MOVIES RESORT

I’ve stayed at all five of Disney’s Value Resorts more than a dozen times. These visits confirm the order in which the value resorts are recommended.

• Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is number one among the values.
• After  Art of Animation, the rank is, in order, Pop Century, All-Star Movies, All-Star Sports, and All-Star Music.

These last three All-Star Resorts are very close. Of these three,

• All-Star Sports is the most convenient, but kid appealing only if your kids are into baseball, football, basketball, surfing, or tennis
• All-Star Movies is the most broadly kid-appealing, and the most comfortable of the three
• All-Star Music is the most compact, most lovely, and the only one of these three with family suites (Art of Animation also has family suites).

[Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD’S SUMMER NIGHTASTIC

“Summer Nightastic” is Disney’s name for five new or recycled things happening this summer (through mid-August) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and the Magic Kingdom:

• The return of the old Magic Kingdom evening parade, the Main Street Electrical Parade, replacing Spectromagic
• A new fireworks display at the Magic Kingdom, the Summer Nightastic Fireworks Show, replacing Wishes
• Enhancements to the Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
• The Sounds Like Summer Concert Series, a concert series at Epcot, and
• The Rock ‘n’ Glow Dance Party at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Since the first three represent changes some of Walt Disney World’s best loved attractions, I saw then last weekend, and comment on them below.

The upshot?  All three remain linchpins of a Walt Disney World trip, whether in their current form, or the ones they will go back to in August.

[Read more →]

In late June I checked out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This page is one of several resulting reviews, which include

• The Flight of the Hippogriff
• Dragon Challenge
• Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, overall

REVIEW: THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter includes

•  A delightful but small built environment meant to bring the village of Hogsmeade (and a few imports from Diagon Alley) to life
• A replica of Hogwarts Castle, and
• Three rides.

The three rides are the Flight of the Hippogriff, a minor roller coaster in the open air, Dragon Challenge, a world-class, very intense roller coaster, and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the only new ride (the other two are slightly re-decorated versions of old rides.)

The Flight of the Hippogriff will be uninteresting to most.

Dragon Challenge will appeal to fans of top-level roller coasters, but be far too intense for anyone else.

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey has a stunning queue, and a pretty amazing ride, but will be off-limits to those with even moderate motion sickness.

The village of Hogsmeade is well-done and charming, but quite small.

Butterbeer rocks.

The upshot: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is absolutely worth a visit if you are going to Universal Orlando anyway. If you are, the best way to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is to stay at a Universal resort hotel.  This will allow you to take advantage of its resort hotel early entry program, saving you hours of waiting in line.

(Note that Universal Express Plus passes will not get you in to the Wizarding World any earlier, and once you are in, can’t be used to go to the head of the line at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the signature ride.)

If, however, you are a first time visitor to Walt Disney World, and following one of this site’s Disney World itineraries, I can’t recommend taking time out of already over-packed days to see the Wizarding World, unless your children simply will give you no peace otherwise. (If you must fit Harry Potter into a Disney World visit, see the links at the bottom of the page for hints on fitting Harry Potter in.)

Instead, save the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for another trip.

MORE ON THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER

[Read more →]

I’ve checked out Hogsmeade at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter multiple times, most recently in November. This page is one of several reviews of Hogsmeade, which include:

• The Flight of the Hippogriff
• Dragon Challenge
• Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
• Ollivanders
• The Hogwarts Express

REVIEW: HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is the signature attraction in the Hogsmeade component of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure.

It has attracted many gushing reviews and at least one unrealistic and cranky one.

The truth, for most, will be somewhere in between.

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey deploys state-of-the-art theme park technology to create a stunning queue, and a mostly marvelous attraction.

However, in some ways the technology isn’t supported as well as it could be.  In other ways, the designers got a little too excited by the technology itself.

The upshot is that for most people the ride is a “don’t miss” if you are at Universal Orlando anyway.

However, for first time visitors to Walt Disney World, I would not take a morning out of a Disney visit to see the Forbidden Journey of Harry Potter unless your kids just won’t give you any peace otherwise.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY OF HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY

Many reviewers have called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey a combination of Epcot’s Soarin and The Haunted Mansion.

I get the comparison–the ride has projections of images like Soarin, and physical environments with scary figures that recall, in a much scarier way, the Haunted Mansion.

But the better comparator at Walt Disney World is the Animal Kingdom’s Dinosaur.

• Like Dinosaur, the ride is powered by a motion simulator–in the case of Forbidden Journey, a quite advanced one.
• Like Dinosaur, cool and surprising audio-animatronics emerge, sometimes when you least suspect it.
• Like Dinosaur, the overall story of the ride is very thin, and simply an excuse for a sequence of vignettes that don’t tie to or build on each other.
• Like Dinosaur, the ride vehicle is so much so the real star of the ride that it calls too much attention to itself.
• And like Dinosaur, if you are at all subject to motion sickness, the ride will be one of seemingly unending misery.

The experience begins with the queue itself.

Once you get in to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and into Hogwarts Castle, dump your stuff into the lockers on the right.

(You really need to do this, as the ride vehicles have storage for, at best, a pair of sunglasses, wallet, and phone. Nothing bigger than a glasses case will fit.)

You then enter the queue, first outdoors, and then in a greenhouse that is not quite as steamy, even in June, as one might fear.

Then you go back inside the castle, and the magic begins.

I’m not gonna give away any spoilers, but the quality of the experience of the waiting line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is far, far better than anything else in the theme park universe.

This queue itself is almost the price of entering Universal Orlando.

(Do not use the single rider line until you have experienced the main queue. The queue really is so good that it is worth the hour or more of extra waiting.  The single rider line is best for return visits to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey–not your first.)

At the end of the queue, you strap in to a four-person bench.  There’s a mock-up of the bench before you enter the Castle–if you are concerned, test your fit. (Riders of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey also have to be at least 48 inches tall.)

Then you are off!

The ride–and again, I’m not gonna give away details, because as in all such things, the mystery of what happens next is a big part of the fun–begins with projected images, then moves into physical spaces, and varies back and forth between the two environments.

The problem is that the projected images are not well done, and the physical environments seem poorly paced.

I’m not sure what the issue is with the projected images–too slow a data rate?  Not enough time spent on animation? Regardless, my first thought, on seeing the first image, was “that’s really blurry and thin on detail.”  This is the case with later projected images as well. Not a great first impression.

The physical environments are much easier to look at, and sometimes quite fun.  However, the pacing through the physical environments is not well matched to the pacing of the images (you move too quickly in the projected areas, and it seems that you move too slowly in the physical environments), so the reaction becomes not one of marveling at what is present, but rather wondering what’s next.

Meanwhile, your ride vehicle is zooming around, sometimes in accord with the action, but often quite purposelessly.

For those with cast-iron stomachs, the zooming is fun, although at times a pointless distraction from the rest of the ride.  For those with moderate or higher degrees of motion sickness, the zooming will get old very fast, and re-present itself as severe discomfort.

To compare the potential for motion sickness with Walt Disney World, I’d put it between Dinosaur and the orange side of Mission: Space.

• If you can take the orange side of Mission Space, the Forbidden Journey of Harry Potter will pose no problems at all.
• If Dinosaur feels like the outer edge of your capability, seriously consider avoiding the Forbidden Journey.
• If Star Tours or the Tower of Terror is too much for your motion sickness, then absolutely avoid the Forbidden Journey.

Note that even if motion sickness is an issue for you, the queue is still very much worth seeing–go through the queue, and then bail before boarding the ride itself.

Universal Orlando is a place for thrill rides, and the technology deployed at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey creates the opportunity for a very cool, very thrilling simulation of wizarding flight.

That said, flight simulators are famous for making people upchuck.

In my view, the designers have dialed up the zoom too intensely–perhaps because the quality of the projected images is so poor, and the physical environments too slowly-paced?–and, as a result, have left too many of their audience on the runway.

I’ve checked out Hogsmeade at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter multiple times, most recently in November. This page is one of several reviews of Hogsmeade, which include:

• The Flight of the Hippogriff
• Dragon Challenge
• Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
• Ollivanders
• The Hogwarts Express

REVIEW: DRAGON CHALLENGE AT THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER

Dragon Challenge is a world-class roller coaster at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure, in its Wizarding World of Harry Potter–Hogsmeade area.

You need to be at least 54 inches tall to ride it.

It’s been around for a while under the name of Dueling Dragons, but was slightly re-decorated and re-named to better fit in with the rest of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Dragon Challenge is actually two slightly different rides.

Together, however, they represent the tallest roller coaster in the park.

And what a roller coaster it is!

Even more than most coasters, you really really need to sit in the front.

This is because the riders are suspended below the track, with their feet dangling.

As a result, riders other than those at the front can’t really see what’s happening around them–and seeing what’s happening is the best part of this great coaster.

According to Universal, “you’ll feel like a Triwizard Tournament competitor as you climb aboard one of two ferocious dragons that twist, loop, and nearly collide in an intertwining roller coaster chase across the sky.”

In fact, the ride has very little to do with Harry Potter.

Consequently, lines for it tend to be very short early in the morning, when guests are more focused on the more Pottery elements of the Wizarding World.

However, later in the morning the coaster fans will be taking over, and lines will grow much longer.

I’ve checked out Hogsmeade at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter multiple times, most recently in November. This page is one of several reviews of Hogsmeade, which include:

• The Flight of the Hippogriff
• Dragon Challenge
• Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
• Ollivanders
• The Hogwarts Express

REVIEW: THE FLIGHT OF THE HIPPOGRIFF AT HOGSMEADE IN THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER

The Flight of the Hippogriff is a sweet, charming coaster for little ones and the faint of heart at Universal Orlando’s Hogsmeade part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Guests must be 36 inches tall to ride.

It is essentially unthemed and unrelated to Harry Potter. It is a redecoration of a previously existing ride, the Flying Unicorn, to make it fit in better with the Wizarding World. Outside of its queue area, but visible only from its queue, is Hagrid’s Hut. Seeing the hut will be worth riding the ride for many Harry Potter fans.

You enter the queue, walk past Hagrid’s hut and Hagrid himself, board, climb to the top of a short hill, and have about 20 seconds of a fun mild coaster trip.

To put it in the context of Walt Disney World, in terms of intensity, speed, and curves, the most similar ride is Big Thunder Mountain. Big Thunder Mountain is of course actually themed, and much longer, but no more scary.

Flight of the Hippogriff is smoother. Serious coaster fans will find Flight of the Hippogriff trivial; for beginners to coasters, it’s a great introduction.  Harry Potter devotees will enjoy the few moments with Hagrid’s hut. Wait times when I was there were around five minutes–the more Pottery elements of Hogsmeade were a much bigger draw.