Age: 25 Height: 5’8” SW: 340 CW: 295 GW: 180
Exactly what it says in the title. The Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios Hollywood has been the source of a lot of shame for me. In 2017 I visited the wizarding world for the first time and I had heard that the seats were restrictive, but I hadn’t really had much experience being too large for rides at the time. I got a green light outside on the tester seat, which meant I should have been good to go. Unfortunately even with my dad pushing down on the restraint I couldn’t get the 3 clicks needed to ride. I was escorted off and given a fast pass for my troubles. I was heartbroken.
Fast forward to this year, and we’re planning a vacation to Florida with my gf and her sister, and they’re huge Potter fans. I wanted to lose enough weight to get on not only Forbidden Journey, but the new Velocicoaster and Hagrid coaster too (Universal is bad about size diversity on their rides)
I’ve been trying to steadily lose weight and it’s been a struggle and not nearly as fast as I’d like it to be. For my girlfriends birthday we decided to go to the Hollywood park. I don’t look like I’ve lost any weight so I was apprehensive and was prepared to just wait outside the attraction while she rode it. I tried the tester seat anyway, and got a green light but still needed that extra push. But when I got to the front of the line, she was able to push down on the bar and get those three clicks easily. I watched a woman get escorted off for being too large in the car in front of my but I was allowed to ride.
I was crying happy tears before the ride even started. I rode it 3 times. It was incredible, I wish I had ridden it 3 more times. Now I can look forward to our vacation in October and know I can ride everything and I don’t have to be nervous.
As a theme park but I’m still shocked I got on the most restrictive ride in the park. This has been a source of shame and embarrassment for years. I hadn’t gone back to universal since. I think I’m still in shock tbh. Wow.
At the Universal Studios Orlando Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, why is Draco Malfoy wearing blue quidditch robes? Is that a Wardrobe mistake, or something else I missed?
I know they are both very different rides with very different ride systems, but both are two of the best at the resort, and in the world. Both are excellent. Better ride?
Jack and Geoff are back with an episode recorded LIVE at Universal Orlando's Radio Broadcast Center. Today the guys talk about Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey! Listen along as they talk about taking the Sorting Hat test, buying wands, and Geoff getting nauseous.
I remember going to the opening of this ride in universal orlando. I waited with my family in line for nearly 2 hours, and it started just before entering Jurassic Park from Toon Lagoon. Once we got in and went through the entire inside queue of the castle we got in the ride.
Here is my mandela effect: I so very distinctly remember that the whole ride started with the benches beginning to fly and in order to exit the castle we would fly trough a chimney looking labyrinth. And that took a bit before the being outside and flying around with Harry Potter. I remember that so clearly because I got a bit dizzy from seeing the brick-like wall moving.
Of course now that I've gone back to it, it's just a bit of floo powder that almost instantly takes us out into the observatory, with a little green vortex on the screen. I can't find any reference if it ever started the way I remember, and none of my family seem to remember what the ride was even about other than you fly on a broom (bench thing). Nor can I find any videos of the ride during the opening day.
Can anyone help me out, or is this literally me having a weird mandela effect.
Now if you're a die hard Harry Potter fan, I can fully understand why you would love it, but honestly as someone who works in special effects, I can say it just was not that great overall. The storyline for the ride was fantastic, I'll give it that, and there was some great parts overall. But the parts that really weren't good were the demetor part and the spider part. For the dementors, they looked so incredibly fake. I mean they were literally always in one locked pose with just a piece of fabric over them and a lightbulb to suck your soul out. Also you can clearly see their levers moving them. As for the spiders they also were in a locked position, no true movement. The lighting in that section gave it away just how fake they all looked. I feel it wouldve been better if in that part they set the lighting to be fully pitched black, with occasionally flashes of lightning like thunder, rather then blue lights throughout showing the fakeness of the cave. My friends also agreed the screens just felt kinda blurry. I think its a ride that has so much potential but could use some tweaking to get there.
So I posted on here a few months back before going to Universal Studios Hollywood with my worries about not being able to fit on the ride. I got some really helpful and lovely responses from people (not what I was expecting from Reddit thats for sure!) including a lovely guy who used to work on the ride.
I'm posting an update for anyone else in my situation, looking for information and worrying about going on the ride. For reference, I'm female, 5'7" and about 275-280lbs. I have a long torso and I carry my weight evenly over my body (so no out of proportion big boobs, bum or belly) and I'd describe myself as quite squishy, so able to move some fat around when sitting on a ride to get the bar on.
Universal Hollywood DOES NOT have bigger seats for oversized riders the way the Orlando park does. I got quite a lot of mixed information about this but I asked Universal directly and this was the information I was given. I left the ride til the end of my time in the park because I was so worried about being humiliated, but after having such a good day I thought I'd give it a try (although my heart did start beating a lot faster in the queue with worry!)
First things first, I didn't notice any tester seats anywhere outside. I have been told they were there, but they weren't obvious to me. I made a point to speak to the member of staff on my way in, asking if there was a single rider queue, because my logic was that if they thought I was too big they might have pulled me out there, they didn't. The queue was quite hectic and at one point, one of the workers would point at different queues and ask the guests to step forward. It looked like there was a tester chair here, but it was also very dark and the lone member of staff was not pulling anyone out to try the chair (they seemed more concerned with keeping queues moving). To be honest, I didn't feel once like the members of staff were looking me up and down and thinking I might be too big to ride. There were other people in the queue who I would consider a similar size to me.
When we got on the ride, because it was a moving walkway and we were in the single rider queue it was really fast moving. I did however manage to get sat with my boyfriend (single rider queues are the best). I managed to get two clicks relatively easy, you need three to be able to ride safely. The woman working on the machine
... keep reading on reddit ➡I was just at Islands of Adventure a week ago and I had a great time, but there are some issues with HPATFJ that have not always existed, and I think it needs to be looked at by the powers that exist there.
The audio and video do not match up on several parts in the ride, as well as certain cues such as the dementors getting right in your face (that movement is slightly delayed, so the dementor is retreating by the time you get close to it, rather than following the car like it once did), and the audio in general is just too quiet. I constantly heard the banging and whirring of the machinery of the ride over the audio playing from the seats, and all of these problems seriously take a toll on the illusion that the ride is supposed to create.
Things like this should be first priority for a VR ride, and I hope someone on their management team actually rides the ride ASAP to understand the problem.
Was this an issue for anyone else when they went? Maybe I just caught a bad day for the ride, but these things seem like problems resulting from this ride being around for a while and naturally having some parts degrade if left unchecked.
I've spent hours looking online at youtube videos and on some threads on reddit but I'm posting again in case anyone has any more information (or anything more recent). I must have read everything possibly out there!
I'm going to Universal Studios Hollywood soon and I'm so worried about not fitting onto the Forbidden Journey ride. Like, I'm not being able to sleep worried. I know Orlando made some of their seats more friendly to larger folk, but as far as I'm aware Hollywood haven't done the same.
Some of the information I have been found has been confusing and contradictory, with people saying they're 240lbs and getting thrown off the ride, and other saying they're over 300lbs and have managed to fit on. Also I've read instances when people have fit in the tester chairs and then not been allowed to ride or vice versa. Obviously it does depend on body shape and what not, but can anyone share their experiences of the ride as someone carrying a bit more weight?
Thanks guys!!
EDIT: I've written an update to this post here. Thankyou to everyone who commented on this thread, it was so helpful and non-judgemental. Spoiler alert: I GOT ON!!!!!
I have avoided this ride for a few years because of motion sickness concerns. But we have been on Spiderman, Transformers and Gringott's without issue. I want to toss just watching a video of the Simpson's Ride, so I will stay away from that one.
But should I be worried about Forbidden Journey? Any other queasy folks been on it and can give me an opinion?
In the storyline for the Universal Studios ride "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey", the Wizarding World has revealed itself to the Muggle World, and Muggles are being allowed into Hogwarts to attend a lecture on the history of magic.
It's not certain when this is meant to take place, but it's definitely after Chamber Of Secrets, since visitors see the corpse of the Basilisk in the Chamber.
If this is canon, what would the effects of the story (Muggles have recently learned about the Wizarding World, and relations are already friendly enough that Muggles are attending lectures at a famous Wizarding school) have on the rest of the series?
Which is the better main Potter ride (besides Hagrid's) that are two very amazing, incredible and fun rides that are arguably two of the best rides in the resort? Explain which is better too!
