Harry Potter Area Report-8/9/10 About This Page:

[bombygriz]

Repost from another board, I did go to Universal/Islands of Adventure from 8/8-8/12! Very fun!!

This report will be split into three sections: Rides, Food, and Shops/Experience.

]Rides

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
This ride was AWESOMNESS. Even the LINE was awesome. The line goes through the castle, where you see Dumbledore's little bird thing at the entrance to his office, and a few artifacts. You then go back outside for a bit into the Herbology greenhouse, where you see mandrakes that don't scream. The line moved constantly for us, which was nice. Then, you go back into the castle, where you see Dumbledore's office (e's in there!), talking pictures, and the Defence Against the Dark Arts room. There, you are briefed about what's going to happen by Harry, Ron, and Hermione. After that, it's on to the loading area.

TIP: If you're larger, the staff has to hear three clicks on the harness for you to continue. Tell them to push in it, as they are too gentle with this sort of thing.

The ride goes awesome here, you actually feel like you are flying due to the massive use of technology. Not giving away too much here, but BE WARNED: arachnophobes...there are very large spiders. Right in your face. I was scared completely. Worst part is, that's where they take the picture, so ours came out terribly. :c
So yes, after the ride you get dumped into a shop, as always. Not too cool from there.

Two tips: One, the lockers there are free to use for up to an hour and a half. Store your stuff, or else you will get kicked off after the long wait. :c
Two, if you've done it once and want to do it again, but you could care less about the line, do the single rider's line. It skips the tour and brings you straight to the loading area so you can get on fast. There are ALWAYS groups of three or five that have to have a single rider to fill up the vehicles.
IN short, DO EET. Like, you cant skip this. Unless you are a complete square.

Flight of the Hippogriff
Uh...I rode this one when it was the Unicorn ride in the midieval land. If you did so too, you might want to skip this one. It's an hour wait for a two-second ride. The only cool part was the line (Hagrid's hut was there, and a cart full of boxes) and like, there is a hippogriff there that bows to you, but if you don't have the time or aren't a huge fan, you might want to skip this. It's not a fun one.

Dragon Challenge
I ent through the line with this one, but I skipped the ride, when it was Dueling Dragons. It's the same.They added a bed and the Goblet of Fire to the queue, and you can see the flying car. The Fire dragon is now a Chinese Fireball, and the Ice one is the Hungarian Horntail.

TIP: If you haven't figured out already, the Horntail is faster and loopier than the Fireball. Do both if you want to, but stick to the latter if you're scared, I guess.

The ride was an awesome roller coaster, for sure, but we weren't in sync with the other coaster (they usually are) because some stupid Spanish woman brought a camera on and they had to stop us on the way up and yell at her.Someone finally yelled at her in Spanish and she put it away. >.<
In short, this is a nice one to do if you are a coaster person. The queue is fun to look at. Do it. There's a single rider line, so do that (you can still see the queue).

Frog Choir/Spirit Rally
Two little shows in an area with some flags. Didn't see the frogs, but the rally was only cool for the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang costumes.