Just when you thought you’ve lost all your ‘tweens and teenagers to vampires and werewolves forever, the teen wizards pull out their wands and conjure magic once again.
Perhaps Potter-mania has died down quite considerably already, with most kids now dreaming of romancing the undead thanks to the.
“Twilight” franchise that has shoved Harry and friends to the sidelines, but the Wizarding world has indeed come alive!
Universal Orlando in Florida just unveiled the much-awaited Harry Potter theme park, and leading the troupe of excited.
Hogwarts uniform-clad kids inside the magical world were franchise stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and other actors from the series.
Fans have actually been in line for over eight hours for bragging rights of being the very first visitors of the park. Long lines and snarled traffic marked the wonderful Wizarding day; fans even began blocking the main highway near the entrance to Universal to cause further hassle to other motorists. This prompted the theme park to open their parking areas as early as 5 a.m.
Reuters even reported that by only 8:30 a.m., the line to get inside the park had wound around Universal’s Island of Adventure park, where the Wizarding World is located. It also noted that the wait to get on the signature ride, the Forbidden Journey, had reached 90 minutes at one point.
The 20-acre park reportedly cost $250 million to build. Franchise fans, of course, were treated to a recreation of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and other memorable places they’ve come to know from the books and the movies. Part of the attraction are the Dragon Challenge and a high-speed ride based on the Triwizard Tournament, as well as the Flight of the Hippogriff—their version of a roller coaster—among many others.
Reuters also reported Radcliffe to have said: "It's genuinely amazing. The detail and care that went into it is equivalent to what went into the films, and that's gratifying." And while he loved the various attractions, he professed a certain affinity for the wizard drink Butterbeer, which he described as “very nice.”
As of this report, Universal executives could not yet ascertain the attendance or revenue for the new attraction. However, it has been reported that within the past two weeks, one of the top two online travel agencies has reported double-digit increases in trips booked to Orlando.