Play-and-Stay Blog

Several months ago I made a super-secret undercover trip to Ireland, my mission was simple. To find and capture a leprechaun for the good of humanity. After 2 months of hiding under a rotting log disguised as a pile of bracken and surviving in a very manly Ray Mears manner I finally caught one of the little Irish bounders using a stick, some bacon and a Tesco carrier bag. My interest was not in his pot of gold, nor to scientifically study this fascinating new species but instead to gain a single wish.
Having bound and gagged the feisty little sprite I wedged him into my hand luggage and boarded my affordable Ryanair flight home. After a few weeks of “persuasion” using the Will and Grace season three DVD box-set on continual loop I finally got my wish. Thanks to me the single greatest occurrence of modern times has taken place, something that may well bring about world peace.

A Harry Potter theme park will be opening in late 2009 at Florida’s Universal resort, take the time to absorb that, rejoice and maybe high-five whoever is nearest you.
The new park will be called “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” and will be the worlds first fully immersive Potter environment and it will be part of Universal’s Islands of adventure theme park in Florida which is already home to Marvel super-hero, Jurassic Park, ancient mythology, Dr Suess and Popeye based sections. Having personally visited the park a few times I can say that all the sections are of a very high standard, particularly the Marvel super-heroes area (where I once met Spider-Man). With such a good track record and the involvement of Warner Bros. the new park is set to be breathtaking.

Early artist renderings for the park look perfectly faithful to the films which in turn were a very good representation of what author, J.K Rowling described in the books so fans of both should be very pleased with the outcome (if Universal stick the the drawings.) The finished product should be a totally immersive environment including the wizard village of Hogsmeade, the forbidden forest and Hogwarts itself, which I can only presume won’t be a full replica. Surely it would be far far to large even in the parks 20 acre plot, but who knows with those wacky Americans.

Universal certainly have the staff to create something breathtaking. Stuart Craig, who was involved in the design for all the Potter films to date is heavily involved in the project which eases my initial fear that the park would become a ghastly Americanised parody. I for one cannot wait to charge around Hogwarts brandishing one of my selection of replica wands, hexing children left right and centre. Yeah, I know it won’t be real but I’m hoping the power of suggestion will at least cause a minor freak-out when I launch an Avada Kedavra at someone.

Attractions are apparently going to include a broad selection of rides which Universal are remaining tight-lipped about, J. K. Rowling let slip that one would be aimed at young children and the official Universal page promises “a state-of-the-art attraction that will bring the magic, characters and stories of Harry Potter to life in an exciting way that guests have never before experienced”
What this will be is anyone’s guess, it is worth noting that there is a very good immersive Spider-man ride in the Marvel section of Universal so personally, I am expecting something similar, perhaps a kind of 3-D effect ride/show combo or perhaps some kind of interactive ride, whatever it is no doubt it will be something special. The “never before experienced” part is particularly intriguing, will they be using some kind of new technology? With the boom in motion sensors and touch screens in consumer gadgets who knows, perhaps a Nintendo Wii style experience that responds to the riders movement. This is all speculation of course but please feel free to join in and leave your ideas for this mysterious new attraction in the comments section.

With such a massive fan-base, a near infinite amount of money and 20 acres of land to play with it is unlikely that Universal are going to get this wrong, their only obvious mistake so far has been not replying to my E-mail begging for a job and I can just about forgive that. I for one will be there as close to opening day as I can manage, Until then I think I’ll hassle my leprechaun some more.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.