Wizard news! Hollywood’s brand new Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened to fans earlier this week and it looks like magic to me…
The “Potter” themed park has taken five years to build and recreates the magic world of the hit children’s books and movies.
The big attraction is the Harry Potter And The Forbidden Journey ride into Hogwarts itself. Guests will don Quidditch-inspired 3D goggles as they join in with the adventures of wannabe wizard Harry and his friends.
Fans will also discover numerous props from the films, including Hermione’s Yule Ball gown in a display cabinet in Gladrags Wizardwear and the actual desks that Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at during their lessons in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Demand for the attraction was so great this week that the theme park has even had to restrict sales
As for visitors who are lucky enough to be admitted through the turnstiles in the near future, they should expect the theme park to be, well, a zoo for quite some time.
Not even a recent price hike that increased the cost of a one-day adult ticket by $20 to $115, or a shift to “surge pricing” that makes it more expensive to visit the park on peak days (kind of like how airlines price their tickets), have deterred demand.
Observers have noted that broad price hikes have been instituted not simply as money grabs but also as crowd control measures, with the idea that some portion of guests would avoid the higher prices that go along with peak-demand periods. But c=ertainly in the case of the new Potter park, higher prices have done nothing to ease demand.
Visitors to the park can also dine in the “Three Broomsticks” restaurant and the “Hog’s Head” pub, as well as sampling wares from the “Magic Neep” and “Butterbeer carts”.
Launch Shops include Honeydukes, Ollivanders, Owl Post, Zonko’s Joke Shop, Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment, Dervish and Banges and Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods.
Visitors at a launch preview of the park this week included ex-Disney star Vanessa Hudgens, and British actor Warwick Davis, who played Prof Flitwick and goblin Griphook in the Potter films.
I can’t wait to try this one out!
