Are you curious how The Forbidden Journey Ride in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Hollywood compares? Is it good for young kids? Is it a good ride? All of this and more in my Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Well, before you read on, be advised that there are spoilers in this post! You will receive the ins and outs and details of the ride and so it may be spoiled, but if you are like me…reading the details of the ride does make it better for me and also helps me to decide if a ride is going to be okay for my kids!
I have ridden it a number of times and have really enjoyed “the journey” overall each time.
So, now that you know the caveat…read on!
Make your way through Hogwarts™ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Then soar above the castle grounds as you join Harry Potter™ and his friends on an unforgettably thrilling adventure, coming face-to-face with magical creatures. The Magic Is All Here in the Complete 8-Film Collection. The collection includes Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone™, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets™, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban™, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire™, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix™, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince™, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows™ - Part 1, and Harry.
First off, the walk through Hogwart’s to get to the ride is awesome. Very well done. I will be sharing about the details of this in a future post.
So you may be wondering if the ride requires riders be 45″ tall (about 7 years old), then how can those who are younger or shorter experience Hogwarts without the ride? This is one part I love that they have done…any person who is too little or has no interest in the actual ride can still walk through the castle and hang out in line with your party. At the end, right before the ride, there is a room that you can sit with those that don’t want to ride and watch…you guessed it…Harry Potter.
I LOVED the fact that our entire group could stay together through the castle and then have a nice, entertaining, indoor waiting area for the rest of the non-riding party – or a spot for baby switch.
So HUGE Kudos to Universal Studios for thinking about this!
Now on with the ride.
What the Forbidden Journey Ride does
The ride combines both actual imagery with 3-D imagery. There are groups of 4 that sit side-by-side and a “hanging” fashion. I love rides where my feet dangle. It’s just a fun sensation. I think it is supposed be like you are riding a broomstick to play Quidditch.
They do a very good job of starting off the ride with Hermione giving Floo Powder and a spell that you repeat to begin “flying.” Then a fog comes over and you are in a 3-D ride and the first few seconds are with chasing and being chased by Hagrid’s dragon.
Very quickly, the 3-D scene changes to a “real-life” room and you are in section of Hogwarts where it looks like the dragon has scratched through the roof and lighting the way with his flames as you are trying to get away and then ends with a real-life dragon stuck in the roof trying to get to you and spewing fire and fog…which fog up the glasses for the person closest to the dragon.
But overall, this section was well done.
Soon after you enter a room of the ride made to look like the place where you have a face-to-face run in with Aragog – the giant spider and spiders falling and popping up everywhere. It’s fine, except that you ride into another section of the ride, just to have more spiders to deal with. The spiders were a bit overkill. It got a little boring to have spider after spider – except for the Whomping Willow section that was pretty cool. This also was not on a 3-D screen, but real life and the seats of the ride move in such a way that you sorta flying under one of the whomping branches and are shifted to where you are laying on your back. A cool movement and sensation on the ride.
And then you finally get to quidditch. This is the part where I was really hoping and expecting to enjoy some nice “flying” time and close calls and fun on the quidditch field. But seemingly as soon as you get there and are just beginning to experience the flying and playing…the game play is interrupted by Dementors in 3D. Harry is flying with you to lead you out of the Dementors path, only to end up in another “room section” of real life looking Dementors, except, they were very poorly designed, looking like they literally had a potato sack on their heads. However, they are frightening and have their skeletony hands up as you come into close contact with several of them. You finally leave this room after having a 3D encounter and then a semi-long real-life like encounter and as you are riding through that room, you ultimately find you enter another room to face these giants again…it’s major overkill on the Dementors. One room was more than enough. Finally, Harry helps and succeeds in defeating the dementors back on a 3-D screen and you are then praised and welcomed for your bravery by Dumbledore and many famous students and then you go through green fog again to the ride end/beginning.
Final thoughts on this Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey Ride Review
Overall, the ride is not something to miss as the experience is a great one. I LOVE the movement of the ride and the technology of the robocoaster. Each seat pivots in many directions quite smoothly and comfortably while hanging from a robotic arm. This movement and technology is very graceful, and feels awesome, especially when you feel like you are flying. It also allows the ride to move with dashing and turning and diving from the dementors, whomping willow, dragon and spiders without uncomfortable jerking and seat shifting.
And also, it semi-worked switching from a 3D screen scene to a “real-life” screen. But it was too much of a change in perspective that it is hard to make it feel totally real life.
My biggest complaint was that there was very little actual quidditch and flying time. The Spiders and Dementors were serious overkill. It was like they needed the ride to be this much longer and didn’t know what to do but extend the ride by adding an additional spider and additional dementor scene after already have one or three. It made it boring if you rode it more than once. There is so much in the Harry Potter series, that is seems short-sided to only focus on those to the overkill extent. I really think they needed more time on the Quidditch field. If you blinked…you missed it.
The other thing that was a little disappointing was that the ride was stopped often. It’s a continuous moving ride. So you walk on the moving sidewalk to get on and then the same when you get off. Well, if there is any “hiccup” along the way, the ride stopped. And of course, my second time riding, it was stopped for a long while with a real-life, cheap looking, creepy, giant dementor lording over me and my 7 year old, who was also riding for the second time, but was terrified of the Dementors, especially the very long conflict with them. But she loved the rest of the ride, so I told her to close her eyes for that part. Well, we stopped right in front of one for a while. And that was after the ride had stopped a few people before we got on.
When you stop on the ride, it sorta messes up the story and the experience overall. When we got off the second time, I mentioned it being stopped twice in a short time and they said, “yes, that happens a lot.” Hmmm.
Finally, you exit the ride to Filch’s Emporium…where you will find the sorting hat and Maurder’s Map. The Sorting Hat is another fun experience!
Is it good for young kids?
Obviously my thoughts here are completely subjective and each parent does need to decide what their child can handle. I know for a fact that my 7-year old could not handle this. I took my daughter who is two years old and she really couldn’t handle it. If there was less dementor and spider, then she would have been fine. But since the ride is primarily dementors, spiders and the creepy Whomping Willow, it’s too much for my kids under the age of 10. I also haven’t let my kids under 10 watch any Harry Potter movies beyond #3. #1, #2, and #3 already have some scarier scenes and parts that can be too much for them, but the movies become increasingly darker and more difficult to wade through. So just be aware that the ride has some fun and happy parts, but most of it is dark.
How does it compare to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at Universal Orlando Resort?
This is an interesting thought. The ride in Orlando was built first and built and opened in 2010. The Hollywood version opened in 2016. It seems that over 6 years, they were able to improve the technology to make the ride much smoother and less nauseating.
I don’t have a super sensitive stomach when it comes to rides. I LOVE thrill rides. But when I ride the one in Universal Orland0, I get sick to my stomach as they hadn’t yet perfected the movement of the chairs and the 3-D effects enough for the average person. In fact, when I have talked to others about the comparison, many others have had the same experience. So the movements are not graceful, but jerky and nauseating in Orlando. So if you couldn’t handle it in Orlando, you might be fine in Hollywood – give it another ride there!
There you have it! My thoughts on the most popular ride at Universal Studios Hollywood!
We would love to hear your comments too! Share them below.
Kiz also did her own review of this ride, so you can read her review as well! She also talks about the line queue – which has some really cool stuff!
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Read Kiz’s Review HERE
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