If you're going to Universal for Harry Potter

ExcitedMama

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 29, 2013
Admittedly I did far more research and planning for Disney since we were only going to be at Universal for one day so I might have missed this somewhere but I didn't see anything on the locker situation at the HP ride and it caused a lot of confusion among people. I remember reading about needing a locker but not how it works. There are walls of lockers and a touchscreen on each wall. The touchscreen says free for the first two hours. Just touch the touchscreen and it will ask you for your fingerprint and then assign you a locker in that section. Put your items in and push the lock button. When you come back you touch the screen again and it will scan your finger and it will unlock your locker. But only once. If you forget to put something in, or in my case you drop something you have to start all over. It's very cool and easy to use but everyone was confused when they walked in. If you are using RS it will save you time to just give your stuff to the non-riding party. The second time we rode I left everything with DH and I didn't even realize I must have been directed to a route that avoids the locker stop we made the first time through.

I had read about the special wand that changes the windows so I knew I would splurge on that for DS. After the fact it's not really that cool. It's hard to use because you have to point at exactly the right spot on the window that can be hard to find. A couple of the windows had people helping and it was hard to figure out. If like me you have no idea what to do or where to go look for small circle medallions in front of the magic windows. Each window has its own spell and each medallion will have the different way to wave the wand on it. Clearly DS is a much better wizard than I am! He usually did pretty well on his own but when I tried to help DD I usually failed miserable. Unless you will enjoy this you might want to skip for young wizards.

I had also read that the Olivander show was not to be missed. I should have gone there straight after the HP Ride because after The Flight of the Hippogriff the line was already really long and we were there at opening. Fortunately the line may look long but moves quickly. Don't despair if your child misses out on being chosen, and even if they do you may still want to give them the experience of choosing their own wand. I didn't realize there was more than just one wand available. If your wizard has a favorite character they can buy their wand or choose one based on looks alone. Again to learn from my mistake you don't have to open every different wand box to see what it looks like. We had missed the wand on the wall by each display because some were covered over by boxes but every person has their wand on the wall so you can see them. The colored boxes are all the same but the gold banded ones are the ones that will control the windows.

Speaking of opening be warned that Universal has no crowd control. If you have small children plan on picking them up. It was dangerous. After being let through the gates people started running and then we were stopped again before they let us continue through and again people started running. I was really shocked at how poorly the whole thing was handled.
 
Good feedback about Universal and HP area. I was like you where didn't really do much planning at universal due to it being only 1 day. We didn't use the lockers but sounds neat how they work. I know what you mean..it's easy to skip that room. The wands did look neat in how they are interactive with some of the windows (too expensive so we didn't spluge on it for our kids). Sorry you found the crowds pretty bad. Did you like HP area overall? I though the buildings and all are really neat...it's like you are right there...and my son LOVED the HP Forbidden Ride . The walk-through itself was pretty cool!
 
The castle really is amazing and all of the shops are really fun to see. It's the one line neither DS nor I could tire of. He loved pointing out things he'd seen when he did it with DH. I was very impressed with the ride and all of the effects that go with it. My DH is not a fan of HP and didn't research anything at all so he was really surprised by how great the whole thing was. The whole time at DL he kept mentioning how much better the thought the food was at the three broomsticks. He and DS both listed the HP ride as the best everything. DS can't stop talking about it and asking when we can go back.
 
It's very cool and easy to use but everyone was confused when they walked in.

Interesting that people were confused. I've never seen that.

If like me you have no idea what to do or where to go look for small circle medallions in front of the magic windows.

That's exactly what you're supposed to do. :)

I had also read that the Olivander show was not to be missed. I should have gone there straight after the HP Ride because after The Flight of the Hippogriff the line was already really long and we were there at opening.

If ollivander is important, you do it first. True at UOrlando, true at UHollywood.

Speaking of opening be warned that Universal has no crowd control. If you have small children plan on picking them up. It was dangerous.

i didn't see any of that when we've been there. And I've been there during the summer with crowds. Hmm.
 



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