Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
On Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey – the marquee attraction of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – guests will journey through iconic locations straight from the films, such as the Room of Requirement. This amazingly detailed scene is where guests board the groundbreaking ride and are drawn into the excitement and chaos of Harry’s life. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – the only place in the world where the stories of Harry Potter will come to life – grand opening on June 18.

It seems like Universal can’t keep anything a secret anymore.  Even if the announcement is only a day away.  First the “tent pole” ride for the Harry Potter area had most of the information for it uncovered through patents filings, Kuka robotics contracts, or just actors talking about filming their 3D scenes for the ride.  Then a few days before the Super Bowl, their commercial somehow leaked to the internet a few days early.  Maybe this is Universal’s new advertising style?  Make a big deal about the announcement, and then leak the information early so everyone gets excited?  hmmm  That is the “grand opening date”, I’ m sure we can expect to see a soft opening start to happen in early June.

The official announcement will be made on Thursday, March 25th at 12:00pm eastern time.  Expect to see the original leaked page back online at www.UniversalOrlando.com/HarryPotter

If you didn’t see the behind the scenes look video posted last month, click here.

In recent weeks, Six Flags had proposed a new lease arrangement to the fair board that would have enhanced the viability and future of the park. Unfortunately, those proposals were not accepted and the park will cease operations and the company will move expeditiously to re-locate employees and several of the more than 40 rides and attractions to one of its 13 other markets.

In an interesting contrast with Six Flags’ statement, this article claims that all rides are property of the Kentucky Fair Board.  Harold Workman, president of the Ky Fair Board said that the removal of the Chang roller coaster in September of last year was approved by him after Six Flags presented him plans to expand the water park by removing Chang.  With the way the contracted is worded, the Chang roller coaster could have belonged to the Fair Board, since the ride was affixed to the ground.  He also claims that Six Flags proposed a deal to pay no rent for the remainder  of the nine year lease in exchange for some sort of profit-sharing deal.

update Feb. 10, 2010

The current rumor is that Compagnie des Alpes is in talks with the Kentucky State Fairgrounds about running the Kentucky Kingdom property.  CdA runs several theme parks in Europe including the Parc Asterix, Walibi parks, Bellewaerde, and Hellendoorn.  If the deal goes through, Kentucky Kingdom would be their first park in North America.

I think they could have done a better job for a commercial that is going to cost them $2.5 billion to show during the Super Bowl.  At this point I’m sure they’re going for just more of an “oh I’m excited to see a commercial for it” factor than trying to compete with the usual creative commercials seen during the game.  I did however like the split second view of the coaster train on the dragon’s fire.

This video focuses more on the inverted, Cylon track.

This one focuses more on the sit-down, Human track.

Universal Studios Singapore is still on schedule to open summer 2010.

I just don’t see how someone comes up with the idea, and gets it approved from the higher ups in the theme park to go ahead with it.  I’m sure they were just trying to be edgy this year and make some extra news coverage (nothing helps get attention like controversy) but I think they definitely stepped over the line with the McNair display.

In front of the entrance of Universal is the box office of the “Universal Palace Theater.”

You can see movie posters to both sides of the box office.

The first house we went to was Silver Screams

The only scene I was able to get a decent picture of was probably my favorite.  The movie theater screen with bodies hanging in front of it…

at the Apocalypse scare zone…

Chucky house…

They had a wall of the “Good Boy” Chucky dolls

It didn’t seem quite right having life size Chuckys

I’m not sure what this is, but when it came around the corner it scared the hell out of me.  Almost looks like a Yeti…

This is from the War of the Living Dead scare zone.

“The Spawning” house is themed to a sewer system with creatures in it.

Here is one of the creatures, or “Sculders”.

Something trying to come out of the sewage drain…

At the entrance of “Containment” they were warning us not to breathe in the dangerous gas that had leaked out.

Of course the whole street was filled with the dangerous gas.

The “Dracula: Legacy in Blood” house had an excellent entrance.

The scare zone “Lights, Camera, Hacktown” was one of my favorites.

A few bloody PA’s on the movie set.

It wouldn’t be Horror Nights without chain saws…

Inside the house “Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned”

and another one of my favorite scare zone of Horror Nights, “Horrorwood Drive-In”

Some people get distracted by watching the drive-in movie screen and don’t notice one of the characters that might be sneaking up on them.

A few characters from the “The Strangers”

from “Saw 3″

I think this was suppose to be a zombie version of Scarface.

and Frankenstein

Mel still hasn’t fixed the sign at his Drive-In.  Someone could really get the wrong idea.

And one more look at this year’s logo

and here is the map of the event

I’ll be back this Friday and Saturday night to get more photos.

If you have facebook, add Mr. Yeti – he’ll have some pics from HHN up this weekend also.

In the mean time, you can view all of the theme park posts on this site by clicking here.