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Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

An Attraction in Islands of Adventure

Last updated: November 3, 2024

At a Glance

This ride provides the only opportunity at Universal Orlando to come in contact with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore as portrayed by the original actors (doubles are used for some actors elsewhere). Half the attraction is a series of preshows, setting the stage for the main event, a wild dark ride. You can get on the ride in only 10–25 minutes using the singles line, but everyone should go through the main queue at least once.

From Hogsmeade you reach the attraction through the imposing Winged Boar gates and then progress along a winding path. Entering the castle on a lower level, you walk through a sort of dungeon festooned with various icons and prop replicas from the Potter flicks, including the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. You later emerge back outside and into the Hogwarts greenhouses. Cleverly conceived and executed, with some strategically placed mandrakes to amuse you, the greenhouses compose the larger part of the Forbidden Journey’s queuing area. If you’re among the first in the park and in the queue, you’ll move through this area pretty quickly. Otherwise . . . well, we hope you like plants. The greenhouses aren’t air-conditioned, but fans move the (hot) air around. Blessedly, there are water fountains but, alas, no restrooms.

Having finally escaped horticulture purgatory, you reenter the castle, moving along its halls and passageways. One chamber you’ll probably remember from the films is a multistory gallery of portraits, many of whose subjects come alive when they take a notion. You’ll see for the first time the four founders of Hogwarts: Helga Hufflepuff holding her famous cup, Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw nearby, and the tall, moving portrait of Salazar Slytherin straight ahead. The founders argue about Quidditch and Dumbledore’s controversial decision to host an open house at Hogwarts for Muggles (garden-variety mortals). Don’t rush through the gallery—the effects are very cool, and the conversation is essential to understanding the rest of the attraction.

Next up, after you’ve navigated some more passages, is Dumbledore’s office, where the chief wizard appears on a balcony and welcomes you to Hogwarts. The headmaster’s appearance is your introduction to Musion Eyeliner technology—a high-definition video-projection system that produces breathtakingly realistic, three-dimensional, life-size moving holograms. The technology uses a special foil that reflects images from HD projectors, producing holographic images of variable sizes and incredible clarity. After his welcoming remarks, Dumbledore dispatches you to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom to hear a presentation on the history of Hogwarts.

As you gather to await the lecture, Harry, Ron, and Hermione pop out from beneath an invisibility cloak. They suggest that you ditch the lecture in favor of joining them for a proper tour of Hogwarts, including a Quidditch match. After some repartee among the characters and a couple of special effects surprises, it’s off to the Hogwarts Official Attraction Safety Briefing and Boarding Instructions Chamber—OK, we made up the name, but you get the picture. The briefing and instructions are presented by animated portraits, including an etiquette teacher. Later on, even the famed Sorting Hat gets into the act. All this leads to the Room of Requirement, where hundreds of candles float overhead and you board the ride.

After all the high-tech stuff in your queuing odyssey, you’ll naturally expect to be wowed by your ride vehicle. Surely it’s a Nimbus 3000 turbo-broom, a phoenix, a hippogriff, or at least the Weasleys’ flying car. But no, what you’ll ride on the most technologically advanced theme park attraction in America is . . . a bench? Yep, a bench.

A bit anticlimactic, perhaps, but as benches go, this one’s a doozy, mounted on a Kuka robotic arm. When not engaged in Quidditch matches, a Kuka arm is a computer-controlled robotic arm similar to the kind used in heavy manufacturing. If you think about pictures you’ve seen of automotive assembly plants, Kuka arms are like those long metal appendages that come in to complete welds, move heavy stuff around, or fasten things. With the right programming, the arms can handle just about any repetitive industrial tasks thrown at them (see kuka-robotics.com for more info).

Your 4¼-minute adventure is a headlong sprint through the most thrilling moments from the first few Potter books: You’ll soar over Hogwarts Castle, narrowly evade an attacking dragon, spar with the Whomping Willow, get tossed into a Quidditch match, and fight off Dementors inside the Chamber of Secrets. Scenes alternate between enormous physical sets, complete with animatronic creatures, elaborate lighting effects, and high-definition video-projection domes that surround your field of view, similar to Soarin’ or The Simpsons Ride. Those Kuka-powered benches really do “levitate” in a manner that feels remarkably like free flight, and while you don’t go upside down, the sensation of floating on your back or being slung from side to side is certainly unique.

The seamless transitions between screens and sets, and the way the domes appear to remain stationary in front of you while actually moving (much like Dreamfinder’s dirigible in the original Journey into Imagination at Epcot), serve to blur the boundary between actual and virtual better than any attraction before it. The greatest-hits montage plotline may be a bit muddled, but the ride is enormously effective at leaving you feeling like you just survived the scariest scrapes from the early educational career of The Boy Who Lived.

Having experienced Forbidden Journey for ourselves, we have two primary bones to pick. First, Islands of Adventure team members rush you through the queue. To understand the story line and get the most out of the attraction, you really need to see and hear the entire presentation in each of the preshow rooms. This won’t happen unless, contrary to the admonishments of the team members, you just park yourself and watch a full run-through of each preshow. Try to find a place to stop where you can let those behind you pass and where you’re as far away from any staff as possible. As long as you’re not creating a logjam, the team members will leave you alone as often as not.

Another alternative is to tell the greeter at the castle entrance that you want to take the castle-only tour (also referred to as an accommodation tour). This self-guided experience lets guests who don’t want to ride take in the many features of the castle by way of a different queue. You can pause as long as you desire in each of the various chambers and savor the preshows without being herded along. At the end, if you decide to ride, just ask to be guided to the singles line—this way you’ll maximize your enjoyment of the castle while you minimize your wait for the ride. Note that the castle-only tour is often unavailable on days of peak attendance, and at press time Universal was conducting tests that could lead to Universal Express access replacing the castle tour altogether.

Another gripe: The dialogue in the preshows is delivered in English accents of varying degrees of intelligibility, and at a very brisk pace. Add an echo effect owing to the cavernous nature of the preshow rooms, and it can be quite difficult for Yanks to decipher what’s being said. This is especially evident in the staccato repartee between Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Related blogs:
A Virtual Guided Walk Through of Hogwarts

Current Standby Wait Time
Closed
Guest Overall Rating
Our Overall Rating
Grade School
Teens
Young Adults
Over 30
Seniors
Duration
6 min
Child Swap?
Yes
Minimum Height
48 in
Queues
Accessibility
  • Frightening
  • Physical Considerations
  • Assistive Listening
  • Must Transfer From Wheelchair/ECV
  • No Service Animals

Touring Tips

When To Go
Immediately after park opening or just before closing.
Loading Speed
Fast
Early Park Admission?
Yes
Wait per 100 People Ahead
8 min

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey quickly became the most popular attraction at Islands of Adventure, and one of the most in-demand theme park attractions in America. While much of the attention has turned toward Gringotts at USF, the best way to ride Forbidden Journey with a reasonable wait is to be one of the first through the turnstiles in the morning or to visit in the final hours of the evening.

Upon entering Forbidden Journey’s outside queue, you have two choices: left line or right line. Upon approaching Forbidden Journey’s front gates, those who have bags or loose items and therefore require a free locker may be directed into an extended outdoor queue. Our wait-time research has shown that in some cases, not needing a locker can save you as much as 30 minutes of standing in line. If you do need to stow your stuff, be aware that the Forbidden Journey locker area is small, crowded, and confusing. It may make more sense to stash your things in the lockers beside Dragon Challenge and pay the fee if you go over time. Alternatively, have one member of your party hold your bags for you in the child swap area.

Universal warns you to secure or leave behind loose objects, which most people interpret to mean eyeglasses, purses, baseball caps, and the like. However, the ride makes a couple of moves that will empty your trousers faster than a master pickpocket—ditto and worse for shirt pockets. When these moves occur, your stuff clatters around like quarters in a slot-machine tray. Much better to use the small compartment built into the seat back for keys, coins, phone, wallet, and pocket Bible. Be prepared, however: team members don’t give you much time to stow or retrieve your belongings.

The single-rider line is not clearly marked, so relatively few guests use it. Whereas on most attractions the wait in the singles line is one-third the wait in the standby line, at Forbidden Journey it can be as much as one-tenth. Because the individual seating separates you from the other riders whether your party stays together or not, it’s a great option, as this wife from Edinburgh, Scotland, discovered:

Trust me, sitting next to hubby on Forbidden Journey, romantic though it may be, is not as awesome as having to wait only 15 minutes as a single rider.

To get there, enter the right (no-bags) line and keep left all the way into the castle. Past the locker area, take the first left into the singles line.

If you see a complete iteration of each preshow in the queue and then experience the ride, you’ll invest 25–35 minutes even if you don’t have to wait. If you elect to skip the preshows—the Gryffindor Common Room, where you receive safety and loading directions, is mandatory—and use the singles line, you can get on in about 10–25 minutes at any time of day. At a time when the posted wait in the regular line was 2 hours, we rode and were out the door in 15 minutes using the singles line.

Forbidden Journey is one of our favorite rides in the world, and it’s a big hit with our readers, like this mother of three from Crystal Lake, Illinois:

I was in awe from the minute I stepped into line, [and] from the minute I began “flying,” I was like a little kid. The integration of movement, video screens, and real scenery was so seamless that I truly felt like I was part of the movie. Here I was, a 40-year-old woman, and I literally walked off the ride with tears in my eyes and happiness in my heart. It was the most amazing ride I had ever been on, and I believe any ride would be hard-pressed to bring about the same feeling of joy!

But much as we enjoy Forbidden Journey, it behooves us to pass along this warning from a mom in St. Louis:

A security person at Universal told me that Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is THE most motion sickness–inducing ride in the two Universal parks, so I opted to take the castle tour instead. My husband and daughter went on the ride, and then somehow convinced me to try it. I should have listened to the security person!

Those weak of stomach should just be grateful that Universal hasn’t added the 3-D video projections from Japan and Hollywood’s Forbidden Journey installations to Orlando’s (yet). Universal has toned down the Kuka programming and added fans to each seat that blow cool air on rider’s foreheads in a somewhat successful effort to reduce motion sickness. We nonetheless recommend that you not ride with a full stomach. If you start getting queasy, fix your gaze on your feet and try to exclude as much from your peripheral vision as possible.

If you have a child who doesn’t meet the minimum height requirement of 48 inches, a child-swapping option is provided at the loading area.

The seats accommodate a wide variety of body shapes and sizes. Each bench has specially modified seats at either end. Though these allow many more people to ride, it’s possible that guests of size can’t fit in them. The best way to figure out whether you can fit in a regular seat or one of the modified ones is to sit in one of the test seats outside the queue or just inside the castle. After you sit down, pull down on the safety harness as far as you can. One of three safety lights will illuminate: A green light indicates that you can fit into any seat, a yellow light means that you should ask for one of the modified seats on the outside of the bench, and a red light means that the harness can’t engage enough for you to ride safely.

In addition, IOA team members select guests of all sizes “at random” to plop in the test seats, but they’re really looking for large people or those who have a certain body shape. Team members handle the situation as diplomatically as possible, but if they suspect you’re not the right size, you’ll be asked to sit down for a test. For you to be cleared to ride, the overhead restraint has to click three times; once again, it’s body shape rather than weight (unless you’re over 300 pounds) that’s key. Most team members will let you try a second time if you don’t achieve three clicks on the first go. Passing the test by inhaling sharply is not recommended unless you can also hold your breath for the entire 4-plus minutes of the ride.

With The Wizarding World and especially Forbidden Journey soaking up so many guests in IOA, waits for attractions in the other themed areas are minimal up to around 11 a.m. (except for new attractions, such as Skull Island: Reign of Kong).

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Wait Times

Here's roughly how many minutes you'll wait for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at each Islands of Adventure Crowd Level.

1
10 to 26
2
10 to 34
3
13 to 38
4
19 to 51
5
24 to 57
6
30 to 58
7
38 to 63
8
44 to 90
9
47 to 91
10
59 to 120
Hourly View
Sunday,
Nov 3, 2024
View another date
Wait Times for
Harry Potter and
the Forbidden Journey
As of 7:47 am EST
Sunday,
November 3, 2024

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