Forbidden Journey Refurbishment (Update: Early Dec)

[epcyclopedia]

Today all guests were routed up the "express" or "castle tour" queue. It was 30mins or less so this was doable.

The green house and Oxford corridor as well as the dungeon path leading to the gardens were never opened or used.

*shrug* Something is going on but no one knows what.

 

[ReelJustice]

Last weekend, the dragon did not breathe fire, some dementors were deactivated, and the soul capture projection was off.

 

[RogueAntilles]

Going to the parks with family on Sunday. Half of them have never experienced this and I will be pissed off if it's not functioning right. During summer time. Come on Universal.

 

[JungleSkip]

Going to the parks with family on Sunday. Half of them have never experienced this and I will be pissed off if it's not functioning right. During summer time. Come on Universal.

Sometimes effects aren't working. To counter ReelJustice's post above, I was there in March and everything was working fine.

Things happen.

 

[ReelJustice]

And I will counter Skip by saying this was problem on Saturday and Monday, so it was not a one off.

 

[JungleSkip]

And I will counter Skip by saying this was problem on Saturday and Monday, so it was not a one off.

Okay? Sometimes things are broken for a few days. You worked in parks. You know this.

 

[epcyclopedia]

If something is broken feel free to tell the TMs. Normal operation has a check in the morning and unless something obvious breaks they've no clue unless a guest mentions it.

 

[mike.marty]

possible cause of closure

 

[awhen]

possible cause of closure

What's scene 8?

 

[sjago13]

It has to be chamber of secrets. This could possibly be to redo the rockwork with more clearance for dementor arms. The video below shows the ride lights on.

 

[Andy]

What's scene 8?

Thats a great question lol, so many times Universal lists scenes 1, 1A, 1B thus giving us no clue what they're referencing unless you have the actual blue prints to an attraction layout. If I was to guess I'd say its the scene just after the dementor kiss effect, but I truly have no clue.

 

[sjago13]

My one huge grip with this ride is that there is a lot of unthemed parts you can see while riding. Since you flip sides a couple of times in this area it is very obvious that there are just pieces of rock work hanging overhead. I know they need space for show lighting to come through but possibly this could be them trying to fill in some of the unthemed parts of the ride.

 

[deano_ue]

so can anyone clear up what the actual full dementor scene is. ive heard so many conflicting reports

 

[amityboattours]

One thing I thought about recently, that had never come to my mind before is that to the best of my knowledge, there are no mentions of the Hogwarts ghosts in this attraction, either in the queue or the ride itself.
They remain prolific in the books, but in the movies are also pretty much completely gone by The 3rd one too.
With regards to the attraction, I wonder if this was a deliberate omission? Maybe they were considered too morbid, or even scary to younger guests? Maybe it was to avoid comparisons with Disney's Haunted Mansion? It would be cool if anyone had any real information on this decision.

 

[IzzyB]

FJ was down for an extended period of time yesterday. Is this normal? If the ride does go down for 10 days could it be because they need to fix a technical issue that requires more than just over night time period?

 

[UNIrd]

One thing I thought about recently, that had never come to my mind before is that to the best of my knowledge, there are no mentions of the Hogwarts ghosts in this attraction, either in the queue or the ride itself.
They remain prolific in the books, but in the movies are also pretty much completely gone by The 3rd one too.
With regards to the attraction, I wonder if this was a deliberate omission? Maybe they were considered too morbid, or even scary to younger guests? Maybe it was to avoid comparisons with Disney's Haunted Mansion? It would be cool if anyone had any real information on this decision.

When I was doing my armchair imagineering for this before it opened, it was definitely more similar to Haunted Mansion than not. The ghosts, moving stairs, talking paintings, etc. At least we got the latter in the queue. I still think they would have benefitted from the addition of a more mild ride experience like this in the castle since FJ is so restrictive to a lot of guests.

 

[epcyclopedia]

FJ was down for an extended period of time yesterday. Is this normal? If the ride does go down for 10 days could it be because they need to fix a technical issue that requires more than just over night time period?

Not normal, but not like unheard of either. The stationary loading area broke down, so they had to switch to an alternate loading system for guests in wheelchairs or unable to walk on the belt. Every 2 hours they let the ride cycle clear, stop it, put those guests on (they were given return times aligning with the stops when approaching the castle) and then cycle those guests through, stop again to unload them, and then restart and begin loading the line again until the next scheduled stop 2 hours later.

No idea if the issue is fixed, but every time the ride is stopped there's a chance it wont restart because of the complexity (all rides are like this really) and so by adding scheduled stops you're increasing the risk of unscheduled stops and longer downtimes.

 

[Splatter]

One thing I thought about recently, that had never come to my mind before is that to the best of my knowledge, there are no mentions of the Hogwarts ghosts in this attraction, either in the queue or the ride itself.
They remain prolific in the books, but in the movies are also pretty much completely gone by The 3rd one too.
With regards to the attraction, I wonder if this was a deliberate omission? Maybe they were considered too morbid, or even scary to younger guests? Maybe it was to avoid comparisons with Disney's Haunted Mansion? It would be cool if anyone had any real information on this decision.

While they are not prominent, there is a definite story driven mention of one ghost in the attraction. Professor Bins is the class we are supposed to be going to as guests but instead we ditch class with the trio.

 

[IzzyB]

Not normal, but not like unheard of either. The stationary loading area broke down, so they had to switch to an alternate loading system for guests in wheelchairs or unable to walk on the belt. Every 2 hours they let the ride cycle clear, stop it, put those guests on (they were given return times aligning with the stops when approaching the castle) and then cycle those guests through, stop again to unload them, and then restart and begin loading the line again until the next scheduled stop 2 hours later.

No idea if the issue is fixed, but every time the ride is stopped there's a chance it wont restart because of the complexity (all rides are like this really) and so by adding scheduled stops you're increasing the risk of unscheduled stops and longer downtimes.

So I go back to again, if something is broken enough that they have to stop the ride every 2 hours, could this 10 day period needed to fix up some stuff to keep this running better with less break downs? Could this not be to add anything, but more to fix things that they have wanted to fix for awhile. If Kong opens in softs it will lessen the blow and if they do it before Kong is officially opening and the summer it will also be less crowds to deal with.

 

[oneseven]

hey guys, i hate to be one of those people but is there an idea of when in may this will be going down? my friends and i are going for graduation on may 29th-june 4th, so i'm just trying to figure out which rides will be down when we're there. they've never been, so i'm already a little sad they won't get the hulk.