New Harry Potter Coaster Confirmed for 2019 (Dragon's Challenge Closing Sept 4th)

21stamps

Well-Known Member
It may be the longest but it's not the best. I actually found it to be quite painful. I enjoyed Alpengeist and Montu far more. Heck, even Top Gun(Flight Deck or whatever it's called now) in Carowinds was also more fun.

Really? I feel like it's very smooth.
I should say the best B&M I've ever ridden! I will definitely take your word for it because I know you'd never steer me wrong! I have never been to King's Island but now I must! Longest B&M ever built?! 4124 feet?! Wow how did I not know about this??

Let me know anytime you visit.. I'll meet you at KI. I love that ride!
Not sure if this has been brought up, but should Universal really be retiring one (or 2) of it's biggie roller coasters, when Islands is known for thrill rides? If anything, I think they should be building more coasters. And not in the Mine Train vein.

I agree 100%. I'm against thrill rides at Disney.. but I want them at IoA. That's always been the "big kid" park to me.
 

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
While I'm sure there are people who appreciate the park's heavy leaning towards thrill rides, it also gets heavily stigmatized for it, with many in the Disney crowd even comparing it to a Six Flags. And that's with only three large coasters, mind you. What you're suggesting would only make that worse. I'm not sure removing thrill rides for the sake of something tamer is the optimal solution, but they needed to add some tamer rides if they want to appeal to the folks whom the park doesn't already appeal to. I don't believe that's why Dragons is closing, but they're going to take the opportunity and run with it.

Universal are also putting themselves in danger of competing for a more niche audience if they focus on large coasters, because that appears to be all SeaWorld knows how to build. Eventually the thrill seekers will all go there regardless of what Universal does... assuming they can stay in business.

The situation at Islands is/was worse than the Studios, since in addition to the three coasters, the majority of the other "big" rides also had a heavy thrill component (flume, raft, dual space shot, another flume...).
Not that there aren't attractions for younger kids at Islands, all of Seuss is for kids and Camp Jurassic is possibly the best kids' play area in the world, but other than two comparatively lame effect/stunt shows there was almost nothing at Islands for older guests that wasn't heavily thrill-based. It never bothered me personally, since I'm a huge fan of thrill rides and coasters in particular, but I know people with neck conditions and various fears that have visited Islands to see the Potter stuff and not been able to enjoy much there besides the Castle Tour, Spiderman and Cat in the Hat. I guess they have Kong there too, but it's basically a haunted house.

That said, I'm selfish enough to really want this new Dragon replacement to be thrill-based anyway.
Indoor Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster, please.

 

dennis-in-ct

Well-Known Member
thanks for sharing the Novgorod coster. Wow. I recently rode Verbolten at Busch Garden's Williamsburg. It was one of the most interesting and creative coasters I have experienced. A fun balance of indoor and outdoor.
 

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
thanks for sharing the Novgorod coster. Wow. I recently rode Verbolten at Busch Garden's Williamsburg. It was one of the most interesting and creative coasters I have experienced. A fun balance of indoor and outdoor.

I still haven't been out to BG Williamsburg, but I've been meaning to for some time.

Haven't been to Germany either, so I've not ridden The Curse of Novgorod. Closest I've been to something like that is Mystery Mine at Dollywood, another highly-themed dark ride/Eurofighter hybrid.

I really do think this ride system would be ideal for a project at either Disney or Universal, for this new Potter attraction.
 

Princess Leia

Well-Known Member
As someone who is exactly the demo being debated (87 baby), Star Wars didn't lose complete relevance. Mostly it was beloved and shared by parents during those intervening years. I had a few friends who were obsessed with it.

That said, I partially agree that Star Wars did not define my generational age group in the same sense that it did those who were kids and teens in the late 70's/early 80's. Or those born in the latter 90's to ride the prequel wave. There was an obvious lull in the films and that allowed a few other properties to capture the imagination.

We very much were the Disney Renaissance in our childhood, followed by Potter in our pre-teen years (87 is the extreme end of Potter, I find those who were in high school when the books first hit stride missed the the boat). I know it's anecdotal, but I cannot for the life of me find any friends born in 84/85 who like Potter. Potter book fans have their heaviest hitting demo between ~87-97. Of course the movies started hitting before the books let up meaning the Potter fanbase extends well beyond that, but we were the generation who first and foremost discovered it via the books.

Likewise, Nintendo dominated the generation dipping bit more into the early 80's for Mario. Pokemon's line in the sand falls later, the first craze swept when I was still in grade 6. Those 84/85 babies again would have been in high school.

There is a reason these properties are all collectively coming out of the woodwork, early millennials now have some buying power.
Fellow millennial here. I'm a few years younger than you, but I agree about Star Wars. I grew up loving it because my dad would watch one of the movies every Saturday morning. I'd wake up, go into the office/work out room, and fall in love with Star Wars. While my sister and I had a few action figures, my cousins (born between 81 and 85) had the more extensive collection. But in terms of other kids my age, I don't remember classmates getting obsessed with it until Phantom Menace came out. Then it was everywhere.

2000 was the year I think Harry Potter broke through the market. It seemed like half of the students at school were reading books 1-4 that fall (which is when I started to read them). And then parents started to read them (and then watch the movies) making it a multi-generational series. The aforementioned cousins were just out of the age range when HP was at it's peak. One read the first 4, then stopped (I'm not sure if he ever went back to read them). The oldest, however, picked them up a few years ago, and has become a huge fan. His wife's a few years younger, and she loves the series. While they haven't introduced their sons to it yet (though the 3 year old loves Star Wars), I can imagine that in a few more years, another Potter wave will hit. When people say that Harry Potter is done, I really have to question their thinking. A coworker just read the first book with her 8 year old daughter, and they plan on borrowing my copy of CoS. I don't think Fantastic Beasts had the best start (would have been better to start the series as novels to create better awareness), so we'll see how that turns out. The Boy Who Lived, however, will stick around for the foreseeable future.

I didn't grow up with video games (my parents didn't like them), but I had cousins and friends who did. Nintendo is going to be massive for Universal. I've only played it a handful of times, but I am very much looking forward to see what Uni does with Mario Kart and Zelda. Also, I keep imagining hyper-realistic AAs of Pokemon, and if Universal makes them, people are going to lose their minds.
 
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imperius

Well-Known Member
That's interesting. Is that permit around some where to look at? Dragons Challenge seems to have a bunch of room on it's own but I don't have any idea how much room is really back there? May just be for drainage work or ??? Hmmm.

I'm still wondering where Nintendo is? I want to see what that will be before my kids get to old. Actually I want to see what they do with it but we'll say it's for the kids.
Nintendo will be in Kid Zone and that should start closing in the next month according to rumors.
 

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
Rode Dragon Challenge tonight for the last time and I decided I'm not too upset about it leaving. True, it's a shame to lose a coaster when Orlando, the theme park capitol or the world, has a relatively small collection of big coasters.

But, this ride has more than a few things against it. Starting with the obvious, the element that made this more than two generic B&M inverted coasters was the dueling aspect. Without it, each track is good, but nothing memorable. Roller coasters have seem some massive innovation since 1999 and a standard inverted coaster like this just doesn't feel right at a world-class theme park.

And of course there was the somewhat lazy conversion to shoehorn in Potter theming when they ripped out almost everything that made the queue interesting and creepy, turning it into a series of caverns with not much to look at other than a few props. The coaster itself is an ugly mass of steel (and now in dire need of a paint job) over a scummy pond and weeds, and riding completely takes you out of the immersion with ample views of ugly backstage and the surrounding area. It's sticks out like a sore thumb in the otherwise superbly immersive Wizarding World.

Side note, I'm not one of those people that believes coaster track = ugly. Hulk is aesthetically pleasing and looks majestic over the lagoon. And while you do see some backstage views on Hulk, it isn't nearly as much as on Dragon Challenge, or in a land as immersive as Hogsmeade.

Operationally, the ride is kind of a headache. For reasons unknown, it has always had a frustratingly slow loading process compared to the rest of UOR's attractions. Then there's the metal detector and locker situation - Hulk and Rockit have a plethora of locker stations right near the entrance, but Dragon Challenge has an inexplicably tiny locker station that is quite a hike from the metal detectors. While I may know the drill to remove literally everything from my pockets, many guests do not, and I know that this situation leads to a lot of negative experiences for Universal. Taking all of that into consideration, plus being one of many major attractions at IOA that needs to close for several hours every summer day due to storms, it's easy to see why Universal has decided not to keep it around.
 

cheezbat

Well-Known Member
Hoping to get down there tomorrow morning for one last ride. I was there on Thursday and got a front row ride on Fire, but as I was about to board Ice it started pouring and they shut the ride down.

Too bad they won't duel these bad boys one last time.
 

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
Fortunately I got my last two rides in the late afternoon. The rides closed six-ish for weather. Unless they re-opened, I was one of the last to ride. Which I don't care about, I'm just sad they closed these two monsters of a roller coaster. I loved them, I was always genuinely scared on them, as I'm wont to be on inverted coasters. Part of me hated myself for going on them against my better judgement, part of me kept urging me to go back and ride again, the other side too!
 

Disneyhead'71

Well-Known Member
cdIaR0G.gif
 

Disneyhead'71

Well-Known Member
I know some people were wondering if the coaster would be sold or just scrapped. Looks like the answer is scrapped...

View attachment 232952
This is going to rival Transformers on the "Wow, watch 'em go!" factor.

Everybody keeps saying, "Yeah, Transformers is a box with a clone in it." Yep, and they did it in 11 months. With this, they have 20 months and it's not a clone.

On your mark!

Get set!

"Go!"
 

Disneyhead'71

Well-Known Member
Universal trying to steal some of Disney's Star Wars Land thunder?
2019 Pre-Star Wars was supposed to be The Forbidden Forest and MARVEL Iron Legion. Well Iron Legion is stuck in R&D Purgatory. So they are Fast Tracking the Ministry of Magic over in USF. But that looks more like June 2020, which is WWoHP 10th Anniversary. They do also have T2s replacement in 2019.

Of course, they have Nintendo for the Post-Star Wars party.
 
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