Following Universal Orlando’s announcement that their classic Jaws ride would be closing, rumors immediately followed stating that the attraction would be replaced by Harry Potter.
It confused and surprised us considering that Jaws is actually not at the Islands of Adventure, where The Wizarding World currently resides. And now new information concerning this plan has appeared, and it’s mighty intriguing.
Screamscape worked their sources and developed a proposal based on the details they received. The gist of it is that Jaws will be replaced by Potter and will focus on the Diagon Alley portion of Harry’s world:
If my various sources are correct, the Amity / Jaws area will be replaced by the proposed Phase 2 expansion of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now, before you flip out… lets go over it all, because for starters this really isn’t going to be the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at all. Instead, from what I’ve been able to gather, the new land to be build in Universal Studios Florida will actually represent the “London” side of the PotterVerse… including an entrance to the infamous Diagon Alley.
Diagon Alley, as seen in the movies, is home to infamous locations such as The Leaky Cauldron, Gringott’s Wizarding Bank and the true Ollivanders wand shop location, as seen in the films. The London location is also said to be home to King’s Cross station, where students would board the Hogwarts Express train from Platform 9 ¾.
Many of these locations have been mentioned in the rumored development plans for Phase 2 of the Wizarding World for months now, including an innovative indoor dark coaster ride said to take place inside Gringott’s Wizarding Bank. It’s no secret that the Wizarding World has been popular…so much so that it needed to be expanded to spread out the crowds, and come up with a way to provide new locations for guests to buy Butterbeer, Ollivanders wands and more. But it seems that Universal Creative really decided to try a new idea… and think really outside the box this time. Literally… because this new expansion is going to allow for guests in both parks to get a taste of the PotterVerse… but to get the ENTIRE experience, you’d going to have to have a 2-park ticket.
Speaking of having access to both parks… connecting the dots is said to be a true recreation of the Hogwarts Express, allowing guests with two park passes (and Universal Resort guests) to recreate the true journey from the Muggle world of London and actually board travel to the train station and board the train for a trip over to Hogwarts and the rest of the Wizarding World at Islands of Adventure.
Article Continues BelowNow if all that wasn’t enough, I’ve heard some rumors about another possible new attraction likely to go into this Phase 2 project, that may attempt to take advantage of the new 3D projection tunnel technology Universal created for King Kong 3D 360 at the Hollywood park earlier this year. I don’t know if this may be put to use during your train ride on the Hogwarts Express, or if this will be an entirely separate ride experience. (One source suggested it could be a trip on the 3-decker Knight Bus, but I’ve heard that this isn’t likely to happen).
Either way this is huge… and apparently it all has a rather aggressive construction timeline as Universal is said to be shooting to have it all up and running by 2014. I’ve also heard that an official announcement or teaser could be released very soon, so stay tuned!
Keep in mind, all of this information is separate from the Wizarding World Hollywood news, which we should be hearing about officially very soon.
After hearing all of these details, we are more excited than ever for Universal Orlando’s Potter expansion. The train ride to connect the two lands sounds magical, despite the fact you’d likely need the purchase Unviersal’s 2-park ticket.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.