"Imagineering" at Harry Potter World...what would you love to see??

[G'day Disney]

Ok, we are booked to go to Universal in December, and so I have gone all out and read the 7 Harry Potter books in the last couple of months. I haven't been, although I have been reading the Disboards, and I can't help but imagine what "could be" at Harry Potter World. Here are some of my ideas, maybe you can add to the list some of yours?

A Banquet Hall which is a themed restaurant with four massive long tables, 1 for each of the Houses (Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor), with a sorting hat as you enter to announce which table you are seated on! Like in the books it would be decorated for Halloween, Christmas etc

To take it further, there could be a table at the front of teachers for a character dinner with Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall etc

You could also pay extra for a birthday message or "howler" to be delivered to a guest in your party by owl (animatronic?)! I did think of owls flying in and dropping menus to everyone but that could be chaotic!! (not real owls

A Gringotts Bank, where you can buy coin money to use in the park, like Disney Dollars, but called Gold Galleons. The book also has Silver sickles, and Bronze Knuts, but that might be too complicated. They could develop this into a ride where you go down a mine shaft in a cart to reach your safety deposit box to get your money out I love the idea of opening an "account" in my child's name and depositing money for birthday/christmas etc that they can get out in Galleons in the park!

A themed hotel, maybe The Leaky Cauldron, where you can get the Hogwarts Express directly into the park from Platform 9 3/4, like the Disneyland Hotel used to have many years ago.

Disney has special experiences for kids like The Pirate Cruise or BBB etc Harry Potter World could have "classes" you enrol kids in for 30-45 mins each, like Potions, or Divination, Care for Magical Creatures etc with age minimums etc

What would you love to see??

 

[braddillman]

I'd like to see something interactive for the kids, like Disney's Jedi Academy. For example: a Hogwarts teacher could get a group of students (volunteer children from the audience) and teach some magic. Of course something might go wrong and the children could use what they just learned to dispatch the threat (Death Eaters?). Upon graduation, they could be sorted by the hat.

I think having actual characters from the book is taboo (not certain why), but it would be fun to run into the Dursleys walking about Hogsmeade. I can just imagine what they'd say, LOL.

 

[G'day Disney]

I'd like to see something interactive for the kids, like Disney's Jedi Academy. For example: a Hogwarts teacher could get a group of students (volunteer children from the audience) and teach some magic. Of course something might go wrong and the children could use what they just learned to dispatch the threat (Death Eaters?). Upon graduation, they could be sorted by the hat.

I think having actual characters from the book is taboo (not certain why), but it would be fun to run into the Dursleys walking about Hogsmeade. I can just imagine what they'd say, LOL.

The Dursley's would be brilliant, the kids would love their autographs!

 

[mdb78]

I'd like to see something interactive for the kids, like Disney's Jedi Academy. For example: a Hogwarts teacher could get a group of students (volunteer children from the audience) and teach some magic. Of course something might go wrong and the children could use what they just learned to dispatch the threat (Death Eaters?). Upon graduation, they could be sorted by the hat.

I think having actual characters from the book is taboo (not certain why), but it would be fun to run into the Dursleys walking about Hogsmeade. I can just imagine what they'd say, LOL.

It would be funny seeing the Dursleys walking around. Poor guys will probably get harrassed. Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) has said he had kids coming up to him saying "I hate you!"...

Too bad J.K. Rowling didn't want meet and greet characters... Would love to have a picture with Hagrid and Snape!

 

[elf]

Love the above ideas. My dd wanted to see moving staircases and thought that they could use the same method as in Disaster with Christopher Walken it might work. They somehow project him on stage and it looks incredibly real. Why not do that in the hogworths above heads, projecting the image of staircases moving. Sounds so simple.

 

[JenM]

I had read that Disney pitched a ride that would have interactive, with the cars going through different scenes were riders could point a wand at objects in each scene. There's a ton of possibilities there - the classrooms, Diagon Alley, the Forbidden Forest.

That would have been a great family ride, something WWoHP doesn't really have.

 

[ChrisFL]

I had read that Disney pitched a ride that would have interactive, with the cars going through different scenes were riders could point a wand at objects in each scene. There's a ton of possibilities there - the classrooms, Diagon Alley, the Forbidden Forest.

That would have been a great family ride, something WWoHP doesn't really have.

That sounds like what ended up at Tokyo Disneyland in the new Monster's Inc ride, where guests shine a flashlight at different monsters to do different effects.

Also for the OP, Universal doesn't have Imagineers, they have "Universal Creative"

 

[Planogirl]

Ooh, a themed hotel would be amazing! Hey, Loew's...

I would like to see dark ride and maybe something like the wand thing would be fun.

On a side note, I asked DS what he thought and he said he didn't ever want to see WWoHP grow. He loves the theming of what's left of Lost Continent and we both expect that area to disappear.

 

[fairyprincess88]

It's funny but as a Potter fan, I really dont want to see it well, Disneyfied. By that I mean, I dont want random people dressed up like the characters, I dont want some lame magic show for kids to fight off a Deatheater, or anything like that.

What I loved most about the WWoHP is that is was so well themed, so carefully crafted in detail, that it was really like walking through Hogsmeade. It doesn't need in your face "magic" to make it work, it is all in the themeing. The moving window displays, the aged stone of the buildings, the signs, the noise of owls hooting over head. I was pleased they kept it simple and true to the environments described in the books.

However, I would loved to have a themed hotel experience, and a Gringotts indoor mine-coaster ride, and I would love to see the Shrieking Shack somehow incorportated into place in the village. I guess I just dont want the area to get too theme park, with meet and greets and the like. Personally, that would kill the magic for me.

 

[mdb78]

This was mentioned before in another thread, but touring the Weasley's Burrow would be cool.

 

[JenM]

That sounds like what ended up at Tokyo Disneyland in the new Monster's Inc ride, where guests shine a flashlight at different monsters to do different effects.

That's the ride I was thinking of too. I know it was supposedly pitched by Disney as their "e-ticket" HP attraction, which would have been a fairly lame e-ticket, but it's not a bad idea for a ride as part of the WWoHP, especially since the whole family could ride it.

I wouldn't want to see costumed characters either. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and I love how Disney has permeated themselves into Star Wars with all the stuff they have because it's a lot of fun...but I don't see it working that way for HP. I was relieved that JK nixed that idea for the WWoHP.