Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

What it is

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey opened with the Wizarding World here in April 2016 and is mechanically identical to the Orlando original. The ride system is a bench mounted on a robotic arm, which itself rides a track — meaning the vehicle can pitch, roll and turn to face any direction while moving through the building. When it was new it was the most sophisticated ride system in the world, and it still moves in ways nothing else does.

The queue is the other half of the attraction. It runs through Hogwarts: the greenhouses, the portrait gallery with the moving portraits arguing among themselves, Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and the Gryffindor common room. On a quiet morning it is worth deliberately slowing down for, and there is a walk-through option for people who want the castle without the ride.

The ride alternates between practical sets with animatronics and enormous curved screens. That alternation is the reason it makes people sick: your eyes and inner ear are handed different information every twenty seconds. It has the highest motion sickness rate of anything at Universal Studios Hollywood, in a park that competes hard for that title.

What riding it is actually like

You are seated four abreast on a bench with an over-the-shoulder restraint, and the bench detaches from the loading area onto the arm. The first movement is unusual and slightly alarming — the whole row tips backward and lifts, which nothing else prepares you for.

What follows is a flight around the castle grounds: a Quidditch match, a dragon, the Whomping Willow, an acromantula nest and a dementor sequence, cutting between screen projections and practical sets. The arm pitches you forward, rolls you sideways, and at points has you facing almost straight down.

The acromantula nest and the dementors are where children who just cleared 48 inches get into trouble. Both put things very close to the bench in low light, and neither is over quickly.

Ask for a seat on the end of the bench if you are prone to motion sickness. The outer positions travel through a smaller arc than the center, and the difference is noticeable.

Is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey scary?

The two sequences that upset people are the acromantula nest, where enormous spiders come at the bench at close range, and the dementor sequence in near-total darkness. Both are genuinely intense and neither is brief. This is the scariest operating attraction at the park and the 48-inch requirement does not begin to describe how intense it is for a child who just cleared it.

Scores are editorial, on a 1–5 scale, judged against what frightens a typical four- to seven-year-old rather than an adult.

Accessibility

You must transfer out of a wheelchair or ECV into a bench seat with an over-the-shoulder restraint. There is a test seat outside the entrance and it is worth using — the restraint geometry rules out a meaningful number of larger guests, and finding out at the loading platform after an hour in the queue is the worst possible outcome.

Full Universal Studios Hollywood accessibility guide →