My Experience

As you all may or may not know, on August 27 I was finally able to ride Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey after nearly 3 months of exercise and watching what I eat. I have been getting a lot of words of congratulations, and also a lot of people asking how it was, did I like it, and was it worth it. In short, my answers are amazing, yes, and YES!!! I will now go through my experience and thoughts on riding Forbidden Journey.

Beware! There be SPOILERS AHEAD!

So some friends and I made a visit to the Wizarding World this past Friday morning. They were all saying that this would be the day I ride, but I was sure I hadn't lost enough weight yet (also didn't want to get my hopes up and then be disappointed if I hadn't of fit). We wait in the 20 minute line (Yep, it's the slow season!) and we get to the loading platform. It's me, Matt and Zach in an enchanted bench together. Matt takes the far left seat, I'm right next to him, and Zach takes the far right seat. I sit down and pull down on the restraint and get my one click that I can get by myself. A female attendant comes over and pushes down to get the second click. It happens. In order to try and get the third and final click, she calls a male attendant over. I really wish I could remember his name. I tell him to push as hard as he can, and he obliges. He gives the restraint one big shove, no click. I start getting worried. He rears back, gives it one more big shove.....click. It was as if time had slowed down for that third click. I could hear it echoing in my head. I threw my hands in the air triumphantly, and throughout the entire loading area all you could hear was my voice screaming "YES!!!!!" Cheers and applause came from my friends in the bench behind us. I was on cloud 9 at this point. I was finally about to get to experience this amazing attraction I had heard so many great things about. The loading platform is very long, and the whole time we were traveling down before the ride portion I was laughing and screaming, just so excited that I was able to accomplish my I set out to do.

We finally get going in the ride, and it was phenomenal! I do not want to do a scene-by-scene description of the ride and spoil everything, but I will talk about a couple of parts of the ride I was most impressed/scared of. First off, the transitions between scenes are seemless! Very well done! Now there are some scary parts to this ride, and boy are they scary! I had heard that things get close to you, but I never realized just how close they got. SPOILER! When you come across the Whomping Willow and it starts swinging its branched at you, it really comes close to hitting you. So close you could probably kick it if you had long legs! It's pretty freaky! Also, the Dementors are the scariest thing I think I've ever experience in an attraction. When they come at you they really come at you, and it nearly gave me several heart attacks. Just be wary of that if you have children that want to ride, it can get pretty scary in there!

After getting off the ride I was just overcome with emotion. I had to keep laughing and smiling to keep from crying with happiness that I accomplished my goal. I went and bought the picture first thing, and saw my friend Jessie working at Filch's. She has been rooting for me to get on the ride, and as soon as she saw me she knew what had happened. She gave me a big hug and congratulated me, at that point I started tearing up. From there we enjoyed the rest of the park and went on our way.

Overall, this attraction is AMAZING!!! I actually had a tough time deciding where on my all time favorite attraction list this would go. I am a HUGE Twilight Zone Tower of Terror fan, and that attraction is number one on my list. But, Forbidden Journey nearly knocked it down to number two. I really had to think about it, but Tower is remaining at number one just because of the childhood memories I have of it, and all the knowledge I have as well. However, Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey is right behind it at number two. It is my favorite non-Disney attraction ever though! I cannot say enough good things about it, and cannot wait to ride it again and again!

I've had several people ask what's going to happen to the blog now that I got on the ride. The answer is nothing! I'm going to continue posting on here, because I'm not stopping my weight loss! My new goal is to get down to 250 lbs, after that I want to see if I can possibly get the three clicks by myself without help. I will continue posting about my experiences at Potter, because I plan on riding it many times!

I do want to thank every single one of you for believing in me and giving me all the words of encouragement and love! Without your support I may not have been able to do this, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Question of the day: If you have gotten the chance of riding Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey, what are your thoughts on the attraction?