Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey Downtime

[Lightning19]

We started the use of our multi-day ticket yesterday at Islands of Adventure. As soon as the gates opened we went directly to the Forbidden Journey. However, the team member at the gate stated that the ride was currently down, and although we were welcome to wait, she said it seems like it is going to be down awhile.

We went over to Ollivanders and did the show, then went back over to Forbidden Journey. The line seemed to be moving at this point, so we got it. However, twice during the line they made announcements that they were experiencing technical difficulties ("ride is down"..."ride is back to normal operation"...10 minutes later, "ride is down"..."ride is back to normal operation").

Is this a rare occurrence or has Forbidden Journey had other problems?

 

[Metro West]

Is this a rare occurrence or has Forbidden Journey had other problems?

Well...all rides have down time and FJ is no exception. You just have to roll with the punches.

 

[RMulieri]

This is not unusual..FJ is a highly techinical ride,runs everyday with loads of guests and it is extremely popular.Since they can't take it offline for a few weeks to rehab it, having it go down now and again is to be expected.

 

[mesaboy2]

An FJ refurb hadn't even occurred to me yet--it's obviously so new. Once its due, Universal sure better announce that one waaaaaaaay in advance. I can only imagine the upset guests. I wonder if it can make it all the way to Phase II?

 

[RMulieri]

An FJ refurb hadn't even occurred to me yet--it's obviously so new. Once its due, Universal sure better announce that one waaaaaaaay in advance. I can only imagine the upset guests. I wonder if it can make it all the way to Phase II?

Since my trip is in a little less than 2 weeks I keep wondering about this as well..I know how upset I will be if I get there and find it is closed for a rehab( not likely though)I am thinking they will wait till HP expansion is announced at the very least.But this is one rehab they can't just announce a week before ...Not unless they want to tick off thousands of people who plan their trip around WWoHP.It would be nice if it can make it till at least a major attraction of a HP expansion is up and running, but I am thinking that is unlikely.

 

[mesaboy2]

Since my trip is in a little less than 2 weeks I keep wondering about this as well..I know how upset I will be if I get there and find it is closed for a rehab( not likely though)I am thinking they will wait till HP expansion is announced at the very least.But this is one rehab they can't just announce a week before ...Not unless they want to tick off thousands of people who plan their trip around WWoHP.It would be nice if it can make it till at least a major attraction of a HP expansion is up and running, but I am thinking that is unlikely.

Yep. It's not like there's another ride somewhere remotely similar to it to placate guests. And I'm sure you have nothing to worry about outside of the occasional hiccup.

I'll be curious to read your impressions of UO when you get back.

 

[jeanico2000]

The 10 minute stops may also be due to emergency clean-up issues, if you catch my drift

 

[RMulieri]

Yep. It's not like there's another ride somewhere remotely similar to it to placate guests. And I'm sure you have nothing to worry about outside of the occasional hiccup.

I'll be curious to read your impressions of UO when you get back.

I will definitely be posting a full report when I get back

 

[SprExcited]

On our 2 day trip to IOA and US we experienced serveral ride outages and I have to say we were less than pleased with how TM dealt with it. Very little in the way of updates. Personally I feel as though Universal needs to work on their proceedures for dealing with ride outages. For example Hershey Park (now I know I am not comparing apples to apples here) had much better proceedures in place.

 

[zack123]

When I was there the ride stopped several times. It was down for a couple of long periods, once because the dragon ran out of "fire," and once because there was a problem with the video/audio sync.

Mostly though, they just stopped for a few minutes at a time, because a guest needed extra assistance getting on or off the ride, because a guest got sick on the ride, or because someone dropped something.

 

[Pygmypuff07]

I wonder if the Forbidden journey does their refurbishments at night in stages instead of having to close the ride down during the day.

 

[bowtie7]

On my early December trip to Universal, Forbidden Journey only stopped once for less than a minute--it was during one of the projected scenes and there was a still image that came on to fill the screen until the ride resumed. Not to brag too much (and it was a slow time of the year), the other 40 or so times the Journey was smooth sailing all the way.

 

[Badge]

Its odd, for some reason I never thought about FJ having to go to refurb were it is closed for a period of time.

If and when a refurb happens, Universal needs to announce it almost a year in advance. For a lot of people visiting the parks lately, HP is their MAIN focus. I can only imagine the problems Universal would be in if they said "Starting next month FJ will be closed for 2 months for a refurb". People would go crazy

It is going to need to happen at some point in time. Personally, I think the best time to do it would be a month or two before Phase 2 opens. When Phase 2 opens, the surge of people visiting the parks will start all over again just like it did when it first opened. Having one of the main HP rides closed during the opening of Phase 2 would be a really bad move.

Anyways, back on topic, yes FJ runs into problems just like all rides and shows do. However, the more advanced the ride/show is, the more likely it is to run into problems. FJ is, imo, the biggest, most advanced ride every created with so many moving parts its just insane. Anytime a new ride opens, it always has issues. The longer it is open, more issues get fixed so they never happen again, and other issues get fixed faster because they have dealt with it before.

 

[damo]

We've had really good luck with FJ. We waited one morning for it to open because it was having some difficulties but in the 20 days or so we have been there since it opened, it has probably only been down 3 or 4 times and most for just a few minutes.

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

.

 

[Disnewbie_N_MO]

Yeah, it did that a couple of times while we in line to ride it. Hate to think that it is normal, but it sounds like it is.

 

[Disnewbie_N_MO]

Can you give us a little more details on what the TM did? Or what they do at Hershey Park? I am a TM at this attraction and we aren't really given any information other than the fact that it's down, even if we have a headset on.

Soooo......do you know what's going in where Jaws formally was?? What? Someboday had to ask,lol!!

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

Soooo......do you know what's going in where Jaws formally was?? What? Someboday had to ask,lol!!

Nope! Honestly. We're as much in the dark as everyone else.

 

[zack123]

When I was there I thought the outages were handled pretty well. I think sometimes when these things happen, even the person in charge of fixing it may not know how long it's going to take. If it stops suddenly, it may even take a while to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it.

During the times they knew it was going to be down more than 10 minutes, they told the people in line that it was going to be a longer wait - and they walked all the way down to both ends of the line to tell people. There was also a loudspeaker announcement every five minutes apologizing for the delays, and another announcing when the ride was going to resume.

 

[dukesmama]

What can you do?