Summary of Preview today:
The parking garage is opening around 6:45am, We arrived around 7:15, walked to Islands of Adventure, there were a few tm's just outside the gates checking for tickets, if you had a "UOPVR" ticket (Something from
Virgin Atlantic, nobody seemed to know what it stood for though), or a hotel room key you went to the left to wait for 8AM to enter. If you didn't (like us) you went to the right and waited.
The line at the entrance got VERY large (Back of it was around the far edge of the ticket booth covered area. At just before 9AM they opened up the main gates to everyone, and people took off toward the Wizarding World. (No running!) We walked quickly, cut through the back of Suess Landing, and came to the intersection where the temporary wooden bridge is and the other toward Sindbad and WWoHP. There a line of "Yellow Shirts" stopped everyone without the Virgin Atlantic special ticket or room keys. They were told by upper management they weren't opening it up to the GP and to clear the main path to allow people to get through.
Quite a few people left, I think that was the main goal of why the team members were told, I don't think they were prepared for as large of a rush as they were. That and I think FJ had some evacuation testing going on. At around 9:45 they moved the line of yellow shirts under the shade at the overhead arch just past Fire Eaters Grill. A little bit over 10 minutes later they let in everyone standing near the line of yellow shirts in (still quite a few, but a fraction of what arrived in the morning).
We had somewhere to be at noon so our time was limited. We headed straight for Forbidden Journey, and walked through the amazing queue line. This beats everything I've seen before, closest maybe would be Indiana Jones in
Disneyland. Now the ride itself is so wildly different from anything else. It's part Spiderman, Soarin, SImpsons, and even Haunted Mansion ish, a bit scary toward the end with the dementors, but the movement is smooth and didn't disorient me much. (I'm bad on spinning rides, but do ok on coasters. This was fine to me.)
The initial liftoff is a bit surprising, since it loads with a moving belt. There didn't seem to be any hitches in the ride today at all, although I'm not sure if all the scene effects were working or not. The posts on here mentioning size limitations did not seem accurate at all to me. I'm 6'3", 230lbs and had plenty of spare room loading. There is so much happening on the ride it would probably take me 5 or 6 rides before I could put it down in writing.
After the floo ending of the ride, you wind up in the Finches Emporium. Since we didn't have much time we just peeked at our photo and got a 4 house tumbler set and photo frame. Left, walked toward the center, we saw the performance area and wished we could stay longer. Went to the butterbeer cart, got one frozen and one regular. Frozen is better, at least in the heat. I peeked in 3 brooms, and owlry, got the Hogwart's Express conductor two take photos of us... literally. (Very good actor)
We were out by 10:50, but could have stayed probably much longer if our other commitments didn't force us out. They probably shut the preview down by 11:30.
It went by fast, and there was filming going on as well as tons of surveys (none of which we had time for, as well as the other shops.)
"I'm special!!" It isn't hurting anyone if anything it will help out for a smoother experience later on.
Thanks for posting.
