Negative-G - Universal Studios Florida - 2021

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The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida, Orlando, Florida

When I read Harry Potter & The Sorcerers Stone in the early 2000's and they described using a mine cart to get down into the various vaults I said to myself that if they ever made a Harry Potter theme park there would be a Gringotts dark ride coaster. Guess what, I was right. It just took until 2014 to become reality.

Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts is one of the most amazing coaster/dark ride combinations out there. It is mostly a dark ride that takes riders through the cavernous vaults under Gringotts Bank at the same time that Harry, Ron and Hermione break in to steal a horcrux from the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange. As the goblins are extremely protective of what is stored in their bank you have all sorts of magical security systems that have been activated by the break in to contend with.

Riders have 3D glasses as the sets for the ride mesh perfectly with several massive 3D video screens. Mix that in with trans that have onboard sound, can rotate and track sections that can tilt, shake and bounce to match everything up to create an experience that makes you feel like you are there in the movie.

There really wasn't much of a line for this so I looped around several times riding it over and over just to be able to take my eye off of the screens to look around and see how they pulled everything off. What really hit me during the scene when the suit of armor security guards grab ahold of your car and tip it down was that networking the screens, train, audio, special effects (misters, smoke machines, fire machines) was this all goes back to the work my stepfather did. Rick has been programming since the early 1970's and made his mark on the computer industry networking systems together that just didn't talk to each other. If a Tandem mainframe needed to talk to a Cray, UNIVAC, or an IBM he was the guy who got it done. All of that networking stuff he was a part of starting back then laid the groundwork for immersive experiences like Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts where literally hundreds of systems are networked together and communicate to get the job done.

What is the perfect thing to do after escaping Gringotts Bank? Grab a Butterbeer of course.

My first butterbeer was good but it is mostly a butterscotch flavored cream soda.