Travel and Anniversaries
So as you may've seen from my Tweets yesterday, I was in Orlando for some of the fun surrounding the announcements about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter aka HarryPotterLand. Now, I've been a Disney fangirl since birth, and I do still love it there, but working with Universal Studios in the lead-up to infinitus2010 next July has been an amazing experience because of the love they have for the books (and the films) and how much they want all of that to be evident in every visitor's experience in walking through Hogsmeade OMG we get to walk through Hogsmeade! With Hogwarts right overhead! And then we get to go in!
We're going to go into Hogwarts. All of us.
And we can go to be an outpost of Ollivander's and The Three Broomsticks and you can get Extendable Ears and Butterbeer and they're re-opening the unicorn roller coaster which I've always loved and turning it into a ride on a Hippogryff and the ride inside Hogwarts is going to be amazing and I know this because Dan Radcliffe said so at the HBP premiere and we still can't share what he said because Universal asked me to embargo it, but it's all fantastic.
Yes, I am giddy. And of course there's going to be some major commercialization of things like the foods and confiscated items from the books and I don't know if Horcrustaceans will actually be on sale or not, and a visit to Honeydukes might include purchases of muggle rice crispie treats the likes of which you would never find in a Hogwarts common room, but you'll walk around with your wand, and the hat you brought - or purchased on-site and you'll be at Hogwarts.
Wow.
Also, the sticky toffee pudding that the folks at Universal's on-site catering company makes? Is so, so good. And so were their sweet pumpkin pasties, or so I was told.
Ten years ago, when the HP fandom was a nascent little thing, could we have ever imagined something like this? A place where all Harry Potter fans could go - where on your worst Muggle day, you could plan for your next trip to Hogwarts, and know that it's possible to actually (kinda sorta) go.
Ten years ago... when HPforGrownups started. Well, it's ten years ago tomorrow. Keep an eye on the Yahoogroup tomorrow and through the weekend for some semi-off topic frivolity and reminiscing.
Poll Suitcase of memories...
We're going to go into Hogwarts. All of us.
And we can go to be an outpost of Ollivander's and The Three Broomsticks and you can get Extendable Ears and Butterbeer and they're re-opening the unicorn roller coaster which I've always loved and turning it into a ride on a Hippogryff and the ride inside Hogwarts is going to be amazing and I know this because Dan Radcliffe said so at the HBP premiere and we still can't share what he said because Universal asked me to embargo it, but it's all fantastic.
Yes, I am giddy. And of course there's going to be some major commercialization of things like the foods and confiscated items from the books and I don't know if Horcrustaceans will actually be on sale or not, and a visit to Honeydukes might include purchases of muggle rice crispie treats the likes of which you would never find in a Hogwarts common room, but you'll walk around with your wand, and the hat you brought - or purchased on-site and you'll be at Hogwarts.
Wow.
Also, the sticky toffee pudding that the folks at Universal's on-site catering company makes? Is so, so good. And so were their sweet pumpkin pasties, or so I was told.
Ten years ago, when the HP fandom was a nascent little thing, could we have ever imagined something like this? A place where all Harry Potter fans could go - where on your worst Muggle day, you could plan for your next trip to Hogwarts, and know that it's possible to actually (kinda sorta) go.
Ten years ago... when HPforGrownups started. Well, it's ten years ago tomorrow. Keep an eye on the Yahoogroup tomorrow and through the weekend for some semi-off topic frivolity and reminiscing.
Poll Suitcase of memories...