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Harry Potter And The Puking People: Forbidden Journey Ride Making Riders Sick

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 23:48 PST, Mar 3, 2016

An intense and immersive ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, is a little too intense for some people — it’s making them sick.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is set to open in Hollywood in April, and right now, test riders are trying out each ride before the park opens and millions of visitors stream in, USA Today reported.

But these test riders are evidently very brave guinea pigs, because rumor has it, many of them are reportedly getting quite sick on the Forbidden Journey. Universal hasn’t commented on the rumored vomiting, but apparently it’s common practice for theme park rides to be tweaked in response to feedback from test riders.

The problem is happening during the Harry Potter park‘s “soft launch” ahead of its official opening to the public, according to Fan Sided. It’s not clear who these testers are, if they’re lucky visitors gifted a sneak peak, or employees or both. Media reports suggested test riders came from both groups.

The ride itself is a trip through the scenes of the Harry Potter films, The Orlando Sentinel explained. It combines motion and video to simulate a flying journey in and around the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the magical school attended by Harry Potter and his friends.

Riders sit on “enchanted benches” during the ride, which are moved up, down, and sideways by robotic arms around a room that contains props and images splashed across wraparound screens.

“It moves people around in a way unlike any other ride in Orlando,” said Seth Kubersky, who hops on the Forbidden Journey twice a week.

But the combination of the wraparound screens and the ride’s constant movement up, down, back and forth is just too much for some and it’s making them sick. Beth Whiteside, 40, tried the ride in Florida years ago and even prepared for it by taking Dramamine. It didn’t help — she barfed twice after the ride.

“It was really, really bad. I ended up having to shut my eyes. I was still like, ‘Oh, Lord, I’m not going to make it.'”

The ride in California is identical to the one in Orlando that Beth rode and got sick on, with one distinct difference — a 3D component in which riders wear goggles. A spokesman said that this addition isn’t making visitors sick, however. The 3D technology is used at the Harry Potter ride in Japan, and rampant puking wasn’t reported there.

However, FanSided theorized that the combination of 3D and the 360-degree spins is making anyone sensitive to motion sickness or nausea induced by inner ear problems sick to their stomachs.

And the Forbidden Journey ride in Orlando has made people sick before — without 3D. The ride at the Harry Potter park there has a pukey reputation, and a hospitality professor called it “the king of motion-sickness rides.”

Major theme parks in Florida are required to report any injuries suffered on a ride that are serious enough to land people in a hospital for 24 hours. The park has had 10 cases like this stemming from the Forbidden Journey. Most recently, two men in their 50s got sick on the ride late last year.

Still, a spokesman insists that “the number of people who have a reaction compared to the number who don’t is very small, and literally tens of millions of people have ridden these rides” in Orlando and Japan.

And it’s likely that whatever is making the testers sick will be fixed before the park opens. A few adjustments in the ride’s sophisticated software may ensure that the vomit-inducing glitch doesn’t sicken visitors in April. And that may have already happened; Kubersky said the “side-to-side, kind of boat-like swaying was noticeably toned down” the last time he got on the ride.

[Photo By alexsvirid / Shutterstock]

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