Muggle Hotel being built just outside of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts
It’s no hidden secret that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure has been wildly successful and experienced record-breaking attendance since it opened. Universal Studios can expect to see even a larger amount of growth when the “rumored“ expansion area of Diagon Alley opens to the public. So the question becomes, where to place all of these Universal guests?
Scheduled to open in 2014, Universal’s Cabana Beach Resort will be the largest Universal Studios Hotel that will exist on the grounds in Orlando, Florida. With 1,800 rooms, half of which are slated to be “family suites” – lower-end suites with room for as many as six people – the question of where Universal guests will stay is now being answered.
To see a full size conceptual art drawing of the resort’s hotel, click on the image above.
“Our new hotel will give guests an affordable, incredibly themed on-site hotel experience unlike anything else at our resort,” Tom Williams, chairman and chief executive officer of Universal Parks & Resorts, said in a prepared statement. “Our new family suites and family-value pricing will give our guests on-site options they’ve never had before.”
The new hotel will be built on 37 acres adjacent to Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park, just off Hollywood Way and Turkey Lake Road. Cabana Bay is being timed to coincide with the opening of a second Harry Potter-themed “land” that is also expected to open in 2014 and will likely deliver another huge attendance surge to the resort.
It’s also the latest example of Universal Parks & Resort’s new corporate owner, cable-TV giant Comcast Corp., sinking money into the theme-park business. With Comcast‘s blessing, Universal is also building copies of Wizarding World in Southern California and Japan.
Will you be attending the opening of the Wizarding World expansion in 2014? MuggleNet is planning on being there.