When The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was officially announced in 2007, it sent shockwaves of giddiness through theme park enthusiast circles, J.K. Rowling admirers, and fantasy movie fans. Here was a remarkable opportunity to live the Harry Potter life, not just sit passively while pages turned or images swung across the big screen. The barriers were finally being kicked down, as Universal Orlando proclaimed to the world they were going to build their very own Hogwarts right in the middle of Central Florida.

On the eve of massive park information about to be released to the public (around 9/15), construction continues at an amazing pace.

The shaping of the Wizarding World continues, and now some of the rockwork is beginning to show.

Two new pieces of information have hit the internet recently that need a spotlight.

The summer season is here, and greeting the mob of sweaty tourists at the Islands of Adventure is a small village of rapidly constructed buildings ready to be Potterized.

The fine folk at Universal Orlando seem to be clamping down on ideal photo spots to capture the hotly anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter construction. I can’t blame them, but it’s going to be impossible to fully cloak the enormity of this park. For every sweet shot spot of Hogwarts they remove, two more Hogsmeade angles spring up. As massive summer crowds are about ready to pounce on the Islands of Adventure, I’ll take the newfound tradeoff…for now.

Hogsmeade is starting to take shape. This also means the Wizarding World is beginning to look a lot more...wizardly now.

I suppose this update is best viewed right after a trip to the last update from 2/3.

After months of work clearing the Wizarding World construction site and building the massive Hogwarts structure, a new piece of the puzzle has somehow popped into the fold: a hut.

There’s really not much of an update this time around. Work slowly continues in and around the Hogwarts building, hinting that most of the labor is going on somewhere that cameras are unable to reach.