Hogwarts Heads for High Seas

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Seems like there’s a cruise theme for everyone and everything these days: The Coachella music festival has a cruise, Kid Rock has a cruise, and even Barbie fans and Harley-Davidson riders have their cruises.

Now Harry Potter is taking to the high seas. Those who love the tales of the teen wizard can book a cabin on a wizard-themed cruise.

The cruise is a production of Whimsic Alley, a Miracle Mile shop that sells wizard gear. The store also hosts parties, and conducts wizard training camps and other themed events.

The shop started accepting reservations and deposits last week for the cruise, which is scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend. Owner Stan Goldin said he has room for up to 600 but needs 200 attendees to make money. Fares run from $650 to $1,200. Even though the cruise is exclusively for adults – that’s right, no one under 18 – he said he thinks he’ll have plenty of interest.

“I think we could get enough people to fill a whole ship,” he said.

Wizard cruisers will be on board a Princess Cruise Lines Ltd. ship along with about 2,000 other passengers. It’s a standard four-day cruise from San Pedro to San Diego and Ensenada, Mexico, with special on-board programs for Goldin’s wizard group.

Princess, headquartered in Santa Clarita, offers a discount for group cruises and lets organizers such as Goldin charge additional fees to pay for special programs.

Goldin is careful to avoid copyright issues and describes the cruise as a wizard-themed event for Harry Potter fans. He hopes to have performances by wizard-themed bands, showings of movie marathons and perhaps appearances by actors from the “Harry Potter” movies.

Potter fans already have a number of events each year, including a twice-annual convention known as Leaky Con. But Goldin said his cruise, like his camps for kids and adults, will be different in that the focus is on fun, not on discussing and analyzing the books.

“At Leaky Con, there might be a panel discussion about the changing role of women in the Harry Potter books,” he said. “This is not a symposium. We do no symposing here. This is allowing people to find their inner child.”

– James Rufus Koren

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