Crowds, stars at Harry Potter Orlando park opening

Thousands of people waited in line for hours on Friday to get into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando on its opening day, as Daniel Radcliffe and other stars from the movie greeted fans at the minipark.

Aerial photos showed thousands of people in a snaking line waiting to enter. On Twitter and other forums, observers joked that the park had become "Harry Potter and the Endless Line".

A Universal Orlando spokesman said 5,000 people were waiting to get in before the park even opened on Friday morning.

The Wizarding World brings the popular Harry Potter books and movies to life with rides, shops and detailed reproductions of the fictitious village of Hogsmeade, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the steam-belching Hogwarts Express train.

Radcliffe, who plays the boy wizard in the movie series, was joined at the opening by Warwick Davis (who plays Filius Flitwick), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore).

"What Universal Orlando has done with Harry Potter is really, really fantastic," Radcliffe said at the opening ceremony. "We're all kind of very grateful that the next part of the Harry Potter legacy has been so well-done and so well-made."