The third park we visited while in Orlando was Universal Islands of Adventure. It was the only non Walt Disney World
park that we visited while in Orlando. Scott and I have been there
before (back in the Florida days) but they didn't have The Wizarding
World of Harry Potter back then. Scott and I are both big Harry Potter fans, so we had to check it out. Here we are at the entrance to Hogsmeade with the Hogwarts Express in the background.
It's always snowy in Hogsmeade. Even when it's not at Hogwarts. Mysterious!
A butterbeer stand...not open yet, but we got one later. YUM!!
Our first stop was Ollivander's to
check out the wands. There was already a line to get into the shop and
Scott and I jumped in it. We had heard that line can get really long,
but we only waited about 10 minutes or so. My parents laughed at us for
waiting in line to get into a wand shop. Only the true Harry Potter
nerds were waiting in that line...oh, and Grant, who we've already decided is not a nerd. :)
Inside Ollivander's. They did a cute little presentation, kind of like Harry Potter choosing his first wand (the wand chooses the wizard) and then we all got the chance to buy a wand. :) I thought they would do something cool like have a wand pick each person or something, but not really. It was still cute though.
They have a bunch of random wands that you can pick, or you can get one of the wands that the characters had OR you can get the wand that is matched to you based on your birthday. My birthday wand was this very "dark" looking wand with a skull/snake or something on it. Could it be that I would have been in Slytherin? :( No, I choose my own fate! I didn't get that one. I ended up getting the Ginny Weasley wand 'cause I liked it. I was thinking I might get Hermione's...but Ginny's wand chose me. :) I kind of love the Weasley's so it works.
A statue inside Hogwarts
Inside the Hogwarts castle was a ride called The Forbidden Journey and the line took you through the castle, which was pretty neat. Luckily the line was only about 10-15 minutes long, but that also meant we didn't have as much time to see all the things in the castle. Oh well.
Keeping track of the competition between houses. Gryffindor is winning!
The stairway thing to go to Dumbledore's office.
More in the castle. That's Dumbledore up there talking, although you can't tell.
Pensieve?
Defense against the dark arts classroom
The sorting hat
I think Scott took this picture for me. He likes funny pictures on signs. :)
The ride was really cool and unlike other rides I've been on. It's sort of like Soarin' if you've been on that, but a lot more motion and a lot wilder and it pulls you along a track sideways while you do it!
It was a very cool ride and I was VERY VERY sick at the end of it.
Luckily I did not vomit. Hooray! I get motion sick pretty easily. :(
But it was still worth it and fun.
And to quell the queasiness,
some pumpkin juice and butterbeer. The butterbeer was so good!! I'm
trying to find a good copycat recipe online (like maybe THIS).
It was like a butterscotchy cream soda with a butterscotchy creamy foam
on top. They also have a frozen version. The pumpkin juice was also
very tasty, along the lines of spiced apple cider but with pumpkin.
Hagrid's
This was in the line for The Flight of the Hippogriff ride. Anna was just barely tall enough, but she did NOT like it. It kind of made me sick too. It was a small but still pretty zippy roller coaster. And you get to see a Hippogriff on the ride. :) I didn't get a picture 'cause I was tending to Anna and still trying not to vomit.
We had lunch at the Three Broomstick's which wasn't too bad for amusement park counter sevice food. They had good British food choices like cornish pasties and fish and chips. You can also get butterbeer there.
Three Broomstick's again. They did a good job of making it look old and dark.
In Zonko's (joke shop)
We went in all the shops except never made it to the post office (owl post) and we didn't do the Dragon Challenge ride. Before Harry Potter world, Universal had a Dueling dragons ride and I had a feeling it hadn't changed much, although maybe we should have checked it out to see what Harry Potter touches they put on it. But my parents didn't want to ride it, the kids couldn't ride it, I was still sick from The Forbidden Journey and Scott was fine skipping it too.
So here is my take on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was cool, but I feel like they could have done SO MUCH MORE with it. I also kind of felt like it was built and designed by someone who didn't read the books. I don't know. Also they are really missing the boat on merchandising opportunities. I went there expecting to buy a lot of Harry Potter swag, but the stuff they had was kind of lame and not very much of it. They need to get a consult from Disney on how to merchandise. It's an area they could really improve on, I think.
Here's another view of Hogwarts as we walk to the Jurassic Park ride.
The Jurassic Park ride is fun by the way.
Checking some things out at Cartoon Island
There was a little Popeye themed play area for kids, but it was closed. :(
I would recommend not going to this park when it's crowded or hot (Summer, holidays and weekends?) 'cause they charge money for their fast passes (express passes) and it would be very unpleasant. It was crowded and hot when we were there, but we only waited 15 minutes for The Forbidden Journey and one of the workers told us the week prior (before Labor Day) the line was 3 hours long. I'm glad we were there on an uncrowded day...even though it was still kind of crowded. It's all relative. I'm glad we got to see the Harry Potter stuff. Very cool. Now I just want Disney to get the rights for it and build a WHOLE PARK devoted to Harry Potter...and do it right...and get some cool merchandise to sell. Is that asking too much?
Taking a picture back at our hotel. We stayed at Shades of Green the whole week. It's a military resort on the Disney property and very nice. We went swimming a few times in our free time, which we didn't have that much of...maybe I overscheduled us a bit. Sorry. You'll notice I don't have many pictures of us at the hotel...'cause we weren't there a lot.
Scott and I always like to stop at Chevy's in Orlando while we are there. The food is good and the kids got free balloon hats. The balloon guy let them pick any animal they wanted. Matthew picked a shark. He was supposed to wear this on his head, not his neck.
Anna picked a crocodile (she hasn't heard that they only have alligators in Florida, not crocs).
Matthew also loved his shark. Later in the week part of his shark popped and he was very sad about it. The term "heartbroken" comes to mind. He had a long talk with Grandma about the circle of life. Poor Matthew.
And here is my dad holding Grant at the restaurant. My parents were very kind and helpful with the kids.
My dad even got Grant to fall asleep several times. Good job Grandpa!!
