The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
We went to Hogwarts!
Actually, we went to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando. Same diff.
When we got into the park and made a bee line for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It really was magical. The architects and designers were clearly fans of the books. Their attention to detail was unbelievable, I tell ya.
Here we are at platform 9 ¾. Please ignore my shorts… please. They looked okay in the dressing room. Unfortunately, I bought two pairs. You get to see these unflattering mom shorts in beige too. Lucky you.
Check out all the wand boxes in Ollivander’s.
The Three Broomsticks serves above average theme park food.
We had to try the frozen butter beer. I had the shepherd’s pie while Kim had the cornish pasties. Despite the rave reviews about butterbeer, we weren’t particularly fond of it – too sugary. We would not recommend the fish and chips. Very soggy.
ST preferred the Hog’s Head brew from the Hog’s Head tavern.
The next day (yes, we bought two day tickets), I had the roasted chicken and ribs. The pumpkin juice was not as sweet as the butter beer, but still a bit much for me.
Melody went to town on this turkey leg.
There are technically four working shops within the Hogsmeade – Zonko’s, Honeydukes, Ollivander’s, and Dervish and Banges – but it’s more like two because the shops are all connected.
Honeydukes had lots of stuff that was from the movie. There was also weird junk like Clippy’s Clip Join Clippings, which was just licorice.
Hagrid’s rock cakes! The lady at the counter said they were like scones.
ST finished a box of Peppermint Toads in about 5 minutes. They were quite yummy. The Honeydukes chocolate, on the other hand, gave us both tummy aches.
Cauldron cakes! I couldn’t resist. It was actually quite good. In general, I thought the prices were quite reasonable. This was $4, which is about the same as the cupcakes at Butter Lane in Park Slope. The cauldron cake was better, in my opinion.
Some stuff was out of place – Ton Tongue Toffee belongs at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, since Fred and George invented them.
DO NOT BUY CHOCOLATE FROGS FROM HONEYDUKES! We waited until the end of the day to buy our chocolates because we didn’t want it to melt. In the gift shop by the exit, they sell chocolate frogs for $4.95 less! At Honeydukes they cost $14.95 while at this random gift shop they were $9.95.
Zonko’s had a bunch of filler stuff like whoopee cushions but they also had pygmy puffs and sneakoscopes. Pretty cute.
The line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was very long. The wait time can be up to 90 minutes or more. Fortunately, our wait was only 75 minutes. Unfortunately, that is still a LONG time. The ride was really good even though it made us super dizzy. I wouldn’t recommend riding it at the beginning of the day – you’d need to rest for quite a while. We rode it towards the end of the day, had a few drinks, and then went back to the hotel.
As you wait for the ride, you go through the halls of Hogwarts. There were lots of talking portraits and other details like the house points:
The pensieve…
And random statues like these:
It was pretty dim in there so I couldn’t get pictures of everything but there was also Dumbledore’s office and a classroom.
We also loved the Dragon Challenge ride. The wait was always 10 minutes and it was pretty good. There was a model of Arthur Weasley’s flying car:
We skipped the Flight of the Hippogriff because word on the street was it was for babies.
My sisters and I have wanted to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter since it opened almost two years ago. This was definitely a bucket list trip.