This past weekend, my mom and I went to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando. As a big HP fan, I LOVED it. My only complaint is that it's not bigger!! Here's the scoop:
Map of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida.
Image detail can be found here.
We rode the Harry Potter ride first (it honestly doesn't matter what the real name is because it'll always be known as 'the Harry Potter ride'). The ride is awesome but the experience through the Hogwarts castle is almost as great as the ride itself! You enter through the dungeons where you have to lock up all your bags, loose items, etc. in a fingerprint enabled locker and then you make your way through the greenhouse and into the halls of Hogwarts. You'll pass statues and the phoenix that guards Dumbledore's office and continue through his office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, past the Fat Lady that guards the Gryfinndor Tower, and encounter all kinds of moving portraits. The whole ride reminds me a little bit of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. You even enter the cars on a moving sidewalk and each car is separate. The line moved pretty fast so we didn't mind the wait. The ride effects are great and it has the real Harry Potter characters so it's very realistic.
Mom and me on the HP ride! She didn't look great in the photo buthow would you look if a spider had just spit in your mouth?
The next ride is the Flight of the Hippogriff. It's a quick, open air roller coaster and more child friendly than the HP ride. You do get to go past Hagrid's hut and bow to Buckbeak!
The final ride of the Wizarding World of HP is the Dueling Dragons ride. This ride isn't new to Universal Studios Island of Adventure actually, it used to be something different but they redesigned it to fit in with the HP theme. It's very rough and made me a little bit nauseous. I love roller coasters though, so maybe it was just all the butterbeer!
Due to the size alloted the park, they merged Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley which was a little sad. They had all the great shops though - Honeydukes, the candy shop, and Zonko's, the joke shop. I bought a chocolate frog for Allen (we got Godric Gryfinndor as our trading card) and Bertie Bott's every flavor beans (the vomit and rotten egg flavor are gross, but soap isn't that bad). Hah! You had to wait in line 5-10 minutes to enter almost every store, but most fans are going to wait anyway...
Mom and I ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks (she had fish & chips, I had chicken pasties and salad), had butterbeer at the Hog's Head Inn (it takes a little bit like cream soda with a butter foam on top that never seems to fizz away!).
As someone who is generally a penny pincher, I basically had to accept that everything was going to be ridiculously expensive and get over it and enjoy the day. We paid $10 each for butterbeer in the souvenir mug. The only plus is that you can refill your mug with soda, etc. anywhere in the park for $0.85.
In the girls restroom, you can can of course hear Moaning Myrtle! It's great!
We also stopped at the Owl Post and sent a few postcards postmarked from Hogsmeade! Sadly, they were not delivered by Hedwig.
Next to the Owl Post is Dervish and Banges, the Quidditch supply shop. Basically, it's Dick's Sporting Goods for wizards. They had some great Nimbus 2000's and Quidditch jerseys (?). The store is connected to Ollivander's wandshop.
We of course waited in the 60 minute line (down from 90 minutes midday) to experience the magic! Ollivander chooses a child from the crowd to be fit for their wand. The children even get to test out a few spells until the find the right fit - "accio ladder!" Sadly, they do not choose 25 year olds. :( They have authentic wands from the movies for about $30 each (I thought it would be more).
We saw the Frog Choir perform a few songs in the square. Top wizarding hits such as "Double Trouble" and the theme from the Quidditch World Cup. It's basically a wizarding Glee club. :)
Evidently there is a Spirit Rally led by the students from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang but they don't really tell you when its going to happen so we missed the spirit rally.
Everyone in the park was very much in the HP spirit! We saw more than a few teenagers in full head-to-toe Hogwarts student apparel. :)
My only complaint about the whole thing is that there isn't more to it. Mom and I decided there should've been a Gringott's ride (complete with goblins and vault 713), a Ministry of Magic attraction or ride and the Hogwarts Express was just a train at the entrance of the park, they could've done more with it.
I think they should tear down the entire Greek mythology section of the park and expand the Wizard World of HP section. According to some information we overheard while we were there, the WWHP has increased traffic for Universal by 36 percent over the past year, so I think expanding it would be a good investment. But who cares what I think... :)
We spent almost the entire day in the Harry Potter part of the park because we wanted to experience it completely! Mom got a great deal on our hotel package through American Express Platinum which included early admittance to the park at 8 a.m. and a boat ride to and from the park from our hotel.
What a great weekend!
For more information about the park check out these sites:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/09potter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=twrhp
https://harrypotterworldorlando.com/
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/park
http://www.themeparkinsider.com/wizarding-world-of-harry-potter/
Official: http://www.universalorlando.com/Amusement_Parks/Islands_of_Adventure/islands_of_adventure.aspx#page=Amusement-Parks_Islands-of-Adventure_harrypotter_wizarding-world-of-harry-potter.html&expID=13-15522&contentID=13-13095&seq=1
1 comment:
hahahaha you're hilarious and so is your mom, love yall!!
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