Wednesday, February 15th
Today was a day of rest! My dad took Wade, Karen, and Brady to the Kennedy Space Center while the rest of us stayed home to relax. After two LONG days at the parks I was grateful for a break!
Thursday, February 16th
Wade, Karen, Missy and I got up early and headed to the Universal Orlando Resort so that we could go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!! EEK!!
The Harry Potter stuff is divided between the two Universal Parks. Diagon Alley is in Universal Studios Florida and Hogsmeade is in Universal's Islands of Adventure. So we had to buy a two-park-one-day-park-hopper pass so that we could do all the Harry Potter stuff in one day. It was a little expensive, but TOTALLY worth it!
We started our day by entering Universal Studios Florida and zig-zagging our way to the back of the park where we found The Knight Bus and 12 Grimmauld Place!
[Of course I had to get a picture of Optimus Prime!]
[The Knight Bus]
[12 Grimmauld Place]
We then walked through this building,
and through this wall,
into DIAGON ALLEY!
The candy shops were so fun because they had all the same candy that they have in the books and the movies!
[Ollivanders wand shop]
After exploring the first few shops we decided to walk all the way to the end of Diagon Alley to the Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts ride.
I was not able to ride this ride so I offered to hold the backpacks again. A few minutes after Wade, Karen, and Missy went inside I got a text from Missy that said I had to get in there! So I asked the ride attendant if I could wait in line with my family and just not ride the ride and he said that was fine! So I went inside and found this:
The inside looked EXACTLY like the movies! It was so amazing! I stayed with the others until they got on the ride.
While they were on the ride I went and got some butterbeer!
It was so delicious but was WAY too sweet for me! I had a few sips (and took a few pictures) before passing it off to Missy once they exited the ride.
She took a few sips and deemed it too sweet to drink so she passed it to Wade and Karen who LOVED it!
After drinking the butterbeer we continued exploring Diagon Alley!
We went to a wand shop where Missy bought Ryan a wand.
We then went to a reading from the Tales of Beedle the Bard where the performers acted out the Deathly Hallows tale.
After the show we walked over to Knockturn Alley and explored that area before heading to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch.
[Leaky Cauldron]
After a delicious lunch (and a nice break), we exited Diagon Alley and walked into Kings Cross so we could take the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade!
[Missy getting onto Platform 9 3/4]
Missy and I were seriously giddy when we saw the Hogwarts Express! I was jumping up and down and clapping!
We then boarded the train and watched a super cute scene unfold out our window. It was such a fun ride!
We exited the train and entered Hogsmeade!
We went through all the different shops and then found ourselves in the busy Three Broomsticks.
[Honeydukes]
[Three Broomsticks]
We then continued our walk through Hogsmeade towards Hogwarts!
[Hogwarts!]
We then all went inside the castle so that Wade, Karen, and Missy could ride the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. The inside of the castle looked just like the movie! Even the pictures were moving and talking!
I exited the line just as the others were getting on the ride. Since I was not able to ride the rides I figured I should buy the baby a gift (since he was the reason).
So I bought the baby a Harry Potter onesie! SO CUTE!
After taking a few pictures with the onesie, we decided to walk back though Hogsmeade and then take the Hogwarts Express back to Diagon Alley so we could get some ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.
[On the Hogwarts Express]
We made our way to Florean's, bought our ice cream, and then sat on some steps by Gringotts by enjoy our treat.
After eating our ice cream we all decided that it was time to go home. Even though there is so much to do in the two parks, we were there just to see the Harry Potter stuff and that is what we did!
On our way back to our car we stopped by the Chocolate Factory, in the Universal City Walk, but didn't buy anything.
The next day my parents, Wade, and Karen flew to Cancun (lucky!) while Missy, the boys, and I flew back to Cincinnati.
Thanks to Missy for taking control and planning out our days at the Parks and thanks to my parents for watching the kids while we ran around Harry Potter World and Epcot!
And yes, we are already planning on going back in 2020 after the new Star Wars Land opens in Hollywood Studios!
1 comment:
Wow! That HP stuff looks incredible!!
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