After completing the half-marathon, eating a filling breakfast, and taking a shower, it was finally time to head to the park we had been most anticipating. Being two HUGE Harry Potter nerds, we couldn't wait to set foot inside the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
We got somewhat sidetracked as we walked through the rest of the Islands of Adventure, as we discovered they had "Suess Landing," which is a part of the park dedicated to all things Dr. Suess. I was a HUGE fan of all Dr. Suess books as a child, my favorite being "Go, Dog, Go," as my parents like to remind me every chance they get! I wanted them to read it to me so often that the binding of the book was completely undone! Guess my love of reading began early in life!
We came across multiple characters and signs that we felt deserved to be documented in pictures.
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| It was a restaurant! |
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| One of my favorites! |
We finally made our way over to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and we were amazed. It looked so real and I couldn't wait to explore. We started our journey by getting on the Hogwarts Express (or just taking a picture with it) and then went off to explore the rest of the park. We noticed that the Dragon Challenge roller coaster had only a 5-minute wait time, so we took advantage of that right away. It was a crazy roller coaster that featured two dragons (the Chinese Fireball and the Hungarian Horntail) "dueling" one another in a series of twists, turns, and flips upside down. It was definitely a crazy way to start out our day! We then decided to brave the wait for the Hogwarts castle ride, as that is the main attraction of the park. It was incredible to say the least. The 70-minute wait didn't even phase us as we got to spend some of that time in the actual castle and it was so cool. To a Harry Potter nerd like me, I was so impressed with how real it all looked. And the ride itself was incredible. I truly felt like I was in the quidditch ring and that I was a part of the journey. Way to go Universal, two thumbs up!
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| My personal favorite sign inside the castle |
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| The Sorting Hat! |
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| "Hogsmeade" |
By this time we were rather hungry, so we decided to try the restaurant that had been voted #1 Theme Park restaurant six years in a row, Mythos. We had to wait about 45 minutes, but it was well worth the wait to sit down in some incredible comfortable booths and chow down on a delicious chicken sandwich. I understand why it has been voted #1 six years in a row!
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| The bread was delicious too - it had the perfect seasoning to it! |
After we had some fuel in our bellies, we were ready to hit the shops. Inside Zonko's, we each bought a Pygmy Puff, I named my pink one Polly and Sarah named her purple one Penny. They will have a special place in our rooms next year.
We also spent some time wandering around Honey Duke's Sweet Shop and admiring just how cute all of it was!
We both knew that we had to have wands to commemorate our experience. The wait to go inside Ollivander's was around 75-minutes, so we decided to forgo the performance that went on in the wand shop and just pick out our wands ourselves. We both have the deep desire to be like Hermoine Granger, so we both purchased a replica of her wand. Definitely worth the money. While inside, I also bought some parchment and a feather quill. Hey, you only live once, right?
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter most definitely exceeded even my wildest dreams. It was such a special place to be and it definitely brought comfort to the fact that there will be no more books or movies to look forward to!
After we finally exhausted all possibilities at Harry Potter World, we decided to try the huge green roller coaster that caught our eyes as we first entered the park. It is called the Incredible Hulk and it is some roller coaster. It starts out going uphill at a normal roller coaster speed before it suddenly and unexpectedly speeds up and sends you through many twists and turns. It was definitely a thrill ride, but it was so much fun!
We had an extremely successful day at Universal Studios and we slept like babies that night!
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