Harry Potter World!!!

I did it!! I finally got to go to Harry Potter World at Universal!! We have been planning and saving for this trip for 5 months as a part of my birthday celebration. Anthony took the day off of work to watch the kids, and my mom and my brother came to visit for the week. We decided to get there really early to try to beat the crowds, so we woke up at 6am Monday morning to make the drive to Orlando. I could barely contain myself! I have been wanting to go for so long and it was finally happening!

When we first got there, the park wasn't officially open yet, but they let us in so that we could line up for the different rides. The shops and the decorations in Hogsmeade village were amazing!

I read online that the line for Olivander's wand shop is crazy long since they only let in 30 people at a time, so we decided to do that first. We ended up being one of the first people in! I was hoping that they would pick me to be the one person that does the "experience" where you try out the different wands, but they chose a teenage boy instead. Booo! :) After you watch him try the different wands and settle on the right one, they lead you into the wand shop where you can buy your own wand. Daniel and I both bought one because there are spots all over the place where you can use your wand to make things happen (like move things in a window, or turn on a fountain, things like that).

Of course, we had to Oooo and ahh over Hogwarts castle!

The castle was our next stop. The line for the ride goes through the entire castle and you see so many cool things, like doors to different classrooms, Dumbledore's office, moving pictures hanging on the wall, and even the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.

Paintings hanging on the wall:

 The entrance to Dumbledore's office:

After the castle we decided to ride the Hogwarts Express train over to Diagon Alley in Universal Studios. This a relatively new addition to Harry Potter world, so it was definitely busier. It was so awesome to watch the train arrive. I could almost imagine that I was really going to Hogwarts! :)

After you get off of the train, you exit into a London street, complete with the Knight Bus and the large fountain that is in front of the ministry of magic.

There is a British telephone booth that you can go inside. If you dial "Magic" on the phone you get connected to the Ministry of Magic!

Then you go through a hole in a brick wall to find Diagon Alley! It is a little crowded in there: there are a lot of people and very narrow streets.

 There were so many cool shops and things to look at from the movies and the books. We wanted to go on the ride inside of Gringotts, but the line was always too long for us.

 This monster book was inside a cage and would rattle around and chomp at you:

You can go inside Gringotts and exchange your muggle money for magic money (that you can use to buy things all over Universal). We went in just to see the animatronic goblin. We tried asking it questions, but it ignored us.

We ate lunch at the leaky cauldron and it was dark and gloomy, just like in the movie! They served traditional English food like bangers and mash and toad in a hole. I almost got a regular old chicken sandwich, but then I thought I should be adventurous and try toad in a hole. Definitely should have gotten the chicken sandwich :) It wasn't the greatest thing to eat, but at least I tried! We tried the soda butterbeer here and it was delicious! Just like cream soda with a layer of whip cream on top. Yum!

After lunch it started to get really crowded, so we decided to check out the rest of Universal. We went on a few rides, but there wasn't anything too exciting. We were just killing time until we could go back to Harry Potter! After awhile we got back on the Hogwarts Express and back into Hogsmeade so we could do some shopping. We had plans to buy a lot of souvenirs so we made sure to do our shopping last so that we wouldn't have to carry around a lot of bags. I got a toy for James and a stuffed owl for Rett. Then we went into the candy shop and got chocolate frogs, every flavor jelly beans, cotton candy, and fizzing whizzies (chocolate with pop rocks in them). On our way out we tried the frozen butterbeer and it wasn't as good as the soda. It was a little too sweet, but it didn't stop me from drinking it all :) On the way home I tried the every flavor beans and I ended up eating a rotten egg flavored bean and an earthworm bean. So gross!! After that I cheated and used the little picture guide they give you to make sure I didn't eat anymore gross ones.

It was so much fun, I can't wait to go back with the boys once they are older and can really enjoy it. Plus, that gives me an excuse to go back again!