Florida-The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

When Josh first talked about the possibility of my going with him to Florida, all I could think was how much I wanted to go and see the new Harry Potter world at Universal Studios. I am a bit of a Harry Potter nerd and love it all and so I couldn't wait to see everything come to life!

The Hogwarts castle is just perfect! I took way to many pictures of this structure :)
Just a warning, there is definitely picture overload in this post and I didn't even post them all!


We went on a very good day and there weren't really very long lines. Most of the rides were about a 10 minute wait, which was just fine with us! The lines for Butterbeer however were so huge!
The reason for the long lines though is that this stuff is so yummy! I am going to try to replicate it soon as Josh and I have been dreaming about it since our trip.

I don't have any pictures of us on the rides, but they are all pretty good. We liked the dragon riding one (no idea what it was called) the best. It is a seriously good roller coaster.

Honeydukes Sweet Shoppe. This store is one of my favorite parts of the books, so it was fun to see everything in it.
Bertie Bott's Beans. We brought my sister Heather some of these and she and the boys took turns eating them. There are 5 good flavors and 5 bad ones. I think they all liked trying the bad as much as the good.


Zonkos joke shop




The cutest turtle just swam all day under the bridge that leads to Hogsmeade. He was sort of a celebrity. A million people just sat on the bridge and took pictures of him (including me).
We went out into the rest of the "Island of Adventure" park and checked everything out. The boys would have loved the Dr. Seuss themed land.

Truffula trees from "The Lorax."
The comic book hero place is pretty cool too.
Josh and I rode this very wet roller coaster. Pretty fun.
In the Jurassic Park land there was a roller coaster that got you wet on. We thought it would get us a LITTLE wet. We were wrong, at the end of that ride we looked like we'd been dunked in a barrel of water. We were drenched! I guess it was good it was a hot day.

If you can't tell, I am drenched in this picture!
Then we headed back to Harry Potter land. This is Hagrid's House that you can see while in line for the "Flight of the Hippogriff" ride.
For lunch we ate at the "Three Broomsticks." I wonder if the real Three Broomsticks has a motorized car out front. Do wizards ride in Hoverounds?
Of course I got more Butterbeer to drink for lunch. This time I tried the frozen kind. Oh my goodness so delicious.
Josh got pumpkin juice. I was skeptical, but it was really good. It tasted like ice cold pumpkin pie...only good.
Josh got Fish and Chips for lunch, I don't remember Harry Potter ever eating Fish and Chips in the books, but it is very English and was very good (he was nice and shared.) I think it was the best fish and chips I have ever eaten.
I got an ENORMOUS smoked turkey leg (come on I know you were just DYING to know what I ate for lunch ;). It was so good (although not very Harry Potterish).

"The Monster Book of Monsters"
This was another of the long lines. You can go in Olivanders Wand Shop and watch someone choose their wand (or I guess watch their wand choose them). This little boy was french and was so thrilled to have this chance. It was cute so see his mom translate everything for him.

I loved the boxes and boxes of wands clear up to the ceiling. That is what we decided to get the boys for their souvenirs.
We carefully picked out a wand for each of them (what little boy wouldn't want a wand from Harry Potter land), and when we got home we found out they were made of resin and one of the boys (he who shall not be named) broke his within about 15 minutes of having it....lame!
We ended our visit with a Caldron cake from Honeydukes.
They were so good.
And of course we washed it down with more Butterbeer (I had 4 glasses. Delicious!)
We left just in time. Right when we got in our car there was a downpour of rain. I mean sheets and sheets of it. The lightening was amazing with huge streaks of it shooting across the sky. I tried so hard to get a picture of it, but it was faster than I was. There is a bit of it on the left third of the picture. It was the best I could do.

Honestly this day was so much fun! It was so fun also to be with Josh. I sort of like him...like more than a friend :)