harry potter – Looking on the Bright Side

I’ve posted our pictures from Islands of Adventure. Now, I shall share some of my pictures from the other park, Universal Studios. We spent two days in this park also. This post will be focused on the Harry Potter themed section of the park.

You enter through a replica of Kings Cross Station in London.

The Knight Bus and it’s driver are available for a chat and photos. There is even a talking shrunken head.

Diagon Alley is just like in the books and movies. A place for witches and wizards to shop and get all the things they might need.

My daughter wanted her very own Crookshanks from the Magical Menagerie shop.

She was also able to keep using her interactive wand purchased at IOA to do spells. With a little assistance from a witch, we started to get better at them.

Escape from Gringotts is the big ride in this park. We went straight there on our first day and had no wait. We all sat down on the ride, but my daughter was freaking out and scared. We ended up taking her off and using the child swap room so that my husband and I could each ride individually. It is an adventurous ride through the bank just like in the book and film.

We saw two different shows during our time at Diagon Alley. The first was Tales of Beedle the Bard, which was a puppet style show telling some of the classic wizarding fairy tales.

We also saw Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees, a celebrated witch singer. They sang and danced to some unique holiday tunes, including “My Baby Gave Me a Hippogriff for Christmas.”

We had some delicious ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. I had the clotted cream flavor. Delicious!

Like any good wizard visiting a shopping area during a global pandemic, we made sure to wash our hands!

Overall, we had a great time exploring this part of the park several times over our two days.

We decided to take a last minute trip to Universal Studios in Orlando right before Thanksgiving. We haven’t traveled anywhere since Covid-19 started, and I was feeling an itch to go. Tickets were discounted, so we just decided to go. It was a controversial decision, but I think we did the best we could to stay safe and had a lot of fun in the process.

This post will share some of our pictures from Islands of Adventure. We spent two days in this park. The first day of our trip was the least crowded. Our second IOA day was a few days later on the weekend, so crowds had picked up a bit. On that day, we went to the park at opening, left around lunchtime, and came back at night to avoid the most crowded part of the day.

The part of Universal Studios that I was most excited to visit were the two Harry Potter themed lands. I have not been to Universal since these were built several years ago. In Islands of Adventure, you get to visit both Hogsmeade and Hogwarts!

Hogsmeade was a wintry wonderland covered in snow and Christmas decor.

My family represents three different Hogwarts houses, so we wore masks to represent. My husband is a Slytherin, my daughter is a Gryffindor, and I am a proud Hufflepuff. We just need a Ravenclaw to round out our group.

We visited stores all themed down to the details according to the book’s descriptions.

My daughter got an interactive Hermione Granger wand that allowed her to do spells around both of the parks. Completing the spells was a bit trickier than I expected and did require some practice to get right.

We had a lunch of fish and chips at The Three Broomsticks, which were quite tasty. I also sampled some Butterbeer.

The Hogwarts castle was a sight to behold and even more fun to see lit up at night.

The castle is home to the Forbidden Journey ride, which I quite enjoyed, but my daughter was a bit frightened of. It is an adventure as you fly around Hogwarts with Harry.

My daughter’s favorite ride was Flight of the Hippogriff which is a family friendly roller coaster. She could have ridden that one all day if we let her. Kiddie roller coasters are as far as I go in the roller coaster world, so we didn’t even attempt the popular Hagrid’s Magical Creatures ride.

We saw two shows during our time in Hogsmeade. The first was the Triwizard Spirit Rally, which showcased perfomances by students from the other two magical schools, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.