Prepare yourself …. Ginormous post coming ….
Our family has had Harry Potter fever right from the very beginning: Mike & I read the books as they were released, 3 yr old Christian would draw a lightning bolt scar on his forehead with my eyeliner just about every day while also wearing a HP robe and wand, the girls started reading the books as they got older, and then we all rediscovered them last summer as we listened to the books on cd in the car during road trips. Here is Paige's very real reaction when a beloved fictional HP character died ….
See what I mean? We're all big fans.
For Christmas, we each received a HP mug….
… and we gave the kids this wand.
They thought it was cool, but then they all freaked when we told them it represented our upcoming trip to Harry Potter world in Florida! We're such nerds.
(Check out this funny coincidence of a picture from a trip a few years ago and then, below, heading to Florida.)
We flew on a red-eye flight the evening of my birthday. Happy birthday to me! Even the red-eye couldn't keep our excitement down.
We spent a couple of nights at a very cool, retro, 60's theme hotel right next to Universal Studios where HP World is.
Not a bad way to spend my birthday, huh?
During the trip we also:
* hit the beaches on 2 different coasts of Florida -- Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Ocean and Clearwater Beach on the Gulf
* spent some time at an artisan mall, and found these funky scooter animals to ride
* ate at Hard Rock Cafe for our hard rockin' guitar playing son (he was in heaven checking out all of the rock paraphernalia)
* went to a free Philip Phillips concert (Haley & I are big fans)
* and explored the rest of Universal's 2 theme parks….
Soooo happy to be on the Dr. Seuss train ride. haha
Haley clearly wasn't as scared by Jurassic dinosaurs as the other kids.
Should have bought this for my honey. ;)
And then it was finally time ….. Here are our first reactions to seeing the HP area of Universal.
It was seriously jaw-dropping amazing. I expected it to be pretty great, but it exceeded my high expectations. The attention to detail was fantastic.
Our first stop was at Ollivander's Wand Shop. It looks straight out of the movie, with crooked, overflowing shelves of wand boxes.
The selection of the perfect wand for a wizard is pretty magical ….
Or you can choose the wand that is associated with your birthday, which is what our kids all did.
Wand selecting is apparently very serious business.
If you buy an interactive wand, you can make cool things happen throughout the park. There are gold discs cemented into the ground here and there with spells you can try. When you get the wand motion right, certain things happen (things move, water squirts, lights turn on …). Pretty amazing.
Other cool things we found ….
* Hermione's magical bag that held huge items without getting any bigger than this.
* the diary of Tom Riddle
* creepy Dobby
* wizard robes and school uniforms
(even headbands to match whatever house you're in)
* chocolate frogs
* full size wizard brooms
* the cool statue outside of Dumbledore's office (the entire inside of Hogwarts castle is a-maz-ing)
* Honeydukes sweet shop
* screaming mandrake plants
* Hagrid's hut
* the Weasley's car hidden in the Forbidden Forest
* the Hogwarts student frog choir
* the dancing witches from Beauxbaton
* and the guys from Durmstrang
All of that is in the Hogsmeade village area of one Universal Park. Then, you take the Hogwarts Express to get to London and Diagon Alley in the second Universal Park.
The train station is legit with old wizard luggage, British voices doing announcements on the intercom, and a little snack shop with English treats.
Finally found Platform 9 3/4….
Looks pretty real to me ...
Inside the train, the compartments look identical to the ones in the movies, and the windows show moving scenes of characters in the movies. Hagrid waves at you as the train pulls out of the station.
We found Sirius Black's 'hidden' house in London ….
… and the Knight bus!
Since Diagon Alley is hidden from the Muggle World, so is the Diagon Alley area of Universal. You have to know to go behind the brick wall to find this ….
Everything is sort of skiwampus and crooked. It's fantastic.
We found Weasley's Joke Shop, and were happy to be there on April Fool's Day - Fred & George Weasley's birthday.
Crooked rooflines, laundry hanging to dry, colorful/strange storefronts …. It was crazy crowded but none of us cared at all.
A talking Nagini….
Even fake owl poo on this owl perch. Seriously!
The dragon clutching onto Gringott's Bank was fantastic! Not to mention that he breathed fire every 10 minutes. You could feel the heat all the way down the street.
This moving, talking, interactive Goblin at Gringott's was definitely cool.
Not to mention the fun floors we found.
And the food! Chocolate frogs,
… butterbeer in all its varieties (frozen slush, hot, cold, and ice cream)
Toad in the hole (sausage in a Yorkshire pudding)
Amazing!
On our last day, it was definitely hard to say goodbye ….
Such a fantastic trip! Definitely happy memories for all of us. :) Success.
