The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!!

This weekend, I traveled to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, FL to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park!!! You enter the Harry Potter portion of the park through Hogsmead village. The Hogwarts express is right there!

It is really strange to see a snowy village on a 95º day in Orlando. The snow sparkled and glittered on the rooftops. There were even pine trees planted throughout the park!

Above is Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. Housed within the school is one of the best rides I've ever been on! Part Disney's Haunted mansion, part simulator, and part roller coaster, this ride takes you on a flying bench through hogwarts, the dark forest, and a quiddich game, all while being chased by dragons and dementors! The line for the ride winds through the Defense Against the Dark arts classroom, the Herbology classroom, the Gryffindor common room, & Dumbledore's office. Every detail is immaculately reconstructed, including the talking/moving portraits on the walls. I almost wished the line moved slower once we got inside the school. There was so much to see!

Dervish and Banges store, featuring the hottest flying broomstick models.

Honeydukes candy store and Zonko's Joke shop

The Weasley's enchanted car

Owl Post, complete with fake owl poo

The dress shop, featuring Hermione's dress from the 4th movie.

We enjoyed some frozen butter beer at the Hogshead Bar and 3 Broomsticks restaurant. It tasted like cream soda with an ice cream foam topping. Delicious!

Catherine and I enjoying some pumpkin juice.

The Harry Potter park was very cool, but pretty small. The rest of the Islands of Adventure theme park seemed pretty outdated (although I did enjoy the Jurassic Park section). Hopefully they will tear down the Poseidon section and expand the Harry Potter section. There seems to be a lot of opportunities for other Harry Potter themed rides.

Unfortunately, it began to thunder, and Universal closed down EVERY RIDE in the entire park (including the indoor rides). It thundered the rest of the day, so we really did not get our money's worth. I never got to ride the flight of the Hippogriff ride, and the lines to get into the stores in Hogsmead were outrageously long. To top it off, Universal did not offer us any sort of refund or discount pass to come back another day. We were pretty disappointed with their customer service overall.

Nevertheless, it was really special to visit Hogwarts, and feel immersed in the magical world of Harry Potter. I would love to come back in about 5-10 years, once it is less popular, so I can really enjoy all of the nuances that went into this magnificent recreation.