Anyway, a little over a week ago, I went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was an amazing experience!
We arrived at the park around 9:30 and parked our car. The walk through the Universal City Walk on its own was so cool and we stopped in a Harry Potter themed store before entering the park. And it was the best thing ever! They had things ranging from T-shirts of all the houses to notebooks with fancy Hogwarts seals embossed on the front, along with some that had metal seals on the front. There were stuffed Hedwigs and Marauder's Maps that actually worked. I don't even have words...I probably smiled in awe the whole time that I was in the store!
We spent a long time in there going through all the Harry Potter stuff and everything about it was so amazing. Even the decorations in the store looked like something that you would find in Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, or Diagon Alley.
After that, we entered the park. We went straight to Hogsmeade, where we started the day by looking in Zonko's Joke Shop and Honeyduke's. I was a little disappointed at the range of products in Zonko's, as they only had a few wizarding pranks and a lot of vintage-looking toys. Honeydukes, on the other hand, was incredible. There were so many options, including Chocolate Frogs, Peppermint Toads, Exploding BonBons, Chocolate Wands, and so much more. We ended up getting a Chocolate Frog, which was a little bit expensive, but it was totally worth it! The chocolate wasn't the best, but both the packaging and the Chocolate Frog Cards are so cool, as they look almost identical to how they did in the movies!
We ended up getting Salazar Slytherin for our card, which I am planning to use to decorate something or other. Or maybe I'll use it as a prop for photos (cough cough Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).
After going through the first two stores mentioned above, we decided to go one of the rides! We chose The Flight of the Hippogriff and got in line. Even the line was a cool experience, as there were tons of decorations from the movie. We saw Hagrid's Hut and Sirius' flying motorbike, but it was only on the ground here.
The line was pretty long for such a short ride, but, again, it was worth it. Buckbeak was there as well, but I couldn't get a picture of him. I brought a book in my backpack to read in lines (The second half of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - a book so loved {it has been read upwards of fifteen times by different people in my family} that it finally broke in half.) and ended up being able to read most of what I had left to read that day.
After riding The Flight of the Hippogriff, we went through more stores. We ended up going into Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods, which had movie prop replicas, T-shirts, mugs, stuffed animals, and more. We also went into a big interconnected store that was Owl Post (lots of beautiful Hogwart's stationary, quills and ink, and Howlers!), which was decorated like anyone would imagine an Owlery to look like, Dervish and Banges, which had lots of different house goods like sweaters and scarves, and Gladrag's Wizard Wear, which had lots of Hogwarts robes. I loved looking through all of the goods because they looked so realistic! It was almost like being in Hogsmeade for real!
At this point, we decided that we wanted to find Ollivander's. We went through Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, which was full of Hogwart Express goods and Death Eater stuff. The crowd in Ollivander's was by far the thickest. I looked through so many wands and referred to the descriptions of different wand woods. I settled on a Reed wand, which I felt best represented my personality. Aside from the wood wands, there were character movie replica wands. The ambience was just as I would imagine Ollivander's to be: cozy and cluttered.
Upon exiting the shop and purchasing our wands, my sister and I started doing actual "magic" with them. They have special tips that connect to motion sensors and allow you to actually preform spells throughout Hogsmeade.
At intervals throughout the day, there were performances by the Hogwarts Frog Choir, which was really cool!
My mom and I ended up getting the braised brisket to share and my sister got the chicken platter (I cannot remember their exact names), but both meals were really good. I was not a huge fan of the regular Butterbeer, as it was sparkling and I do not like sparkling beverages, but if you like things like that then you will probably like it! I believe people describe it as similar to cream soda.
After lunch, we walked through the shops some more and then decided to go one of the tram-tour things through the park and production studios (this was not a part of Hogsmeade). For some reason, I cannot remember the name of it! Anyway, the line was extremely long and I spent the whole time ignoring the beach balls that people were throwing around to read...
The tour was really cool, but afterwards we headed back to Hogsmeade. We got a frozen Butterbeer to drink in line and it was way better than the sparkling one (in my opinion). Although, I could have simply eaten the foam that was on top...talk about delicious!
The outside of the line was pretty normal, but there was a beautiful view of Hogwarts. There was also the Weasley's flying Ford Anglia!
The inside part of the line was incredible, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it. They had us put our belongings inside lockers and I left my phone in my bag... Anyway, there were parts that came to life (including a few appearances of Harry, Ron, and Hermione!).
The ride itself was incredible; it was full of flying, dementors, and giant spiders! Unfortunately, the ride moved a lot and had a wide range of motion (almost completely upside down at some points) and made me motion sick. I still went on it twice, though, mainly because it broke down the first time at the very beginning and we missed the intro bit by Ron and Harry. They let us go again without waiting in the line!
After the awesome ride, I was still a little motion sick, but we decided to get ice cream. We stopped at one of the food carts (warning: cash only) and bought Florean Fortescue's ice cream. I got the chocolate and my sister got the vanilla (the other option was peanut butter strawberry). Of the two, I would recommend the vanilla over the chocolate. I especially love the packaging!
At this point it was almost time to leave, but we walked through a few more stores and took a quick picture with the Hogwarts Express conductor in front of the Hogwarts Express!
I decided that I wanted to see a wand choose a wizard, so we stood in a short line to watch. My sister was chosen to be the one that the wand chose, and it was so cool! I would highly recommend seeing this if you are ever at the park!
We went back into Ollivander's for a while to make sure that the wands that we chose to buy were really the ones for us, and then watched the Triwizard Spirit Rally, which was really cool. My phone was only able to capture the beginning before running out of storage. After Beauxbatons, Durmstrang went on and preformed (there were lots of flips and stomping large sticks). I preferred this show over the Hogwarts Frog Choir personally.
We also took some photos in front of the entrance to Hogsmeade (you can see a lot of the village behind us)!
I loved the whole experience and it is hard for me to choose a favorite part. I am really hoping to go back again soon. If any Harry Potter fans ever get the chance to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, either in California or in Florida, I would highly recommend going. It is an amazing experience! Thank you so much for reading, and to finish off the post here are a few more pictures!
And two days later I was able to get my hands on this baby! Go midnight release parties!
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