Islands of Adventure - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

We arrived at Universal and waited in line at the parking garage, then joined the masses heading for the gate.

 

Friday before Christmas?  Yeah, they're busy.  We made our way down CityWalk.

Then followed more than half the crowd (way more) to Islands of Adventure.

 

 

We headed straight to the gate since we bought our tickets online and printed them out ourselves.

 



 And followed the majority of the people, again, headed for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter section of the park.

 

We had one goal this time.  To make it into Olivanders to see the "wand experience" at the store.  The line was far too long the last time we were here, so I promised that this would be our first stop.  No matter how long the line, we're seeing it this time.  I noticed that this show isn't even listed on the map anymore (maybe it never was?) and the guy at the entrance to the line warned us ominously that it would be an hour or more wait.  Cool.  We'll still get in line thankyouverymuch.

 

Joshua spots the Butterbeer cart and asks if he can get one.  Okay, I'm curious.  Go get one so I can have a sip.

 



 

If I had to describe it, I'd say the closest I can come up with is butterscotch flavored cream soda.  Interesting, but I'd never be able to drink a full cup of it.

 

It took about 45 minutes, be we finally rounded the corner and saw the entrance.

 



 About 25 people are escorted in to Olivanders at a time.  The "shop clerk" comes in and he does his little spiel about wands as he gets two boxes from the shelves.  He pulls two people from the audience and they get to test the wands.  We learned before we went that they would likely pull people that are the right age to be Harry Potter fans and you can bump up your chances if you wear something HP specific, hence Joshua's Hogwarts t-shirt.  It worked!  Guess who got picked? 

 

Once the 5 minutes show is done, you are dumped into the Owl Post (store) and you can buy the wand that chose you or return it to the TM waiting at the exit.  Daniel isn't old enough to be a big Harry Potter fan yet, but Joshua was thrilled at being "chosen" and all that.  Well, there goes $35.  For a wand.  In a box.  *sigh*

 

We made our way back up to Hogwarts to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

 

The worst part of this ride is fighting your way into the locker area to leave all your loose stuff.  They won't let you get on the ride with a bag of any kind, so it has to go in a locker.  Nothing in your hands or on your head either.  However, cell phones in back pockets apparently don't count.

 



Because that's how I took these pictures in the queue. 

The line wasn't too bad.  We waited about 30 minutes to fly with Harry and friends and then I fought my way back into the locker madness to retrieve our bag.  We looked at the ride photo and it wasn't worth buying, so we moved on to the other ride in WWOHP, the Flight of the Hippogriff.

The hippogriff is in its nest, right at the base of the first hill.  It bows to you (as you are supposed to bow for it) and then off you go.

 

Joshua was angling for us to spend more time in this section of the park, so he asked if we could have an early lunch at Three Broomsticks.  Oh, okay.  Twist my arm.

 



 

 

 It's more about the ambiance than it is about the food, even if this is a counter service restaurant.  But here is the food anyway.  I had the Cornish Pasties:

 

Daniel had the mac & cheese:

 



 Joshua and Brad both went for the fish and chips:

After lunch we spent some time looking in all the shop windows.  They almost all had something that moved or some kind of surprise.  I thought the chocolate frog was particularly fun.

Once Joshua was convinced that he had seen all there was to see in the land of Harry Potter, we moved on to the rest of the park.