Universal’s World of Harry Potter!! (Part 2 of 2)

Hello again! I hope you all had a marvelous weekend. I’m back with a continuation of my vacation in Florida! This is the most exciting part imo, because… HARRY POTTER!! Need I say more?

If you’ve ever been to the Universal Studios in Hollywood, you’d know that it’s globe looks a lot different from this one. That’s why I just had to take a photo in front of Orlando’s.

We began our adventure walking through City Walk. Apparently there’s a City Walk everywhere that there’s a Universal Studios. I’ve actually been to the one in Osaka before as well, but it couldn’t have been that impressive since I hardly remember it.

Universal Studios Orlando actually has two separate theme parks, we of course chose the one that has Harry Potter, Islands of Adventure!

Like Disney, Islands of Adventure had tons of decorations that were out of this world. Honestly, I have no clue what the Lost Continent is, lol. But I thought this looked too cool.

We watched a couple of shows, including Poseidon’s Fury, The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad Stunt Show, and Ollivanders. The shows weren’t as impressive as the Disney ones, as they seemed to be a bit outdated. Ah, but of course, all things Harry Potter were awesome. Haha, I really enjoyed visiting Ollivander’s wand shop, I just wished that they would have picked me to receive a wand!!

Dr. Seuss had a huge portion of the theme park dedicated to the craziness. We went on one of the kids rides, I don’t remember which but it basically went through one of the books. Wasn’t very fun as an adult, but probably great if you were a kid!

We only walked through Toon Lagoon, pretty neat though.

In Marvel Super Hero Island we went on the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. The ride is great, but actually we have the exact same thing in Hollywood, so it wasn’t anything too new or exciting for me.

There was also the Jurassic Park section but we didn’t spend much time there since we have one of the rides in Hollywood. I personally wouldn’t have mind exploring a bit, but we didn’t have much time because we had to spend it all in Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, duh!

Now to what you’ve all been waiting for…. such a dream come true!!! One of the happiest days of my life hands down. Oh and the weather could not have been better while we were in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, blue skies for days! We were lucky too, because it ended up pouring buckets after we left the park.

Here’s the Hogwarts Express. You can’t really ride on it (I wish), and thats about all of the train. But still pretty neat regardless.

Ahhh, and Hogsmeade is truly a dream come true. I really wish I could sorta live there? Isn’t it beautiful? It was actually a lot larger than I thought it would be. Also, I love that you can go into most of the shops!!

This is another view shot from the other end of Hogsmeade towards where I was standing when I shot the photo above.

Oh, and here’s the BUTTERBEER! But as you can see, it’s not really sold at “The Three Broomsticks”, but instead from some sort of cart.

You had the option to get it frozen (which is more like a slush) or cold (like a normal drink), which is the one I preferred. I thought the price for it was fairly reasonable, so I drank two of them! It basically tastes like a cream soda root beer mix, topped off with a thick layer of light foamy cream. YUM! I’m salivating right now.

Now I’ll show you some of the shops within Hogsmeade. The shops featured directly below here are mostly for display and you can’t really go inside. But I’ll show you some that you can go in!

I was so excited to go inside of Zonko’s, but when I did, I took a closer look inside at all the products they had for sale and I was a little disappointed. Nothing as fun and crazy as the items in the book. Boo~

Honeydukes was pretty cool though, I have a photo of inside the shop below also. They sold chocolate frogs and lots of other random sweets. Everything was pretty expensive though, so I didn’t bother buying.

I thought this was kinda witty. This was the sign above an ATM machine, lol. Cute huh? Oh and if you go inside of the girls bathroom, you can hear moaning Myrtle!!

Ah, now that I’m typing up blog post, I’m not sure why I’ve included this photo of me posing in front of a shop. Hahaha, oh well. Looks fun though doesn’t it, don’t you wanna go inside?? Take me back!!

I think if the world of Harry Potter existed and I went to Hogwarts, I would probably be a Hufflepuff. But… according to a test I just took, it says that I’m a Ravenclaw. My results were Ravenclaw 13, Gryffindor 12, Hufflepuff 11, and Slytherin 8. Those are all pretty close to each other, if you want to take the test for yourself, you can do so here.

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Remember this book? It’s the Monster Book of Monsters for Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class. Don’t forget, to open it you have to stroke it! Lol. What’s cool is this book actually moved and made sounds, fun! I tried to take a video for you guys but there were so many little kids around me being annoying and putting their hands in front of my camera, so I gave up. I’m sure you can google it.

And lastly, what I would love to share with you is the Hogwarts Castle. Ugh how much cooler could this castle be if there was actually water surrounding it and a beautiful bridge and what not. So many awesome things missing from the world of Harry Potter. But it’s ok, I can settle for this.

Inside of the castle is probably the best Harry Potter ride of them all, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. On this ride you get to feel like you are going along with Harry through most of his journeys, such as the whomping willow, forbidden forest, and even getting chased by dementors! I almost got a heart attack from the dementor trying to kiss me, ah!

As you walk through the lines to get onto the ride, you get to walk through the castle. It’s a decent walk, as you get to walk through the halls and see lots of memorable parts from the book such as the greenhouse, entrance to Gryffindor, and even see a bunch of talking and moving painted portraits. Too bad though, there’s no moving stairways. Oh, here’s another one of my favorites, the sorting hat!

Anyways, I couldn’t have asked for a more better trip to the World of Harry Potter. Next trip I’ll have to make is to the Harry Potter Studio in London!

Before I forget, I just wanted to share a couple of cute things that I got from Disney! Erick bought me this super cute dumbo keychain that I’ve clipped onto the zipper of my LV purse.

He also got me these Eiffel Tower earrings while we were in “France” at Disney Epcot. Thanks love! Hehe, btw, we are on the Flight of the Hippogriff ride in the picture below.

After our long day at Universal, it began to rain hard. We ended up grabbing dinner at Margaritaville and then waited for our shuttle to take us back to our hotel rooms. There we just bought some alcohol, drank, and played games at the hotel. An easy and fun way to end our trip!

Okay, well that about sums up my trip to New York and Florida!
If you missed the other parts of my trip, you can read them here:

Trip to New York
Florida Disney World (Part 1 of 2) 

Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the pictures, even if you didn’t read what I wrote. Haha, of course all that I’m typing is for my own pleasure anyways ~  So no worries if no one reads my nonsense.

See you later!
xoxo Sarah