Hogwarts and More!

The day had finally arrived!!  Amanda and I were so excited to finally let our HP fan-selves revel in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  We were about a half mile from the park, so we power walked (very fast.  we power walk very fast haha)

We decided to make our way to Hogsmeade first.  The moment you turn the corner and see these beautiful buildings and hear the music, it is truly breathtaking!  I am seriously in awe of the way they captured everything!

Our first glimpse of the castle. 

 

The first ride we did was the Forbidden Journey which is a really cool ride, but unfortunately like most rides at Universal it is a part screen simulator and makes me slightly motion sick.  Just to be inside Hogwarts though was AMAZING!

The sorting hat!

Posin' in front of the castle!

 

Checking out the shops and then we saw the show at Ollivanders.  It was such a cool show!

The frog choir was great.

We had to snap some pics inside Honeydukes!

We also rode Dragon Challenge which was my first real roller coaster of the trip.  I was so nervous, but I had such a blast! 

 

Then the time came to ride the Hogwarts Express!  I was so excited!!

The train ride was sooo fun! For one thing we had the whole train to ourselves!  Later that day we realized how rare that is.  The images on the "window" are so fun and like everything else there it is just a total immersion experience.

 

Diagon Alley!

 

Bellatrix is so scary!

We stopped for a little treat of Pumpkin juice and butterbeer ice cream.  Both were delicious!  Like my Dole Whip rest the day before, it was the perfect way to rests our feet (and instagram haha) for a moment.

Next was Escape from Gringotts which I loved even more than Forbidden Journey.  It is an awesome ride! 

 

 

I had to buy a Hogwarts ornament too.  I can't wait to put my new ornaments on the tree this year!

We stopped and saw a cute show.

 

Looking in an enchanted mirror was hilarious.  All day I had been making fun of myself for wearing my dorky go walks which are sooooooo comfy (which is why I love them and wear them, but I admit they are not the coolest looking shoes haha)  The mirror told me she liked the scarf I was trying on and then she said that my shoes looked comfy (in a slightly degrading way if I do say so myself haha)!  It was so funny!

I really needed a Diet Coke in the afternoon, but they were not sold inside Harry Potter world (I love the consistency they have there).  So we stepped outside and had another nice siesta with our drinks.  And called the Ministry of Magic of course.

Knocking on number 12 Grimmauld Place! 

 

 

I got some fish and chips at the Three Broomsticks which was delicious, but too much and too fried on a hot sunny vacation day.

Obviously I was pretty excited about it though.  That and my overpriced Gilly Water ;)

OK so back at Hogsmeade we saw the Frog Choir again, because I was dying that one of the singers was a Troup Cabana person from way back when!  When I looked him up on facebook it said he lived in Orlando and worked for Disney which I thought was way too much of a coincidence.  I tried taking closer pictures of him so I could text Emily and ask if she thought it was him.  Well, she didn't think it was and then I messaged him to find out for sure and alas it wasn't.  Oh and I embarrassingly sent him a kissy face on facebook messanger when my phone was left open to that and I put it away.  It was hilarious and mortifying at the same time.  I'm sure he thought I was some weirdo lonely housewife looking to mix things up.  Not quite sir! hahaha

 

Not quite too cool for school

I loved the Tri Wizard Tournament show.  The Durmstrang and Beauxbaton students were so fun!

Well like idiots we went on Forbidden Journey again (remember the fried lunch?) and we both felt so sick! 

But after a while we got back up and made our way back over to Diagon Alley.

We were going to ride Escape from Gringotts one last time, but both realized that was a bad idea with how we were feeling so we turned back around and left the queue.

The whole day we had been kind of bummed that the dragon at the top of the bank had not breathed out fire.  A worker finally told us that the dragon had been feeling ill and hadn't been breathing any fire that day.  Well right when we were underneath the dragon and about to leave IT DID IT!!!!!  It was seriously the most amazing moment of the day.  A totally cherry on top of a absolutely fantastic day!

We walked by the knight bus which was really cute.  And then we made our way back to our hotel to fetch our car.  We then drove to the condo which we would stay in for the rest of the trip.

Unfortunately the night ended very badly with Amanda throwing up!  She got dehydrated that day and it all came crashing down that night.  I felt so bad for her!  We just hoped that taking it quite easy the next day and drinking lots of fluids would be enough rest for her before the half.