Harry Potter World June 24, 2016

We have been looking forward to going to Harry Potter World for a long time. Today we made it.

Did you know that from parking the car, to the entrance to Hogsmead is 1.24 miles?  Yep, it is.  Arriving in in Hogsmead, the first thing we saw was the Hogwarts Express.

The Entrance to Hogsmead

Hogwarts Express

We were instantly immersed in the world of Harry Potter. The rest of Universal Studios was not super busy, but Hogsmead had a lot of people visiting.

The detail of the place was so cool.  We went into Honeydukes and saw Chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts every flavor beans and sweets of all kinds.  Outside there was a cart selling Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice and Gilly water. 

We continued down the street and came upon Ollivander's wands. There was a line outside the door. We got in the line, and waited for about 10 minutes. The lines at universal are not set up in the shade like they are in Disney World.  It was 94 degrees today with about 50% humidity, so ten minutes seemed like a long time. When the door to the shop opened, we were led into a dark shop, all the walls were covered with shelves full of wand boxes. Ollivander was there just standing on the stairs.

Ollivander with his wands

When we all were in, Ollivander started talking to us about wands and went to a girl in the front and asked her if she had come to get her wand.  She said yes, and he directed her to stand in front of the counter, where a light was shining down.  The room was still pretty dark except for a couple of spots.  He gave her a wand and had her wave it.  A few shelves collapsed. He repaired them with a wave of his wand and a spell. He took it back and gave her a different wand. He asked her to move the ladder that was off to one side by waving the wand and saying accio.  It didn't work.  He gave her a different wand and the light shining on her grew brighter and music played softly.  He then sent her off with a helper so she could purchase her wand.  We were all sent on in to the store.  They had bunches of wands. There were two kinds. "Magic" wands and regular wands.  The "magic" wands could be used around Hogsmead and Diagon Alley to make things happen.  You stood in front of a window or display and waved your wand in the right way and said the right words and you could make fireworks go off, or lamps come on, or make it rain from an umbrella. It is very cool.  I had a hard time selecting my wand, but one finally spoke to me and I had fun using it around the parks.  Sometimes it wouldn't work because you had to do it just right.

My Ollivander bag

My Wand

The name on my wand.  Yes, I chose, or it chose me Sirius Black's wand.

Using the wand

Hogwarts castle

We went in to the Hogwarts castle to ride the ride Harry Potter and the forbidden Journey.  You could not carry on any loose items, they all had to be stowed in a locker that they let you use at no extra charge.  We had our doubts about it, but mustered up our courage and tried it.  We think we were glad we did, but we won't be doing it ever again.  We nearly lost it.  It was pretty turbulent.  The castle was cool though.  Here are some pictures we took while in line.

Mirror of Erised

The Sorting Hat

Dumbeldore's office.  You can see him on the upper level

After that ride, we thought something a little milder was in order, so we hopped on Hogwarts express to Diagon Alley.

Waiting for the train.

It was delightful.  We were in a little compartment in the train with 8 people total.  They project a movie vignette on the window side, and with the door of the compartment closed, you have shadowy figures and hear Hermione, Ron and Harry talking outside in the hall.  The windows are frosted, so you only see the shadows.

We arrived on Platform 9 3/4 and exited to the streets of London and saw the Night Bus with Stan talking to the talking head in the bus.



We found Diagon Alley entrance just a couple of doors down and walked in to another street feeling like you were in the movie.



Gringotts was at the end of the street and the dragon was on top of the bank.


The Leaky Cauldron was on the left, and was serving lunch,


so we ate there.  It was so cool inside, again, just like being in the movie.

We ordered Fish and Chips and Butterbeer.

Butterbeer

They gave us our drinks and seated us, then a cute and friendly waitress brought us our meals.  Her name was Morgan and she was very good to us.

We read the sign about the escape from Gringotts ride.  It read just like the one we had ridden earlier with all the same warnings and we opted not to do it.  I did get to play with my wand all around Diagon Alley, and we even went down Knockturn alley and went in Borgin and Burkes, a weirdly arranged store with merchandise like you would think they would have in that store.  We even got to see one of the vanishing cabinets there.

We also wandered in the other shops.

We walked back out into London and got some drinks. and wandered around Universal studios for a while.  We decided we had done enough and that we were ready to go home, but we did go back to Diagon alley to make sure we hadn't missed something and then took the train back to Hogsmead.  When you get close to platform 9 3/4 there is a place you can stand and watch the people in line ahead of you walking into the brick wall and disappearing.  It looks so cool.  When you get to that spot, it just is an opening with blackened bricks around it.

Once we made sure we had done everything in Hogsmead, we headed to the parking lot.  Our legs and feet were sore by the time we made it back to the car.  We registered 4.25 miles of walking on our phones, but it felt like more.  We have had other days when we walked more this week, but maybe we have just worn ourselves out.  We decided since we had seen and done all that we wanted to, we would stay at the house tomorrow and get ready for the next part of our trip.  (Do laundry, pack etc.)