Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Performers

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My husband took me to Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and Disneyworld but I don’t know if I have enough steam to blog about that as well lol) to celebrate my graduating from College and because he is the most awesome person of all time. We spent half of the day there on the morning of May 6th. I would definitely recommend it to any Harry Potter fan but you should know that it is quite small, extremely popular/busy and the merchandise is quite expensive. But these are all things that you will find in a lot of theme parks. We planned our trip so that it wouldn’t land on spring break but I think that a lot of other people had the same thing in mind and so it was still very busy. I would also suggest going in a cooler month if you don’t like the heat.

When you first get to Universal, Wizarding World is at the back section of the park. You can see the castle in the distance. I would recommend making your way there as fast as you can as it gets busy really fast. On the advice of our friends who had already visited, we made our way to the castle first. On the way I got my picture taken with the Hogwarts Express conductor. He was a great personality.

After the ride in the castle we made our way to the Hippogryff ride which is pretty much a kiddy ride but still good fun. The walk to the ride is quite long though. Luckily the park is really good about keeping the paths to the ride air conditioned so it isn’t too uncomfortable. There is usually lots to see on your way as well. While on this ride you see hagrids cabin and good ole buckbeak.

(Wizarding chess set $400. I believe this was displayed in one of the shops in Universal outside of the Wizarding World)

After the hippogryff coaster we stopped by the wand stand to  have a look at the different wands that the park had to offer. They had every one of the wands that you see in the movies. My favourite was Fleur Delacours wand which is funny as she was one of my least favourite characters in the books and the movies. I never ended up buying one as I already have one that was made for me but it was fun to look at them. They averaged at about $35.

After the wands we headed over to the Butterbeer cart  for a frozen butterbeer. This is something you really have to do when you come to the park. You can choose between cold and frozen, and can have them in a plastic cup ($4) or a souvenir mug ($11). This drink is extremely sweet. It’s delicious for sure but we barely made it through half of our drink. The foam on top is a really nice consistency that never seems to run out. It tastes a lot like buttercream icing. The rest of the frozen drink has the thickness of a slurpee and has a taste comparable to cream soda mixed with butterscotch.

I wish I had tried a pumpkin juice but the butterbeer turned me off of sweets for the rest of the day. The bottle is really cute though. I think that pumpkin juice is one of the items you can buy and have mailed to you so I’ll probably end up doing that eventually.

After going on the dueling dragons ride we spent the rest of our time in the Wizarding world visiting the assorted shops and the Owlery (where you can get out of the heat and also send postcards with a hogwarts stamp on them). One of my favourite props that I saw in the stores was this bottle of skele-grow. I got a small keychain version of it but i would love to have a life size version of it one day. One thing that surprised me was that that they didn’t seem to sell a lot of the stuff from the Noble Collection. I may just not have been in the right store though. Also if you aren’t in the Slytherin or Gryffindor house good luck finding merchandise. I finally found a Hufflepuff shirt in one of the regular Universal stores. You would think that considering that this is the theme park you would be able to buy almost anything offered there. I especially wanted a beauxbatons hat as well but these were no where to be found. We’ll have to see what kind of stuff they end up selling at the California location.

Lunch in The Three Broomsticks was definitely a highlight of our day. I definitely recommend it. Prices are good and the food is great. It’s the perfect place to kick back and cool down. We ended our time at Wizarding World by checking out Zonkos and Honeydukes. If you don’t find what you are looking for in the Wizarding World stores then you might find it in one of the other Universal Studios stores so check them out.

(You can even buy some of the costumes.)

All in all Wizarding World was a lot of fun and i’m glad i got to experience it. I’m not sure if I would go back to the Florida location  but I definitely want to check out the California location when it comes around in 2015 (I think that’s the date of its opening). I hope that you enjoy my posts on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! If you go to the top of the page you will find my posts divided into several sections with photographs and write ups on the different parts. Please feel free to comment with any questions or just to tell me what you liked about it Have you been to the park? What did you think about it?

If you made it through all of my blogs then thank you!

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Wizarding World does a wonderful job of recreating Hogsmeade Village. The only thing that would make it more realistic would be to have it covered in real snow I hear that the next expansion will include Diagon Alley and Gringotts. Very cool. I’m hoping that the California expansion is much larger than the Florida Wizarding World as it is much more feasible to go there.

It was so exciting to see the entrance to the Wizarding World part of the park as it is at the back of Universal Studios Park.

There were only 3 rides at Wizarding World that we found at least. This one was Duling Dragons. Typical hanging roller coaster so it was very fun.

Ollivanders wand shop. We never made it in here because there seemed to be a never ending lineup. People would go into Ollivanders in groups of 15 and Ollivander would pick someone to have the wand choosing experience. If you look on youtube you can find many videos of this. For me it just wasn’t worth the wait. You can buy wands in many other parts of Wizarding World.

Me and the Hogwarts Express conductor. He was very cheeky which was excellent. He made some comment about the Habs to André who was wearing his Montreal Canadiens hat (He had a few people make comments to him throughout our trip which amused me greatly). When André had troubles taking the photo I blamed it on his being a Muggle which the conductor was quick to agree with lol.

The view as you leave Hogsmeade.

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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Hogwarts castle is a HP nerds dream. Even though you know that it is a scale model, they have positioned it in such a way that the effect is still quite impressive. Luckily a friend and fellow HP enthusiast had visited the park before us and told us to make sure we made it to the castle first as this was one of the most popular rides. This is exactly what we did and we only ended up probably waiting 10 minutes (Later the estimated wait time was 1 hour). When you first go in the castle the staff direct you to free lockers to put your bags in. These are locked using your finger print which I loved. Just be more careful than i was and remember exactly which finger you used to lock it or you’ll have an annoyed line up behind you while you go through digits (luckily there are only 10 options|). The locker option is free for the first 45 minutes with an option to pay for however long you wish to keep your belongings in there. This is very thoughtful and I wish all amusement parks would offer this. To get to the main ride, you pass through the interior of the castle where you get to see the original 4 founders of hogwarts, the mirror of erised and many other things that you will recognize from the movie. One of my favourite things was dumbledores office. Luckily for me I got to see it even when my attempt at a password (Sherbet Lemon) didn’t seem to make the entrance to his office budge. Thank goodness for short cuts! You also get a fun scene with the trio. The one thing i regret about this ride is that I didn’t go on it again and the line we were in was moving so fast i didn’t really have time to take a good look at everything that was going on. I’d definitely recommend taking your time in the castle and really enjoying all of the little details. The ride itself is fantastic! It’s like nothing I’ve ever experience before. All of the other parks we visited had 3D rides but this one was something special. First of all you don’t wear  the glasses which is great for someone like me who has huge dork glasses that impede the wearing of the tiny 3D glasses that we encountered in the rest of Universal. I won’t give too much away about the ride but aside from some cheesy animatronics the part where you are flying is fantastic. I really felt like i was along for the adventure. I highly recommend it! Just a suggestion, don’t be the jerk who takes flash photography in that ride or any ride. First of all it’s so dark in there that you’re going to piss off everyone around you, second of all the pictures will probably going to look pretty bad regardless. I left my camera in my locker and was glad I did because I got to experience the castle more thoroughly this way. 

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 Hagrids Hut is actually part of the Hippogryff ride but I didn’t have any other pictures to go along with it.

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A picture of the Owlery. Here you can go to beat the heat and relax for awhile. It is bigger than this picture suggests and there are lots of little animatronic owls waiting to deliver a letter. Something that really stood out about the park is that you could tell that there was a lot of thought put into the comfort of the guests. It was always easy to find a seat in the shade which sounds like nothing unusual but was really sparce in other parks. You could readily find water fountains as well and the vendors sold an assortment of fresh fruit. Very nice.  There is also a small area where you can send postcards with a Hogwarts stamp. I really wanted to do this but it was just way too busy and i wasn’t prepared with addresses. I did think that the actual owl post sending area would be a bit more of an attraction with a building specific to sending letters instead of just a lone worker with a cart but maybe sending snail/owl mail just isn’t as popular.

The only snow man you’ll see in Florida

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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The majority of storefronts in Wizarding World are for show. They do a great job with the details though. Once again due to the reflection off of the glass I didn’t get many pictures of these displays but I thought I’d post the ones I did have anyway. My favourite harry potter book is Chamber of Secrets. One of the reasons it is my favourite is because of the new characters it introduces. Professor Lockhart is wonderfully ridiculous and full of himself. The movie portrayal was just what I pictured when i read the book. I was happy to find this display.

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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We never got to see any entire performances at Wizarding World as we always seemed to happen upon them by accident but they were cheesy fun. There was a group of hogwarts students who sang “Do the Hippogryff” by the weird sisters. The singing was good but I found the beat boxing to be really offputting LOL. The beat boxing itself was  good it just seemed totally out of place.

There was a short show featuring the Beauxbaton girls and the Durmstrang boys. It was pretty much what you see in the movies. You’ve got to hand it to these kids doing all of this in the Florida heat with a smile. I really wanted a Beauxbaton hat but they don’t seem to sell them. This was probably for the best as they would be hella expensive like everything else in the park.

I took a short video of the Beauxbatons that can be seen here

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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Zonkos joke shop, like Honeydukes, was quite small but very colourful and has a lot of personality. I didn’t see many items from the books but as it was quite cramped and busy I didn’t have a lot of time to look around. It actually reminded me of our local china store because it had a lot of vintage looking wind up tin toys. It definitely had a fun atmosphere. Some things I recognized from the books were U NO POO, pigmy puff, Wizards Chess (This was a window display but there was also a gorgeous Wizard Chess game you could purchase in the Hogwarts store for $400), sneakoscope and of course the Extendable Ears. I didn’t buy anything but it was worth checking out.

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Store fronts

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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Entrance to the Three Broomsticks

We were pleasantly surprised by the most of the quality of the food at the 3 broomsticks. André got the Ribs with Corn on the cob (which looked great but was really dry) and potatoes and I got the half of a rotisserie smoked chicken with the same sides. The frozen butterbeer that I had pretty much taken away my sweet tooth so I had water instead of pumpkin juice with my meal (I wish I had at least taken some to go as the souvenir bottle was quite nice). André had the hogshead brew which was made especially for the pub. He said it tasted like Budweiser LOL. The presentation of the food was nicely done.

The interior of the Three Broomsticks is quite large and has a very rustic feel to it. Unfortunately i didn’t get too many pictures but it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a large amusement park scale pub. You order at a till, fast food restaurant style and the food doesn’t take very long.

Attached to the Three Broomsticks is the Hog’s Head. This is where you go to get alcohol. It is quite small compared to the Three Broomsticks but it has a lot of character. I loved the animated Hog’s Head on the wall.

It’s hard to see but this is the sign for the Hog’s Head Pub.

Hog’s Head Pub

Over all I would definitely recommend eating your lunch at the Three Broomsticks. It’s air conditioned, there is lots of seating, the food is generally quite good and the prices are reasonable.

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Honeydukes

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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“There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of Every Flavour Beans, and another of Fizzing Whizzbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned; along yet another wall were ‘Special Effects’ sweets: Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-coloured bubbles that refused to pop for days), the strange, splintery Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny black Pepper Imps (‘breathe fire for your friends!’), Ice Mice (‘hear your teeth chatter and squeak!’), peppermint creams shaped like toads (‘hop realistically in the stomach!’) , fragile sugar-spun quills and exploding bonbons.”-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

One of the things that I was most excited to see in Hogsmeade was Honeydukes. I’m not as big into sweets now as I was when I was a kid but the artist in me was looking forward to seeing the designs on the packaging and the setup of the shop. I was not disappointed. Unfortunately like everything else in the park, Honeydukes was wall to wall with people so my pictures aren’t always very good quality but I just wanted to give you an idea of what some of the merchandise that I recognized from the books looked like.

André holding a sugar skull (really just made from white chocolate)

They had some great window displays on the outside of the store (chocolate frogs, every flavour beans and cotton candy) but for the most part the windows were very reflective and the photos didn’t turn out. I’m sure someone out there in internet land managed it Other than the fact that there wasn’t much room to move around the store was really fun. Very colourful with candy everywhere. Along with the candy that you would expect to see there was a lot of the usual 5 cent variety around to fill out the space. I wanted everything but settled for a Chocolate frog and a box of every flavour beans. I’de had the beans before but I bought them to get the box which is quite nice. Each was about $10 each. With the chocolate frog you get a wizarding card (I got godric gryffindor) and a large solid chocolate frog. I wouldn’t say that the chocolate is very nice quality so you’re mostly paying for the card and the box it came for. You get quite a few jelly beans in the every flavour but once again I found that $10 was a bit steep. I would have liked to try the cauldron cake or some of the other bakery items but probably luckily for my waistline the butterbeer put me off anything sweet. I think it would be cool if they had a sampler pack of the different sweets but it is a theme park after all and they know us rabid fans will shell out the cash regardless.

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Other Wizarding World related posts:

The Three Broomsticks

Hogsmeade

Hogwarts

Zonkos Joke Shop

Store fronts

Performers

Wizarding World of Harry Potter