Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Monumental Movieland Hotel, Orlando, Florida Today was the whole reason for our trip to the USA - to visit the Universal "Islands of Adventure", home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I never expected that the first action packed, heart punning thrill ride was going to be the bus ride to the theme park! The driver must have been Italian - he loved tooting his horn that much! Once we got to Universal, Clare was so excited :)
Due to poor signage, we ended up in the wrong queue at the entrance to the park which meant we paid more for the tickets than we should have. On the flip side of the coin, we purchased "jump the queue" tickets which came in handy on some of the rides where they had lots of people waiting in long queues and we were rushed ahead of them... ah,smug mode!
After walking through the Arabian bazaar full of Universal merchandise, we arrived at the wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Apart from the hordes of hot Americans, it really did feel like we were in the real Hogsmeade. The best bit by far was Clare's excited face - she was so ecstatic to be emerged in the world of Harry Potter.
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Of course the most popular thing at the "Islands of Adventure" is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and as such, there were long queues. Sadly, the "jump the queue" tickets work everywhere except the Wizard World of Harry Potter :( The longest queue was of course at the main attraction: Hogwarts Castle. When we first got there, the wait time was 2 hours!! We decided instead to visit Olivander's wand shop instead.
After watching a child chosen by his wand (Clare was disappointed she wasn't picked), we headed into the shop where we got to buy our own wands, robes and various other items for our Houses: Huffelpuff and Ravenclaw. They even had brooms and books for sale, if only they weren't likely to get broken on the way home...
Back out in the main courtyard, we noticed that the Hogwarts' Castle attraction wait time was down to only 90 minutes! We had travelled all this way so we knew we couldn't skip so, after storing our stuff in a locker in an overcrowded locker room, we got on the end of the queue... and waited... and waited... and waited... The designers obviously knew that the wait time would be huge as the queue was designed to weave in and around Hogwarts. Starting at the main gates, we passed the door to charms class before walking through the herbology greenhouse (where they had lots fan powered misters trying to keep us cool). Walking through the castle, we passed various talking paintings including those of the founders of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin having a heated discussion. They look so real - I can kind of guess how they did it but I don't want to look behind the curtain. After walking through Dumbledore's office, where he offers some words of wisdom, we entered the Gryffindor Common Room where Harry, Ron and Hermione accidentally made it snow. Next, once we had passed the painting of The Fat Lady laughing at her own jokes, we finally arrived at the ride! The ride was great, both in story and in terms of the actual ride - we felt the heat from the fire breathing dragon! I would have loved to have gone on it again if it didn't mean waiting another 90 minutes in a hot humid queue. Clare enjoyed it so much that the wait was well and truly worth it :)
Our visit to Dervish and Banges was very short due to the large numbers of people inside. All the shops here were interesting but they were all very crowded - they clearly weren't designed for that many people. I would say to other people, wait a couple of years before you visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the hope that the hype has died down a bit and the crowds are slightly thinner.
Next up, it was time to visit the rest of the "Islands of Adventure" where we got to use our "jump the queue" tickets to their fullest. We visited the Jurassic Park island where they had recreated the visitor centre from the movie, before skipping the 45 minute queue to ride on the Jurassic Park River Adventure. It was fun and of course we got a little wet :) We enjoyed it so much that as soon as we got off, we skipped the same queue to go on it again :)
Next up we headed over to the Toon Lagoon where we got a little wet on the Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls (identical to the Wild Wild West ride at Movieworld), before getting very wet on the Popeye Bilge-Rat white water rafting! It is just what we needed to cool us down. The "jump the queue" ticket is definitely getting a work out!
Time to visit the Marvel Super Hero Island where we jumped the queue at the Spiderman ride which scared me - not because the ride is scary, but because pin the middle of the ride, it kind of broke down! The car rotated to a spot where we couldn't see the screen playing the interactive movie, then the screen went blank, then the car stopped moving... then it dropped! It would have only been a metre or two, but I have no idea if it was a part of the ride! We could have been fine, or we could have been seconds away from death! And then there was no way we were going on the Incredible Hulk ride!
With an obligatory visit to the Marvel store in order, I was amazed to see a full scale, lit up Iron Man suit from Iron Man II - I would have loved to have bought it, if only I had $7,000 (plus postage)! I had to buy some Captain America and Avengers t-shirts as I didn't actually have any Marvel branded clothing in my wardrobe, something I have now thankfully corrected. As we were starting to get warm again, we decided to skip the queue at the Popeye Bilge-Rat white water rafting ride again before we jumped on the bus back to the hotel. We had so much fun here, more than I ever expected. I guess we are both big kids at heart :)
For dinner tonight, we drove to CiCi's Pizza Buffet which was fantastic. All the pizza we could eat for $3.99 each! Now this is the American food buffet we have been looking for!
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