On March 8th Kent and I took a 6am flight out of DC to Orlando. It was only about a two hour flight, so we landed at 8am. We rented a car and drove straight to Universal Studios. It was about 10am by the time we drove there, found a place to park and went through the line and met the Stinson family.
The main reason for going to Universal Studios was to go to Harry Potter world, which I've wanted to go to ever since I heard about it. Kiera and Savannah got into the spirit of things by wearing their wizarding robes, which were their Halloween costumes.
This was the double decker bus that drove through London in one of the Harry Potter movies.
The first thing Kiera and Savannah wanted to do was to get a wand, so we headed to the wand store.
Lissa and Jason decided to get wands, too, but Kent and I didn't. There were places throughout the park where the wands could work magic if waved in the right way, so the girls had fun looking for those spots.
For example, if Savannah waved her wand just so.....
this treasure box would open.
This lovely dragon would breathe fire at random moments.
One of the first pictures of us at Harry Potter world.
The first ride we went on was the goblin ride at Gringotts Bank.
The line was pretty long so we had to wait about 30 minutes to get into the ride.
While we were in line we went through the "lobby" of the bank with some pretty realistic looking goblin clerks. The ride was like a roller coaster in a mining car, and I didn't enjoy it too much because my legs were really cramped and it was very uncomfortable for me.
We had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, which is a pub mentioned in the books.
Our meal was cooked in this humongous pot.
Kent and I had some tasty fish and chips, but the Stinsons don't like seafood, so they found other things to eat.
There were all sorts of cool buildings built to represent Diagon Alley, as mentioned in the HP books. My legs were in pretty bad shape in March, so I found a bench and rested my legs for about an hour while the Stinsons rode the Gringotts bank ride again.
Kiera found a Harry Potter wanted poster.
We went to platform 9 and 3/4 to take the Hogwarts express to the other Harry Potter land, Hogsmeade.
Kiera is a very photogenic young lady!
Here's the train coming in to the station. The ride wasn't very long, but while on the train the windows showed British scenery outside and shadow figures from the HP books could be seen inside on the smoked glass.
Kent and I got our picture taken with the train conductor.
This is the first picture we got with all of us, after we got off the Hogwarts Express.
This is a better, close-up view of the sign going into Hogsmeade.
I put this picture in because it shows the butter beer stand. There were three different versions of butterbeer--warm, frozen and regular. It was SUPER expensive--about $8 a glass. My favorite was the warm butterbeer.
In the background is the Hogwarts Castle. It was getting to be dinner time and everyone was rather tuckered out, so we didn't go into the ride at Hogwarts. We knew we could save it for the next day.
We walked back to the parking garage through Jurassic World.
It was full of large and realistic looking dinosaurs!
We didn't go on any rides in Jurassic World, but we took a few pictures. Kent and I went to our hotel to check in and have a quiet night, since we'd had such an early start on our day. I'd booked a Marriott Residence Inn using points for five free nights. To do that we had to stay a bit farther out from the theme parks, so it was a 20 to 30-minute drive each way, depending on the traffic. The Stinsons stayed closer to the parks.
--DAY TWO--
We spent a second day at Universal studios. It was a bit chilly so we actually needed our coats!
Our first stop of the day was at Hogwarts.
We wanted to beat the lines by going there as soon as the park opened. It was a good strategy, since we had hardly any wait for the ride.
This picture was taken inside the castle. The ride was as if you were on a broom flying, and it was pretty exciting. We liked this ride enough to go right back through for a second time. (Though the line was a bit longer the second time.)
A closer up view of the dragon.
I was able to get a picture when the fire was coming out.
After the Harry Potter rides we went to a Jimmy Fallon Race through New York ride, which was fun; we actually went on that one twice, too. There was a parade later in the afternoon, which we stopped to watch. Kent and I were better rested the second day so we held up pretty well and had a good time!
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