The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

My family has been looking forward to this vacation since we were here 3 years ago. Every few years my grandparents take their family to Florida for a big Disney or Universal Vacation. Our next trip will occur in about 4 years when my sister is 6 and the twins and Alex are 5, and will be to Disney.


Our trip has included a party of 14 and it's been crazy but fun. My grandparents, mom, Aaron, Mari, Becky, Alex, auntie, uncle Erich, Madi, Jake, and Oliva and Nicholas have made for a fun and eventful week. Of course with any family vacation there is stress and anxiety, but it's full of great times. We are staying in the gorgeous Hard Rock Hotel.

Friday June 18th was opening day for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! We arrived on Saturday, and decided to only venture into Universal Studios. About 2 hours into the park we were poured on by Florida's daily storms. We hid out in the Mummy gift shop till we decided to book it for our hotel. All 14 of us booked it out from the back of the park, umbrella's over the baby strollers. Knowing we were getting up at 6:30am to head to Islands of Adventures I crashed by 8:30!

Sunday morning we got up for what we all were waiting for...Hogsmeade! Half the family was in line by 7:15...I met up with them by 7:45. We were in the park by 8am and in line of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Now, I'm NOT a rides person. Roller coasters or simulators. I get REALLY bad motion sickness (the 15 min drive from Houghton to Calumet is disastrous...). However, the walk through the castle was completely worth the wait. However, the line wait didn't seem that bad. I got a ton of awesome pictures of the castle, Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and the Gryffindor common room. They did a great job with moving pictures, which are essentially tvs inside frames. None of those pictures turned out however, because I couldn't capture a picture of the tv. They did a great job recreating the castle.

It's funny because most of the park seems empty, there is 5-15 min waits on all the rides expect Rip Ride Rocket (in Universal Studios) and HP's Forbidden Journey. Once you walk into Hogsmeade you find where all the park patrons are hiding. It's about a 2 hour wait to see Ollivander and see if you're the lucky person in your group of twenty who gets to "pick a wand." We went Sunday night during a rainstorm and only waited an hour. It was worth it though because Madison was the lucky patron who got to find a wand. It was really cool to watch! She of course decided to buy the wand that "picked her" which was a very nice wand. To get into Honeydukes and Zonko's (the candy shop and joke shop that are attached to each other) you usually have to wait in about a 20 min line, but it varies during the day. The same with Dervish and Banges and the Owl Post (these are also attached, Dervish and Banges sells clothing and the Owl Post is the location of all the wands). Right outside the Owl Post you can mail letters, which will be stamped with a Hogsmeade stamp. Sadly it's been hard to get a HP postcard, so I haven't sent any yet.

My most exciting story so far happened this morning however!! I was looking for wands Sunday morning, when they had all of them in stock. I decided to wait for the rest of my family, and to go through Ollivander's, before picking one out. And the store was packed so I wasn't sure that I was getting to see them all.  I passed up what might have been my ONLY chance to buy the Hermione wand. Sunday night when we came back, they were all gone. Sirius Black's was also sold out, and by Monday night Ginny's was added to that list. I was told last night there was a good chance they'd get a shipment of wands in last night and to check back first thing in the morning. I woke up at 6:30 am and headed to line up at 7am with Jake. After waiting for 45min or so we were finally in. Everyone was headed for the rides...so we headed for our only destination: the Owl Post. For the first time this trip I was able to walk right in...and saw the shop practically empty. I was sad when I noticed the shelves stocked with Harry's wand (which was close to sold out) but no Sirius (the wand Jake was looking for) or Hermione. Being smart...I asked the lady behind the counter. She pulled out the LAST Hermione wand. They had found it randomly sometime last night or this morning. They had debated if they should shelve it or not. Wanting to make sure someone who truly wanted it got it, they decided the first person to ask about it got it. Waking up early and waiting in line and being curious proved to be worthwhile. They lady joked that it was meant for me and that it proved good things were to come for me. So, I'm now the proud owner of a very pretty wand. (Check my facebook for a picture)

So far this vacation has resulted in getting very wet from rainstorms, sunburnt from tanning at the pool, and tired from walking so much! However, it's also resulted in some great family fun, some great food, some wonderful new shopping purchases (which by the way is practically all I've done in the parks). Check my facebook for pictures, some will be in a normal album, but some are in my mobile album.