FLORIDA: Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Entrance to "Hogwarts" where the
"Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride
is located

For someone like us who are Harry Potter fans and theme park lovers, this was definitely a must-see. It's not a theme park itself but just an area inside Universal's "Islands of Adventure" but because we pretty much spent half of our day in this area, we'll put this one single post dedicated to this area, "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter".

Non-Harry Potter fans beware, we might get too detailed on this post so if you are not that familiar with Potter books lingo then just brush off the terms you don't understand and think of it as some wizard vocabulary.

Universal Vacations is running a promotion until the end of this year where if you book a vacation with hotel stays, you get to enter Islands of Adventure an hour earlier than the general public. Every other rides and attractions are closed except for the ones in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The package comes with a breakfast at The Three Broomsticks that have to be reserved at the time of the purchase. Because of this early entrance, we were able to ride the Forbidden Journey twice even before the general public was allowed to enter.

As you go through the queue to the Forbidden Journey ride, you get to see a number of interesting stuff. The Mirror of Erised is on display, the Sorting Hat, the Pensieve, the huge gargoyle which is the entrance to Dumbledore's office, the tubes where they keep score for the four houses, the animated portrait of the fat lady trying to break the wine glass with her voice, and the list goes on.

It's kinda dark but if you look real close, you'll see
a hologram image of Harry, Ron and Hermione.
They came out of the invisibility cloak and started
talking about the adventure ahead.

Gargoyle statue by the entrance of
Dumbledore's office...
but on this Hogwarts, you
walk around it to get to the office.

Dumbledore's office with the holographic
image of Dumbledore himself.
Sorry but we can no longer
remember what he was talking about.

Collection of moving pictures that actually
talk to each other.

We're big Harry Potter fans but we're not
sure who's this statue supposed to be.

Gryffindor is currently leading =)

Sorting Hat on display. Yes, he moves and talks.

After riding the Forbidden Journey twice, it was about time the general public started coming in so we decided to go ahead and have our Three Broomsticks breakfast. We were surprised with the variety of breakfast plates they have, and the variety of drinks that comes with the breakfast as well. It was 10AM but when we found out that we can actually have butterbeer, we went for it because we just couldn't wait trying butterbeer. The breakfast was actually pretty good but not that good to line up for an hour as is the case for the general public that's just starting to come in now. The highlight of our meal was really to just look at the details they did with the place and of course, having our first taste of Butterbeer.

Entrance to The Three Broomsticks

Seven different breakfast platter options on display.
We were lucky to have early entrance so there's no line
yet when we took this picture.

Mmmm... breakfast paired with Butterbeer!

A look at the ceiling of
The Three Broomsticks

Again, we have early entry so we
almost have theplace just for ourselves
for about ten minutes.

One side of the interior walls of
The Three Broomsticks

When we left The Three Broomsticks, that's when we realized how long the line was and how much people are already out there lining up for the rides and attractions. We then decided to just walk around Hogsmeade, visit the shops, and pretty much just take pictures of the place. We'll continue the narration on the captions of each pictures.

Honeydukes! Let's go get some desserts!

Who's not gonna crave Chocolate Frogs
after seeing this display?

Honeydukes will not be complete without
Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans

Fizzing Whizbees!

Found it!

Gotta eat that chocolate frog soon
before it jumps and escapes

That's a Godric Gryffindor card and yes
it came with the Chocolate Frog!

Zonko's storefront. To the far left of the picture inside
the store is a statue of a kid with Puking Pastilles

Random stuff sold in Zonko's

Ollivander's storefront... which is confusing because
Ollivander's is supposed to be in Diagon Alley right?
...Did Ollivander opened a shop in Hogsmeade too?

A gimmick they do in Ollivander's is that they choose a kid
and an actor playing "Ollivander" will pick a wand that
supposedly "chose the kid", just to go with the Harry Potter
story line that it's the wand that chooses the wizard/witch.

Holding out "Voldemort's wand"

Hogwarts Express...

...in Hogsmeade station

The beautiful town of Hogsmeade

Hog's Head Pub

Display of a hog's head and shrunken heads at the bar

More Butterbeer for us. Yay!

Dervish and Banges... Curiosity taking
over so let's take a look inside

Imprisoned Monster Book of Monsters inside
Dervish and Banges... You guessed it, it's moving.

Pretty interesting stuff in the Quibbler...

Gladrags Wizardwear and Scrivenshafts Quill Shop storefronts

Owl Post storefront

Does this picture really need a caption?

We don't want to bombard you guys with pictures but at the same time, we want you to be able to see how Universal tried to really make a Hogsmeade town as true to the books as possible. Probably the most notable building that's missing is the Shrieking Shack... Is Universal already planning on adding it with a ride? I don't want to spread any rumors but based on the success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, it's highly possible.

This post is getting too long so just to some up some of the other interesting stuff we noticed while inside this magical world are: Moaning Myrtle can be heard in the restrooms, pretty much all the displays in the storefronts are moving from a noisy mandrake to a measuring tape, the Frog Choir and Triwizard Spirit Rally are nothing special so they can be skipped, and the best tip we can probably give you is that buy your Butterbeer inside Hog's Head Pub since it's more than likely that the line here is shorter compared to the satellite Butterbeer vendors. Speaking of Butterbeer, it is pretty much just cream soda with vanilla ice cream as froth.

We want to end this entry with, well, more pictures. So far this is the entry we had the most fun writing so we hope you enjoyed reading as much as we did writing this =)

A great picture spot and view of Hogwarts

Hagrid's Hut: this can be seen in the queue of
"Flight of the Hippogriff" ride

Collection of our souvenirs: Forbidden Journey
ride photo, Butterbeer mug, Chocolate Frog, and
Gryffindor key chains with our name on it =)