The Dang's: Florida Trip: Day 3 - Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Tuesday, November 22
Day 3
Crammed taxi rides! Meeting up with Christine! Harry Potter! Butterbeer! Shopping!

This was kind of an early morning for us as the taxi picked us up at the main lobby (10 min walk from our room) at 7:30 am. Much to my chagrin, they only sent a regular taxi cab for 5 people. Guess who was the last one in the backseat? Wedged in the back seat sitting on your hip leaning against the shut door for 20 minutes is not so special.

When we arrived at Universal there was a big white Phillips bus pulling in ahead of us. Caroline pointed out that this was the bus company the band took. All of us doubted her since they weren't supposed to get in until after 9 and it wasn't even 8 yet. So I called Christine and asked where she was. She said they were just pulling in so I told her to look behind her for a yellow taxi cab. What are the chances?! It was crazy.

Their bus and our taxi!

We then went and waited at the front of the line for the park to open at 9 am so we wouldn't have to wait in line for the Harry Potter ride for hours. All the Universal hotel guests had early entry though. It was hard to watch them all going through while we waited.

Waiting to get in. I was on the phone with Adam.

When the gates opened, Christine, Kelly and I practically ran to the opposite side of the park to get in line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It was only a half hour wait, which was awesome. It gave us time to see most of the cool displays they have in line.

I'm a big Harry Potter fan, so this was what I was looking forward to most on our trip. Be prepared for lots of pictures...

Hogwarts!!!

Moving through the line in the greenhouse

About to enter Hogwarts!

All the people in portraits moved and talked. It was so neat.

The ride was really well done even if the giant spiders REALLY freaked me out. It was a little jerky and I felt slightly nauseous after it. But it was sooo worth it.

After the ride

Next, Christine, Kelly and I went on the Dragon Challenge roller coaster. I LOVED it. The Harry Potter theming as you walked through the line was really cool, and the coaster itself was so smooth. When you were upside down, it was like cool, the sky is the ground. You didn't even feel like you were upside down. In hindsight, we should have done the Flight of the Hippogriff ride first, because it was only a 20 minute wait when we got off Harry Potter, but over an hour when we got off the Dragon Challenge (which was only a 5 min wait).

Then we waited in line for butterbeers. This was probably the highlight of my day. I got a regular butterbeer (you could also get frozen) and it was so unbelievably good. It was really sugary and I felt a little sick after drinking it all. But again, completely worth it. It tasted like a mix of butterscotch and cream soda but it was really smooth. It had this really good creamy foam they added to the top. Yum.

Stine while we waited in line for butterbeers

Butterbeer in Hogsmeade!

The Three Broomsticks - you can eat here but we didn't :(

You mean there's more to Universal's Islands of Adventure than just the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Oh....

Once we were done with Harry Potter (until later at least), we headed back through Seuss Landing.

Seuss Landing was really cute

And then over to Marvel Super Hero Island to go on SpiderMan. It was a long wait, but we went in the single riders line and each got right on. I love when rides have those!

Then we went over to Toon Lagoon and onto Popeye & Bluto's Bilgo-Rat Barges. We went on in shifts because we didn't have enough rain ponchos with for everyone to go at once. I still got really wet on my leg and seat of my pants though.

It was getting to be lunch time, so we had a quick meal at the Comic Strip Cafe. Unfortunately, my pizza was mediocre at best.

Before Christine left, we went back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and got ANOTHER butterbeer. This time I tried the frozen variety. While good, I think I prefer the smoothness of the regular butterbeer. We also looked in at Honeydukes candy shop and Zonko's toy store.

Inside HoneyDukes

Inside Zonko's

The window displays in Hogsmeade were really neat - this was one of Gilderoy Lockhart's books

Other rides we went on at Islands of Adventure included:

Jurassic Park River Adventure - Pretty fun. It was definitely worth it to go in the single riders line! Luckily I didn't get very wet even though I was on the far right in the second row.
The Cat in the Hat - Good for kids maybe. I wasn't a fan of all the spinning. It wasn't worth waiting a half hour for, but we had time to kill and everything else was a really long line.
Caro-Seuss-el - Cute carousel with Dr. Seuss characters. I enjoyed it but wouldn't wait in line for it.

Right before leaving Carey, mom and I decided to give it one more try to get on Flight of the Hippogriff. We waited for about half an hour, but it was worth going on. It was a really short ride though.

Hagrid's Hut as viewed from the Flight of the Hippogriff line

I enjoyed Islands of Adventure and would definitely go back. Next time, I would stay on Universal grounds because for guests, their room key is an automatic fast pass for every ride except Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. We could have gone on more rides and not waited in line at all. It got kind of annoying for us as non-guests though because, for example, in the Flight of the Hippogriff over half of the ride seats were being filled by Universal hotel guests so the regular line was hardly moving at all.

This time we took the taxi to Downtown Disney. Once again, I was the last one in the backseat. Somehow, I was even more cramped in this time. It was rush hour, so it took forever to get to our destination. My leg was asleep by the time we arrived and it hurt to walk around all night.

At Downtown Disney we mainly shopped at the World of Disney store. There we met up with Christine and Kelly. I spent a lot of time waiting outside for everyone.