Wayfaring Wizards Welcome

We didn’t leave quite as early today since we were all a little tired from yesterday’s excursions, but we left early enough all the same. We got to the parks about half an hour after opening this time and the entrances were a little bit more crowded, but still manageable. We went to the other park today, the original and the bigger of the two. They added a Harry Potter section to this one as well, Diagon Alley. The two Potter parks are connected by the Hogwarts Express, but unfortunately you can’t ride it without a park hopper, which just so happens to be a lot more expensive than the regular passes so we didn’t get them. Oh well. It

was going to be a little warmer today and we decided to do the park different since we were going to stay for the 7:00pm show on the lake. We spent the morning exploring Diagon Alley. They did a really goo job with it. You can’t actually see the alley itself from the rest of the park since it’s blocked by a false front which includes King’s Cross Station, the Leaky Cauldron, which is next to a couple of shops to make it look like it’s on an actual street in London, and a row of houses from Grimmauld Place, including the hidden number 12 of course. They also have the triple decker, violently purple, Knight Bus parked out

front, where you can go get pictures with the conductor and his shrunken head. In the alley itself, they have Ollivanders, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, Florian Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, the Leaky Cauldron and Gringotts Bank in all it’s marbley glory with a fire breathing dragon perched on the roof. There’s only one ride in the whole section, which is another simulation/rollercoaster hybrid inside the bank called Escape From Gringotts. They seemed to be having some troubles with it while we were there the first time though, because it was closed and we couldn’t go on it till after lunch. Once we’d finished wandering around Diagon

Alley, we exited via the magic bricks and headed over to the Men In Black ride, which is kind of like a ride/game hybrid where you’re given laser tag guns to shoot the sinister aliens. On the ride, you start out as recruits but then there’s a security breach and you’re sent out onto the field where you eventually are swallowed by a giant aline thing which then explodes thanks to the grenade you plant in it’s stomach. The entrance to the ride is pretty cool too, since it’s a replica of the MIB headquarters in the movies. I lost spectacularly at that,

coming in a couple thousand point behind Mum who was about twenty thousand points below Isaac who was about one hundred thousand points below Dad. Yeah I didn’t do so well at the aiming part. Then Mum ran back to get the lunch kit out of the lockers while the boys and I rode the Simpsons ride,which is entirely simulation. It’s basically you on a rollercoaster but then a whole bunch of stuff goes wrong and you almost die a couple of times while seeing Homer flying through the air and a radioactive Maggie trampling Springfield. Good times. After we got out of the ride, we wandered around until we found the bench Mum was sitting on with the

lunch. While we were enjoying our delicious BLTs we had a nice conversation with one of the park employees. He told us a lot about the new stuff that was coming to Universal, such as the Race through New York ride by Jimmy Fallon, the King Kong : Skull Island ride and a Fast and Furious ride. He also told us about how the anniversary party of the Harry Potter parks was coming up and how quite a few of the actors from the movies were coming to the parks. Unfortunately we just missed it, but the parks would have been crazy so maybe that’s a good thing. He also was a big fan of Star Wars

so him and I had a good conversation about the new movie and who we thought were Rey’s parents. He had some pretty good theories, he’s probably seen the movie a couple times. Once we bid him good day, Mum checked her phone and discovered that the Gringotts ride had opened. The boys and I hurried over there while Mum took the stuff back to the locker, since she’d heard it was a simulation ride and didn’t want to go on it until we said it would be okay for her. I loved the ride, I thought they did a really good job. It’s lead by Bill Weasley, who works for Gringotts,

but while you’re on the tour, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are breaking into Bellatrix’s vault. So you’re not directly involved but still involved enough. Plus Bellatrix levitates you with her wand so that was great. I love Bellatrix. After the ride, we met up with Mum again and the parents headed home to check on Kizmet since we’re staying later tonight. Isaac and I spent most of the time

in Diagon Alley, where I wandered around and watched the shows while Isaac magicked stuff with his fancy new wand. After we finished up in that section, we decided to ride the Mummy again (since we did it at some point earlier but I can’t remember exactly when) and then had a fun little crises when we got out of the ride and couldn’t open the locker we had stowed our things in. Then we walked over to the front and bought some snacks — a churro for Isaac, a pretzel for me — and

ate them while standing in line for the Shrek show.

Honestly, Shrek is great and it’s made even better by the fact that Shrek is Mike Meyers so. After the show, we sat

around on the curb waiting for the parade which was a complete and total waste of time since the parade consists of about five floats and two of them are Dora. After that horrible experience, Isaac and I decided to do the Transformers ride. When we got out, Mum had texted me saying that they were back in the park, so we met them at the bench where we’d eaten lunch. It was getting dark by this point and we ate dinner while waiting for the big show to start. 100 Years of Moviemaking. It is basically a show depicting the highlights of Universal’s movies over the last hundred years, projecting on streams of water being misted up off the surface of the lake. We’d seen it before, but that was a few years ago, and it’s fun to watch. After the show was over, the parks were closed so we started heading back. Peace out m8s.

#camping #orlando #florida