The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

“Is that FogWarts”….my cute mom who has never read or seen any of the Harry Potter books or movies said to me as we saw this….made me laugh and was a great start to the day!  Today’s post is for all my HP fans out there!  I had the awesome opportunity to have an extra day in Orlando with my mom last week and asked if she would go with me to see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  I was just too curious to see it in real life… the story that had me captivated and holed up in my room the day the last book was released  Anyone else do that?!! Now, I’m not the person to dress up and stand in line for the midnight showings (ahem, love you Electric A) but I really enjoyed the story and couldn’t wait to get my hands on some Butterbeer!  It was pretty magical stepping from Jarassic Park world, hearing the Harry Potter theme song and crossing over into Hogsmede to see the looming iconic school of Hogwarts!  I tried to capture the essence for you all since I never leave home without my camera, so I hope you enjoy it!  We had a pretty cold, blown out-sky type of day, but it went well with the wintery-theme they have going…and yes the snow is fake.  It doesn’t snow in Florida!  Enjoy!

There is a really neat ‘flying’ visual type ride inside Hogwarts that takes you on a journey as though you’re on a broom…The journey to get to the ride is of course long and you wind through about 30 min of a line, but they’ve got Dumbledor’s office with him in it speaking…then you head to a classroom where the invisible cloak reveals a very realistic Harry, Hermoine, and Ron talking to you about your impending adventure….Hermoine has to cast a spell to get all us Muggles broom flying power  It was pretty impressive, but the motion sickness got me in! The ride ends in Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods which is where I was able to get some sweet HP merchandise

Down the hill is Hogsmede!  The town looked amazing and just like in the movies.  Except all the people were wearing tourist clothes!  I immediately went for the Butterbeer cart and didn’t care if I didn’t like it.  I just had to try it!  The guy took a glass, filled it about 3/4 of the way full with a type of soda and then put a creme about 1/2 thick on top from a spout that looked awesome.  And it was!  They’re kind of secretive about what it was, but my best guess is it’s a type of rootbeer/cream soda and the topping is a white butterscotch foam that I swear continued to ‘magically’ grow as I drank more!  It really was DELICIOUS!   And non-alcoholic.  I assumed it would be since all the kids in the book drink it….something like Rootbeer, but instead it’s Butter(scotch)beer.  I would actually be pretty excited if I could get this on a regular basis!  YUM!

Mom and I enjoying our 2nd Butterbeer….and you see the guy in the left background on the phone?  Mom wanted me to take my picture with him.  Um, he’s just another fan who happens to be all Griffindor’ed out and wearing the exact same scarf as me!  I laughed

I tried to get a close up with my 5omm to showcase the goodness and foamy-ness that is Butterbeer….

The train station for the Hogwarts Express…just to the left is the platform 33 1/3 and it looked pretty neat!

While posing for this photo, the “Conductor” of the Hogwarts Expressed asked my mom my name and then continued to teach me the proper way to drink my Butterbeer as a demonstration to all those watching!  I’m not shy at all so it was a ton of fun…turns out it’s absolutely appropriate to drink it so that you have the foam all over your face.  The more the better

Olivander’s wand store was really neat!  You actually got to go inside (30 ppl at a time of course) and watch as Olivander (who looked and acted just as I thought he would) choses a wizard amongst the room to try to match a wand to him.  Mom was impressed with this one, very well done WWofHP! Well done

Yes, this is the MONSTER book!  And some guy was trying to stick his fingers in the cage to see if it would bite him.  Go figure

Honeydukes and Zonkos were pretty neat stores that actually sold candy and toys!  The Listening Ears and Chocolate Frogs were my favorite

We had lunch at the Three Broomsticks Pub which was really neat!  All english food…so a shepherd’s pie was in order.  I happened to get behind a couple from England and they were not in the least bit impressed with the food…oh, Americans.  Come on

They had this “Ad” out for Sirus Black and it moved….so I had to explain that photos in HP world are more like videos to mom…still it was pretty neat!

I went down a side ally and saw this and couldn’t help but giggle…There was a sign for Gringotts Bank…and what do you find? A modern day ATM machine.

One last Butterbeer for the walk back to the car….Thanks mom for spending an adventure-filled magical week with me!  Hope you guys get to visit and try the Butterbeer for yourselves someday!

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