Such a fun surprise!
The kids got up and ready quickly and we were on our way to the airport by 5:30, eating breakfast in the car on the way. After arriving in Orlando, we got our rental car and went straight to our Universal hotel. We had decided to add one Universal day to our trip since all 3 kids really like Harry Potter so we could experience the Harry Potter areas in the Universal parks.
Since my initial plan of swimming after arrival to our hotel was thwarted by the cold weather, we instead headed over to the Universal CityWalk to find something to eat for an early dinner (since we hadn't actually had a meal since our car breakfast and airplane snacks.) The CityWalk is just a shopping and dining area directly adjacent to the Universal parks.
Although it was a short walk from our hotel to the CityWalk, Briggs really wanted to take the boat instead.
We walked around the CityWalk area, realized that wait times for all the restaurants were elevated even though it was only mid-afternoon, put our name in for a restaurant, ate some soft pretzels and popcorn to curb our hunger until we could get seated at a restaurant, and looked in a few different stores to pass the time.
We then ate at the Chocolate Emporium, where the food was good and the milkshakes were HUGE! We were split as a family; some of us preferred the mint shake and others preferred the cookies and cream. I was team mint.
After dinner, we grabbed the Voodoo Donuts we had mobile ordered for breakfast the next day, walked back to our hotel (since the boat line was really long), settled into our hotel room, showered, and went to bed early to get ready for our big Universal day the next day.
We started our early morning with donuts in our hotel room.
I had bought us fun, matching Universal shirts to wear. Unfortunately, the weather was in the 30's (come on, Florida!) when we left our hotel for the day and only got into the low 50's throughout the day, so our fun shirts were hidden under sweatshirts and jackets for most of the day.
After packing up and loading our luggage in our car, we walked over to Islands of Adventure to start our day with Early Entry to the Hogsmead area of the Harry Potter land.
It felt like we walked right into a Harry Potter book. We had so much fun just walking around and looking at all the amazing details throughout the land.
All the shops, restaurants, and details were right out of the books and we loved pointing out little things to each other and finding fun things to look at...like quills writing by themselves in store windows or broomsticks floating in mid-air up by the ceiling of the store or the Monster Book of Monsters that growled and snapped and moved around it's cage.
Staley used her special money from Grammie and Grandpa to purchase an interactive wand. All 3 kids enjoyed finding spots throughout Hogsmead and Diagon Alley where they could do spells that did things like make lights turn on, balls float, water turn on, flowers grow, or invisible ink appear.
We also rode the Harry Potter rides at Islands of Adventure. Since the rides were all simulators or roller coasters, Zach wasn't able to ride any...although he did get to walk through the lines and enjoy the immersive experience of going into Hogwarts castle for the Forbidden Journey ride and seeing Hagrid's hut in the line for Flight of the Hippogriff.
The rest of us rode Flight of the Hippogriff, a little roller coaster that Briggs deemed his favorite ride at Universal and chose to ride again at the end of the night. We also all rode Forbidden Journey, which was a much more intense ride with simulators and animatronic figures of some of the scarier points in Harry Potter, like dementors, giant spiders, fire breathing dragons, the whomping willow... Briggs cried his way through the ride and Adelie just closed her eyes the whole time. I couldn't really enjoy it because I was feeling guilty for bringing my two littles on the scary ride. Not my best mom moment.
After the trauma of Forbidden Journey, we stopped to recover with a mid-morning Butterbeer treat.
After we thoroughly explored Hogsmead, we wandered around the rest of the park. We checked out Seuss Landing, where we rode the trolley, the Cat and the Hat ride, and the One Fish, Two Fish spinner ride (twice.)
Adelie loved the spinner and chose to do it again at the end of the night as her last fun thing.
We got lunch at the Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoopendous and ate our cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, and pizza outside in the sun while watching a Dr. Seuss show. We then played at a little play area in Seuss Landing and walked around exploring other areas of the park, like the Jurassic Park area and the Marvel Universe area, where the girls rode Storm Force Acceleration.
Because of the cold weather, most of the bigger roller coasters were closed earlier in the day. Staley had really wanted to ride Hagrids Motorbike roller coaster, which is the more intense of the Harry Potter roller coasters at Universal. When it reopened for the day in the early afternoon, we got in line with a posted wait of 60 minutes. We ended up waiting 2 hours. Much of the line was in these small indoor cave-like corridors with no indication of how close you were getting to the end. I began to feel claustrophobic and almost bailed at a few points, but we FINALLY made it and the coaster was fun and definitely a highlight for Staley. While we were waiting and riding, Zach took the littles and explored some more, did all the rides in Seuss Landing again, and spent a little time playing in the Jurassic Park play area.
We then decided it was time to take the Hogwart's Express to Universal Studios to see the other Harry Potter land, Diagon Alley.
Obviously, riding the Hogwart's Express was top on Briggs' list of things to do.
Diagon Alley was another amazing elaborately detailed Harry Potter land. Unfortunately, there was a large dragon on top of Gringott's bank that made a loud sound and breathed fire every 15 minutes. Briggs was very scared of the dragon and just wanted to leave. So Zach and the girls took their time exploring Diagon Alley and doing spells with Staley's wand while Briggs and I explored other areas of the park.
Briggs and I had fun meeting Kuwalski and riding a Simpson's alien spinner ride, the ET ride, and the Woody Woodpecker roller coaster. (We discovered on this trip that Briggs really enjoys roller coasters.)
When Zach and the girls were done exploring, Staley and I stayed in Diagon Alley to ride the Gringott's ride while Zach and the littles did Men in Black Alien Attack and the Simpson's spinner again.
We then rode the Hogwarts Express again back to Islands of Adventure, did our final rides of the night (Hippogriff for me, Staley, and Briggs and One fish, two fish for Adelie and Zach), watched the projection light show on Hogwart's castle, and then left the park at closing time to check in to our townhouse, eat a late dinner of cereal, and get to bed after our long, fun day.
Although we enjoyed our Universal day, did some fun rides, and LOVED exploring the Harry Potter lands, we did realize that Universal is more geared towards those looking for thrill rides and excitement. The Harry Potter rides were more intense than we were expecting, there were several other big roller coasters that Staley wasn't quite sure she wanted to try, and most of the other rides were simulators for things that my kids weren't interested in. Apart from Seuss Land, most of the rides were ones Zach couldn't do with his motion sickness. I'm glad we had our day at Universal and we definitely enjoyed it, but we were all ready to get to some more family friendly fun at Disney.
