IT'S HOGWARTS!

After our marathon extravaganza, the six of us runners turned hobblers made the journey across Orlando to the magical world of Hogsmede. Also known to the muggles as Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park where they house the Magical World of Harry Potter. I have got to tell you, it certainly was magical and we would have spent the whole day in the back of the park if we didn't feel the obligation to at least walk around the rest of the park and get punished by our own hubris on the Jurassic Park ride.

We peeked in through the entrance and laughed at the cruelty of the promise of snow on the rooftops as it was almost 80 that weekend. In January. Note the park-goers lack of sleeves. Nevertheless, we passed through the magical gates where we would spend pretty much our whole day.

We were first greeted by the Hogwarts Express. 

There was a conductor standing there outside the platform ALL DAY, just hamming it up with the park guests and not breaking character once. Down the path a ways we were also greeted by an a cappella group, complete with singing toads!

After a few songs with them, we couldn't wait any longer. It was time at last for the Harry Potter Experience ride. The line was daunting and even crossed in back areas guests usually don't visit in the parks, but the wait was well worth it. Even the line itself was worth it! I couldn't take enough pictures, especially with my old phone, but here is a taste of just the Harry Potter Experience the Line!

There was so much more! In fact, most of the line was outside the castle since everyone was trying to get pictures of the DADA classroom and Dumbledore's office the line would pause for pictures, then you'd be running to the next one! It was so much to take in and we could have played Hogwarts Students all day in that line if they allowed us. But they also had one of the most interesting warning signs I've ever had the pleasure of seeing for a ride.

I hope you caught that bottom line. That's right, please REMOVE ALL PROSTHETIC LIMBS PRIOR TO RIDING. I had no idea such a thing would be an issue! And while the ride was all over the place, I can't see it being tough enough to rip off a well fitted prosthetic. Well, it certainly made us laugh at any rate.

But with the HPE over, and expensive swag bought to hang on our walls, we carried onward to lunch at the Three Broomsticks where I encountered my first butterbeer. I'm not going to lie, I hated it, far too sweet for my tastes. We ended up with a Hog's Head beer instead, which was so much better and also had it's own souvenir glass.

After some more shopping and pawing over wands and sweaters and more expensive swag, we settled ourselves outside of Honeydukes and Zonko's to enjoy big fat bags of candy and Potter-centric sweets like Chocolate Frogs and Sugar Quills.

After getting our fill of candy, naturally it was time for some coasters! There was a (no longer) dueling coaster we walked right on twice to get on both sides. What they did was redecorate their existing coaster to be all TriWizard Tournamenty, which was pretty awesome, only there was a cast member who wouldn't let us stop to take pictures once inside of the dragon first task tent setup or the Goblet of Fire in order to keep the line moving. There were plenty of banners outside to gawk over (and FINALLY a mention of someone not in Gryffindor! How I wish they had TWT shirts of all four of the contestants, not just Harry...)

Can you tell I have Badger Pride? ;)

Well, after meeting up with our friends who didn't ride, we explored the rest of IoA, got soaked by dinosaurs right before sundown, disoriented on Spiderman, then promptly hightailed it back to Hogwarts for some last minute candy and a look at the castle all lit up before the park closed and we were politely kicked out to make our journey back to our end of Orlando by WDW. If you are at all a fan of the books (or movies, I suppose), you really do owe it to yourself to go.