The Harry Potter Theme Park Experience, or, I Enjoy Being A Dork
This past weekend, jessruth and I flew to Orlando just to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
There are pictures!
* Yes, we are big dorks, and enjoy it very much, SO THERE.
* Yes, it was awesome. Small, but extremely well done (and quite immersive, apart from, y'know, the vast crowds of Muggles). I came away with the feeling that what it really needed was to be used as the setting for a Harry Potter LARP.
* The Hogwarts Experience is absolutely worth flying to Florida for. We rode it three times over our two days.
* The Dragon Challenge is a worthy coaster.
* As in actual Hogsmeade, the majority of the fun is really in the shopping.
* They sell about 500 different enamel pins, including two sizes of emblem badges for each of the four Houses. But "Prefect" badges? Come only in Gryffindor and Slytherin. Seriously? They don't think there's a ripe market of wanna-be Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff prefects?
* Theme-park food is abysmal. The Three Broomsticks had the best food of the weekend, but that is really faint praise.
* As in actual Hogsmeade, Butterbeer is excellent.
* Frozen Butterbeer is still excellent even when it is THIRTY-NINE DEGREES IN FRICKIN' FLORIDA.
* Regarding the Every-Flavor Beans: Jess soldiered on past Pepper and (we thought) Baked Potato, through Dirt and (we thought) Rotten Egg, before finally being defeated by Soap. Soap!
* The Dr. Seuss section of the park is almost as awesomely immersive as the Harry Potter section.
* Universal's Islands of Adventure park as a whole is way more interesting and well-put-together than the Universal Studios park, which is meh by comparison. We spent a full day and a half in the former, got bored after half a day in the latter.
* Take the MEARS shuttle from the airport, and book your return shuttle to the airport in advance. Really, just do it.
* Next time, we are darn well going somewhere with Actual Hot Weather.
* Flying out of New York made total sense, but booking the trip so as to get only 2 hours with justom on either end of the Orlando segment was... dumb. (But soon he'll be in Boston to spend the rest of his winter break, so yay.) Also, fly into as well as out of LGA next time, because JFK is like ten times as far away.
* Being as taking 2 days off work has meant doing 2 days' work per day since returning, I need to go to bed now.
There are pictures!
* Yes, we are big dorks, and enjoy it very much, SO THERE.
* Yes, it was awesome. Small, but extremely well done (and quite immersive, apart from, y'know, the vast crowds of Muggles). I came away with the feeling that what it really needed was to be used as the setting for a Harry Potter LARP.
* The Hogwarts Experience is absolutely worth flying to Florida for. We rode it three times over our two days.
* The Dragon Challenge is a worthy coaster.
* As in actual Hogsmeade, the majority of the fun is really in the shopping.
* They sell about 500 different enamel pins, including two sizes of emblem badges for each of the four Houses. But "Prefect" badges? Come only in Gryffindor and Slytherin. Seriously? They don't think there's a ripe market of wanna-be Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff prefects?
* Theme-park food is abysmal. The Three Broomsticks had the best food of the weekend, but that is really faint praise.
* As in actual Hogsmeade, Butterbeer is excellent.
* Frozen Butterbeer is still excellent even when it is THIRTY-NINE DEGREES IN FRICKIN' FLORIDA.
* Regarding the Every-Flavor Beans: Jess soldiered on past Pepper and (we thought) Baked Potato, through Dirt and (we thought) Rotten Egg, before finally being defeated by Soap. Soap!
* The Dr. Seuss section of the park is almost as awesomely immersive as the Harry Potter section.
* Universal's Islands of Adventure park as a whole is way more interesting and well-put-together than the Universal Studios park, which is meh by comparison. We spent a full day and a half in the former, got bored after half a day in the latter.
* Take the MEARS shuttle from the airport, and book your return shuttle to the airport in advance. Really, just do it.
* Next time, we are darn well going somewhere with Actual Hot Weather.
* Flying out of New York made total sense, but booking the trip so as to get only 2 hours with justom on either end of the Orlando segment was... dumb. (But soon he'll be in Boston to spend the rest of his winter break, so yay.) Also, fly into as well as out of LGA next time, because JFK is like ten times as far away.
* Being as taking 2 days off work has meant doing 2 days' work per day since returning, I need to go to bed now.