The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: A Review
Here it is: my review of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! If you want to know anything more specific or if I forget to mention something, feel free to ask.
Well as every fan of Harry Potter must do at some point in their lifetime, the boyfriend and I made our pilgrimage to the Wizarding World. We were in Orlando for three full days and went to WWoHP for two for two of them. I guess it's important to know that the Wizarding World isn't its own theme park, which I had assumed up until the time I booked my vacation. It's part of the Islands of Adventure, and let me assure you that it's like…clear in the back.
On our first day there (Tuesday), we headed out probably around 9 or so and walked to Universal. An important aside: when you're told when you book your hotel that it's located less than ½ mile from the park, they must be referring to nautical miles because…no. Oh and also, don't bank on your hotel shuttle to the park. You're in competition with a few different hotels for what I assume to be 25 seats on the shuttle that only goes to the park twice a day. We were third in line on Tuesday morning for shuttle passes, and they were sold out.
Anyway, we probably arrived at the park around 9:30. Then, we preceded to wait in line for at least an hour before we could even enter the Wizarding World because there were so many people waiting to get inside. We were told that they only admit 500 people to the WWoHP at a time. So, we weaved around the park in this line until we finally got into the entrance.
Hogsmeade was stunning. It was really like being there. However, it was completely packed with people. I'm pretty sure that it would be a similar experience to what Diagon Alley must be like in those last few weeks of August before school starts. The WW itself is very small. I wish they had made the park bigger to incorporate more shops and to allow for more people.
Some notable things that I saw were Hermione's gown from GoF in the window of the dress robes shop (that you can't go inside). They made it look like it was floating! There was also a measuring tape that had been enchanted to look like a cat in that same shop window. Very cool! There was a shop that catered to plants and your herbology needs (which was also a fake shop). Neville's Mimbulus mimbletonia from OotP was in the shop window there. There was a cauldron shop, Scrivenshafts, and a few other "fake" shops that escape me at the moment.
Our first stop was the butterbeer cart. We were both really excited for this. They actually had butterbeer in two forms: regular liquid and slushy. You can get a special cup that says "butterbeer" on the front of it (and I'm not sure if this is what you get the first time you go to the cart), or they have just little plastic cups of it. Sadly, there are no bottles. Butterbeer along with the special cup is $11 and refills are half price. The little plastic cups are $3.50, I think. I suppose you're all wondering what it tastes like. It's a bit hard to describe. The boyfriend likened it to a melted root beer float. It's very sugary and certainly not something that you could ever chug without spewing all over the place promptly afterwards. Honestly, I didn't care much for it, but the boyfriend loved it. The froth on the top is delicious though.
While we're on the topic of beverages, I might as well tell you about the pumpkin juice, which we tried Day 2. It. Was. Brilliant. I'm not a pumpkin fan in the least, but I LOVED it. It is far superior to butterbeer in my opinion; the boyfriend disagrees. It's ~$6 and is in a bottle. I'd tell you that it tastes like heaven, which it totally does, but that really doesn't tell you much, lol. The main ingredients are apple juice, pumpkin puree, and some form of apricot. There is a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg in there too. Basically think if apple juice and…pumpkin pie had a love child, and you have pumpkin juice. Try it!
After grabbing the butterbeer (and we waited in line for that for probably 15 minutes or so), we thought it might be best to hit the Forbidden Journey before we go to any shops. Forbidden Journey is the ride that is located in Hogwarts castle. The line for it when we rode was about two hours. When you go in, you have the option of sticking together with your party for the ride or going through the single's line and possibly be split up. The wait for the single's line was about 15 minutes, which is terribly tempting until you find out that you don't get to go through some parts of Hogwarts. So the boyfriend and I waited in the group line.
You start out going through some corridors in Hogwarts. You'll see the Mirror of Erised, a couple statues, and the house point containers. Then you hit the Herbology green houses. There are some mandrakes up there when you get close to entering back into the castle. When you go back inside you go through a hallway of portraits. Let me tell you, they did a fantastic job as creating moving portraits. There are moving portraits of the four founders there. Then you head into Dumbledore's office and a Defense classroom where you see Dumbledore and the Trio. To be honest, I didn't get to see much in these rooms because the line moved so quickly. Finally you end up in the Gryffindor common room, which is where you get on the ride itself.
Now we get to the ride. The ride itself is kinda like a roller coaster where your feet dangle. However, you're completely surrounded by movie screens. You're riding with three other people, but you're all pretty much in your own seat. During the ride you basically follow Ron and Harry on their broomsticks around Hogwarts and encounter stuff from the movie. There will be times when you are plummeting towards the ground, and your seat will literally shift you so you'd fall straight down if you didn't have anything securing you. Other times you're completely on your back. There are dementors that you encounter, acramantulas that squirt water in your face, the bones of the basilisk. It's a very motion heavy ride where you don't know which way is up half the time. I think in total it is roughly four minutes long. We both really enjoyed ourselves on the ride, and I'm not a roller coaster kind of girl. The only bad thing was that the ride broke down right as we were about to get on. They had it up and running fairly quickly-maybe 30 minutes-but I heard that it'd been going down quite often.
When you exit, you're inside Filch's Confiscated Goods shop. They have a lot of stuff in here, but it usually is wall to wall people. There were a lot of t-shirts, stuffed animals (dragons from GoF, Norbert, unicorns, etc), key chains, the HP books, the Noble Collection's Marauder's Map, and other things along those lines. They also had some of the more high quality stuff behind the counter, all of which can be purchased through Noble Collection on Warner Bros., so no need to panic about picking those up. I did love the "Have You Seen This Wizard" picture frame, but I didn't get a chance to pick it up, sadly. Anyway, that about sums up Filch's. It's sort of your all-purpose souvenir shop.
Afterwards, I wanted to pick up a wand, so we headed towards Ollivander's. Now, the Ollivander's experience is different from buying a wand. Here is basically the experience: after waiting in line for over an hour, you and nineteen other people go into Ollivander's. One of you is then chosen to go through the wand selection process. The wants for the experience aren't wands from the series as far as I know. I think they were just created for the experience, and I find the ones from Noble Collection much more attractive. We didn't do the experience, but we heard about it from someone we talked to in line. She was probably around twelve and thought it was a cool experience.
Now if you'd just like to buy a wand, you can wait in the line for Dervish & Banges (and are you guys catching onto the whole you have to wait in line to go into a shop thing yet?) and access the wand shop that way. I'm going to fast forward a bit since I'm talking about wands to the wand shop in Dervish & Banges. It is tiny. Five people could probably fit in there comfortably. Why they made the wand shop that small is beyond me. When I arrived at the shop, there were probably 30 people crammed in there. You couldn't move at all. What's more, there were only two wands from the series left-Draco's and Lupin's. See, the one girl that works the wand shop (there may have been one more girl, but it's hard to say) has no time or room to restock. I think you'd be far better off buying wands off the official HP store at Warner Bros. online if you want a wand from the series. They are the same wands and you don't have to fight through a crowd of crazy people to find that they don't have the wand you want in the first place. Needless to say, I did not get a wand.
Alright now we're back to Dervish & Banges the shop. This is apparently the place to go for school uniforms; however, they only offer robes and ties. I was hoping to buy a robe, vest, and tie there, but vests are not sold. WTF? Worst marketing decision EVER. I would have sold my soul for a Gryffindor vest for my Lily cosplay. Anyway, the robes are really nice quality and already come with the house crest. They cost $99, but I haven't found them anywhere else online that is cheaper. I would definitely recommend picking up a robe at WWoHP. Now, ties are a whole different issue. If you're looking for a Gryffindor tie, forget it. They can't be found ANYWHERE in any of the parks. Trust me, I tried. They do have Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin, but the ties cost $30. You can go to Whimsic Alley and purchase the same tie for $15. So guys, if you were hoping to get your complete uniform there, don't bother. This was one of my few disappointments with the park.
I should mention that Dervish & Banges had some other t-shirts there, most notable the house t-shirts and Harry's shirt from the final challenge in GoF. I bought my Ravenclaw shirt for $24, I think. I also picked up a Ravenclaw keychain there as well.
We left after we got through Dervish & Banges. At this point, I had four blisters on my feet and was physically incapable of standing in line for Honeydukes, Zonko's, or any of the other rides. I think we left around 3 or so.
Given that so many people were there early in the morning, we decided that we'd leave for WWoHP Day 2 in the afternoon. I think we got there around 1 or 2, and guess what? No line to get into the park!! Definitely go in the early afternoon. It doesn't factor into the merchandise being picked over at all, so don't let that hold you back. The merchandise is picked over anyway.
The boyfriend required butterbeer, so we took care of that right away. We ventured into the Three Broomsticks, which was really fantastic, but we didn't eat anything there. We'd eaten lunch before we left the hotel. The lines were pretty long. Sorry I can't tell you more about the food or prices. I do know they had fish and chips and shepherd's pie though.
We tried to get into the Hog's Head after we'd taken a few pictures of the Three Broomsticks, but the not-very-nice-lady at the door said we weren't allowed to go inside if we weren't drinking. We had to be a paying customer or whatever. I'm sorry, I thought I paid for admission into this park. *grumble, grumble* What I do know is that the Hog's Head does serve alcoholic beverages, so I don't know if people underage or kids would be allowed in.
Fortunately, Zonko's and Honeydukes didn't have a line (they're one big shop that is separated), so we went in there next. Honeydukes is exactly how I would imagine it. It was bright and wonderful and yummy. They had Chocolate Frogs the size of your hands ($10), Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Dark Mark Lollipops, and an assortment of other things. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that they didn't try to include more sweets from the series or try to come up with some clever ones on their own instead of just having old fashioned hard candies, fudge, and caramel apples. Give them a different name or something.
Zonko's, I felt, was a disappointment. It had a few things from the series, most notably the Fanged Frisbee, but everything else was just…toys you'd find from the sixties or something. It was very anticlimactic. With all of the merchandise the twins came up with, you'd think you could at least put some of those in Zonko's. Zonko's also carries the Quidditch balls, a remembrall, and a sneakoscope. These aren't just exclusive to Zonko's though. You can buy them in several different places around Islands of Adventure and CityWalk.
We didn't go on the Dueling Dragons ride or the Flight of the Hippogriff, both of which are old roller coasters the park just revamped. Sorry I can't tell you anything about those. I do know, however, that for the Hippogriff ride, Hagrid walks you through the instructions and you might pass Hagrid's Hut during the ride sometime.
And that, my friends, is about the extent of it. You will see students from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang doing performances. We caught the tail end of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. We did see a performance by the Hogwarts choir. They hummed the HP theme and then did some sort of…rap song or something. It was a bit awkward. I have a video of that, but I can't promise it's of high quality. I'll have to upload it to my youtube or something eventually.
Oh, I forgot to mention the Owl Post. I didn't do anything there, but I think you can send letters postmarked from Hogsmeade. It's around the Dervish & Banges / Ollivander's area.
To recap:
Shopping - Flich's, Ollivander's/Dervish & Banges/Owl Post, Honeydukes/Zonko's
Rides -Forbidden Journey, Dueling Dragons, Flight of the Hippogriff
Food/Drink-Three Broomsticks, Hog's Head, butterbeer cart
Overall, it was a great time. I think that, more than anything else though, just being there in Hogsmeade was what made the experience for me. It felt like a Wizarding place-the chimneys were crooked, the shops were very tiny (annoyingly so) and quaint, and props and details. If you're going there for mind blowing merchandise, I would get too excited. I know that was what I was looking for, specifically the big items, and I was a little disappointment with what the park had to offer. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of cool stuff you'll only find there, but a lot of the stuff is available online too.
If you're not sure whether or want to go now or wait for a year or two, I would recommend waiting. Let some of the newness wear off and the crowds die down. You'll be far happier for it. If you are going now, prepare yourself for lines and try to go in the early afternoon to cut down on your waiting time. If you're going during Infinitus, my prayers are with you, lol.
That's it for me, guys. If you have any questions, general or specific, don't hesitate to ask. I'd be more than happy to answer.
Pictures:
Between the two of us we took ~200. I've uploaded 6 here since I'm working on my netbook and won't have access to my laptop until Saturday evening. Everything has been uploaded to my facebook though, so if you want more pictures, I've made the gallery public here.
Well as every fan of Harry Potter must do at some point in their lifetime, the boyfriend and I made our pilgrimage to the Wizarding World. We were in Orlando for three full days and went to WWoHP for two for two of them. I guess it's important to know that the Wizarding World isn't its own theme park, which I had assumed up until the time I booked my vacation. It's part of the Islands of Adventure, and let me assure you that it's like…clear in the back.
On our first day there (Tuesday), we headed out probably around 9 or so and walked to Universal. An important aside: when you're told when you book your hotel that it's located less than ½ mile from the park, they must be referring to nautical miles because…no. Oh and also, don't bank on your hotel shuttle to the park. You're in competition with a few different hotels for what I assume to be 25 seats on the shuttle that only goes to the park twice a day. We were third in line on Tuesday morning for shuttle passes, and they were sold out.
Anyway, we probably arrived at the park around 9:30. Then, we preceded to wait in line for at least an hour before we could even enter the Wizarding World because there were so many people waiting to get inside. We were told that they only admit 500 people to the WWoHP at a time. So, we weaved around the park in this line until we finally got into the entrance.
Hogsmeade was stunning. It was really like being there. However, it was completely packed with people. I'm pretty sure that it would be a similar experience to what Diagon Alley must be like in those last few weeks of August before school starts. The WW itself is very small. I wish they had made the park bigger to incorporate more shops and to allow for more people.
Some notable things that I saw were Hermione's gown from GoF in the window of the dress robes shop (that you can't go inside). They made it look like it was floating! There was also a measuring tape that had been enchanted to look like a cat in that same shop window. Very cool! There was a shop that catered to plants and your herbology needs (which was also a fake shop). Neville's Mimbulus mimbletonia from OotP was in the shop window there. There was a cauldron shop, Scrivenshafts, and a few other "fake" shops that escape me at the moment.
Our first stop was the butterbeer cart. We were both really excited for this. They actually had butterbeer in two forms: regular liquid and slushy. You can get a special cup that says "butterbeer" on the front of it (and I'm not sure if this is what you get the first time you go to the cart), or they have just little plastic cups of it. Sadly, there are no bottles. Butterbeer along with the special cup is $11 and refills are half price. The little plastic cups are $3.50, I think. I suppose you're all wondering what it tastes like. It's a bit hard to describe. The boyfriend likened it to a melted root beer float. It's very sugary and certainly not something that you could ever chug without spewing all over the place promptly afterwards. Honestly, I didn't care much for it, but the boyfriend loved it. The froth on the top is delicious though.
While we're on the topic of beverages, I might as well tell you about the pumpkin juice, which we tried Day 2. It. Was. Brilliant. I'm not a pumpkin fan in the least, but I LOVED it. It is far superior to butterbeer in my opinion; the boyfriend disagrees. It's ~$6 and is in a bottle. I'd tell you that it tastes like heaven, which it totally does, but that really doesn't tell you much, lol. The main ingredients are apple juice, pumpkin puree, and some form of apricot. There is a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg in there too. Basically think if apple juice and…pumpkin pie had a love child, and you have pumpkin juice. Try it!
After grabbing the butterbeer (and we waited in line for that for probably 15 minutes or so), we thought it might be best to hit the Forbidden Journey before we go to any shops. Forbidden Journey is the ride that is located in Hogwarts castle. The line for it when we rode was about two hours. When you go in, you have the option of sticking together with your party for the ride or going through the single's line and possibly be split up. The wait for the single's line was about 15 minutes, which is terribly tempting until you find out that you don't get to go through some parts of Hogwarts. So the boyfriend and I waited in the group line.
You start out going through some corridors in Hogwarts. You'll see the Mirror of Erised, a couple statues, and the house point containers. Then you hit the Herbology green houses. There are some mandrakes up there when you get close to entering back into the castle. When you go back inside you go through a hallway of portraits. Let me tell you, they did a fantastic job as creating moving portraits. There are moving portraits of the four founders there. Then you head into Dumbledore's office and a Defense classroom where you see Dumbledore and the Trio. To be honest, I didn't get to see much in these rooms because the line moved so quickly. Finally you end up in the Gryffindor common room, which is where you get on the ride itself.
Now we get to the ride. The ride itself is kinda like a roller coaster where your feet dangle. However, you're completely surrounded by movie screens. You're riding with three other people, but you're all pretty much in your own seat. During the ride you basically follow Ron and Harry on their broomsticks around Hogwarts and encounter stuff from the movie. There will be times when you are plummeting towards the ground, and your seat will literally shift you so you'd fall straight down if you didn't have anything securing you. Other times you're completely on your back. There are dementors that you encounter, acramantulas that squirt water in your face, the bones of the basilisk. It's a very motion heavy ride where you don't know which way is up half the time. I think in total it is roughly four minutes long. We both really enjoyed ourselves on the ride, and I'm not a roller coaster kind of girl. The only bad thing was that the ride broke down right as we were about to get on. They had it up and running fairly quickly-maybe 30 minutes-but I heard that it'd been going down quite often.
When you exit, you're inside Filch's Confiscated Goods shop. They have a lot of stuff in here, but it usually is wall to wall people. There were a lot of t-shirts, stuffed animals (dragons from GoF, Norbert, unicorns, etc), key chains, the HP books, the Noble Collection's Marauder's Map, and other things along those lines. They also had some of the more high quality stuff behind the counter, all of which can be purchased through Noble Collection on Warner Bros., so no need to panic about picking those up. I did love the "Have You Seen This Wizard" picture frame, but I didn't get a chance to pick it up, sadly. Anyway, that about sums up Filch's. It's sort of your all-purpose souvenir shop.
Afterwards, I wanted to pick up a wand, so we headed towards Ollivander's. Now, the Ollivander's experience is different from buying a wand. Here is basically the experience: after waiting in line for over an hour, you and nineteen other people go into Ollivander's. One of you is then chosen to go through the wand selection process. The wants for the experience aren't wands from the series as far as I know. I think they were just created for the experience, and I find the ones from Noble Collection much more attractive. We didn't do the experience, but we heard about it from someone we talked to in line. She was probably around twelve and thought it was a cool experience.
Now if you'd just like to buy a wand, you can wait in the line for Dervish & Banges (and are you guys catching onto the whole you have to wait in line to go into a shop thing yet?) and access the wand shop that way. I'm going to fast forward a bit since I'm talking about wands to the wand shop in Dervish & Banges. It is tiny. Five people could probably fit in there comfortably. Why they made the wand shop that small is beyond me. When I arrived at the shop, there were probably 30 people crammed in there. You couldn't move at all. What's more, there were only two wands from the series left-Draco's and Lupin's. See, the one girl that works the wand shop (there may have been one more girl, but it's hard to say) has no time or room to restock. I think you'd be far better off buying wands off the official HP store at Warner Bros. online if you want a wand from the series. They are the same wands and you don't have to fight through a crowd of crazy people to find that they don't have the wand you want in the first place. Needless to say, I did not get a wand.
Alright now we're back to Dervish & Banges the shop. This is apparently the place to go for school uniforms; however, they only offer robes and ties. I was hoping to buy a robe, vest, and tie there, but vests are not sold. WTF? Worst marketing decision EVER. I would have sold my soul for a Gryffindor vest for my Lily cosplay. Anyway, the robes are really nice quality and already come with the house crest. They cost $99, but I haven't found them anywhere else online that is cheaper. I would definitely recommend picking up a robe at WWoHP. Now, ties are a whole different issue. If you're looking for a Gryffindor tie, forget it. They can't be found ANYWHERE in any of the parks. Trust me, I tried. They do have Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin, but the ties cost $30. You can go to Whimsic Alley and purchase the same tie for $15. So guys, if you were hoping to get your complete uniform there, don't bother. This was one of my few disappointments with the park.
I should mention that Dervish & Banges had some other t-shirts there, most notable the house t-shirts and Harry's shirt from the final challenge in GoF. I bought my Ravenclaw shirt for $24, I think. I also picked up a Ravenclaw keychain there as well.
We left after we got through Dervish & Banges. At this point, I had four blisters on my feet and was physically incapable of standing in line for Honeydukes, Zonko's, or any of the other rides. I think we left around 3 or so.
Given that so many people were there early in the morning, we decided that we'd leave for WWoHP Day 2 in the afternoon. I think we got there around 1 or 2, and guess what? No line to get into the park!! Definitely go in the early afternoon. It doesn't factor into the merchandise being picked over at all, so don't let that hold you back. The merchandise is picked over anyway.
The boyfriend required butterbeer, so we took care of that right away. We ventured into the Three Broomsticks, which was really fantastic, but we didn't eat anything there. We'd eaten lunch before we left the hotel. The lines were pretty long. Sorry I can't tell you more about the food or prices. I do know they had fish and chips and shepherd's pie though.
We tried to get into the Hog's Head after we'd taken a few pictures of the Three Broomsticks, but the not-very-nice-lady at the door said we weren't allowed to go inside if we weren't drinking. We had to be a paying customer or whatever. I'm sorry, I thought I paid for admission into this park. *grumble, grumble* What I do know is that the Hog's Head does serve alcoholic beverages, so I don't know if people underage or kids would be allowed in.
Fortunately, Zonko's and Honeydukes didn't have a line (they're one big shop that is separated), so we went in there next. Honeydukes is exactly how I would imagine it. It was bright and wonderful and yummy. They had Chocolate Frogs the size of your hands ($10), Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Dark Mark Lollipops, and an assortment of other things. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that they didn't try to include more sweets from the series or try to come up with some clever ones on their own instead of just having old fashioned hard candies, fudge, and caramel apples. Give them a different name or something.
Zonko's, I felt, was a disappointment. It had a few things from the series, most notably the Fanged Frisbee, but everything else was just…toys you'd find from the sixties or something. It was very anticlimactic. With all of the merchandise the twins came up with, you'd think you could at least put some of those in Zonko's. Zonko's also carries the Quidditch balls, a remembrall, and a sneakoscope. These aren't just exclusive to Zonko's though. You can buy them in several different places around Islands of Adventure and CityWalk.
We didn't go on the Dueling Dragons ride or the Flight of the Hippogriff, both of which are old roller coasters the park just revamped. Sorry I can't tell you anything about those. I do know, however, that for the Hippogriff ride, Hagrid walks you through the instructions and you might pass Hagrid's Hut during the ride sometime.
And that, my friends, is about the extent of it. You will see students from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang doing performances. We caught the tail end of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. We did see a performance by the Hogwarts choir. They hummed the HP theme and then did some sort of…rap song or something. It was a bit awkward. I have a video of that, but I can't promise it's of high quality. I'll have to upload it to my youtube or something eventually.
Oh, I forgot to mention the Owl Post. I didn't do anything there, but I think you can send letters postmarked from Hogsmeade. It's around the Dervish & Banges / Ollivander's area.
To recap:
Shopping - Flich's, Ollivander's/Dervish & Banges/Owl Post, Honeydukes/Zonko's
Rides -Forbidden Journey, Dueling Dragons, Flight of the Hippogriff
Food/Drink-Three Broomsticks, Hog's Head, butterbeer cart
Overall, it was a great time. I think that, more than anything else though, just being there in Hogsmeade was what made the experience for me. It felt like a Wizarding place-the chimneys were crooked, the shops were very tiny (annoyingly so) and quaint, and props and details. If you're going there for mind blowing merchandise, I would get too excited. I know that was what I was looking for, specifically the big items, and I was a little disappointment with what the park had to offer. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of cool stuff you'll only find there, but a lot of the stuff is available online too.
If you're not sure whether or want to go now or wait for a year or two, I would recommend waiting. Let some of the newness wear off and the crowds die down. You'll be far happier for it. If you are going now, prepare yourself for lines and try to go in the early afternoon to cut down on your waiting time. If you're going during Infinitus, my prayers are with you, lol.
That's it for me, guys. If you have any questions, general or specific, don't hesitate to ask. I'd be more than happy to answer.
Pictures:
Between the two of us we took ~200. I've uploaded 6 here since I'm working on my netbook and won't have access to my laptop until Saturday evening. Everything has been uploaded to my facebook though, so if you want more pictures, I've made the gallery public here.