(This entry is part 1 of 6 from our vacation in the Western Caribbean & Florida.
View the other entries here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)
After spending our vacation on the high seas with miles of endless blue ocean around us, I admit it’s a little sad to return back to Arizona’s endless desert with no ocean in sight! But at least the ground is stable. I’m still trying to adjust to not having the ground beneath my feet gentling swaying to the ocean every few minutes.
For our latest adventure, we cruised the Western Caribbean & spent an extra day in Florida indulging in my Harry Potter-craze. Here is our visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios, the 1st entry of this 6 part adventure.
We arrived at the entrance of Islands of Adventure shortly after the gates opened, knowing that Harry Potter would be rapidly filling with other er, Muggles, as the day progressed.
Eeeeee! Welcome to Hogsmeade!
This is the morning crowd. Now imagine that tripling for the afternoon.
Being there at the opening time is definitely the way to explore The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The lines were 5-10 minutes long, sometimes even less. We were able to get on the Dragon Challenge ride a few times. By the time 11 AM rolled around, all of the lines to the rides were 60 minutes long.
Honeydukes! They had every sweet mentioned in the books from Blood Pops to Cauldron Cakes
I definitely don’t need this….
There’s a TROOOOLL! Thought you ought to know.
Frozen Butterbeer is SOOOO delicious!
World of HP is a lot smaller than I expected but it was still pretty amazing to see something from my childhood in life-size form.
We explored the rest of Islands of Adventure after World of HP & lunching at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville:
Unsuspecting husband/victim…
I’m always immediately drawn to anything Christmas related. Of course we had to go inside this store!
On a whim, we decided to do the walking tour of Atlantis. It looks so promising on the outside but inside… I felt like I had stepped into a really bad fantasy movie from the 1980’s, like Willow, but worse.
