While in Florida, some of us made a magical trip to Universal Studios to spend some time in Diagon Alley. Bethy's birthday was on the first day of our trip, before we had tickets to any of the Disney parks, so she chose to check out HP world for her special day! She had seen Hogsmead before, but not Diagon Alley, so we spent the entire day in that part of the park.
I didn't expect there to be any Christmas decorations in HP World, so I was pleasantly surprised when there were all sorts of fun and unique decorations up throughout the park!
I wore my Marauders Map cardigan and lightening bolt necklace to help bend in with the wizards and not stick out as a muggle.
As soon as we got into the park, we raced started to Gringotts to avoid the long line for the ride. We only had about a 10 minute wait which was awesome! When we got out the ride, we saw there was no line for Ollivander's wand experience so we jumped on that. Last time I was in HP World, the line for this experience was never under 45 minutes, so I never got to see what it was like.
When they asked for volunteers, we petitioned hard for them to choose Bethy because it was her birthday. But they went with a kid instead .... To be honest, we were a little disappointed, nothing too exciting happens during this experience. Based on how long the line always is, I had pretty high expectations for something amazing, but it was basically just the wand keeper talking to us most of the time.
We had fun in the actual wand store though. Last time I was here, we spent a long time looking at all the different wands that belong to wizards in the books and movies
CLICK HERE to see pictures from that visit.
This time we spent our time learning about the different wand woods and which one is best for you based on your Celtic Zodiac. Based on our birthdays, Beth and I are both Reed, so she ended up getting a reed wand as her main souvenir from HP World.
Here are a couple of descriptions of other types of wood, I found them all to be pretty interesting.
Visiting the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is always a highlight of any trip to Diagon Alley.
The pygmy puffs are always my favorite thing in this store.
The shopkeeper was having a blast photobombing all my selfies.
All of the treats at Sugarplum's are so adorable and always look so delicious. We didn't get any to try since we were saving room for a yummy lunch at the Leaky Cauldron.
Half way through the day, we finally got some blue sky!
We made a quick trip to Nocturn Alley, I didn't take too many photos this time since I documented it so throughly last time I was there. See the above link for those photos.
Wiseacres is one of my favorite stores in the entire HP World, the decor is beyond magical and so my style, I want to buy all the decorations for my house!
Then it was time for lunch! We were the first ones in line when they opened their lunch menu, we were so excited and hungry!
I got a toad in the hole as my main course and a sticky toffee pudding as my dessert.
We tried a variety of drinks during our visit. Pictured here we have, frozen butter beer, swamp water, and hot butter beer. All of us thought the hot butter beer was the best, but we liked them all.
Eternelle's Elixir of Refreshment stall is beyond magical. I am always drawn to it, but hadn't ever tried any of the elixirs. Beth was also enchanted with this stall, so we decided to try out a few of the Elixirs. We all picked the elixir that sounded the most delicious to us, and all three of us picked different ones.
Bethy picked the Elixir to Induce Euphoria which was pineapple with a hint of mint. I chose Fire Protection potion which was watermelon with notes of peach and strawberry. And Reece chose Draught of Peace which was blueberry, blackberry, raspberry and cherry.
We mixed our potions in bottles of Gilly Water. They were all pretty sweet, we each tried all three potions, and we all ended up liking the ones we picked the best.
After throughly exploring all Diagon Alley has to offer. We spent a little bit of time enjoying the Christmas decor around the rest of Universal. It was so fun to see all these parks dressed up for the holidays!
We happened to stroll by a parade that was just about to start, so we thought we would see how a universal parade compares to a disney parade. Consensus was that Disney has ruined all other parades, no one can come close to their magical parades. But it was still fun.
We ended our day at Universal Stuidos with a sweet, decadent Cinnabun. Beth and I LOVE cinnabuns, we used to get one at the airport every time we flew somewhere, we were devastated when we saw that cinnamon stand had been removed from the airport. Cinnamon rolls are one of Bethy's top three favorite sweet treats, so it was the perfect sweet ending to a happy birthday!
