30.08.2012 – 30.08.2012  34 °C

Day 2 in Orlando saw us head to Universal’s Islands of Adventure or more commonly known as the home to Harry Potter! We managed to get to the gate before the big crush of people started to arrive so because we were so early we headed straight up to Harry Potterville to see the re-creation of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts castle.

D suckered me right in and got me to go straight onto the big roller coaster in Hogsmeade the Dragon Challenge. Thankfully, the line up was miniscule so I didn’t get a chance to freak myself out before I got onto the ride. The drop at the top was big enough (although not quite in the same category as Busch Gardens) that once on this ride ticked my box for big rollercoaster action at this park! (I’m sure D wanted another ride, but once was more than enough for this little black duck!) So Dragon racing done!

Next stop was into the re-created village of Hogsmeade and over to the castle. At the outset I’m going to say what an amazing job the Universal guys have done at re-creating the movie sets of the town and the castle. You really do feel like you are walking through a real town that really has crazy witches and wizards living here. In fairness, there are more muggles walking around than wizards but the re-creation is something to see for any HP fan.

The castle itself is a work of art. As you line up for the ride (which we were told was a flight simulator—but I’ll get to that later), the queue takes you thru the different rooms of the castle. There is a wander thru the Herbology rooms, complete with those squealing Mandrake thingys. A stroll through the Defence against the Dark Arts Classroom and a stop thru the Professor Dumbledore’s office, inclu pensieve and Fawlkes! The ride itself is pretty mind blowing and actually was too much for both me and M.

It is one big flight simulator that is driven on tracks. You don your 3D glasses (already I was feeling queasy) you hop into this carriage (which is a roller coaster style with pull down handles) and you are moved in every direction as you “fly” thru the castle on a broom stick. It really made me feel pretty sick and poor old M didn’t know what had hit her! I spent most of the ride with my eyes tightly shut so that I wouldn’t vomit… Certainly not for anyone who suffers from motion sickness because the way the roller coaster moves and the movie screens makes it pretty life like! To be fair, M and I both agreed that we wouldn’t have missed it for anything because the waiting areas were so well done… It’s a bit disappointing actually that you can’t just walk thru the castle without the big ride at the end… I’m sure there are heaps of kids (and adults) who would love to see the castle but aren’t able to do the ride at the end…….. (An added point.. if M and I had’ve known how bad the ride was its debatable whether we would have gone on it…. I’m sure I would have still been suckered in but M would have missed out for sure)

After HP-ville we had to find somewhere quiet to rest, so we headed into Jurassic Park to find some shade (its super duper hot today) and get M a nice cold drink. After a break of half an hour or so we headed into some air cond-ed comfort to see some dinosaur bones. It was supposed to be the HQ for JP (as it was in the movies) except it is so dated now that it just doesn’t work anymore! We hung around for a grand total of about 10 mins before we headed back out into the heat to find a splash ride to cool ourselves off.

The next splash ride we found was in JP. Thankfully, M didn’t hop on the ride… I say thankfully because the way the ride read in the brochure I thought it was a river rafting type ride… Not so, it is one very giant flume ride with a mammoth drop at the end.. Holy Smokes, three big rides in one day and this poor old chicken was feeling it!!!!

By this time of the day it was almost lunchtime so we headed over to see the Sinbad show. It’s a pyrotechnic/ acrobatic show where Sinbad saves the girl, kills the evil witch and gets the treasure… Your run of the mill, hero saves the day type show complete with fireworks, fire, sound effects and thankfully a seat with a back rest. The show itself was ok, the break was SUPER welcome!

Lunchtime saw me push the olds into having lunch in the 3 Broomsticks.. I mean how many times in my life am I going to be able to enjoy a Butterbeer in Hogsmeade? Yep, you heard me right, butterbeer in Hogsmeade! To describe the taste and look of Butterbeer….. The beer (which is a non-alcoholic soda drink) is honey coloured with what looks like a big head of beer on top… So think Guinness but change the beer colour to a dark honey colour and you’re pretty close… Actually, the head on the drink is actually some sort of icecreamy stuff and the drink is super sweet and syrupy… It was so bad that I only got thru about half a glass… If you love very sweet vanilla-ry creaming soda with fake icecreamy stuff on top you will probably love Butterbeer.. Me; one word- YUK!

We actually decided to call it a day once we had, had lunch. Reason being that we have another day up our sleeves at this park so rather than go all out and be exhausted we thought we’d be better off doing a half day and doing something else for the afternoon.

That something else ended up being cooking a lamb dinner and more shopping! Yep we headed back to the outlets again, this time D and M were on the hunt and I was randomly wandering. My wandering was so abstract that I actually managed to leave behind my beloved umbrella….. Now what am I going to do? My special Polish purple umbrella has become my latest casualty… Aah!

Song of the Day– The Who, Pinball Wizard