I have been DYING to go to Harry Potter World for awhile now. Since Matt's been working in Florida one week a month and I needed to go check out Jacksonville, I was not going to let that happen without a trip to Orlando. So it worked out just perfectly that one of my best friends, Caron, was going to be in Orlando for a work conference the same week Matt had to be in Jacksonville. And she wanted to go a few days early to play, so it worked out great that I met up with Caron in Orlando before heading to Jacksonville when her work stuff started.
Caron and I used to travel all the time together and so it was SO FUN to be reunited with my travel buddy. And Harry Potter world was awesome! I loved it so much!
We had dinner at the Leaky Cauldron. It was delicious! I had some sort of sausage on a bun thing and pumpkin juice.
We also had lunch at the Three Broomsticks and my vote was that the Leaky Cauldron was way better than the Three Broomsticks. But they both had great ambiance.
Getting onto Platform 9 3/4 in London by running through the brick wall.
The Hogwarts Express!
We made it to Hogsmeade!
All the shops were so awesome. Here was the candy shop. I really wanted to buy a chocolate frog, but couldn't bring myself to pay $11 for it. So I took a picture instead.
It rained for about 30 minutes that day. Luckily for most of the time it was raining, we were on the Hogwarts Castle ride, which was indoors. It was so cool. I loved all the details!
And of course we had to try some Butterbeer! It was slightly on the chilly side so I got a warm Butterbeer and I loved it.
We went to Ollivanders to get our wands! Really, to play with some wands because they were really expensive. But they had these "interactive wands" that you could go to different points around Diagon Alley and Hogmeade and wave your wand and stuff would happen. Like a fountain would turn on or a plant would grow or whatever. So cool!
Like these knitting needles that knitted by themselves.
Stopped at the owlrey.
This mirror was pretty awesome. If you stood in front of it, it would say stuff about your outfit. Ha!
This was the entrance to Diagon Alley. You had to walk through this brick wall.
And of course we had to check out the Knight Bus.
At the end of Diagon Alley was Gringotts, it was pretty impressive and the ride inside was so cool! I did get sick on the dragon roller coaster after we walked on to it twice in a row. It really was amazing how not crowded it was. We walked onto almost every ride.
The Weasley's joke shop was so fun!
I just loved Harry Potter world so so much.
We went to Downtown Disney one of the days and they had this really awesome Lego store.
Also at Universal, they had tons of other rides and shows and stuff. We didn't get to see everything because we spent most of the day in the Harry Potter section, and I opted out of the Hulk roller coaster after getting sick on the other one. Dr. Seuss land was lovely.
And so was the comic book land.
On Sunday we went to church, had a picnic at the temple, relaxed, and went to Downtown Disney and the Disney boardwalk. The rental car they gave me was absolutely ridiculous. It was a Nissan Cube and it was awkward and weird. I told Caron to just look for the box on wheels when I picked her up the first night. Ha!
Seriously, this vacation was so awesome. It was SO nice not to have to take care of anyone for 4 days. And Caron and I pretty much wanted to do/eat the same things 98% of the time so it was great. And I didn't have to hear any whining or complaining about everything I did. Oh it was wonderful!
Thanks to Caron for inviting me and thanks to everyone who helped out with the kids to make this possible.
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