k-strat: Wizarding World of Harry Potter

For Eleanor's 10th birthday, we surprised her with a one-on-one trip...

She and I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando! I have always wanted to go and she has been wanting to go since she got into Harry Potter in 1st grade. Ten seemed like the time to make it happen if we were going to do it. It was amazing, and such a gift to have this time together.

We stayed at Dockside Inn and caught a shuttle to the park early in the morning. We headed straight to Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure when we got there and were so glad we did! We had about a 30 minute wait, but the wait times the rest of the day were 120-135 minutes. This ride was our favorite!

After the motorbike, we headed to the Forbidden Journey ride. The line was essentially a tour of the castle, which was so cool! I would have done this ride just for the line, but the ride itself was also very cool.

We saw the Mirror of Erised, the house points, and the herbology corridor...

We saw Dumbledore's office, the pensive, the potions room, and tons of other things like the sorting hat before heading onto the ride...

My favorite part was probably the room with portraits to the ceiling and the house founders all talking to each other, though of course we also liked the Fat Lady.

From there we rode Flight of the Hippogriff and then headed to Hogsmeade station to ride the Hogwarts Express to Kings Cross in London.

In London, we explored the station, called the Ministry for Magic from a payphone, chatted with Stan Shunpike at the Knights Bus, and the headed to Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

After that we actually had a bit of a time trying to find Diagon Alley, but find it we did and it was amazing! We went straight to Gringotts! Escape From Gringotts was such a cool 4-D ride, and the line was also quite the experience!

We hung around Diagon Alley exploring shops and doing magic. We had borrowed a wand from a friend who had come before so we could try all the magic shops. Eleanor wasn't sure she wanted to buy a wand while we were here but we definitely wanted the experience. It actually took some time to get the hang of the "magic" experiences (note Eleanor's annoyed faces in some of these videos), but she really got good by the end of our day.

The fireworks window:

The chocolate frog window:

The fountain:

We then headed to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for lunch. I had chocolate & raspberry and Earl Grey & Lavender flavors. Eleanor stuck with mint.

We went into Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes...

We watched the Tale of the Three Brothers while we ate.

When we thought we had explored all of Diagon Alley, we made a turn and kind of accidentally ended up in Knockturn Alley. We went to Borgin & Burkes and Eleanor did more magic.

We went to Ollivander's to check out the wands. There's a little performance every 30 minutes or so where they take a group of 20-30 people inside and choose one person to do the "wand experience." Eleanor was chosen, which was so cool! We had heard they try to choose a child around 11 years old because that's the official age to receive a Hogwarts letter. It was very, very cool!

From there it started raining so we left Diagon Alley and went into Universal to do a few of their indoor rides. We did Men in Black, E.T., and Transformers (for Ben).

We also saw the Delorean (though Eleanor didn't know what it was).

From there it was back to King's Cross Station to take the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade. We got to see Platform 9 3/4 on this end and "disappear" into the wall, which was such a cool effect!

Before heading back into the Wizarding World, we decided to do a couple of the bigger roller coasters. We went to Jurassic Park's Velocicoaster, and the Hulk coaster. We also did Dr. Doom's tower ride and The Cat in the Hat ride for a bit of a break.

Then back into Hogsmeade to eat dinner at the Three Broomsticks...

We explored other shops like Dervish and Bangs, Honeydukes, and Gladrags Wizardwear.

Eleanor had more fun doing magic and listening to the Frog Choir.

Then we got some frozen butterbeer - yum!

It was a super full, very memorable, but exhausting day.

The next day we got up, went down to the hotel pool, played ping pong, swam, and jenga before heading out to lunch and to the airport. Besides some dramatic travel on the way home, we had an absolutely fantastic time. What a very special way (for both of us) to celebrate Eleanor's 10th birthday!