We had initially planned to spend an entire day at Epcot, but on the bus to Hollywood Studios we met a family who went on and on and on about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios. As major Harry Potter fans and the parents of a daredevil looking for roller coasters, we decided to drop half a day of educational fun and hit up Universal. We read that it was important to go to Olivander's to get a wand straight off, so we headed to Diagon Alley first.
Kids, if you are a Harry Potter fan, you owe it to yourself to get to the Wizarding World. It's amazing.
The wandkeeper at Olivander's selects one child to fit a wand to and guess who he chose? Not Alli. So there was a really cool demonstration where the girl he chose tried several wands until one worked for her. Then we were emptied out into the store, but not before the wand keeper stopped us, pulled us back into the room, and fit Alli with a wand. Talk about special! She got a ivy wand with a unicorn hair core. We immediately went across the street to Madam Malkins to get Alli her Gryffindor robes so she was truly a wizard.
We rode the brand new Escape From Gringotts ride and then hopped on the Hogwarts Express through Platform 9 3/4 to see Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
We rode all of the rides in Hogsmeade and then hopped back over to Diagon Alley for lunch, where Ryan and I finally got a Butterbeer.
Interesting fact: Diagon Alley is built on top of where the old Jaws ride used to be. And if you know me at all, you know how much I love Jaws. I'm sad the ride is gone, but I still got to pay homage.
After half a day in Universal, we headed to Epcot for a few hours. We used our Fast Passes, spotted some dolphins, had a little Turtle Talk with Crush, and then made it to our dinner reservation at the underwater restaurant.
And so concluded another fantastic day in Disney World - only one day left to blog about!
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