Universal Studios Adventures!

Being that the girls had already been to Disneyland last year, we didn't really want to take them to Disneyworld when we were in Florida. We soon realized that we couldn't really go to Florida without going to at least one theme park. So we did some research and asked the girls if they would like to go to DisneyWorld or The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Barely two seconds had passed before they both blurted, "HARRY POTTER!!!!" And so it was that we bought a 2 day ticket to Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure!

Marin and Calli all dressed up for the day, getting ready to leave the resort.

Grandma and Grandpa came with us our first day as we explored Universal Islands of Adventure and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was great because it also allowed Adam and I to go on adult rides together!

The Adventure Begins

Once we got in the gates, we decided to head straight for Harry Potter. Here are Adam, Calli and Marin walking through the Dr Suess section of the park!

Marin and Calli finally make it to Hogsmeade!! They were SO very excited and Calli was physically shaking while standing there! These kinds of moments make all the hassle worth it! They were living a dream!

Standing by the Hogwarts Express!!

Inside Zonko's Joke Shop/Honeydukes Candy shop. We bought a package of Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans and a chocolate frog for our friend who was taking care of Horsie for us. We spent quite a while in there just looking at all the cool stuff and remembering when Harry, Ron and Hermione ate particular treats or experimented with different joke items!

Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans!!

Chocolate Frogs!!

The Three Broomsticks!

Owl Post

Marin got a lovely large lollipop and the girls spent a long while testing magic wands to find the perfect one. Granny had given them each a bit of money to buy their own wands! (I love Calli's face in this photo! She was mesmerized by the wall of wands and all the possibilities!!)

All the mail piled up in the Owl Post Shop.

Checking out wands. The shelves you see there had all different wands from each character in the Harry Potter series, so a person could admire each one and choose the perfect one for themselves!

They figured it out! Calli chose Sirius Black's wand and Marin chose Hermione Granger's wand.

We rode the Hippogriff rollercoaster a few times! It was perfect for all ages! Grandma even gave it a go!! Here are Calli and Marin outside Hagrid's hut!

The Hippogriff rollercoaster in action. The had nice big fans blowing cool air on us as the weather was pretty darn hot!

Inside Professor Sprout's greenhouse, zig zagging in the line to get into Hogwarts Castle for the Harry Potter Adventure ride!! (Marin was too short to go on the ride and was immensely disappointed, so we took her on the Hippogriff coaster....again....)

Along the way we saw a caged area housing the squealing Mandrakes!!

Inside the castle were many paintings and portraits and true to the books and the movies, the portraits were moving and speaking and travelling from picture to picture!

Dumbledore's office
Unfortunately, you can't see him in the photo, but Dumbledore was there in a hologram chatting to all passerby!

In Professor Snape's classroom we found the dark points about the Defence Against the Dark Arts class..

My family and I outside of Hogwarts castle!

The entrance to Hogsmeade.

Inside the Three Broomsticks where we stopped for lunch and drank Butterbeer and Hogshead Ale!!

Adam had a turkey leg for lunch. He was determined not to let it get the best of him.

...and he won!

Mmmm...Butterbeer....

Calli taking a photo of Mandrake's in the window! We found everything to be so well thought out. Even Moaning Myrtle's moaning voice was piped into the washrooms! We watched a choir sing some of the tunes from the movies, the street signs and lamp posts were authentic, the food was amazing and you really felt as if you were in Hogsmeade and would see Harry, Ron or Hermione at any second!

Another entrance/exit into Hogsmeade.

We went on this Jurassic Park water ride which was super cool! At the end you come down an extremely steep water fall and your boat hits the bottom with a fair amount of force. We sat in the front row and even though the bar holding us in was padded with thick styrofoam, Calli still managed to smash her face on it on the way down and got a major bleeding nose. The paramedics had to come and check her out and administer ice and take a statement and the Universal rep took a statement as well and gave us a handful of tickets enabling us to jump the line ups on most rides!! We were impressed with how they handled the whole thing and even offered to wash Calli's bloody clothes!! If we'd had a spare change of clothes, we might have taken them up on it!

This sequence of photos is really funny! Adam, Calli and Marin were standing in the "Splash Zone," to watch the boats come down the waterfall. They knew they'd be getting wet. Grandpa decided we wanted to watch with them...I'm not sure he realized how wet he would end up getting!! To the left of the photo you can see the back of a lady's head and you can see the back of Grandpa's shirt just up and to the right of the lady. Watch the sequence of photos....

...Here comes the splash!!

...it's getting closer...

...realizing they are going to be soaked...

...duck!!!!

Adam and Marin walking to the next ride afterwards!!! Haha!! Luckily it was over 30 degrees celsius and our clothes dried out really quickly!

This was the Incredible Hulk roller coaster that Adam and I went on together!!!! Yikes!

Dr Suess World

On the second day, it was just the four of us. We were on our way to go on the Simpsons Ride, which had been highly recommended to us by friends back home. On our way, we came across Shaggy and Scooby Doo!! Marin was too shy to have her photo taken with them.

Walking through Universal Studios. It looks like a real city!!

We found Woody Woodpecker and Winnie Woodpecker!!

And Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat!! Calli got their autographs and gave them hugs!!

Adam went on the Rip Ride Rocket 3 or 4 times while we waited for him!! It was CRAZY!!

Universal Studios!!!

Calli asked to have a hair wrap put into her hair on the last day. She picked out her favourite colours and a few beads to put on the end and the wrap lady got started!

Altogether it took about 10-15 minutes and I never took a photo of the finished product!! Silly me! It lasted for about 5 weeks before we took it out. I noticed her hair was breaking up by the roots and didn't think it would be nice for her to have a huge bald patch up there!!

At the end of the day the girls asked if they could go back on Brutus' Bilge ride. We had done it the day before with all four of us and Grandpa and were absolutely soaking wet! It was SO much fun! So the girls went on the ride with their Dad and got very wet again!!

There they go, down the waterfalls!!

SOAKING WET!!!

We had a super fun time at the parks and I'm glad we had the opportunity to spend some time there!! Stay tuned for the actual shuttle launch!!!!