First glimpse of Hogwarts
My girls grew up reading Harry Potter. I remember reading the first couple of books out loud because Delaney was too little to read the books by herself and I wanted her to experience the books along with her sisters. Needless to say, they are all addicted to Harry Potter books and movies, they've read and seen them all. They have favorite characters and know all the details of the stories and the world that Harry Potter lives in. A visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was in order. Alyssa visited last year and was able to give us some good advice when we visited this time.
We were astounded and impressed at the size, detail and comprehensiveness of this world.
I think this guy stood here on purpose to get in our picture. He would not move.
As you enter the grounds of the school (the big ride) you are welcomed by these pillars with these great statues. At night, writing appears on the pillars as if by magic.
We were very fortunate that the lines were very short on the day we went. We had to wait a total of 20-25 minutes. You wait in a line that snakes back and forth in the conservatory and then you enter the castle. Loved this statue. You can't really see Delaney and Katie, I had a hard time getting photos in the castle. If I turned on my flash, I got the girls, but not the background and if I left the flash off, I got the object but not the girls. There was a lot of holograms and they did not photograph well.
HH was impressed by the overall look of the castle. They did a fantastic job.
The paintings came to life and the subjects moved and talked. It was fantastic. Because the line was short, we didn't get to spend much time in here, it is very entertaining.
The girls in front of the sorting hat.
The ride moves you all around, upside down, backwards etc. You also go between a movie type of atmosphere and then go throught parts of the castle. Alyssa warned me that it would make me sick and told me to take a dramamine before I rode it (a little tip my sister in law, Cindy, told us about). I have to admit that I had to close my eyes on about 70% of the ride, anything that followed Harry on his broom and involved plunging downward. I still felt slightly sick after for about 20 minutes and so did HH, who didn't close his eyes. The kids loved it, they did not feel sick. Earlier in the day, I was talking to a woman who's son was thrown up on during the ride. I'm glad I did it, even though I had my eyes closed on most of it, but I wouldn't do it again.
After the ride, we headed over to Hogsmeade to take a look around. The book came to life in the little town.
The girls got a pic with the conductor of the Hogwarts Express.
The kids went on another roll a coaster called the Dragon Challenge or something like that. No way was I going on it.
We were surprised that the park closed at 9, so we went back and got some pics of the castle lit at night and finally the line was short enough to try some
Butterbeer.
I got the frozen kind and I loved it. Very butterscotchy. It was a refreshing drink for the hot evening. Katie got the regular and liked it more than the frozen. These little babies were expensive, I think about $12.50 each in the souvenir mug, about $7.50 in a regular glass. I loved it and drank all mine. The girls could only drink about 1/2 of theirs - little to sweet in large doses was the comment.
These are the kind of pics I have to put up with.
All the shops were represented, it was just hard to get pictures of them without a bazillion people in them.
I was very impressed with the real life representation of the book and the details were amazing. I loved it, but I recommend it for older kids and not really little kids, unless they can handle some out of control roller coasters!
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