Universal Studios Florida actually has 3 parks. Universal Studios Orlando, Islands of Adventure, & Volcano Bay (which is the water park). We all bought park hoppers to the 2 main parks so we could go back & forth between them both days we spent there. We didn't know which park we would like more, so we wanted options . . .
and so we could ride the Hogwarts Express. Yes, the main reason was so we could ride the Hogwart's Express between both parks both days. (What can I say? Our last name is Potter! We're HP fans!)
We started our day looking through the City Walk & then entered into the Islands of Adventure Park. We also splurged a little bit of extra money & bought the front of the line passes for our first day at the park. It costs $$, but I'm SO glad we did it for at least one of our days. It allowed us to ride every single ride quickly (you go to the front of the line for each ride one time). The 2nd day we didn't do as many rides since we rode EVERYTHING the first day. It really came in handy since it was Spring Break & it felt like the entire world was visiting Orlando. It was wall to wall people & the lines were SO long. But with the express pass, we were able to ride everything in park without waiting in lines.
There were fun little photo opportunities all over the place at Universal, but you had to look for them. The girls found the Delorean hidden behind a building & had to get a pic.
We ran into a few characters too. The kids really liked meeting Po.
And Wolverine.
The first ride we rode at Universal was the Hulk Coaster. Talk about a fun roller coaster. I love how it shoots you out of the tunnel into a loop. SO MUCH FUN. My girls loved it too.
While we rode the Hulk Coaster, my mom & dad took the rest of the kiddos to Dr. Suess land & let them ride a few rides over there. They were in heaven.
One of our favorite areas of the park was the Jurassic Park area. Jurassic Park is one of my favorite rides at Universal. I still remember it from when I was a teenager. I loved it. My kids loved it, except Taya. Taya is still a little (lot) scared of anything jumping out at you. When the first dinosaur popped up, she was DONE.
The drop on this ride was awesome, so much better than the one in CA. I loved it. And we all got pretty wet too which was nice since it was SO hot outside.
But of course the highlight of BOTH days at Universal was Harry Potter World. We could have spent an entire week there exploring every nook & cranny. It was fantastic.
The Hogwarts Castle & Hogsmeade Village is in Islands of Adventure, & Diagon Alley & Platform 9 3/4 is in Universal Orlando. I personally liked the Castle & Hogsmeade better than Diagon Ally, but the Gringott's Ride in Diagon Ally was my favorite ride in BOTH parks. It's amazing.
My kids were in heaven in Hogsmeade. We had butterbeer. . . cold, frozen, & hot. We loved shopping & we LOVED the rides. The ride in the castle is amazing! The kids also loved the Buckbeak roller coaster.
The kids brought all their birthday money & money they've been saving & bought all sorts of fun things from chocolate frogs, to butterbeer, to wands. They were having a blast.
I love butterbeer. I had all 3 versions during our time there. Hot is my favorite, but cold & frozen are really good too.
The kids enjoyed seeing the Hogwarts Expressed & loved talking to the conductor.
Taya bought a Hufflepuff Prefect badge to proudly wear everyhwhere she went. She is definitely my little Hufflepuff.
We visited Ollivander's wand shop & Cadence got chosen to be part of the show. She got to choose a wand or should I say "the wand chose her." It's a one of a kind wand & she bought it after the show to always remind her of her experience there.
After exploring Hogwarts & Hogsmeade for several hours, we boarded the Hogwarts Express & rode on it to the other park, Universal Orlando (this is the main reason we got park hopper tickets. We wanted to ride the train!) ha ha ha.
At Universal Orlando, we explored a little bit, especially around the "London" area of the park. We found some phone booths & the Knight Bus, as well as 12 Grimmwald Place where Sirius Black lives.
It was fun talking to Stan Shunpike & the shrunken head at the Knight Bus.
We passed from London into Diagon Alley & had a BLAST there. The favorite store was Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Best store ever!!!!
Everyone LOVED the dragon on top of Gringotts that breathed fire. It was SO cool
The Gringott's ride was my favorite out of ALL the rides in both parks. I loved it. I loved walking through Gringotts bank & seeing the goblins working. I loved the ride & how exciting it was. If you're going to Orlando, RIDE THIS RIDE.
The kids visited Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes SO many times. They bought candy, jokes, toys, & more. It was such a fun shop.
After Harry Potter World Diagon Ally, we wandered the Universal Orlando park & rode several more rides that the kids enjoyed.
I liked the Jimmy Fallon ride. My boys LOVED that one.
But the most memorable moment of the entire day was the Popeye's River Rafting Adventure ride. It was getting late & everyone was a little tired so we were heading back towards the park entrance, but wanted to ride anything that looked fun on our way out. We saw some rafts as we walked over a bridge & thought "Oh look, how fun! It's like a lazy river with rafts in it!" So we checked out the line & there wasn't one. NO LINE WHATSOEVER (That should have been our first clue). So we dragged the kiddos on thinking, "This is going to be fun for them!"
BOY WERE WE WRONG!
Talk about not knowing what we were getting into. My friends had warned me about a "water ride" at Universal that soaked you to the bone, but we had passed a big log ride like Splash Mountain earlier & figured that was what everyone was talking about. We were wrong. What we thought would be a leisurely lazy river ride turned out to be a torrential downpour of more water than you could imagine.
As 13 of us got into our 2 rafts, we saw some people getting off some rafts. They looked like they had jumped into a pool in their clothes (clue #2). They looked soaked, cold, & absolutely miserable, but it was too late; we were strapped in & our raft was already set loose. Trek & I eyed each other with a look that said "What have we done?" We looked down at each of our kids just hoping that last raft was horribly unlucky & that we would be just fine.
It started easy enough. . . a cute lazy river of fun that ran under that bridge we walked across earlier. But then all of sudden the rapids kicked into high gear. I've ridden river rafting rides before & there's always rapids. . . it makes the ride exciting. . . but these rapids were so strong they starting spilling into the raft. Within 2 minutes we were all soaked from the waist down. Within 4 minutes we had hit the first waterfall. And when I say waterfall, I don't mean a small drizzle of water . . . I mean buckets & buckets of water streaming directly over the raft. Trek & I saw it in the distance & were frantically calculating which way the raft was turning & who was going to hit that waterfall head on. Imagine our horror when we realized it would be Taya (the one person who we had to convince that this ride would be fun & not scary). And it hit. And it hit HARD. Screaming & tears immediately followed. Her screams echoed throughout the entire river cavern. Craiger, after hearing her screams & seeing her soaking wet, started his screams as the next torrential downpour of water hit him with a force that would knock a grown adult over.
The ride continued with waterfall after waterfall after waterfall. The rapids continuously sent waves of water over the rafts & into our seats & shoes. The waterfalls picked it's victims with evil furosity as poor Craiger & Taya got continuously rained upon. It was never ending.
FINALLY, we hit an area where the raft was being lifted up on a ramp. It was over. Taya & Craiger were crying uncontrollably, Canyon was crying as he shivered from every inch of his 5 year old body, & Trek & I just gasped a sigh of relief that it was finally over. Both of us glanced ahead & realized that we weren't at the end, we were being lifted up a DROP. And beyond the drop? More rapids & more waterfalls. Our eyes locked in horror & we grabbed hold of our screaming children & fell down the drop into more rapids. This was the ride that never ends. More rapids, more waterfalls, more screams, & finally . . . .
PEACE.
It was over. We undid our seatbelts & peeled our poor, shivering, soaked, screaming kids off their seats & walked them in their squeaky wet shoes off their worst nightmare. We squeaked our way down the exit ramp & just stared at each other in complete bewilderment. My brother's family exited after us. Their expressions were similar to ours. Their youngest got the brunt of every waterfall & from her swollen eyes, I could tell she had been crying for some time.
We huddled up together with blank stares & then my brother & I started to chuckle. The chuckles turned into tumultuous laughter & pretty soon we were all laughing at our misfortune. We looked hilarious. We grabbed a random stranger & had him take a picture of us. We wanted to remember this moment.
Luckily after we all calmed down from laughing, crying, & the shock of what had just happened, we found human blow dryers & spent $5 drying ourselves off. The highlight of our entire day was sitting next to the dryer & watching other unfortunate people come off the raft ride with the same blank expressions we had as they wrung out their clothes & poured out their shoes.
Although it sounds awful. It really was the highlight of the day.
It was a fabulous, MAGICAL day & I'll never forget it!!!!
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