The last time we were in Florida for a Disney trip, we knew we wanted to visit Universal. Dustin had never been and I hadn’t been in almost 10 years. We are both HUGE Harry Potter fans so we were very excited about visiting! There were definitely other parts of the park that we were excited for, but Happy Potter was the biggest thing. Going into the day, we knew we wanted to prioritize Harry Potter World over anything else and then if we had time at the end of the day we would do other parts. We had plenty of time to get done what we wanted/needed!
The Tickets
We purchased the 2 park 1 day ticket and we felt that was plenty of time to do and see everything we went to see. You have to purchase the 2 park ticket if you want to see all of Harry Potter World. We started our morning in Islands of Adventure and went straight to Hogsmede and we were in immediate awe!
We chose not to get their fast pass system and once we were there we didn’t feel like we even needed them. We were there in the beginning of December and never waited more than 40 minutes. Now if you go in the summer, you may want to splurge and get the fast pass or “express pass” as they call it. Honestly it was too much money for us, I think it was like an additional $90 per person!!
The Food
Breakfast: We stopped to get coffee at Starbucks right at the entrance where all the shopping is. Luckily at this Starbucks there were the egg bites that are gluten free and I was able to eat breakfast!
Lunch: We ate lunch at the Leaky Couldron(thats in London .. haha I couldn’t help myself). We tried the pumpkin juice and butter beer to drink and then for lunch Dustin had the Fish and Chips and I had the gluten free specialty chicken sandwich! Both were very good!
Dinner: We were pretty spent by the time dinner rolled around, we decided to grab a drink and eat dinner at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. This was located at the Universal CityWalk. We couldn’t eat at Margaritaville and not get margaritas, I had tried the watermelon marg and Dustin tried the blackberry marg. We split chips and guac for an appetizer and for the main meals, Dustin had Jimmy’s Jammin’ Jumblaya for dinner and I ended up getting the Florida Grouper Sandwich… SO good, it was the perfect amount of spicy and delicious!
The Rides
We really liked all of the rides in Harry Potter World, we liked Flight of the Hippogriff, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Escape from Gringotts, Hogwarts express(sort of a ride, more of an experience). We really spent most of our day wandering through different parts of Harry Potter world and just soaking that all in!
Outside of that we enjoyed The Revenge of the Mummy, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, Fast & Furious: Supercharged and Despicable Me Minion Mayhem! All of the wait times were less than 30 minutes and we were there on a Saturday but in December.
We rode Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon and we both got off of it feeling very sick and it pretty much ended our day.. If I am being honest, most of the rides, pretty much 95% of the rides we went on we felt like we were stuck in a box and shaken up. It was a lot of simulation rides. Don’t get me wrong, those can be fun! But ride after ride of it can make you really sick, at least it made us sick.
Other than that, we loved visiting Universal Studios and Harry Potter World and now that there is a new ride in Harry Potter World we would love to go back! Have you been? What was your favorite part?
