Vacation - Day 1 - Islands of Adventure

For my youngest daughter's birthday this year I got the idea of taking her to a concert after reading a tweet from my niece about one of their idols coming to Orlando. It turned out upon further investigation that the entire cast of Nickelodeon's Victorious would be at Universal Studios to open its Summer Concert Series for 2012. With the price of admission to Universal Studios we would all be able to see the cast in concert - cue screaming - attend a Q & A session and screen an episode of the show. Because we are Florida residents we have the chance to purchase yearly passes and so we did so that we could spend this birthday gift with our daughter and count this as part of our family summer vacation. (I say part because I'm always hoping for more)

The concert was Saturday, but we made it a four day weekend, leaving on Thursday. We had had rain most of the week and the day we left was no different. We live about an hour and a half from the Orlando attractions area, and after checking in at a new Wyndham resort off of International Drive, we headed to Universal Studios to pick up our passes and survey the scene. My first experience at Universal was when my kids were tiny. The girls, my mother and I joined my sister-in-law, her kids, and her parents in Orlando for several days where we made the rounds of parks. It was February, rainy, and cold as I remember it and not much to do with a three year old and an 8 month old. The next time we traveled to the park the girls were older, but other than the Curious George part of the park, we didn't have any memories of the experience.

We went into this trip with an open mind and an excitement, on the part of the eldest members, to see the Harry Potter portion of the park. Universal has two parks; Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. We opted for Islands of Adventure for Thursday and after securing our passes we immediately headed to Harry Potter's castle. It was late afternoon, overcast with intervals of misty rainfall, and the park was not full at all. The Harry Potter adventure is in the back of the park in a very small corner not fit for a large crowd. The central focus is on the Hogwarts' castle that looms high above the village of Hogsmeade. There are various shops from the book such as Dervish and Banges, Ollivander's, and Honeydukes that one can actually enter, but like a huge portion of Universal most of the shops are non-accessible and only facades of the front of a shop.

Darcy and I do not ride roller coasters, but having been told that we could tour the castle and exit before the ride began, we all entered Hogwarts. The wait was only 15 minutes and we discovered afterwards that that was actually a downside. Because there weren't any lines we moved rapidly through the castle and didn't get to stop and enjoy the nuances and authenticates from the book. If we stopped to listen and exam an area where wizards were moving from mirrors and pictures, the people behind us would stop and then the people behind them would stop and no one wanted to jump in front of us and the line behind us would grow. Figuring we would be coming back the next day, we didn't linger and moved through the castle at a faster pace than the attraction called for.

We exited the castle and wandered Hogsmeade while Tom and Madison rode the ride through the rest of the castle. Turns out that it wasn't a roller coaster after all, but a simulated ride high in the air. Again, thinking we would be back, we agreed to move on. We went into Hogs Head and told the tender behind the bar to draw us a pint of butterbeer. We opted for the frozen kind and only purchased one to make sure we would enjoy it. By our second sip of the beverage we sent Tom back into Hogs Head to get us another one. Darcy wasn't too keen on the drink, but the rest of us guzzled it down, licking the creamy butterscotch topping off of our upper lips.

By now the rain was really coming down and we stood in the line to Ollivander's hunkered down in our rain ponchos drinking our butterbeers.  Only thirty people at a time can enter Ollivander's where a wizard chooses one person from the small crowd to help select a wand. Or I should say he helps the wand chose the person wizard. Madison was chosen from our group.

The wizard was phenomenal.  He played the character perfectly giving her various wands to try that set off bells, lightning, and flashing of lights.  Eventually he found the right wand for her which happen to be over my shoulder.  The place is filled with wands from ceiling to floor and he came over to me and reached over me to get to the wand.  At that point my phone for some reason began playing Toby Keith's Red Solo Cup in a teeny voice.  He stayed in character, studied me intently, and finally told me I appeared to be quite musical.

The wand that eventually chose Madison was about $40 so we left it behind and continued on.  The rain was coming down steadily and despite our ponchos were were getting wet through the arm holes, the head hole, and below our knees.  The rain got worse as we made our way through the park and after a couple of stops along the way we decided to exit.  By the time we got to the safety of the exit we were all drenched on some part of our bodies.

We ended the night with groceries, showers, and some television.