Years ago when Danny began reading the Harry Potter books I promised him we would take a trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida when he was done reading all seven books and watched all the movies. (Each time he finished a book he was able to watch the corresponding film.) After reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone together as a class at the Waldorf school last fall, Michelle sped through the series and Danny granted permission for her to join us. At the end of February I planned everything for the school’s 4 day weekend in October. We were so excited and especially grateful we could still go as planned even with the pandemic safety measures closing the parks down for months. By the time we got to Orlando you could tell the theme parks had things down to a science. We stayed at the cheapest of the Universal resorts (Endless Summer Surfside) and lucked out that they accidentally gave us a nicer room than I reserved and they let us keep it. We each got a queen bed to ourselves and I got a bedroom to myself. Many nights I would fall asleep before the children did while they quietly watched a movie in their area. The restaurant/grab and go did not disappoint for food either. The buses were amazingly well run and we even had the entire bus to ourselves twice. Waking up early to take advantage of resort guests getting in an hour early to the parks was totally worth it because Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure ended up being our favorite ride and once we got to ride it twice in a row because the lines were so short. I was literally shaking when we got off Hagrid's. It was our favorite part of the day. We were able to do everything we wanted with our Buy 2 Get 2 3-Park Tickets even though the parks felt very crowded, especially on the weekend. Diagon Alley has that wow factor and Gringott's used to be my favorite ride but the children didn't think it was worth the 90 minutes wait on Friday and we spent most of our time at Islands of Adventure enjoying Hogsmeade, Jurassic Park and Danny even got me to ride the 3 Marvel rides like Hulk, which made me shake too. Saturday was the only day we went to the parks in the evening which was nice after having dinner back at the hotel and resting a bit we rode Men In Black, ET (classic!), the Simpsons (we all agreed it was so bad) and Transformers in the hour before closing. Gotta love it when rides are short and thank goodness for All Day, Non Drowsy Dramamine! Tip: bring along a disposable rain poncho for Ripsaw Falls and the barges if you don't want to get soaked but wait until the last minute or else you'll get too hot. If you do want to get wet without going on a ride, hang out in the Jurassic Park splash zone (thanks Rix Flix) and take a break or con your children into taking a picture and everybody laugh when they accidentally get soaked!
Our last day at Universal Studios we rode Minions and The Mummy ride (twice in a row) while most guests headed to ride Escape from Gringott’s first thing in the morning, took the Hogwarts Express, did some souvenir shopping and went back to Volcano Bay because we had such a good time there the day before. This was our first time at a Florida water park and we absolutely loved it. Volcano Bay has a Hawaiian theme and was somehow relaxing and exciting at the same time. For example, when a thunder storm came through on Monday afternoon and no one was allowed in the water for a couple hours, lots of children simply played in the sand under one of the many shade umbrellas waiting for the all clear. The Tapu Tapus are so handy (like Disney’s Magic Band) and even though we only had to wait in one virtual line for the aqua coaster it made it so that when we went to the park the second day we left my phone at the hotel and didn’t have to rent a locker. My top three favorites were 1.) the super fast lazy river called TeAwa the Fearless River 2.) the aqua coaster named Krakatau and 3.) the blue slide called Honu. The 3 of us decided that if all 6 of us could only spend one day at Universal we would bring the family to Volcano Bay!
Our last day at Universal Studios we rode Minions and The Mummy ride (twice in a row) while most guests headed to ride Escape from Gringott’s first thing in the morning, took the Hogwarts Express, did some souvenir shopping and went back to Volcano Bay because we had such a good time there the day before. This was our first time at a Florida water park and we absolutely loved it. Volcano Bay has a Hawaiian theme and was somehow relaxing and exciting at the same time. For example, when a thunder storm came through on Monday afternoon and no one was allowed in the water for a couple hours, lots of children simply played in the sand under one of the many shade umbrellas waiting for the all clear. The Tapu Tapus are so handy (like Disney’s Magic Band) and even though we only had to wait in one virtual line for the aqua coaster it made it so that when we went to the park the second day we left my phone at the hotel and didn’t have to rent a locker. My top three favorites were 1.) the super fast lazy river called TeAwa the Fearless River 2.) the aqua coaster named Krakatau and 3.) the blue slide called Honu. The 3 of us decided that if all 6 of us could only spend one day at Universal we would bring the family to Volcano Bay!
After seeing what online learning was like the first 6 weeks of school, I decided to extend our trip one more day and we used that extra day to take a Lyft to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We rode Smuggler’s Run twice, got in boarding group 13 for Ride of the Resistance, visited Toy Story Land (including Midway Mania 2x), rode Tower of Terror and Rockin’ Roller Coaster, tried Ronto Wraps (meh), had frozen treats (yay) and finished up the day with our first time on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad and eating dinner at 50’s Prime Time Cafe. Considering we weren’t resort guests, there were large crowds and it closed at 7pm, I think we were lucky to get everything done we wanted!
I am so grateful I got to take my middle children on this trip. They are a dream come true and we had such a good time together. Turns out Universal masks are very comfortable we kept buying more so really the social distancing, etc. didn’t bother us. Spaces were clearly marked and announcements and signs reminded people about masks. Universal was really good about hand sanitizer while Disney was really good about masks and social distancing. Once you’ve read all those Harry Potter books and your kids are about 10 years old, we highly recommend Universal Studios Florida -- all 3 parks -- and DHS!
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