I am a MASSIVE Harry Potter fan, just like 99.99% of the population out there and when I had the chance to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios I was like a grown up kid who had finally been handed my Hogwarts letter! Harry Potter world was incredible and well worth a visit by any fan!
My excitement for this post came about when we booked tickets recently to go to the Warners Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour here in the UK. We are heading up tomorrow and I am beyond excited – butter beer & broomsticks come at me! I thought, in my excitement that I would share my experience at the Universal Studios Harry Potter World with you all and for those of you who have also been lucky enough to visit, you will understand my excitement and love of this place!
I was in primary school when the first Harry Potter books came out and I remember all the “nerdy kids” at school would read it at lunch time and I thought to myself how I would never read them! A few months later I had to have a week of school due to illness and my mum suggested I give them a try! I think I devoured the first three books during that week and then would eagerly await the release each year of a new book and film!
J K Rowling is an amazing author, she truly has made reading cool again for kids! Most people I know (like 99.9% of them) absolutely love Harry Potter and I now basically refuse to be friends with people who don’t like the books or films!
I will admit I was pretty devastated when my Hogwarts letter never arrived & I am just convinced that it was lost in the mail! That’s not to say I didn’t try and make my way onto the Hogwarts Express in London earlier this year… letter or not!
I visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter whilst I was travelling through the US with seven of my friends from Summer Camp. We worked in a Summer Camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia and following camp we all flew to Florida and then spent three weeks roadtripping through the South all the way from Miami to Vegas! It was an amazing experience and one of my highlights was without a doubt Harry Potter World!
We arrived at Universal Studios first thing in the morning having purchased a two day/two park pass. We were so excited that we literally charged through the park to Harry Potter World!
I immediately fell in love with beautiful, snow capped Hogsmeade, a village that any HP fan will instantly recognise. The creators of Harry Potter World have done an amazing job bringing Hogsmeade to life!
All the main shops from the Harry Potter books and films are represented in Hogsmeade from Ollivander’s Wand Shop to Honeydukes and Zonko’s Joke Shop! It was like a dream to be walking through a fictional place that I had been reading about and imagining myself in for over a decade!
Everyone knows that you can’t go to Harry Potter World and not get a butter beer! It was summer when we visited and the frozen, sweet and delicious butter beer went down a treat! I am so incredibly excited to go on the Studio Tour tomorrow to have more butter beer! YUM!
One of the most famous & most popular parts of Harry Potter World is the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey Ride. The queues are always ridiculously long but every single person in our group loved it and said it was worth the wait! Most of them are avid roller coaster & ride lovers and the majority said it was the best ride they had ever been on and that had the most amazing special effects!
Unfortunately for me I get motion sick on rides and spent most of it with my eyes closed trying not to be sick, but I still loved waiting in line which is all part of the experience! You slowly wander through the castle as the line moves along and there are amazing sets and decorations which have had incredible attention to detail paid to them. It literally felt as if we were in Hogwarts!
After the excitement of the ride (and my nauseau had subsided) I’m not going to lie… we probably spent almost an hour in the gift shops trying on robes, hats, scarves, waving around wands and getting our hands on any and all other merchandise we could (all whilst posing for photos of course)!
Just a little tip… the shops inside of Harry Potter World are seriously busy & packed all the time but the souvenir shops in the rest of the park also sell Harry Potter merchandise, so don’t feel like you have to battle the crowds just to try on a robe and turn yourself into a wizard or witch!
I absolutely LOOOOOVED Harry Potter World and can happily say that ANY fan of Harry Potter will too! It literally felt as if we had been transported to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade with all the gorgeous themed shops under the towering castle along with the music playing throughout along and a butter beer in hand! I truly think the creators of Harry Potter World have done the books and films justice! I would go back in a second and am SO excited for tomorrow to visit the Warner Brothers Studio Tour!
Are you a massive Harry Potter fan too?
What other HP film sights & locations would you recommend?
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