We rolled in in our bright red Mustang convertible (rental) through this town that looked like vacation. I wondered if anyone actually lived there, or if the people working in the shops, restaurants and hotels commuted from outside of paradise. The sky was blue and everything seemed colorful. We found a place to park (a few blocks from the actual beach, and it didn’t appear that any parking was free), walked to the beach and set up our towels. When we stepped into the water for the first time, it was way too cold for me. It was April, so I knew there was a chance the water would be pretty cold, but lots of people were still in up to their necks having fun, and I wanted to be one of them. Except the waves kept scaring me off. There were so many waves. I don’t know if it was just the weather that day, or if the waves are usually that great on that beach, but they were the kind of waves that would knock you down. Not-so-coincidentally, they were also the kind of waves that made for a lot of fun if you had the right gear. We ended up going to a little beach hut to buy a boogie-board. That was what made the afternoon. I wasn’t so afraid to go in deeper when I had this floatation device velcroed to my wrist, so pretty soon we were taking turns riding the waves on this board. Let me disclose something: the last time I was on a boogie-board, I was a child and I happened to also be on a beach in Florida. I hardly remembered anything about it from when I was kid, except that it was so fun that I spent most of the afternoon on my belly riding that board, and because of that, I ended up with the worst sunburn I had ever had on my back. So that day at Clearwater Beach, I was sure to use sunscreen. I sprayed waterproof SPF 50 all over my body multiple times throughout the day, and I still noticed myself getting pink. And every time I saw some pink I would re-apply. Despite all that effort. I still ended up with a horrible sunburn. Everywhere. I was burned on my legs, my arms, my chest, my hands, my feet and even one of my eyelids. I have no idea why one and not the other, but I’ll count it as a blessing. I’m telling you all this now so that you can avoid the mistakes I made. I thought that since I was re-applying so frequently, I was fine. But the problem was that I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the amount going on in each place. As I’m writing this, the red is gone and it has turned to tan, but definitely not an even, sun-kissed glow. I look like I have a skin condition. There are stripes of tan on me where I didn’t get enough sunscreen, and stripes that are normal, with the stripes meeting each other in a series of speckles from the spray-on application. Luckily, this didn’t start hurting until the drive home, so we were able to enjoy walking the boardwalk, shopping in all the cute stores and eating at a restaurant right across the street from the beach, where I pretended I was Katy Perry by sipping gin and juice underneath the palm trees. That whole town was just so adorable. If we ever got tired of being in the water or lying on the beach, there was always something else to do within walking distance. Then we could go back to swimming and lying on the beach. I suddenly go the appeal of beaches as destinations.
And by the end of the day, we were tired and ready for showers, but we still got to see the beautiful sunset. And it was beautiful. 
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The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was magical. End of post. The end. I’m kidding, but it’s hard for me to sum it up any better than that. It really felt like I was in that world for the day. The castle was beautiful, the dragon was spectacular and every last details was exactly what it would have been in that magical wizarding world. I’ll break down the two sections for you.
 Hogsmeade is where we tried our Butterbeer. When you go to a Butterbeer stand, you can get regular or frozen. They’re both good, but the regular is amazing. And my mom had her mind set on trying Butterbeer ice cream, which is not sold at those stands, but only in an ice cream shop in Diagon Alley. She ended up getting that without me, so I can’t speak to it, but she raved about it. Now, I want to tell you about the biggest ride in Hogsmeade. I had heard a lot about the Escape from Gringotts in Diagon Alley, because it’s newer, so I didn’t know much about Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It was a “virtual ride” like I described in my other Universal Studios post, except in was on a track, so there were some screens with effects, and there were some real props as you rode through this ride. And before we got on, there was a warning, like on all the rides, that said don’t get on this if you’re pregnant or have a heart condition etc. etc. What they should have added was: don’t get on this ride if you have severe arachnophobia. That is my sincere advice to you. Advice that no one gave me. You’re welcome. I was literally sobbing as huge prop-spiders dropped from the ceiling two feet in front of me. I can barely watch that scene in Chamber of Secrets let alone live it. I guess that’s also when they took the “fun” souvenir photo, because when I got off the ride and saw it, the photo showed my hands covering most of my face so all you could see was my mouth hanging open in a crying-frown like a child. Because apparently I am one. No, I do not have a copy of that photo. There was another small ride in Hogsmeade called The Flight of the Hippogriff. This seemed like more of a kids’ ride, because it was very small and low to the ground. But it definitely wasn’t just kids riding it. When I was there, the line was very short, so we rode it, and I liked it. It’s not a thrill ride, or anything, but it’s part of the experience. Although I wouldn’t have waited in a long line for it. Diagon Alley I thought you would only be able to get your $50 interactive wands at Ollivanders in Diagon Alley, but I guess that would cause an even longer line than any of the rides, so you can pretty much get one anywhere, Hogsmeade included. I went into it knowing that I was not going to spend that much on a toy wand, even if it did cool things around the park. In all my research, there were two “secrets” to the park that everyone said you had to do, and one of them was buy and use these fancy interactive wands. And man, am I glad I didn’t. Not only are they crazy expensive for a piece of plastic (I think. Maybe some of them really are wood.), but every little stop where you can do some “magic” with your wand had a line of children waiting their turn to swish their wand at it. And it took several tries per child to get it to work. On a few occasions, I would be shocked to see that a line to get into a shop was out the door, then I would realize, no, that’s not the line for the door, that’s the line for the shop window, where everybody wants to make the toad hiccup (or something). Then I would walk right inside, line-free. Usually I didn’t even have the patience to watch what it was the wand was supposed to do to each thing, because it was just a show of frustrated children not swishing their wands effectively. I wasn’t about it.
Escape from Gringotts was amazing. This was probably the longest line we waited in, but it still wasn’t too bad. While I’m on the topic of lines, even the queues in the Wizarding World were fun. If you were in the Hogwarts Castle, you were in the Hogwarts Castle, passing talking portraits and the Mirror of Erised. If you were in Gringotts, you were in the bank, passing goblins and vaults. It made waiting in line not so horrible. The ride was another part-virtual/part-ride, and it didn’t disappoint.
I recently returned from a non-national park trip. Maybe I’m broadening my horizons. Maybe I like mixing things up. Maybe it was a family trip, and I didn’t get to choose the destination. Whatever the reason, I was stoked to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That’s right folks. I went to Orlando, Florida. We had a little less than a week there, so we decided we would spend two days in Universal Studios, but save Wizarding World for the second day, and do it all at once (Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley). Aside from the Wizarding World, I didn’t really know much about what all is in Universal Studios or what it would be like. I have a little experience with actual theme parks from going to Silver Dollar City too many times to count (shout out my fellow midwesterners!). I don’t just mean general Six-Flags-Style amusement parks, but actual parks with a theme, like Universal Studios ended up being. I loved the fake streets filled with pedestrians that separated fake city blocks that made up fake cities, like San Francisco, New York City and London. It made me feel like I had stepped out of reality. Which was the goal, because it was supposed to look like an actual film studio lot. So it was trying to look like a place trying to look like another place. Theme park Inception! This also meant that a lot of the cutesy looking shops were fake. Found that out the hard way! Every once in a while, we would run by some sort of cool paraphernalia that, of course, I would feel the need to take a photo with. So can you blame me for taking this cheesy photo next to the DeLorean from my absolute favorite movie?  One of my favorite “cities” in this park was The Simpsons’ Springfield. The Simpsons is the one adult cartoon that I actually like, so when I had the chance to try a real Duff beer, I took it. Was it good beer? No. Did I hold it up to the sign and take a photo anyway? You bet your sweet patootie I did.
So many of the rides at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are kind of virtual rides. I hadn’t had any experience with a ride like this before this trip. The first one we got on was Jimmy Fallon’s Race Through New York. “Virtual ride” is probably not the technical term for rides like these, but what I mean is that they would give you 3-D glasses that blocked out your peripheral vision so you could only see the huge screen in front of you and sit you down in a… room, I guess? Definitely not a traditional roller coaster car. Once the “ride” starts, the room/car/thing would shake around and move with the action on screen so it felt like you were there. I got off the Race Through New York, and I was so impressed. I’m a fan of normal roller coasters, and I won’t compare this kind of ride to that, but it was fun in it’s own way. My dad, however, was more sick than impressed. I hadn’t been paying attention to him during the ride, but he told me afterward that he was so nauseated in the beginning seconds that he took off his goggles, and when that didn’t help, he had to close his eyes for the rest of the ride to avoid throwing up on the people sitting in front of us. It can definitely mess with your head. He didn’t go on anymore of the virtual rides. And there were a lot. And unlike the Race Through New York, some of them were on a track and still moved you along, switching from real sets and props to screens and back, like Skull Island: Reign of Kong.
In fact, I think the only real thrill roller coaster we went on on the Universal side was our first ride of the day, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. You have to pass by the Minions to get there (on no. what a tragedy.), but it’s pretty close to the entrance of the park. This ride was so much fun, and what made it really cool was that when you sit down on the train, you can pick the song you want to listen to from a list of options on a screen in front of you. Everyone can pick a different song. I chose Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, which I highly recommend, but my dad wasn’t quick enough to the draw, so it picked something random for him. So know getting on that you have to be pretty quick. Other than that I think the only traditional thrill roller coaster was the Incredible Hulk in Islands of Adventure, which is essentially just Universal Studios part 2. With these two parks, you can buy park-to-park passes or just a ticket to one of them. We only did park to park on the day we did Wizarding World, so I’ll talk more about that in that post. Islands of Adventure was also separated into sections, except they weren’t exactly cities, like on the Universal side. It had a comic-themed section of the park where there was not only the Hulk ride, but a Spiderman half-virtual/half-actually moving ride. (I’m really starting to wish I knew the real name for that kind of ride.) And there was a Dr Suess section of the park, which was tons of fun to just walk through. It makes you feel like you’re in a Suess book, which, yes, is pretty trippy. Basically, anywhere in both of these parks transports you to wherever they want you to be, fictional world or otherwise. It’s magical. And I haven’t even gotten to the Harry Potter part yet... |
About the blog.I started this blog in 2017 with the goal of seeing all the U.S. National Parks and writing about them. But as I kept writing and posting, I realized there's so much more I want to document in my life. So, the blog grew into something much broader and even more special to my heart. Archives.
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