Make-A-Wish Day 2: Universal Islands of Adventure

Every time I asked our boys where they wanted to go first they would answer without delay or the slightest variance: “to buy wands!” So there really was no question where we would begin our amusement park adventures; Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Island's of Adventure.

Jacob holding wand boxes; inside Hogwarts castle

Our first stop was indeed Ollivander’s where we purchased three souvenir wands (one for each boy including Daddy!) and then we took the boys on their first-ever roller-coaster ride: The Flight of the Hippogriff. As suspected Isaac absolutely loved it and Jacob enjoyed it…after it was all over. This was also our first experience with the magic get-to-the-front-of-the-line pass (awesome!)

The adults took turns riding The Forbidden Journey ride inside the castle (what an amazing ride! It’s like part roller-coaster, part simulator, part haunted-house—I can’t even imagine what it cost to build!) and then we took the kids inside of the castle (since they couldn’t go on the ride) to see the talking paintings, Dumbledore’s office and the defense against the dark arts classroom.

After that we looked around at all the little shops in the “Hogsmeade” village (the detail is awesome here—it doesn’t feel like any other amusement park) and then we enjoyed lunch at the Three Broomsticks restaurant, which I really liked (Scott said the ambiance was better than the food but I thought it was great—authentically British with a bit more flavor. And I’m now on the hunt for a good Cornish pasty recipe!) 

Lunch at the Three Broomsticks: Grandpa and Jacob; Ellie likes the Butter-beer!

Harry Potter World was a lot of fun, I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the first place we went to or not, but it really was kind of magical. It was also crowded and hot, but a very well-done park.

This castle was so cool (note the crowds, folks, this place was packed!)

Our next stop was Jurassic Park to see the dinosaurs. Isaac (and Grandpa’s!) favorite ride was the Pteranodon Flyers—we rode that one over and over. 

Pteranodon Flyers ride

All sorts of creatures in Jurassic Park!

Next we came to Rip-Saw Falls, Universal’s Splash-Mountain-like ride. Now, I didn’t know how the boys would do on this ride (remember they had just experienced their first kid roller-coaster in Harry Potter World) and I was a little nervous that they wouldn’t like it. Boy, was I wrong! It is still Jacob’s favorite. He still talks about it and he still loves it. He rode it six times that day!

I guess we weren’t wet enough after Rip-Saw Falls so we rode Popeye’s boat ride and got completely soaked. We rode that one a couple of times too, just to make sure we were good and soggy. It was about this time that the sky clouded over and the afternoon monsoon threatened us. We really didn’t care though, we were already as wet as we could get and having so much fun.

Near the end of the day my sister talked me into the Hulk roller coaster. I was so nervous—so nervous. And it didn’t help that the gal at the gate told us that people throw-up everyday on this ride. ‘That’s just awesome,’ I thought. But I loved it, I was smiling-screaming the whole time. And that was my one and only big scary roller-coaster. I’d done one for the trip and that was enough!

After a long day of amusement park-ing (that’s a verb now) we went home to our villa to have a pizza party in our PJ’s. It was the perfect day.