The boys got a trip to Harry Potter World for Christmas and it was finally time to cash it in! Even though they've both been on an airplane before, they were so young they don't remember it, so this felt like the first time. They were possibly more THRILLED about this than the theme park. Even though speeding down the runway, their faces were borderline terrified.
We left on a Wednesday night after Travis was done with work. Olive and Tanner got to stay with Aunt Shelley. We flew into the Burbank airport and took an Uber to our hotel. We stayed very fancy like at the Hilton which was directly across the street from Universal.
All we had to do was walk down the street and across the bridge to get to the gates!
Something called the City Walk is right next to Universal. It's like an outdoor shopping/restaurant area. Comparable to Downtown Disney. That's where we got breakfast. After dieting for nearly two months, I was going to let myself eat all the yummy things and this crepe was HEAVEN.
Seeing the big, spinning world was coolio!! Seeing it on TV my whole life, I was geeking out maybe a little too much.
After going through the ticket turnstiles, you walk the red carpet into the park! The boys were wondering if I'd ever stop taking pictures so they could actually go inside!
We all had Harry Potter shirts to wear the first day!
We started, where else?! Harry Potter World!! Walking up was surreal! I was nearly skipping with delight! I've loved Harry Potter for soooo long! I still remember binge reading the first few books with at BYU in the dorms. I can't even describe how giddy happy I was!!
We walked straight to Ollivanders to get the boys their own wands! The little production they do inside to match a kid with their wand is cute. The workers are actors and do a good job with their accents and acting mysterious. The lights flicker and books come out of the bookcases. But only one child is selected to specially be matched, then they just let you into the main area to pick out your own wand. They are organized according to a person in the books, like Hermione's wands, Professor McGonagalls's wands, a death eater wand etc. Or you can just pick a wand based off the type of wood it is made out of. They are all designed differently. Weston picked a Harry Potter wand and Collin chose one based on the type of wood it was. They were expensive! Yikes! I had been warned by a friend, but I had forgotten to warn Trav! The whole point, though, was now you could walk throughout Hogsmeade and use your wand to cast spells and see magic happen!
There were spots on the ground, marked with an insignia so you knew to stand there and flick your wand in a special way to see the magic happen! Gates would lock and unlock, smoke would come up from chimneys, displays in widows would move, etc. They had a lot of fun discovering all the places. It wasn't always easy to make it work either!
Their are only two rides in Harry Potter World.
The Forbidden Journey is inside the castle and it's legit. You sit in a full harness and feel like you're soaring through the grounds, flying on a broomstick and battling dementors, etc. It's really cool, although I felt a bit nauseous at the end! So fun getting old. I never used to feel motion sickness when I was young!
The other ride is a roller coaster called Flight of the Hippogriff and we thought it was really fun for the first 20 seconds. Then it ended.
Wah wah wahhh.
Super lame.
I loved walking all through the streets and exploring the shops. We got our butterbeers at the Hog's Head. I was surprised! They were delicious! A soda shop in Gilbert has frozen butterbeer so I thought it would taste like theirs, but the real deal is much better. They're thick and butterscotch-y and they put this creamy liquid on the top. MMMmmm!
We went to the animal show next and Weston was probably the most entertained!
As we walked past the minions taking pictures, I thought it would be fun to get ours done but as I walked closer, suddenly Collin had disappeared. We were truly confused. Turns out, he had gone to hide! He HATES these dress up characters. They freak him out! I had no idea! Well, the poor child, his parents didn't stop teasing him after that. I was determined to make him face his fears before the trip was over!
It was a little ironic to me that Universal Studios has a whole "Simpsons" land because that show was on the naughty list for us growing up! To this day I've never seen a whole episode. But we let the boys watch a couple on the plane ride over so they'd have an idea what all the rides and restaurants were about. The boys had a krusty burger for lunch!
The Waterworld Show was probably my favorite. It way exceeded my expectations! It was funny and full of action and pyrotechnics and then the end... wow! A whole plane comes crashing through the set onto the water!
Weston wanted to get wet during the show and wet he got! The actor specifically squirted him with his water gun and got lots of laughs!
Back to Simpson's land for a snacky snack! The famous pink donut!
Weston was almost as excited for the four, long escalator rides to get to the lower lot as he was for the roller coasters. :)
Pretty views looking over Hollywood in the middle of the escalators!
The lower lot had only a couple of rides but they were actually really cool. Revenge of the Mummy was a roller coaster that was fast and surprising and really fun. Then the Transformers ride you wear 3-D glasses and sit in a car of sorts and it takes you through the ride battling the Transformers, but for some reason, it was just really entertaining. Whatever technology they use makes it feel different than any other ride I've been on. Very impressed! All the rides on the upper lot were pretty lame compared to these two. Unfortunately, the Jaws ride was closed so we didn't get to see what that was about. Boo.
Since it's not peak tourist season, the park closed at 6pm, but that felt perfect. There were no lines for anything we wanted to do, so we got through almost everything there.
This is part of the City Walk at night. Kind of reminiscent of Vegas. We had spent so much money of food already, we just got a food court type dinner. The boys wanted Subway and Trav and I got these yummy poke bowls. I was craving the veggies.
Day 2, right out the gates, we saw Poppy and I forced Collin to be in a picture with her! I'm the meanest! He had genuine misgivings but put on a brave face.
The main thing we didn't squeeze into the first day was the famous studio tour! I have such a hard time hearing so this was a little annoying for me. We were so far back in the train of cars and there was a random guy in our isle so I felt like I couldn't see a lot that was out the left side. I would have done it again and sat closer to the front and on the left side. Seeing all of the big warehouses that are sets for TV shows was intriguing! I just wish we could have seen more! It would be so cool to actually see inside the sets. Certain parts we had to be quiet as we drove through because they were "live" working sets. Brooklyn 99 is filmed here! We love that show!
Cool to see a set that is made to "rain" and have a flash flood!
The set for The Good Place! I've watched a couple seasons of this so I was stoked to see it in person!
The train station of The Good Place! See what I mean about the random guy in our isle? Sigh.
The famous lake for Jaws!
Bates Motel from the movie Psycho. Never seen it, but I guess this is a big deal!
Revisited Harry Potter World of course! The way they did the castle is truly cool. Even though we didn't have any lines, I took my time walking through it and trying to capture all the details.
Turkey legs for lunch while we wait for Waterworld again! So neat we had to see it twice!
The boys got to pick a treat from Honeydukes. I bought a chocolate frog and was really excited about it. Turns out it is garbage chocolate. Like worse than cheap chocolate bunnies at Easter. I was disgusted at the lack of care in producing something even edible.
The fizzing whizzbees were a tad more interesting. We nibbled on those while watching the Special Effects show. They actually catch someone on fire. Two thumbs up. Wish we had sat closer.
We basically ran out of things to do with a couple hours left in the day. Turns out, you can do Universal in a day. At least when there are no lines or crowds. It was substantially more crowded on Friday than it was Thursday. Most of the rides are pretty lame if I'm being honest. And they are predominately the type where you sit in a seat that moves a bit while watching a screen that makes you feel like you're actually going somewhere. Which just gives me motion sickness. So we rode the lower lot rides again, which are fun, then let the boys go on them over and over and over again while we sat on a bench. They seriously rode the Mummy ride at least 12x in a row. Parents for the win.
Before heading to the airport, we went to a sit down Mexican restaurant for dinner in City Walk, then got VooDoo donuts to take home! Grabbed a box for the Goodmans too. Our flight left at 9pm and we got home around midnight. Quick trip, but so so fun!
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