The One Where I Review The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
At Universal Studios Orlando
Despite living in California, where we have our own Universal Studios with a Wizarding World inside it, we decided to visit Orlando on our trip to Florida and go to the (larger) Universal Studios with its (also larger) Harry Potter experience.
And here’s where I admit that the Miami and Orlando portions of our trip to Florida were almost entirely thanks to a random article I read over a year ago about a new train in Florida that connects Miami and Orlando.
Am I a train aficionado? I am not. But I do enjoy a nice train ride, and it’s generally better than air travel. So when I heard about this train, run by a private company called Brightline, I wanted to check it out. So let me review the train before I get to the Harry Potter stuff.
I had it in my head that Brightline was a high-speed train. (And their website even refers to it as such.) Not super high-speed like Japan’s bullet train, but maybe more comparable to the TGV, France’s high-speed rail line. After having taken Brightline, I definitely would not call it high-speed.
The entire trip from Miami to Orlando is scheduled for 3 1/2 hours. The first hour and a bit is quite slow and involves several stops: Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach. After that, it’s non-stop to Orlando, but it never really gets up to a speed that I would consider comparable to the TGV.
Southern Florida is very densely populated, and the train tracks go through a number of towns. There’s never much of a chance to get up to high-speed. So I would put it more on the level of Europe’s regional trains. But it’s still way better than Amtrak! Amtrak’s biggest problem is that its system shares the rails with all of the freight trains, and freight gets priority. Even Amtrak’s “fast” train, the Acela, is often delayed because it has to be held to wait for freight trains to pass through first. So Brightline beats Amtrak, hands down.
The actual train compartments on Brightline are also brand new, so the train feels very spiffy compared to other rail lines like Amtrak or European trains. Let’s talk again in 10 years and see how they’re holding up.
The seats are configured in a two-two layout, with an aisle down the middle. They have the usual luggage storage near the doors of each car, plus overhead racks for smaller suitcases and bags. Food and beverages are available for purchase, but in a fun twist, you can order on your phone and have your food delivered to your seat. Every seat has a flip-down tray table and a charging port. But there are no foot rests, which are pretty common in European trains.
The seats were reasonably comfortable, but a little stiff. After 3 1/2 hours, I was definitely happy to get out of that seat and off the train. Also, there are no seat belts, which I found odd.
We paid $118 for two one-way tickets between Miami and Orlando. I didn’t price flights, but I’m fairly confident we could not have gotten one-way flights for less than that. We did pay a small extra fee for the “Smart” level of ticket, which let us choose seats and allowed for full refunds up to 48 hours in advance.
All in all, it was a successful train trip, and I would take Brightline again if it operates somewhere I want to go. At the moment, the Miami-Orlando route is the only one it operates, but I suspect if it goes well, they’ll work on expanding. America’s train system is abominable, so I hope Brightline is successful.
Now, onto Harry Potter World!
We stayed at the closest hotel to Universal Studios that isn’t inside the park: DoubleTree by Hilton at the Entrance to Universal Studios (that is literally its name). It is, in fact, across the street from the street entrance to Universal Studios, but they’re playing fast and loose with the word “at.” From the front door of the hotel to the ticketed entrance of Universal Studios, it’s a mile. And then it’s another mile from the ticketed park entrance to Hogsmeade, which is where we started our day.
Wizarding World at the Orlando park is divided into two parts: Diagon Alley, which is in Universal Studios, and Hogsmeade, which is in Islands of Adventure. The Hogwarts Express train connects the two parts of Wizarding World.
You DEFINITELY want to visit both halves and ride the Hogwarts Express, but it does require you to buy what’s called a park-to-park pass, which is naturally more expensive.
I wanted to start the day by going to Ollivanders Wand Shop and buying a wand. They sell interactive wands that have infrared sensors in them. There are various spots throughout both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley where you can go and stand on a brass plaque in the ground and follow the instructions to “cast” a spell and make something happen. I wanted to do that, so I needed an interactive wand.
Technically there is an Ollivanders Wand Shop in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade (although in the books, there’s just the one in Diagon Alley). But the shop in Hogsmeade has an “Ollivanders experience,” so that’s the one we went to upon arriving at the park.
We waited in a short line for about 20-25 minutes before being invited into the shop. It’s very small, so they let people in 30 at a time. There’s an actor playing Ollivander, and he gives a talk and chooses an audience member to select their wand. It was cute, and would definitely be fun for kids. After the “experience” is over, you go into the actual shop to buy whatever. (You can go into the shop by itself without doing the experience.)
I felt like the shop could have used more hands-on support. The wands are stacked on shelves everywhere, and not very well labeled. We ended up having to pull out a lot of boxes and pry off a lot of lids to find a wand I wanted. And then I also had to double-check with the clerk to confirm that it was an interactive wand, because that wasn’t actually listed anywhere. The wands do come with a map and guide to the spells you can do throughout the park, so that was handy.
After acquiring my wand, we walked around Hogsmeade, searching out the spots where I could cast spells. My success was hit-or-miss, lol. The sensor on the window displays where you can cast spells are fairly small, and you have to wave your wand in a very tight and controlled manner in order for the two sensors to be able to read each other. We discovered this fact through much trial and error. Rhead also tried a few spells and seemed to have better luck than I did.
There are three rides within Hogsmeade: Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and Flight of the Hippogriff. Rhead and I both get motion sickness, and both Hagrid’s Motorbike and the Forbidden Journey were the type of ride that make you put all your belongings in a locker before riding. That’s a sure sign that a ride is too aggressive for us. It’s a real shame too, because Forbidden Journey goes through Hogwarts Castle and sounded really interesting. It’s so unnecessary to make that a rollercoaster-type ride. Flight of the Hippogriff is kid-friendly, so we could have ridden that, but it was mostly just a loop and didn’t really go anywhere interesting, so we skipped it.
We did have a Butterbeer while we were there. (It’s hard to avoid.) Thankfully we shared one because it was gross. The base is some sort of cream soda, so if you like cream soda (which I don’t) then you’re in luck. But they topped it with some god-awful super sweet foamy stuff. I kept trying to find words to describe it and I never could. But it was terrible.
The Hogwarts Express, however, was super cool. We rode it twice, once in the late morning from Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley, and then again in the late afternoon back to Hogsmeade. It’s totally worth riding in both directions, but the line was epically long in the afternoon. I estimate we waited about 10 minutes for the morning ride and about 1 hour for the afternoon ride, so keep that in mind.
You ride in compartments that seat 8 people on benches facing each other. The compartments look just like they did in the movies. Instead of an exterior window though, there’s a screen that plays interactive scenes as the train moves. Things like Hagrid waving goodbye as you pull out of the station, dementors flying around, dark wizards casting the Dark Mark, the enchanted car flown by Harry & Ron. It was all really cool, and they show different things depending on which direction you’re traveling, which is why it’s worth taking the train in both directions.
The ride itself isn’t very long, maybe 5-7 minutes, but I’d say it was the highlight of the visit. We actually delayed our trip by a week because I read on the Universal website that the Hogwarts Express wouldn’t be operating the first weekend of February due to maintenance. I’m really glad I read that and that the train was operational when we were there.
When you exit the train at King’s Cross Station, you find yourself in “London.” They have a photo op with the Knight Bus and a classic London phone booth, and the exterior looks like a real London Underground stop. To get to Diagon Alley you walk behind a brick wall, which took us longer to realize than it should have.
Diagon Alley is really well done. They have all the shops and storefronts, and it really feels like you’re in the movie. The only downside is that a lot of the shops are just windows; you can’t actually go inside. There are, of course, plenty of gift shops you can go into. There is SO MUCH STUFF to buy in Wizarding World. Besides the wand, I limited myself to one t-shirt and a luggage tag, both of which I had intended in advance to purchase. I thought about getting a fun Hogwarts Railways sweatshirt, but it was $60, so I passed. I did have to talk myself out of a lot of merch.
Tucked away in Diagon Alley is Knockturn Alley, where all the Dark Arts shops are. They take “dark” literally—you can barely see in there, lol. But it’s worth strolling through.
Because Wizarding World is nestled within larger parks, there are other non-Harry Potter things to do, of course. The only non-HP thing we did was the Jason Bourne Stunt-acular, which was very high tech but also kind of cheesy. If you’re a fan of the Bourne movies and have some extra time, it’s worth seeing. Just temper expectations.
Universal Studios is open from 9 am until 7 pm. We had arrived shortly before 9 am and thought we might make it to sunset, but we left around 5 pm. We had seen all the Harry Potter stuff, and we didn’t really want to do anything else. Plus, after walking 8 miles a day Monday and Tuesday in Miami, and then another 5ish miles getting to Universal and getting around Wizarding World, I was dead on my feet. By the time we walked the two miles back to our hotel, I literally could not take another step.
Thankfully we had leftover dinner from the night before. I failed to mention that the day we took the Brightline train to Orlando, we just took an Uber from the train station (which is near the Orlando airport) to our hotel. There isn’t much in the immediate vicinity, but there is an Indian restaurant called Tabla that is walkable from the hotel. The food was delicious and the portions were enormous. We were able to keep leftovers in the mini-fridge in our room, and the hotel had a microwave on the lobby level that we used to reheat them. It was clutch.
As far as lunch goes, we didn’t eat inside Hogsmeade because the options are limited. Instead we found an Irish pub in the main park and had some pretty decent pub food and some much-needed Guinness. The food was still expensive, but not as bas as Miami. Here’s the breakdown of costs for this part of our trip:
Train tickets: $118 (two one-way tickets)
Hotel: used points
Park tickets: $413 (two one-day park-to-park tickets)
Food/drinks: $147 (one dinner, one lunch, one Butterbeer; I brought Rx Bars to eat as breakfast)
Uber from train station to hotel: $30
Merch: $123 (the wand alone was $65)
Grand total: $831
Next week I’ll share my thoughts on Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Disney World!
Cheers!
Risa
