Shared A Butterbeer With Harry Potter

Being the 57 year old teenager that I am, the wife is out of town for a week and with no plans on Sunday I decided to drive 3 hours to Orlando to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. In the past few years I've seen all the attractions at Universal and Disney. I've been chomping at the bit to see this since they opened (in case you're wondering, no I didn't wear my wizard hat or robes-I save those for the privacy of my own home).

The look of the park is awesome, especially Hogwarts. I could’ve just stood there and stared at it, if I didn’t have to stand there wiping water out of my eyes as it was cold and rainy. The first attraction I saw was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, inside Hogwarts. I loved the walk thru the castle with the talking pictures(like in the movies and books) and varying objects and projections. The ride itself was awesome-along with Spiderman the best of all the parks, including Disney. The Flight of the Hippogriff was a pretty tame coaster. You walk by Hagrid’s hut, which was cool. Would’ve been nice to go inside. Other than that, there wasn’t much to it. The ride itself is very short but has some good views. The path leading to the Dragon Challenge was cute. There's the Triwizard Cup, the crashed car Ron & Harry flew to Howgarts, and a few other things of interest. I bypassed the coaster-would’ve been the vomit comet for me. I thought the stores were just ok, including Zonko's for tricks, Honeydukes for candy, and Ollivander's, which had a long line early. I didn't go into Ollivander's. Who needs a wand-I've already got my wife's broomstick(don't tell her I said that!). There's also a shop in the castle, and a restaurant(Three Broomsticks) and pub(Hog's Head). Butterbeer is sold all over and it's really sweet. It had a pretty good taste like a cross between cream soda and butterscotch, with a vanilla cream head on it, but I couldn’t take more than about 3 swigs because of it's richness. The whole park isn’t very big. I’d love to see more added on to it like Diagon Alley and some other attractions. I’m sure they are already working on it.

I tried the dessert "Spotted Dick" a couple
weeks ago in London. Apparently, it makes
an appearance in Harry Potter. Does it show
up on the theme park/pub menus? Seems like
that would sell like hotcakes to the park's
target (immature) audience, just for the
snickering/fear-factor novelty alone!
(It's pretty much like a bread pudding with
warm custard poured over it; the version I
tried was delicious.)

The 3 Broomsticks is pretty basic touristy American/English pub food. It didn't seem real appetizing to me.

http://harrypotterworldorlando.com/full ... estaurant/

I'm totally thrilled with your report. Nice to know that there are other 50 somethings out there who are captivated by Harry Potter. I don't own a broomstick, but I have a wand!

If only the next park to open at Disney World were Middle Earth, I could die a happy man. Just think of all the things they could do with that theme.

SCUBAchef wrote:I tried the dessert "Spotted Dick" a couple
weeks ago in London. Apparently, it makes
an appearance in Harry Potter. Does it show
up on the theme park/pub menus? Seems like
that would sell like hotcakes to the park's
target (immature) audience, just for the
snickering/fear-factor novelty alone!
(It's pretty much like a bread pudding with
warm custard poured over it; the version I
tried was delicious.)

The Spotted-Dick-in-a-can is showing up at grocer's everywhere. And I still titter when I see it on the shelf. (I just wrote "titter.")

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000II ... 7YAHE1QBZT

RevrendAndy wrote:If only the next park to open at Disney World were Middle Earth, I could die a happy man. Just think of all the things they could do with that theme.

I'll take a brace of coneys and a venti Light of Eärendil, no whip.