The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (more vacation stuffs)

Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan... but not so much of a fan that I'm enraged that I did not get my Pottermore welcome email yet (I'm just a little bit disappointed). But all that aside, The Wizard World of Harry Potter was ridiculously amazing. When I first heard that we would be visiting Islands of Adventure while in Florida, I knew that TWWoHP was the first place I wanted to visit...
What can I say about it? Words do little to describe the atmosphere. They played HP music as you walked through Hogsmeade, and Hogwarts Castle (which was a ride) was beautifully crafted... so much so that it only felt like we waited 30minutes (and not 1hour and 20minutes) to enjoy the ride. The Hogwarts express was very majestic, and I just wanted to hop on and have it take me away to wizarding school :P

What I found hilarious was how they revamped the old unicorn ride to make it the "Flight of the Hippogriff" and the Dueling Dragons ride was redesigned to be the "Dragon Challenge" between the Chinese Fireball and a Hungarian Horntail... oh Universal Studios, way to use existing rides to save money on having to build new Harry Potter themed ones.

One of the things I knew I had to try while at TWWoHP was the Butterbeer. I've come across so many recipes for it online that I really wanted to try the real thing before I ever attempted to make my own. I bought it at the Three Broomsticks, and chose the frozen one of the cold. It was amazing! Sort of like a slightly fizzy, caramel, ginger ale-y slushy with a creamy foam on top... the description makes it sound awful I know, but it was heavenly (and just typing about it is making me want one right now!)

And of course no trip to TWWoHP is complete without buying some sweets. I have terrible sweet-tooth and that coupled with my love for Harry Potter meant that of course I would have to buy a chocolate frog (even though they were $10!!!). I really bought it for the wizard card that was inside and then when I opened it and found Helga Hufflepuff I was rather disappointed and started eating the solid hunk of frog-shaped chocolate because I really wanted Godric Gryffindor. Somehow my sister convinced my dad to buy her one too... but she got Rowena Ravenclaw :( Anywho... I'll leave you to drool over pictures of sweets :P If I have time I'll probably finish up my vacation-related posts with some pictures of the cruise!!