Harry New Year!

Another year, another holiday trip.  A year a ago, we did Christmas in Vegas, and for New Year's 2015 we headed down to Universal Studios Orlando for some Harry Potter fun.   Of course, as the family's new-media archivist ( my scrap-booking wife is the family's old-media archivist ) I felt obligated to produce a photo essay of our trip.

I'm sorry to say that our adventures this year were not anywhere near as exciting as our Vegas adventures last year.  No famous magician did a close-up magic trick for Peter and Michael didn't get a chance to entertain more than 1000 people with his antics on stage.  However, we did have lots of fun, and I'll share it all with you in the photo essay below.  I'll also try to give a few tips in case you find yourself at Universal Orlando in the near future.

Dec 28, 2014

We flew in on the 27th, so Sunday that 28th was our first day in the park.  We were too wiped out from our travel day to get up early enough to catch the 6:30 AM shuttle from our hotel, so we got the 7:45 shuttle instead, and rolled into the park about 8:15.  Of course, after hearing some much about the newest Harry Potter attraction, our first stop had to be Diagon Alley.

Well, actually, we didn't get the view above for a while, because despite getting to the park at 8:15 AM, by the time we got to Diagon Alley, there was already a large line leading out of it stretching all the way past the Men In Black ride ( Here's my first tip to those making a trip to Universal : If you are planning to head to Diagon Alley at the start of the day, approach it by heading through the Simpson's part of the park and the Men In Black part of the park.  We approached Diagon Alley from the other direction, and when we got there we had to spend another 5-10 minutes walking to the end of the rapidly-growing line.  We would have saved ourselves both time and walking by heading through the Simpsons part of the park to reach the end of the line.   I guess an even better tip is to get to the park at 7 AM each day without making you family want to kill you ( more on that later ) ).

This photo above was taken while waiting on line to get to the Gringotts ride.  By that time,  we had already been waiting on line for 20 minutes, and we had not even reached Gringotts yet.  The official line starts when you reach the Gringotts entrance, and if you can zoom into the lower right corner of the photo above, you'll see that the official estimated wait time from the start of the line was 140 minutes.  This bring me to my next tip.  Pee.  Seriously, pee.  Pee before you get on the line for this ride.  Make sure your whole family pees, do not not drink anything while on line, and for God's sake don't even think about anything remotely related to water.  We all made it to the ride without any issues, which was a minor miracle considering that there was an additional 15 minute wait at the end of the line when the ride broke down for a while ( Another important tip: After getting off the Gringotts ride, the closest bathroom can be found by walking in the direction we were facing when we took the picture above.  If you walk in that direction, you'll find the bathrooms to the right in the grey building with a roof that looks like a church spire. ).

While we all waited on the line not thinking about water, we got to see lot's of Gringotts-related scenery, like the sign below.

The scenery inside Gringotts was absolutely beautiful. 

At some point before you get to the end of the line, there is a spot where they offer to take a family photo.  I would advise against doing this.  You'll be passed in line by several families if you stop to take the photo, and the background of the photo is just a plain wooden wall.  There's really no good reason anyone would pay 20 bucks for a photo like that, so don't waste your time taking the photo.

I'm sorry to say that after all that waiting, the ride proved to be a bit of a disappointment.  Sure, it's fun to try anything new, and I don't regret waiting so we could see it on the first day of our trip, but the Gringotts ride is nowhere near as good as the Hogwarts Castle ride on the other side of the Universal complex.  The ride is a mild indoor coaster combined with a 4-D motion simulator ( For the uninitiated , 4-D is 3-D plus real-world effects.  For example, a 4-D ride will augment a 3-D image of water by sprinkling water on you. ).  Unfortunately, the 3-D effects were sub-par.  At times, it seemed like the 3-D images were flat cardboard cut-outs moving in front of flat backgrounds.  There really wasn't any time during the ride when it felt like I was looking at something real.  This was in contrast to almost every other 4-D ride in the park, all of which were spectacular ( BTW, the Spider Man 4-D ride is still my favorite, while both the Minions and Transformers 4-D rides were fantastic. ).

In any case, by the time we got off the ride, it was already lunchtime, so after we all took that much-needed trip to the john ( or "the loo", as they might say in London ), we headed to the Leaky Cauldron to have an English lunch.

Here were our menu choices ...

I went for the "Toad in the Hole", which, at the very least, kinda sounded like something you could actually get in London.  Anyway, the "Toad in the Hole" looks like this, and pretty much tasted exactly how it looks.

In other words, it was nothing spectacular, but I appreciated getting some veggies in a theme-park meal.

After that we, took a photo in front of a popular joke shop, got some ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and ventured into Knockturn Alley to take a look at the vanishing cabinet inside Borgin & Burkes.

After that, it was time to chat with Stan Shunpike and Dre Head in front of the Knight Bus.

We also got a look at the the inside of the Knight Bus ...

... and well as the front.

After that, we decided to try something else we'd been eagerly anticipating before our trip.  It was on to King's Cross Station to take a ride on the Hogwarts Express!

Of course, before we could ride the Hogwarts Express, we needed to get to Platform 9 3/4.

After we got off the Hogwarts Express, we spent a little time in Hogsmead and Suess Landing ...

 ... before taking the Hogwarts Express back to King's Cross

After that we took a scenic walk to the entrance to catch our shuttle back to the hotel.



Dec 29, 2014

Day 2 started when my iphone alarm went off at 5 AM.  The hotel we choose gave us the privilege of entering the Universal parks an hour early at 7 AM, and damnit, we were going to take advantage of it!  The rest of my family didn't seem as enthusiastic about the early start as me, but they'd come around when they saw how short the lines were in the morning ( at least I hoped so ).

Our first stop was the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride at Hogwarts castle.  Even with the early start, we still had to wait on a 30 minute line, but that's a lot better than 3 hours.

I took the shot below while on the outside part of the line.  This angle kinda of ruins the illusion of a giant castle, but I still think it's a pretty shot.

The shot of the Sorting Hat below was taken while on line as was the video of the Sorting Hat giving safety instructions.

The ride, as usual was great, but unless I'm going crazy, I detected some differences in the line.  As those who have been to Universal before may know, the Harry Potter line is almost as good as a the Harry Potter ride.   There are moving/taking paintings everywhere, Dumbledore's office ( where Dumbledore speaks to you ), the Sorting Hat, and a classroom scene where a 3-D rendered Harry, Ron, and Hermione speak to you.  All of that's still there, but it seems like everything was lot darker that it used to be, as if they had reduced the wattage on all the light bulbs or something.  Maybe I'm just going crazy, but it seemed darker in there that before, and it was harder to see some of the scenery.

In any case, the ride's still really great, and after the ride we spent some time in Hogsmead.  While we were there, we took the opportunity to take a photo in front of Honeydukes, just as we had in the Summer of 2011.  Look at how much the boys have grown!

We did a little bit of shopping after that, and the boys got close up looks at the "Monster Book of Monsters" and a few remembralls.

After that, we decided to head back to the other side of the Universal complex via the Hogwarts Express.  This time, we actually took some pictures of the interior of the train.  Taking the Hogwarts Express is really a remarkable experience.  The inside of the train looks exactly like it was depicted in the movies ( BTW, the depiction in the movies was almost exactly as I imagined it when I first read the books ), right down to the benches in the individual compartments.  You can almost imagine that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sitting next to you on the way to Hogwarts.  What makes the ride even better is that the "window" on the train car is actually a video screen which shows the world of the Harry Potter books outside the windows.  Before the trains rolls out of the station, the "window" shows bricks that match the back wall in the station you are in ( different bricks for King's Cross station and Hogsmead station ) along with "steam" from the train ( you can't see it in the third picture below because the flash must have washed out the video coming from the "window", but the illusion works really well when you are in the train car.  Appropriately, the order of the scenery outside the window depends on the direction you are going in, and there are different surprises outside the window depending on which direction you are going in.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough, you can also hear and see ( shadows ) of Harry and his friends out in the hallway of the train as the rides goes on.  There's so much going on both sides of you that you'll want to ride the Hogwarts Express multiple times in each direction to make sure you catch everything.

BTW, the photo above was taken on Platform 9 3/4 after we got off the train at King's Cross.  I'll show a picture of the Hogsmead station platform  later in this essay.

After we got off at King's Cross, we headed straight to Springfield.

We started by going on the Simpsons ride.  It's a motion simulator ride in the former location of the iconic "Back to the Future" ride ( I don't know if it is actually the same building they used for the "Back to the Future" ride, but it could be considering that it is exactly the same kind of ride. ).  While I was little sad to see that the "Back to the Future" ride was gone, I did not come away disappointed, because this ride is more fun than the "Back to the Future" ride ever was.  While it would be tough to top the pre-ride experience of the Hogwarts Castle ride, the Simpsons ride just might provide the most fun pre-ride experience in the park.  While you wait for the ride, you see ...

1) A bunch of scenes from the Simpsons episode that features Krustyland.

2) Krusty's add for the Canyonero.  I could watch this all day.

3) A bunch of original material, including ...

a) A great homage to the "Back to the Future" ride.

b) Some funny stuff with Apu, Patty and Selma, and Willie the groundskeeper.

c) Fake notices with fake wait times for various Krustyland Rides.  My favorite was the following ...

d) A hilarious story that sets up the ride

The pre-ride experience was so great that it was the one ride where I wished the line was a little bit longer, because I'm not sure if we got to see all the original material.

That being said, there was nothing wrong with the ride itself.  It may have been the boys favorite ride, and thanks to the short lines ( never more than a 15 minute wait ), I think we went on the ride about 5 time over the last 4 days of out trip.

As great as the ride was, it felt like it was only the cherry on top of a great Simpson's experience.  To a big Simpsons fan like myself, this place was Nirvana.  After we were done riding the Simpsons ride ( twice that day ), we walked all over Springfield are posed in front of some familiar spots.

( Unlike the other places in Springfield, there was no store behind this window.  "Worst - fake facade - EVER! ).

After that, I hung out with Duffman, Michael hung out with Milhouse, and Peter shared a doughnut with Chief Wiggum.

Speaking of doughnuts, the Lard Lad Donuts were fantastic.  They taste like a wonderful hybrid of a Duncan Donuts doughnut and a Krispy Kreme doughnut.  They are less cake-like than Duncan Donuts, and less yeast-y and chewy than Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but they just might be tastier than both.  It's hard to describe how stunned I was that I was eating something that good in a theme park.  Sure, they were still charging theme-park prices ( $6.99 for 4 doughnuts ), but it was well-worth the price.

To summarize ...

If that wasn't enough, Lard Lad Donuts also sold a huge doughnut called "The Big Pink."  This doughnut cost $4.99, which is actually a great deal consider it fills up the same box they use to sell a 4-pack of doughnuts of for $6.99.  We didn't try the Big Pink for breakfast, but when lunchtime rolled around Michael could not resist.

Yeah, perhaps that doughnut doesn't have all the nutrients a growing boy needs, buy hey, we don't go to Springfield every day ( Anyway, he had some regular lunch, and we all helped him finish the Big Pink ).

Meanwhile, I could not resist having a genuine Krustyburger in Springfield.

BTW, I did not finish that burger - it was absolutely awful.  That thing probably had more fat than the Big Pink doughnut, without the benefit of the great taste.  If you find yourself in Springfield, try to resists the siren song of the Krustyburger.  Yeah, I know it's Springfield, and it seems so cool to have a Krustyburger there, but it was truly one of the worst burgers I've ever tasted.

To wash the bad taste of that Krustyburger out of my mouth, I hung out at Moe's for a while.

The boys got great results ( Casanova ) on the Love Tester ( Yes, I did get "Cold Fish" ).

I decide to help Moe man the phone for a while.  It wasn't long before Bart called and asked me if Al Kaholic was there.



We then went on the E.T. ride ( I'm kinda surprised it is still there.  I still like the ride, but the boys couldn't care less about E. T.  The first time Ruth and I rode it ( back in 1995 ), we were excited when E. T. said our names, but it seems like the ride is poorly maintained these days, because garbled barely intelligible stuff came out of E. T.'s mouth when he tried to say our names this time. ), checked out SpongeBob StorePants,

hung with Curious George,

and ran into a couple of meddling kids.

I took a shot like the one below with the Jaws shark back in 1995 ( BTW, the Jaws ride was replaced by Diagon Alley - his carcass is now hanging in "San Francisco" for some reason. ), so of course Ruth wanted the boys to take a similar shot.

We concluded our long day by taking a photo outside the front gate of the park.

Dec 30, 2014

Tuesday, started with the 5 AM alarm again, and after getting to the park at about 7, we managed to get on the Minion Mayhem ride twice in a 10 minute span.  We then managed to hit the Transformers ride and the Men in Black ride soon after that ( BTW, as I noted earlier, the Minion ride and the Transformers ride are both awesome 4-D rides.  However, the Men in Black ride is just one of those shooting gallery rides ( like the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney ), which some people love, but I've always found a bit tiresome.  As long as I'm giving ride reviews, I'll also note the the Shrek 4-D ride had a great pre-show, but something seemed a bit off with the 3-D ( There were plenty of times when I was saw two images rather than a 3-D image when something was supposed to be popping out of the screen. ).  The pre-show for the Terminator 3-D show felt really dated ( It included a "Shaq can't shoot free throws" joke ), but the 3-D effects in the main show are still top-notch. ).

If you look at the photo below, you might notice something that doesn't jibe with what I wrote earlier.

I'd mentioned that we went on the Minion ride twice in 10 minutes, but the sign behind us indicates the the wait time for the ride was 120 minutes.  We needed to take the picture above right before we left they park because I didn't give Ruth enough time to take a picture of the boys and me in front of the ride in the morning.  I was so eager to hit as many rides as possible, that I barely gave my family time to catch their breath.  By the time we got to the late afternoon, we had gone on a tremendous number of rides, but my family was completely wiped out.  Worse yet, it had been drizzling all day, and Michael's wet sneakers had started to fall apart.  Even worse yet, we had worn those Minions T-shirts specifically so we could take a picture together in front of the Minion ride, and my maniacal drive to ride as many rides as possible kept us from doing so in the morning.  Worst of all, we had traveled to the other side of the park ( The Islands of Adventure side, rather than the Universal Studios side where the Minions ride is located. ), but the time I realized we were suppose to take the Minions photo.

  At this point, I wasn't sure what to do.  I knew Ruth had wanted us to take Minions photos in those shirts, and I figured that best place to take those photos was in front of the Minions ride.  However, the kids feet were in pain, Michael's shoe was falling apart, and everybody just wanted to go back to the hotel.  However, the next shuttle home wasn't going to be for a while, so I convinced everyone that we could kill the extra time by trudging over the the Universal side of the complex to take a photo in front of a Minion ride.  Well, as you see above, we did get the Minion shot, but I think that last bit of walking got everyone even more mad at me ( BTW, taking the Hogwarts Express from Islands of Adventure to Universal Studios wasn't really an option at that point.  It would have been a 40 minute wait to get on the Hogwarts Express at that time of day, and considering we were close to the Islands of Adventure exit, and the Minions ride is close to the Universal Studios entrance, getting to the Minions ride via the Hogwarts Express may have entailed even more walking than simply walking from park to park ).

In an any case, this day was an A+ in terms ride volume, but a C- when it came to keeping my family happy.  Not much else to say about day 3, but I'll share a few more photos before I move on to day 4.

Look, I'm back in Queens!

Well, at least we got a shot of boys in front of Hogwarts Castle that day.


Dec 31, 2014

As you might guess from the photo above, I did not wake my family up at 5 AM on this day.  Instead we took it easy that morning and got the 8:30 AM shuttle to the park.  Smiles all around.  Sometimes it pays to take it easy, even if you do miss out on a few rides.

Despite getting our latest start of the week, it wasn't that crowded when we got there, as you can tell from the photo below.

However, the streets were not completely deserted.  Look who we found hanging out there!

Of course, we also had to take a shot in front of the Mystery Machine.

We also spent some time at Moe's, where I took a couple of shots to capture the atmosphere of the place.  Notice that the boys got "Casanova" on the Love Machine again.

Peter used the phone in Springfield,

I enjoyed a Duff,

and Michael had his own Krustyburger ( I guess his young arteries have a better tolerance for grease than mine ).

We even saw a few of the Simpsons ( not sure what Bart and Maggie were up to then ).

Later, in the day, we spent some quality time in SpongeBob StorePants.

Oh, and of course, everybody loves a parade,

and Peter loves to dance!

 OK, so the picture above is one that deserves a story.  The "Disaster" ride is the new name for what used to be called the "Earthquake: The Big One".  Ruth and I had enjoyed the Earthquake ride quite a bit back in 1995, and some research told me that the "Disaster" ride still featured the earthquake special effects.  The picture above was taken on day 4, but we actually tried the ride for the first time on the day 3.  After waiting on line for about 45 minutes on day 3, we discovered that you needed to watch not one, not two, but three pre-shows ( one featuring Christopher Walken playing a hack director of disaster films ) before you got to go on the earthquake part of the ride.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to go on the earthquake park of the ride, because at the end of the 3rd pre-show, they told us the last part of the ride was having technical issue, and we wouldn't get to go on it.  The gave us fast-passes for our trouble ( BTW, those fast passes were not valid for the Harry Potter or Minion rides ), but it was still disappointing to walk past the "Earthquake" train we had enjoyed on 1995 without getting to go on it again.

Well, during our lazy care-free day 4, we decide to try the Disaster ride again.  This time the line was much shorter ( about 15 minutes ), but after the 3 pre-shows, the same damn thing happened again!  No earthquake ride, but fast-passes instead.  I wasn't too upset, but Michael had a bit of meltdown after that.  It probably took me about 90 minutes to get Michael completely calmed down.  In the end, missing the earthquake ride those 2 times turned out to be a good thing, because those fast-passes saved us about 200 minutes combined we we used them on the Spider-Man ride and the Transformers ride.  BTW, did I mention that the Transformers ride was awesome!

( Getting ready for some Transformers 4-D fun! )

BTW, we'd tried the Disaster ride one more time the next day, and we finally got on the earthquake train.  The train was good, but not as good as the Transformers or Spider-Man rides, so we probably would have been better off with more fast-passes.

Eventually, we found ourselves back at Diagon Alley.  The line for the Gringotts line seemed fairly reasonable that day, so we gave it another try.  The ride wasn't really any better the 2nd time around, but we did get some more shots of the fabulous Gringotts interior.

Ruth also got a shot of the Gringotts dragon breathing fire!

She also got it on video!



After that, we took a trip to Ollivander's to get some wands.

The boys loved their wands.

We're glad we didn't get the wands back in 2011, because the wands back then were wands only a squib would love, while these wand could actually do magic!  There are plenty of places in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmead where you can wave your wand to make magical things happen, and the boys spent the next hour casting spells all over Diagon Alley.

For the photo below, I'll just repeat what I wrote on facebook:

It would be a black day if I gave anything on the order of a Harry Potter spoiler, so let's just say the boys were serious about taking this picture.

We decided to go to bed before midnight that night, so our New Year's Eve celebration consisted of these photos we took at about 7:15 PM when we left the park.

Jan 1, 2015

The boys still has plenty of spells to cast, so our first stop on our last day was naturally Hogsmead.

We started by heading to Hogwarts Castle one last time.

While there, we discovered that Gryffindor was doing pretty well in the race for the house cup.

Michael also got to take a trip down Memory Lane using a Pensieve.

After that, it was time for breakfast at the Three Broomsticks.

I got what was described as a "Traditional English Breakfast".  It was good, but I doubt that a croissant is a traditional English food.

One last Hogwarts family photo with a long-ass selfie stick!

After that, it was on to the spell-casting.

We took a bunch of the videos of the boys casting spells, but in most of them, either ...
1) You couldn't see the magic well.
2) The magic took too long to work and at least one of the boys got briefly frustrated.
3) Peter ( who is very anal about his magic - he stands in exactly the designated spot for the magic and carefully says the incantation ) got upset because Michael tried to do the magic at the same time as him.

The video below was the best we could do.



Before we left Hogsmead, I took one last shot of the castle.

After that, we heade to the Poseidon's Fury interactive show.

We couldn't take photos or video during the show, but we had a great time because our tour guide picked Peter to be his helper.  We got the best view of all the parts of the show, and Peter got to lead the group while carrying Poseidon's trident.

After Peter helped Poseidon save the day, the boys had fun at Seuss Landing.

We then hung out with Spidey for a bit.  Spidey told Peter "I like your name".  Hey, be careful with that secret identity, Parker!

OK, I was wrong earlier.  I guess the shot below was actually our last photo of Hogwarts Castle.  While waiting on the line for the dragon coaster in Hogsmead ( I rode it while Ruth and the boys did rides in Seuss Landing ), I noticed you could get a few good scenery shots from the dragon coaster line.  So, right before we hopped on the Hogwarts Express to head back to Diagon Alley, we got on the dragon coaster line to take somes shots of Hogwarts Castle,

Hagrid's hut,

and the Weasley's flying car.

Michael looks apprehensive in the picture above because he was afraid we would be forced to go on the coaster if we were in line for it ( we got off the line after the photo above ).

So, in any case, we got on the Hogwarts Express at Hogsmead Station after that, ...

... and headed to Diagon Alley, where we stopped at the Gringotts money exchange booth ...

... to get some wizard money.

Before we left Diagon Alley, we took one last shot of it.

We took it easy the rest of the day.  Highlights included our successful 3rd attempt at the Disaster ride, a "Beetlejuice" musical review that was so bad it was actually cheesy-ly entertaining, and our 3rd trip to the Transformers ride.

We finished our Universal vacation by hitting the gift shop near the exit.  We were all a bit sad that our vacation was ending, but we were secure in the knowledge that ...

... we had Coconutties!

Rich