Our Harry Potter World Getaway!

So Matt had a conference in Orlando the weekend after New Years.  Hotel, airfare, food all paid for.  We toyed with the idea of me going down too but it seemed too crazy.  Then I found super cheap plane tickets and had a graciously willing sister and bro-in-law who offered to come watch the kids.  It was a perfect Christmas surprise for Matt (and his present was my present too!  I've gotta do that more often.)

My time in Orlando was just 2 days but, oh, we had so much fun.


Eating lunch OUTSIDE in January.  Delicious.
We went to the movies to see Les Mis--wonderful.

Our big plans were to head to Universal, specifically Harry Potter World.  I've never been to any big amusement park, just Six Flags.  We were in for a treat. 

So of course, it rained.  Here's Matt waiting for the bus that morning.  It was an umbrella and sweatshirt kind of day.  Not surprising though.  Matt and I had lots of time to reminisce about our times with bad weather.  Let's recap
wedding day--thunderstorms and brief power outage
trip to San Diego before kids--rain
1 day in Uruguay during our time in Argentina--rain
getaway trip to Newport, RI without kids--rain
Yes, we're noticing a theme here.  Fortunately it was just light showers all day and we had no one else to worry about but ourselves.

And here's what we had been waiting for.

Look how beautiful this place is.  I think I could move to Hogsmeade.  It was unbelievable.

The big Harry Potter's Magical World ride went all through the Hogwart's castle.  We spent a lot of time in line enjoying the view.

 

Our one shot together and Matt wasn't looking.  The lady behind us took several pictures but Matt spent the whole time looking at the lady behind her who was so ticked off that we were stalling the line.  I guess she didn't realize that stopping and waiting 1 minute for us there was no different than moving forward 20 feet and waiting more.  I didn't even see her...I was trying to get a picture with my husband.  I guess we're different that way. :) Ha!

Here is a shot that does NO justice to the craziness of the lines.  We waited about 1 hour and then were able to do the single rider line for future rides.  Several times during the day, different wait times were up to 2 hours.  We tended to avoid those. :)

In front of Dumbledore's office

Awesome moving portraits.

The sorting hat talks to you about how you are going to get on the ride. 

 

 

Butterbeer---aka DELICIOUS!  We waited in line 10-15 minutes just for this tasty drink.  When we got home we read some cool articles about how they created butterbeer and how much the park sells.  1 million cups sold in less than 7 months.  Just under 5000 cups a day.  Unreal.  It is actually the highlight for most people who come to the park--more of a highlight than the rides.  Crazy.

 

just making posing interesting
There were actually other areas of the park besides Harry Potter World...it was just our favorite and the most photo friendly.  I don't need lots of pictures of comic book stars. 

Brought home t-shirts and some Fizzing Whisbees candy for the kids from Honeydukes (chocolates with pop rocks inside--crazy good).

And then I woke up early the next morning and was on a plane and Matt was spending a full day in meetings.  Reality again.  But now it's reality coupled with some really great memories with Matt.  Grateful to his work for paying for most all of it and for the conference deciding to be held in such a fun place.