Wizard for a Day

Butter beer and Gryffindor golden nails

Flashback to October 2016. A happier time, not just because Trump winning presidency seemed like a ridiculous joke but because one of my nearest and dearest friends celebrated a milestone birthday! And how did we celebrate?! We became wizards for a day, of course!

Literally years of dreaming and scheming finally saw fruition when Karen and I met for a long weekend vacation together in Orlando, Florida. Yep, I ditched my husband and baby and ran away to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! It was simply the most relaxing, fun, magical vacation ever!

Ready to board the Knight Bus

Headed into Diagon Alley

Once in the park, we headed straight for Diagon Alley which ended up being our favorite part of the HP experience. The attention to detail was nothing short of magic and we enjoyed exploring all the shops, sipping butterbeer, fine tuning our wand skills, and riding "Escape from Gringotts" a few times. Karen was sure to pack her wand for our visit, but I still needed to get mine. And from a group of around a dozen people Mr. Ollivander did in fact choose me to find my wand in his shop. Of course I bought it (willow with unicorn core), it chose me!!!

Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382BC

The wand chose me!

Warning: Dragon fire is HOT!

Flourish & Blotts bookshop, sadly just a fun facade

We boarded the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross and headed to Hogsmead and Hogwarts. It was a bit strange to be SO warm and surrounded by "snow" so we treated ourselves to some pumpkin juice, sent some cards via owl post, and carried on. I (barely) survived the "Dragon's Challenge" roller coaster and even the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride left me rather queasy... I'm sadly not much of a ride fan - this Griffindor is brave in other ways! Still we enjoyed seeing the castle and the "Forbidden Journey" ride did allow for you to walk through many fun places in the castle including the headmaster's office.

Platform 9&3/4 - Hogsmeade bound

All aboard!

Twilight at Hogsmeade

Good night

We spent a full day enjoying Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. And while I'm certainly willing to return someday, one full day was enough to enjoy both locations. Such fun!