potter watch: part III

time for part III of my wizarding world of harry potter at universal islands of adventures review!  (part I and part II)!

getting sick of this yet?!  shoot, maybe.  ha.  well this is my second to last post, can you hang in there?  i promise there are cool things to see!  so today is all about the actual village...and the shops it contains.

as you walk into the harry potter "island," you are greeted with... the hogwarts express in hogsmeade station!

and now into the village we go...

 

shop windows galore

{mandrake!  complete with noises drifting from the shop window!}

and now a peek into the shops...

honeyduke's sweet shop

 

zonko's joke shop

 

ollivander's

 

the owl post

 

 {there's a "howler" in the middle of the window there!}

dervish & banges

 

{hagrid's the monster book of monsters!}

{being goofy and playing dress-up!}

visiting tip: ollivander's, the owl post, and dervish & banges are actually all connected to each other inside.  if you want to see ollivander help a witch or wizard choose her or his wand (or, i should say, have the wand choose the wizard!), there is a separate line for that.  they allow about 10 people in every 10 minutes, so this line becomes very long very fast, and doesn't die down at any point in the day.  so, if you have early admission, go there first, before it gets crazy.  seriously, go there first.  after the little presentation, they lead you into the combined owl post/dervish & banges where you can buy your own wand and countless other hogwarts-inspired souvenirs.  if you choose to skip the ollivander's presentation, you can just go into the owl post/dervish & banges, but note that as the day wears on, this shop gets a line too.  it moves faster than the ollivander's line, but it still exists.  either go through the shops (and this includes honeyduke's, zonko's, and the butterbeer stands p.s.) early in the day, or late in the day after a lot of families with young kids have already headed home.  you'll save yourself a lot of time AND annoyance by timing when you go where.  during the middle of the day (like 12-3 p.m.), we headed to the rest of the islands in the park (jurassic park, marvel, dr. seuss, etc.) and rode those rides while everyone else was at harry potter.  by the time we got back into the wizarding world, it was a much saner place!

a few extra touches

{the bathrooms had the voice of moaning myrtle chatting  with (more like yelling at!)  you - too cute!}

 {butterbeer tasted like cream soda on steroids - SO sweet, hard to drink more than one!}

  {i love my sirius black!}

 {just a couple of ravenclaws, hanging out in hogsmeade for the day...}

{the second entrance, on the other side of the village}

final next week potterwatch: inside the three broomsticks and hog's head pub!

xo. di.

*images from my personal collection