Day 154 - Islands of Adventure

Today was the day Sean had most being looking forward to as Universal’s Islands of Adventure is home to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We also had free parking and early admission to the park and so got in for 08:00 and made a beeline straight to Hogsmeade and into the queue for Olivander’s wand shop. We’d been advised to do this right away as the line for this place would get very busy very quickly, and be stupidly long when the park opened to the rest of the public at 09:00. Yes this was a kid’s attraction but it is Harry Potter land and Danny, Corrie and Sean wanted to do all the attractions here and so we waited.

After this we pretty much split with Corrie and Steph speeding off to blitz all the big rides before the big queues formed. Danny and Sean had purchased the Express Pass tickets and so they could afford to be more leisurely with their tour of the park. This was just as well too as they spent a long time roaming the streets of Hogsmeade before finally venturing further afield.

By the time Sean and Danny reached the Marvel zone of the park Corrie and Steph were onto their second lap of the Islands and showed no signs of slowing down.

Some of the best rides at this park were: The Forbidden Journey, Dragon Challenge, The Incredible Hulk Coaster, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, and most of the water rides here (which each one absolutely soaked you.)

Danny and Sean dropped some of Sean’s purchases back at the car and the retired to Margaritaville to cool down whilst waiting for Corrie and Steph to finish. Due to miscommunication (i.e. Steph’s phone not receiving the text from Danny saying where he and Sean were) we met up slightly later on and so it was time for tea. We opted to go to the Hard Rock Café for our grub, and good grub it was. Another of the famous tropical storms came and went during our meal which was a relief to us all, and then it was back to the hotels once more after a quick stop at Wal-Mart.