I Solemnly Swear That I am Up to No Good

Hey Slayersss! I know it has been a long time coming for this particular post but I want to get this one out to you guys since the year is almost over lol. Welcome to Orlando, Florida!

I knew I wanted to go to Universal Studios to visit the Harry Potter attraction for a while now and decided to take matters into my own hands and plan it as a birthday trip. I have a couple of other die hard Harry Potter fans in my friend group and extended the invite but in my mind I knew that no matter who would attend I would be going lol. My family had previously stayed at this lit resort in Orlando that had all the bells and whistles included so I looked into staying there. Everyone at the resort had their own home rental with a pool, there were restaurants on the resort, a main water park and clubhouse and the most important thing, free shuttles to the park. This worked out for me because I don’t drive and didn’t want to have ask anybody else to drive us around.

The group consisted of 7 of us so the price of the rental def ended up being less than the cost of staying in a hotel with all of the perks. Some people were coming from Virginia and the rest from NYC so we all linked in Orlando in the airport and took a SuperShuttle to the resort and got checked into our home. After getting settled, one of my friends had a preliminary list of groceries so everybody put in a couple of dollars and half the group went to Walmart to shop. 

The first day, since we got there in the evening we decided not to go to the park and just chill and relax before heading out the next day. The dinner tonight was a themed Fajita and Margarita night and my friends cooked and mixed drinks with the cutest setup, before we sat down at the dinner table and ate together. After chillin for a bit we went to bed because we had an early start the next morning.

The next morning we got up early and got ready in order not to miss the shuttle to the park (there was only one to Universal). Everybody got dressed and put on their cute personalized fanny packs that I got everybody. We took some pics in front of the house and headed out for our day. 

After getting to the park we printed out our tickets (which we got a huge discount on thanks to my friend) and we went on some calm rides before making our way to the Harry Potter section of the park. I was in awe and so excited and even with all the walking around we did I had the most fun. Also we purchased the 2 day park to park tickets so we could ride the Hogwarts Express from one park to the other. It was like traveling through the real train station in the books/movies and they even had the illusion of people running through the wall to platform 9 3/4.

Once we made it to the other park, Islands of Adventure, there was another Harry Potter section that had more rides and experiences. It was extremely crowded in these areas but it was to be expected with all the Harry Potter fans that exist in the world. I won’t go through every ride or experience that we visited over the two days at the parks but I will highlight some of my memorable experiences below.

Trying Butterbeer must’ve been one of my fave things. There was a choice between regular and frozen so I went with frozen and was not disappointed. I would compare the taste to cream soda which I love and it was hot as hell that day so I was grateful for it. 

My next memorable moment was when I approached the Knight Bus which is the purple double decker bus from Harry Potter. Standing next to the bus was the driver and the talking head! I was able to take a pic with the talking head while it joked with me about us having matching hairstyles lol. 

All of the rides in Universal were cool but I did notice that most of them were VR based which worked since Universal Studios is based on movies. Even though I have been to Magic Kingdom multiple times already I wouldn’t mind going back and visiting now that I am older.

The best memory I have is getting to spend that time with my wonderful friends who accompanied me on the trip and the fun we had. We stayed in the house and cooked, laughed and made some more memories to look back on in the future and I love them all for that. 

To relive my memories from the trip take a look below!