I thought I've written about my trip to Orlando in USA before, but I can't find it on my Pinmapple map, so I guess it's a sign of me growing old again. Anyway, if anyone remembers seeing a similar post from me before and you're a Harry Potter fan, then you're in luck, have a double dose!!!
This trip was from back in 2010 Christmas. If I remember correctly, it's my third visit to Florida, and everytime I've been, it's always been Orlando. I've never been else in Florida. My sisters used to have a holiday condo out there as an investment, and every year they'd go out there for holiday. Sometimes a few of us would go with her. This was one of those times. Five of us siblings plus partners plus four of the kids, total fourteen of us. Here's us, or our shoes, not sure where the other two wandered off.
We flew out on 24th December and the next day immediately marched down to Universal Studios. In Orlando, it's either Disney World or Universal Studios. The latter was our first stop this year as they'd just opened Harry Potter world in summer. To be honest, I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I've only ever watched one of the movies before, so I can't really appreciate what all the fuss is about. But anyway....
We headed off to Hogsmeade Village first. I guess HP fans will be jumping up and down with envy now. Don't you wish you were me 😁 One of my niece is a big HP fan and she went a bit crazy here especially when she saw the Wand Shop. And you know what, she bought herself a wand for USD30!! THIRTY BUCKS!!! THIRTY BIG BUCKS!!!!! Call me stingy , but $30 for a bit of stick!!! And this was 11 years ago!!! If the wand really has magical powers, I'm going to borrow it off her, wave it in front my post, hopefully there's some magic spell that will make my post trend and fly Hive to the moon!!!
This is Hogwarts Castle, and there's a ride inside called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Visitors sits in a seat which is suspended off the ground by a track above. The track takes visitor around different scenes from the films in the dark so every turn is a surprise. Basically it's a bit like a train ride except the track is above instead of below, and your seat spins and swings and even tilts forward and backwards. You get the idea? Good. Well, it was a bloody nightmare for me!!
So here I am looking all happy and cool as a cucumber as we'd just arrived. The kids, and some of the young at heart wanted to go on the rides, the Flight of the Hippogriff, a family friendly roller coaster. I'd never do one of those massive 360 degrees triple somersault ones, but this one was called a junior roller coaster and looked ok so I figured why not? After all who comes to Universal Studio without going on rides?
You'll be pleased to know I survived the Flight of the Hippogriff, a little wobbly but I made it out alive, yeah!!! But the kids and young at heart weren't done yet. There were two other Harry Potter rides, and of course they were going to conquer them all. The next one was the the Forbidden Journey, the one I mentioned above, and they kept pushing me to join them. They even gave me time to recover from the roller coaster before we started to queue. So once I felt a bit better, off we went.....
Not long after the ride started, so did the chair spins, Sometimes it was left right, then left right left or right left right, I lost count. Occassional it was a 360 degree spin, or two. Followed by moving along the track in the dark, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sudden stops, tilting backwards and forwards. OMG! It was hell !!! I had barely recovered from the roller coaster and now I was being thrown all over the place by Harry Potter and his magic. I started to feel sick, and this is physically, not literally. I hated Harry Potter even more than before!! I could feel my vomit gushing up. I kept my mouth tightly close, covering it with both my hands, hoping that the vomit would subside. When you can't throw up, there's only one way that your vomit can go. I kept my eyes closed and wonder if there was an exit from hell.
When we got to the end of ride (at last!!!!) my husband who was sitting next to me had to help me release my seat belt as my own hands were a bit occupied. I shall spare you the fine details here, but I dashed out running faster than Usain Bolt doing his 100m and threw up outside!!! By the time the rest of the family caught up with me, some of them were laughing so hard when they saw the state I was in!!!😡😡
Towards the end of our stay, we went to Epcot Center, that's always been my favourite theme park. And of course, I had made a full recovery from my Harry Potter ordeal😄