We got an early start in Hogsmede again and rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey because we enjoyed it so much last time . Then we tried Flight of the Hippogriff because the lines were really short. It was a short quick ride where you fly around Hagred's place in a Hippogriff. There wasn't much more to it. Maybe that's why the line was so short.
On our way out we went through Poseidon's Fury. Poseidon's Fury is a walk through attraction where you get trapped in an ancient temple with no way out and the only way you can go leads you deeper into the temple. At the end you find yourself in between a fight with 2 gods and are freed by Poseidon at the end.
The lines at Seuss Landing were short so we took advantage of that and hit The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. It was an overhead tour of Seuss Landing. You got to see Seuss Landing from a different perspective. The narrator also told stores about the residents of Seuss Landing
We wanted to get lunch at the Three Broomsticks for lunch but they don't start serving lunch until 10:30 and we didn't want breakfast food so we made a quick stop to Honeydukes, a candy store in Hogsmede. They sold candy from the movies and the books like Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans and Exploding BonBon's. In the book Honeydukes is also the entrance of a secret passage between Hogwarts and Hogsmede. By the time we finished, lunch was being served at the Three Broomsticks.
Lunch at the Three Broomsticks was really good! We ordered The Great Feast Platter which had ribs, rotisserie chicken, veggies and these amazing garlic roasted potatoes. It was hard to take our leftovers out with us because the restaurant didn't have take out boxes. I went to the front and got a few disposable cups with lids to put our food in and had to go to a retail store to get bags to put cups in.
After all that food we were tired so we decided to go back to the hotel for a quick nap. We also needed to get the food into the fridge.
When we arrived at Islands of Adventure after our nap we started things slow at Seuss Landing. This time we went on the Cat in the Hat and the Caro-Seuss-el. The Cat in the Hat is a slow ride that narrates the book and the Caro-Seuss-el is a wacky carousel with some of the animal's from Dr. Seuss's books on it.
We had to pass through Toon Lagoon to get to Super Hero Island. Toon Lagoon is a retail and dining area based off of comic strip characters. Some of the characters represented there are Dagwood, Heathcliff and Betty Boop. Toon Lagoon is a really cool place to take pictures. There's little cartoon speech bubbles suspended around the area that say things like, "It must be Sunday... We're in color!" or, "I'm going to need a vacation from this vacation!"
At Super Hero Island we went to the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man attraction. This attraction was recently upgraded with high-tech 3D, lighting and graphics. From what I heard there's also a 400ft. drop somewhere in there too.
We did some more shopping at Islands of Adventure, took the Hogwarts Express back to Kings Cross Station and headed to Diagon Alley. My mom wanted to get pictures of Olivanders wand shop and some other places she missed like the Gringots Money Exchange. The Gringots Money Exchange is a place where you can exchange muggle money for Gringots bank notes. This place is small and I don't think I've ever seen it crowded. One of the coolest things about this place is, you can interact with the head goblin while you wait in line. While we were in Diagon Alley we went back to Knockturn Alley to take a few more pictures.
After Diagon Alley we went to check out the Men in Black Alien Attack attraction, Disaster- A Major Motion Picture Ride and the Transformers ride again. The Men in Black attraction starts off as a training simulator but real aliens arrive and you have to zap them and chase them down. The Disaster ride was pretty cool. A cast of actors is picked from the audience and the stage crew demonstrates how some special effects are made. You end up getting casted and are put to work on a movie as an extra immediately. The scene they put you in is a underground subway train in San Francisco during the middle of an earthquake. While you're in the subway the crew sets off special effects and films your reactions. At the end of filming they show you the movie you've made. My mom thought it was especially cool because the section of subway they replicated was her subway stop when she was living in Oakland, the Oakland West stop.
It was getting late and we still haven't taken the Hogwarts Express from Kings Cross to Hogsmede yet. While you're in line you can see the people in front of you disappear into Platform 9 3/4. I thought that was pretty cool. There was different scenery on the trip back.
While we were in Hogsmede we ate a quick dinner at the Three Broomstics. I ordered shepherds pie, those fantastic potatoes and pumpkin juice. The potatoes weren't that great this time. I'm not quite sure what changed since lunch but it wasn't as good as they were earlier that afternoon.
After dinner we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for drinks and retired to our hotel room for the night.
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