Our summer vacation was pretty epic. I’ve already written about our time at San Diego Comic-Con. Apparently I hadn’t had enough of standing in long lines in a hot, crowded place, because we spent the last day of our trip at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Hollywood. It opened in April and my Potterhead daughter and I were dying to check it out. Here’s my report, fresh from Hogwarts.
Our day at The Wizarding World was long, hot, and exhausting. This was partly because I wedged it into our last day after spending time with family in San Diego. We got up at 5:30AM, were on the road by 6AM, fought traffic for four hours, and got to the park by 10. We left at four and I drove straight to Sacramento, arriving at 1:30AM.
This is not how I recommend you do your trip. You’ll note that I am not listing this as a Romance Wanderlust post. That’s because between being tired and hot and standing in line for a long time, romance was the last thing on my mind.
When we got there my daughter and her BFF hauled me over to the line for The Forbidden Journey ride. This was a long line. Do not start your day by getting in this line. By the time we got towards the front we were all sick of the whole thing.
BUT – then we went into Hogwarts Castle (the front of the line winds through the castle, which is easily as much fun as the actual ride), and there was cool stuff to see, and a projection of Dumbledore gave us advice about the ride, as did Ron and Harry and Hermione, and Tom Riddle snarked at Professor McGonagall, which is a snark war you wouldn’t want to miss. Paintings talk to you and there’s cool stuff in display cases and there’s air conditioning (be still my over heated heart!). The Forbidden Journey flight is great but SPOILER and PHOBIA ALERT
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter tries its very best to convince you that you are in an English village (Hogsmeade, of course) with forests and snow and Butterbeer and quirky shops. It’s a challenge, given that during a southern California summer, temperatures regularly hit the three-digit mark. My daughter toughed out the heat, refusing to take off her Hufflepuff robe, and the longer we stayed the more into it I got. The alleys are lined with quirky little shops – infuriatingly, many are fake and those are the ones that I most desperately wanted to go into. But many others are real. Here’s the inside of Honeydukes, where you can buy chocolate frogs to your heart’s content. Note – if you have a tree nut or peanut allergy, most of these are going to be off limits. You’ll have to console yourself with an extra mug of Butterbeer or Pumpkin Juice.
Of course you will want to go to Ollivanders and get a wand, if you don’t have one already. One person from each group is singled out to be specially fitted for a wand in a bit that feels truly magical (remember, the wand chooses the wizard!).
And don’t forget to visit my dream shop, The Owl Post, which has toys and writing supplies and many pretty things. This shop also has my favorite décor, with a display of animatronic owls perched above the door, ready to take your messages.
So was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter worth the time and money? I’m going to say a guarded “Yes,” but that’s might be the Butterbeer talking. As a parent, I loved watching my tween race around the village, robe wafting out behind her, arm in arm with her BFF. I felt like my daughter and I had this tiny window of time in our lives where we are part of the same fandom and I’ll remember sharing that day with her a lot longer than I’ll remember the heat or waking up at dawn. As a rabid fan myself, I got a huge kick out of meeting a very tall guy who was wearing the same T-shirt as I was. As a sucker for stuff, I know that we did not need another stuffed owl or all those Hufflepuff writing supplies or the Monster Book of Monsters but I regret nothing. If you are really, really into Harry Potter, then you will enjoy your visit and you will probably feel it was worth the money and the hassle.
For the more casual fan of Harry Potter, I’d say that the Wizarding World is only worth the trip if you are also visiting more of Universal Studios, which is included in your ticket price. Universal Studios, including but not limited to the Wizarding World, is difficult to get to, tiring to walk around, and incredibly expensive, even before buying food and beverages and talking owl puppets. Get there early, stay late, take your time, and get a full ticket’s worth by exploring the whole park instead of just the Wizarding World. The ticket includes an interesting tour of the backlots so be sure to do that – the best part is that the tour involves riding in a vehicle, not walking, which is GREAT.
I would heartily suggest that visitors try going in the colder months (not that southern California ever gets very cold), and go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the evening. It will be cooler, there will be less people, and I can’t help but think that it must be easier to believe that one is in an English village when one is not standing in full sun on a southern Californian summer afternoon. There’s also the fact that the food in Wizarding World is based on British Pub Food (not a lot of options for vegetarians, I’m afraid). There are tons of other food offerings elsewhere at Universal Studios, but if you eat at The Wizarding World (at The Three Broomsticks) you are getting hot, heavy food. That’s swell in December but not so appetizing when the temperature is in the 100s.
For the ideal experience, I would also suggest getting a hotel room so that you can get to the park with a minimum of stress and make a long but slow-paced day of it, then return to your hotel and go right to sleep. Most of the nearby hotels have shuttles to and from the park so you don’t have to pay for parking or figure out directions and traffic in downtown LA. You could even head back to your room and take a nap during the hottest and most crowded part of the day and still have plenty of park time. However, if you go this route, brace yourself to pay a shit ton of money for your room. Having skipped that option, I can say that staying in a hotel either the night before our visit, the night of, or both, would have not only been more pleasant but much safer. We made it home safely but I was really pushing our luck in terms of staying awake and alert.
While my daughter is dying to go back, I feel that one day at the Wizarding World was plenty enough for a long time. However, there are hot rumors that Universal Studios might add a Diagon Alley area (similar to the one in Orlando). If that happens, we’ll be back before you can say “Floo powder.” Is it rationally worth the money? Nope. Would I pay the money again in a hot minute if I could? Yep. What can I say, I’m a sucker for animatronic owls.
LOVE this review. I’m moving to LA in September, and my bestie is coming down for a visit wherein we will totally go to HP world and spend lots of our hard-earned money on things we don’t need. This was an incredibly helpful review for planning our trip!
Also, glad you didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.
Also, the pic of your daughter and her biffle is so adorable.
I would agree with all of the above travel advice. Universal Studios is an exhausting place to be, and an expensive place to be, and basically if you want to truly enjoy it and go home with your sanity and good feelings intact, make it a weekend (may I suggest MLK Jr weekend or Presidents Day – long weekends for wage-slaves but not the kind of holidays people usually think of for travel).
Mild case of Potterhead here, not nearly strong enough to get me up to the park, and I live right over the hill.
So glad you made it home safely.
I agree with everything you’ve said: money, time, heat, money, lines, crowds, money, heavy food. And yet.
I’ve been to Universal Orlando four times and have to tell you, the Wizarding World is as close to magic as I will ever get. I can sit contentedly in Diagon Alley for hours, soaking up the attention to detail and the atmosphere of a fictional place that fascinates me. The Hogwarts Express is my favorite way to get from one park to another and you can take a picture of people walking through the wall at Platform 9-3/4. Yes, I take Dramamine before the Gringotts and Forbidden Journey rides and then soothe myself with Butterbeer in one of its many forms.
There is nothing else like it, in my experience. It’s not a vacation, that’s for sure, but it is definitely a trip. Go.
Fantastic review! Thank you. My fiancé and I, both rabid HP fans, even though we are in our late 30’s, moved to LA two months ago and can’t wait to visit the park, but we decided to check it out in the fall when it’s a bit cooler and school is in session. We are hoping to avoid the crowds sometime mid-week. After reading this I am even more excited!
My friends and I went to Universal Orlando Presidents’ Day weekend, and the place was PACKED. But I would love to go back. We loved the feel of the place–quirky signs, cobbled streets, the dragon on the top of Gringotts. There were some really great details, like Moaning Myrtle haunting the Ladies Room, and I loved riding the Hogwarts Express. Some of the shops in Diagon Alley were great (if you bought a “special” wand at Ollivander’s, there were shop windows at Hogsmeade that would interact with your wand), but the yarn shop wasn’t, and I got all excited to see Gilderoy Lockhart’s books on display in Flourish and Blotts’ window, but the book store… wasn’t. Why wasn’t there a book store? There are enough HP-related books to stock a small shop, surely. Other than that, the only complaint we had was with the locker room where you had to stash your purse, etc. before getting on the Gringotts or Hogswart rides. One of my friends had a panic attack, it was so crowded and chaotic. Plus, spiders, giant spiders.
Rereading my above comment, I would like to clarify that there are NOT giant spiders in the locker room; they’re in the Hogswart ride. My cat kept sitting on my keyboard.
Did Universal Orlando last September, mostly for the HP experience, and totally agree with your travel advice – go when it is cooler, stay nearby if you can (we stayed right across the street from the park and there were great off-season rates when we went) and the crowds are less. And yes, it was great to just sit and soak up the detailed Harry Potter atmosphere they have created! My favorite was the Hogwarts Express which I think is only in Florida for now, they may have plans to eventually add it to LA
At least you were able to go and experience it, during our recent college tour in Florida, I had to accept seeing it from the interstate–yes, I could see Hogwarts from the interstate. My husband had no time for fun, er, I mean amusement parks.