Today was the first full day in Orlando, and our first theme park day. We planned to do both Universal theme parks on one day so that we can do the water park tomorrow. Since we‘re staying at an on-site hotel, we can enter an hour before the general public. So we were up at 6 am and out the door shortly after 6:30 for the five-minute walk to the parks. We entered through Islands of Adventure, the one further from our hotel, so maybe it was a seven minute walk. It worked out perfectly, as we arrived at the park right as they started letting people in.

During the early park hours, only the Harry Potter rides are open, so our plan was to ride the new Hagrid‘s Motorbike ride first, then hit the Hogwarts ride, then head to the adjacent Jurassic Park area and ride the new roller coaster, VelociCoaster. The first adjustment to our plan was almost immediate. We had scoped out the map and knew we wanted to go right at the fork for the shortest path to Hogsmeade. But they were only letting people go to the left, which meant we had to walk almost twice as far to get where we wanted to go. It was annoying, but I‘m sure there‘s some good crowd control/advertising reason for them to have done so.

The next plan adjustment was more annoying. As we were just entering Hogsmeade, we heard a park employee state that Hagrid‘s ride was not operating, and they didn‘t know when it would be. Darn, but we decided to just ride the Hogwarts ride and then check the status of Hagrid. Foiled again, as the Hogwarts ride was also not functioning. We were hungry and decided to grab breakfast at the Hog‘s Head, but it wasn‘t open. Madeline wanted to use her wand, the one she bought last time and remembered to pack, to do some magic along the way, but it wasn‘t working, and the place that could repair it was also closed! I looked at the park map, and it said the VelociCoaster didn‘t open until 9 am, so all our early rides were not an option. At this point we were pretty frustrated that no one at the front of the park told us that the two rides most people came to ride were not functioning. It would have saved us a long sweaty walk. Finally, we decided to walk toward the front of the park to grab breakfast, and we‘d ride any rides along the way that looked good.

We were barely out of Hogsmeade when we passed the entrance to the VelociCoaster and a sign that said a 30-minute wait.

I find the Universal Studios app to be very disappointing. When we were making decisions, the Hogwarts ride showed a delay, but the Hagrid ride had no information. The app said that the VelociCoaster opened at 9 am, but we got in line at about 7:30. The interface is not intuitive. And there are a lot of non-friendly things that could be easily fixed. For example, when I click to get a map, I have to choose a park every time. I would prefer it show me where I am and let me click another park if I wanted to see somewhere else. Also, the app doesn‘t allow you to zoom in far enough to get differentiation between two places right next to each other. And, perhaps most annoyingly, we weren‘t able to use the mobile app to order food anywhere we tried it.

What was not disappointing was the VelociCoaster. We waited in line shortly less than the posted thirty minutes. The ride line was almost always moving, and the queue areas were interesting. I had a bit of trouble with the lockers because you use your admission ticket to unlock them, and part of my bar code had worn off, so I had to use one of the girls’ tickets instead, which was no big deal.

The ride itself was really indescribable. (But I‘ll try). This coaster is so fast and crazy that they make you go through a metal detector before you get on, so no one keeps any phones or keys with them, in case they fly out and hit someone. The seats had the big heavy contraptions that come down over your head and basically lock you into place. And it‘s a good thing, because that was the craziest roller coaster I‘ve ever ridden. And when you live near Cedar Point, that‘s saying something. It counted down and the propelled you at the start. But then it propelled you again mid-ride. There were multiple loops, and a crazy drop toward the end. I‘m not sure how many times we were upside down, but one loop was probably longer than any I‘ve ever done. Basically we were not sitting down — we were being held into place by the harness thing. Afterward, we were all a little wobbly, but especially those of us over 20.

And yet, we still went straight to the Hagrid ride, which was finally working. They were showing a 60-minute wait, which was better than we‘d seen the previous afternoon and evening when we started monitoring wait times. The line moved quickly, and the wait queue area was full of things to see, like Hagrid’s Hut. I thank Universal for putting a LOT of fans on the outside part of the wait. These things were a feat of engineering, too. I couldn’t believe how much air they moved! I don’t have any pictures from the line, though, because we had to put all of our items in a locker before we got very far at all.

[Side note: while we were in line we passed a conductor for the Hogwarts Express. I told her about my bar code rubbing off and asked if that would be a problem. She looked at the ticket and said it was ok because they could just manually enter the number printed at the top of the ticket, which was still showing.]

The ride itself was not as completely horrifying as the VelociCoaster, but it was still pretty crazy. I had read that there was a part that goes backward, but I didn’t realize it went backward for a pretty long time. And then it stopped, and I said to Madeline, “We’re going to drop!” but she didn’t hear me and was really startled when we did. I knew it was coming because we rode a roller coaster in Denmark (at the original LegoLand) that did the same thing. There’s no other reason to stop a roller coaster in the middle of the ride, right?

The backward part of the Hagrid ride did me in, and I was done with coasters for a while. We were all starving at that point anyway, so we walked ALL the way to the front of the park and grabbed coffee and pastries at Croissant Moon Bakery and Starbucks. When we finished eating the girls were ready to ride the Incredible Hulk coaster, and Andy and I definitely were not. So we decided we’d go to the Hog’s Head for a drink while they rode all the crazy rides they wanted between the front of the park and Hogsmeade.

I really like the Hog’s Head. It’s like an island of tranquility in the insanity that is Hogsmeade. By that point the park was very full, and the path that runs through Hogsmeade was totally bonkers. But after about 10 minutes in line (WHY do they only have one bartender working on a Sunday?), we took our drinks to the patio behind the bar, got under an umbrella, and relaxed. I did get up at one point and walk over to Dervish & Banges to get Madeline’s wand fixed, but that took all of five minutes.

When the girls returned we all rode the Hogwarts ride together. I think it had about a 30-minute wait, but we were able to use our Express Passes to turn that into about 10 minutes. I like the ride, but my stomach had still not recovered from the two coasters, and I spent most of the ride with my eyes closed, which helps my motion sickness immensely. I did open my eyes at one point to see a giant spider right in front of me, which was not ideal.

Next was the Hogwarts Express. When you ride the Hogwarts Express you actually go from the Islands of Adventure Theme Park to the Universal Studios one. Which means you have to have your park ticket scanned to show that you have the park-to-park option. When I got to the scanner I told the girl what the other conductor had said, and she was totally jerky about it. She insisted that if it wouldn’t scan she couldn’t do anything, and she sent me to the customer service desk to get it replaced. Fortunately, it was right beside the train station. Unfortunately, there was only one person working (again, WHY, on a Sunday?), and the people in front of my took about ten minutes doing who knows what. I was pretty steamed by the time I reached the window (and my family waited for me on the other side of the turnstile), but I tried not to take it out on the person helping me.

Once I got my ticket, I successfully scanned through, and we had to wait quite a bit on the train. We would have been on the previous train had it not been for the problem (which I totally could have taken care of during the Hog’s Head time if I had known), so my annoyance level again increased. But soon we were pulling away from Hogsmeade Station and heading toward London.

By this time the park was crazy. We were ready for lunch and headed to Moe’s Tavern. The idea is that we would all grab food from different places in the area, and Andy and I could grab a Duff Beer. Andy got in line for tacos while the big girls looked around for what they wanted to eat. Madeline was hot and tired, so she and I went to Moe’s to grab drinks and a table. There was a bit of a line for the bar, and all the tables were full, so she and I stood at a table until a booth opened up. It took a LONG time for the others to get food, but by some lucky fate, they all arrived at the same time.

After lunch the girls rode the Gringott’s ride while Andy and I walked around Diagonal Alley. It was crazy hot, so we spent a fair amount of time hiding in Knockturn Alley, where it’s darker and cooler. After the ride Madeline was ready to shop. She’d been saving her allowance for months, in anticipation of buying a Ravenclaw robe and uniform. She got the robe and tie, although there were no shirts, so she didn’t get the full uniform but still looked great! After a quick trip to buy wizard candy (chocolate frogs, cauldron cake, and a chocolate wand), Andy and I left while the girls stayed and rode some more rides.

After some rest, we headed back to Islands of Adventure for dinner at Mythos, one of my favorite theme park restaurants. We had a great meal and even saw some other Indy Dance Academy families there. Everyone except me wanted to ride Velocicoaster again, so I waited about an hour while they rode. At that point the park was nearly ready to close, and the girls decided to squeeze in Hagrid‘s ride one more time. Andy and I had a really nice time walking around the nearly deserted Hogsmeade while we waited for them. We were able to check out every store window and enjoy the atmosphere in a way we were never able to before. When the girls got off the ride we walked back to the resort (thank goodness it was close!), and everyone crashed quickly after a full day.