Karrie and i had always talked about going to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Orlando Flo

Karrie and i had always talked about going to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Orlando Florida. We decided that the best time to go would be over Memorial Day weekend. That way we only had to take one day off of work to get 4 days of vacation. Our original plan was to drive a rental car from Michigan to Florida. So we reserved the car and hotels for the two nights we would be staying jobs senior travel tours there. Then Karrie saw flights from Air Tran for $240 total after taxes and fees. So we decided to fly. I wasn't looking forward to two 20+ car rides anyways. But we did have to get two more nights at hotels for the two extra days we would be staying down there and also rent a car once we arrived. Day 1 My dad gave us a ride to the airport and we left on Air Tran Airways at 6:35pm. jobs senior travel tours It turned out to be one of the best flights ever. Like all airlines now a days, Air Tran wants to charge you to reserve your seat. So when we arrived at DTW we went to the counter to pick our seats. We picked two seats in the back row. It turned out that even though the flight jobs senior travel tours was almost full, no one ended up sitting next to us so we got the entire back row to ourselves. Three seats for two people. Which meant that we got to sit sideways and stretch out. We arrived in Orlando at 9:04pm and caught a bus to pick up our rental car. We reserved a budget economy car from Payless jobs senior travel tours Rental. It turned out to be a super ghetto car rental place. jobs senior travel tours I'm used to the rental car place trying to sell you the "extra insurance" and stuff like that, but it turned out that they didn't have any budget cars. So they ended up giving us a minivan. Here's the Kia Sedona that we had for the weekend. It was bad, don't buy a Kia Sedona. So we drove to eat dinner at 11pm then went to our hotel, the Orlando Metropolitan Resort. This was one of the worst hotels i've ever stayed at. Not as bad as the Maplehurst Motel in Pennsylvania, but very close. The first room we went in, turned on the lights and nothing happened. So we went back to the front desk, told them, and got another room. In this new room the chair and couch cushions were all messed up and it was dirty. Karrie and i were on the verge of going back and getting a refund and staying some place else. We called the Windham Resorts (the hotel we were planning on staying the next 2 days) but they were booked. We were also debating sleeping in the car. But it was past midnight and we were super tired so we just went to bed. So much for our $43 a night room. Even the TV stunk. Day 2 We woke up early, ready to leave our nasty hotel and get to Universal Studios. The park opened at 9am and we arrived soon after. Parking was $15 for the day. But as long as we kept the receipt we could leave, come back and park for free. Now Universal Studios is basically 3 areas: City Walk, Universal Studios, Islands of adventure. Here's the map i was carrying around in my back pocket for two days. It showed us all of the rides, bathrooms and restaurants. Here's the entrance to the Universal Studios island. This park is focused mostly on movie themed rides. And here's the entrance to Islands of Adventure. jobs senior travel tours This island has a lot more rides and roller coasters. We ordered the tickets online around the same time we got the flight and hotels. We got tickets to get into both parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. So we didn't have to deal with buying anything jobs senior travel tours at the entrance. City Walk, which is lots of restaurants and bars that are open till 2am and you don't need a ticket to enter. You don't really need a map for this, it's basically just one street you walk through to get to the islands. Here was our ticket, a 2 day Park-to-Park pass, which cost $140 for each of us. When you first use the pass, they have you write your name on it, then scan your finger print so that each ticket is assigned to each visitor. We did see this flier for Discount Tickets on the last day we were in Florida. A hotel had them at their front desk, directing you to a store nearby. Supposedly you could save lots of money for places like Disney, Sea World, jobs senior travel tours Universal Studios and even Gatorland! It didn't turn out to be that much of a savings, on average about $5 per ticket. We paid $140 for the 2 day 2 park pass online and their price was $137. Anyway, back to Day 1 at the park. We decided to go right to the good stuff, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter which is on Islands jobs senior travel tours of Adventure. The island was split up into different themed areas with rides, restaurants and stores for each theme. It's amazing once you enter the Harry Potter area of the park. (click to enlarge) Hogwarts castle looked jobs senior travel tours amazing. Visiting Harry Potter was really the highlight of the trip. It was great. You enter into Hogsmeade Village and the first time you walk through it's almost too much to take in. All of the stores, shops, vendors and people look very overwhelming and you think, "i'll never be able to see everything". Here's jobs senior travel tours the first thing you see when entering the park is the Hogwarts Express train. jobs senior travel tours They even have trunks and owl cages on platform 9 3/4. The detail on the buildings and shops was the best part. It was exactly like the books and movies. Over the course of the first day we went in every shop in Hogsmeade. Honydukes had Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and almost every other candy. The prices were a little high though, Chocolate jobs senior travel tours Frogs were $10. Over all though, prices at the park weren't bad at all. A lot less than we were expecting. Connected to Honeydukes was Zonko's Joke shop. This was dull, just lots of dollar store toys marked jobs senior travel tours up to $8. But they did have stuff like Extendable Ears and Sneakoscopes. There was lots of stuff like a foam Quaffles. Stuff that's sort of cool but not worth buying, then having to carry around for the rest of the day. We waited in line to get into Olivanders. They only let a small group of people inside and then pick one person to "try out" a wand. It was kind of fun, shelves moved and things fell just like the movie. jobs senior travel tours Again the small details inside was the best part. It was all dusty and looked a hundred years old. The wands themselves cost around jobs senior travel tours $35. Definitely not worth it, but it was cool to look at all of the different wands for the different wizards. Like i said we went into all of the stores to see the broomsticks, robes, hats, Marauders Maps, and even the Monster Book of Monsters. We definitely wanted to try some butterbeer and they had multiple places where you could buy some. But we figured that the best place to go would be the Three Broomsticks, which was attached to the Hog's Head. The Three Broomsticks was the restaurant side where you could sit down to eat, the Hog's Head was where you could get drinks. As you were waiting in line the hog moved and looked around. So we each got a glass of butterbeer, which was really foamy. I really wanted to like it, but i didn't. I hated to white foam on top, it was too thick and had this weird buttery taste. But i thought the drink itself was ok, sort of like a mix between root beer and ginger ale. Karrie thought the exact opposite. She thought the foamy part was ok and hated the drink part. It was definitely unique. Now there is more to The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter then just the shops at Hogsmeade. And in between going to all the shops we rode on the three Harry Potter rides. In the weeks leading up to our trip we talked with lots of people about the park and got some great tips. The best tip i can give for visiting Universal Studios is to go in the Single Rider Lines. Let me repeat that... Single Rider Lines . When you come up to the start of the rides there are 3 entrances. There is the General Line (that most people go through), Express Pass (which you pay extra for) and Single Rider Line. They have an electronic sign at the entrance to each ride, which shows the waiting time for the ride. This is for the General Line waiting time. On average the waiting time for the Single Rider Line is 1/4 of that time. For example there would be a ride with a wait time of 60 minutes and Karrie and i would go through the Single Rider Line in 10-15 minutes, be on the ride.N ot every ride/show jobs senior travel tours has Single Rider Lines, lots of the movies, group shows or small cart rides had only the General Line, but definitely use the Single Rider Line whenever possible. You might be thinking, "Ya but i want to be on the ride with the people i'm with, not ride by myself." 90% of the time that Karrie and i were in the Single Rider Line, we were on the same ride. And about 60% of the time we sat right next to each other. There was only once or twice that she went on the first ride, then i was on the next one after. jobs senior travel tours The most popular ride at Harry Potter World is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It's inside of Hogwarts Castle. The secret to getting to the front of the line super quickly is to enter through Filch's Emporium. It's a gift shop on the back side of Hogwarts castle. You walk through the door and head to the left toward the tunnel. There you can leave you stuff in the lockers, then cut across the General Riders Line and skip way ahead through jobs senior travel tours the Single Riders Line. We went on this ride twice. The first time we went through the Single Riders jobs senior travel tours Line and it only took 15 minutes. The line for the ride winds through Hogwarts castle and you get to see some great stuff. Just before you get on the ride, the Sorting Hat warns you of things to come. If you do the Single Rider Line you miss a lot of that cool stuff, so just before the park closed we went back and went through the General Rider Line. Since it was late, there wasn't that long of a wait. The General Rider Line has lots more to see in line. There's the phoenix spiral staircase entrance to Dumbledore's office. But it only opens if you know the secret password. Dumbledore's office is really cool, he speaks to you from the balcony. And there's tons of cool stuff inside like the Pensieve. I was disappointed that there wasn't a staircase th