A Magical Trip: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ with Kids

My wife works for a company that manages professional associations and she puts on large conferences all over the country. She was putting on a conference in Orlando this past week, so we thought why not piggyback and do The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ in Universal Studios, since my son was Harry Potter-obsessed for many years.

I thought it could be helpful to share my experience visiting with both our 9-year-old son and 1.5-year-old daughter, because it felt overwhelming to me when I started looking into it. 

Two Parks

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ is split in half between two Universal parks: Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. To be able to do everything, you have to buy a Park-to-Park pass. This lets you either walk between the two or take the Hogwarts train. It also means it costs more money. You can do all of Harry Potter world in one day, but it would be a very long day, so we opted for two-day tickets.

Ticket Tip

I bought my tickets through the Civilian Welfare Fund (CWF) which a lot of people in the Annapolis area have access to if they work for the DOD or the military. We saved about $200-300 by purchasing them that way. 

Rides

There are only five real rides in Harry Potter world if you include the train, so we did not buy an Express Pass. We started our day in the Islands of Adventure side which has the castle and Hogsmeade.

We opted out of Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure™ coaster. It does have one of the longest waits out of all the Harry Potter rides. Our 1.5 year old was too short for any of the rides but the train, which is one downside of having a toddler at the park. One thing that is great though is you can go all the way through the castle ride and the Gringotts™ ride without actually getting on the ride, so you can still see almost everything. We got in line for the castle ride and admired everything until it was time to get on and then we exited. This ride specifically is not great for people with motion issues, so my son opted out as well. The castle features all the talking paintings, Dumbledore’s office, and more.

Hogsmeade

The first thing we did in Hogsmeade was buy butterbeer from the butterbeer cart. I loved it, as did my daughter, but my son and wife did not. It tastes almost like a cream soda. We walked around a lot of the shops like Honeydukes™, the candy store. We watched a few minutes of the live shows that will pop up from time to time. 

Hogsmeade

Interactive Wands

The next thing we did was buy wands. The main wand buying experiences are at Ollivanders™ Wand Shop; they have one in each park, but the lines get quite long. We just bought wands for the kids at the Owl Post.

The wands are expensive (roughly $120 for two), but they interact with shop windows all over Harry Potter world. A map of interactive sites is provided when you buy the wands.  If you find a shop window with a plaque on the ground, you can perform the spell shown and something will happen. There are even secret areas hidden around where spells make things happen. My 1.5-year-old loved getting a wand, even though she didn’t really understand the significance. 

Meal & Train Ride

We wanted to eat lunch in Hogsmeade but the main restaurant, The Three Broomsticks™ was mobbed, so we ate lunch in the Jurassic Park area and I would not overly recommend that. We ventured back to the Harry Potter area after lunch and got in line for the train to ride to the other Harry Potter park. 

There are scenes that play through the train window and apparently what is shown is different when you ride it one way versus the other. We only rode it from Islands of Adventure to Universal. 

Universal Studios Section

When you get off here, you are in Universal Studios and this section has Diagon Alley™ and Gringotts™. This is where we called it a day on the first day, as we were wiped out. When we went back the second day, we went straight for Diagon Alley™. 

We actually enjoyed the second day more than the first, although that could be because we knew what to expect. Right before you go into Diagon Alley™, you can see the Knight Bus™ outside and it is fun to interact with the driver. Inside Diagon Alley™ there are a lot of shops from the books that we browsed. We watched the giant dragon on top of Gringotts™ breathe fire which is crazy to see. You can feel the heat coming off of it. You can head down Knockturn Alley and see more of the Dark Arts stores. The only real ride here is the Escape from Gringotts™ ride. We did the same thing that we did with the castle where we went through all of it until it was time to get on the ride, and then we exited. We told the staff that was our intention and they were really helpful and let us do the Express lane. 

Lunch

We decided to eat lunch at the main restaurant in this half called the Leaky Cauldron™. They

had a great process where you ordered your food on your phone while waiting in line, so the line moved quickly and the food came not long after we sat down. I got my second Butterbeer™ here, and I tried it frozen this time–so good! 

We got ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour which was excellent and then sat on the steps and people watched. 

That’s a Wrap!

That wrapped up our two-day attempt at doing what we could in Harry Potter world with our 9-year-old and toddler in tow. We spent about five hours each day at the park and that included lunch, and we easily walked five miles each day. 

That being said, we had great weather and the kids had a great time, so it was definitely worth it. We loved just walking around at our own pace and experiencing the sights, sounds, and flavors we had read about in the books, which The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ offers in a big way.