Twenty five years ago, my mom and I went to Disney World and Universal for a week. We had the MOST amazing time. We stayed off property and hit all the parks! It was a wonderful time.

Since then, all the parks have expanded, but, more importantly, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened in Orlando. Now, I am not a Harry Potter fan, however, Mom REALLY is… and this summer she turned 70, so what better way to celebrate than to go to a theme park, right? But who wants to do that in the middle of summer? In the middle of the week in February is the way to do it if you don’t want to be standing in lines for hours.

So, I got together with my amazing sister-in-law, Andrea, who has a side gig as a travel agent. She got us all set up a Loewe’s Royal Pacific. That was DEFINITELY the way to go. It’s considered a premium park, so you get early admission to the parks and also unlimited express passes which CAN be very expensive depending on the day, and they cut wait time in half for most rides. (The only two it ISN’T offered on are Velocicoaster and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures.) It’s also super nice to be able to use a room key as a credit card everywhere, and everything is charged to that.

We flew American direct out of Austin, and after an early morning glitch (the airlines SAID the flight was canceled, it was not), all was easy peasy.

We got to Orlando around 1, our room was already available for checkin, so we dropped baggage, changed and took off for the parks. Our hotel was on the water taxi route, so we headed down there, but the taxi was leaving just as we got there and wouldn’t be back for another 20 minutes.

Mom was absolutely NOT having the wait… so we took off on the 7 minute walk to the park. I was VERY nervous about the walking this trip. I had PLANNED to start walking every day leading up to it, but I hadn’t. I had also PLANNED to go get good walking shoes, and I hadn’t done that either. Since Mom works out hardcore and daily (she’s done MULTIPLE IronMan Triathlons and is an All World Athlete), I was concerned about keeping up, but I held my own, even with walking 10 or 11 miles a day. I was sore, but I was fine…

I was also VERY worried about thrill rides. I had heard that as people get older they get more prone to motion sickness, and I was also worried I wouldn’t like the rides anymore. Finally, I’m a big ol’ fatty, and I had heard that Universal, in general, is not particularly plus sized friendly on the rides, and PARTICULARLY unfriendly on Harry Potter rides. ALL of those fears turned out to be unfounded. I fit them all (eventually) and LOVED them all the whole time.

Day One (Sunday afternoon)

We strolled through City Walk and settled on going to Universal Studios first. Once there, we decided to try out the first ride, We did Jimmy Fallon Race Through New York. It was a perfect first “ride.” It’s a less jerky motion simulator… and it reminded me right away that this was fun! The weather was PERFECT… Mid 60s and cloudy… The park was crowded, but not horribly so. From there, it was time to check out Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is actually at both parks, and it’s in the back of each. I think if people have never been before that the BEST way is to go to Studios first. It is SO striking to enter through Diagon Alley. I had been warned that it’s easy to pass it if you don’t know where it is, and it certainly would have been. I saw the King’s Cross station, and we seemed to be in London, but no Harry Potter to be seen… only a nondescript brick wall that had an entry to “something.” That “something” was the wizarding world and Diagon alley.

Mom didn’t expect to, but as soon as she walked in, she started to cry… That’s the REAL Harry Potter fan for you. There, we decided to do our first “big” ride. They have tester seats out front, so I tried it out… and lo and behold, got the green light with little trouble at all! So, we took our fanny packs off and stored them in the lockers. (I found I LOVED having a fanny pack. I even loved wearing leggings. I’ve never worn either before, but it was such a great way to store everything.) The queue at Escape from Gringotts is amazing. You enter the bank and go through the vaults. It has something to do with the Weasley family and riding a dragon… who knows? But anyway, it’s part motion simulator part thrill ride. That seems to be “the thing.” It was gorgeous and a lot of fun! You can see a POV here.

From there, we went to the Leaky Cauldron and had some Toad in a Hole and Butter Beer… Not my favorite thing, BUT when in Harry Potter world… Poor Mom got a brain freeze that turned into a whole body freeze! I was afraid we were going to lose her there for a minute! (lol). Then, we went to Olivanders and watched the wand experience before Mom went into the store and asked a Team Member to select a wand for her. After a personality test, he went with the Vine for her.

We found Mom to be quite the talented wizard! She could make ALL of the things occur with her interactive wand. From there, after a trip through the very creepy Knockturn Alley, we boarded the Hogwart’s Express to go over to the Islands of Adventure.

The train is great because it actually moves but also has the immersive experience of traveling through London, then the forest, before reaching Hogsemeade. There is a video showing “outside” in addition to being able to hear the other passengers in the “hallway” while surviving the dementors and chocolate frogs. The video changes depending on which direction you’re taking the train, which is quite fun! The Express pass was GREAT for this because the wait was generally around half an hour without the pass, but only about 10 minutes with…

When you exit the train on the other side, there you are, smack dab in the middle of Hogsmeade, and there, we decided to do our first real roller coaster of the trip: Hagrid’s Magical Creatures. You can see a ride through here. I did the motorcycle, mom did the side car. Sadly, Hagrid is known for breaking down, and it did SEVERAL times while we waited in line for 2 1/2 hours. BUT there was a DELIGHTFUL group of teenagers playing heads up in front of us… and the queue is lovely, so we were entertained…

By the time we rode, it was dark outside, and was a fantastic view of the park at night! The park, however, was close to closing, so we were making our way back to the boat to return to the hotel. Mom had to stop for the restroom, but I caught the tail end of the castle lights at Hogwarts. (I feel bad about it! She was looking for me in the bathroom, but I hadn’t gone there. I could sort of see the show, so I got closer. She missed all of it looking for me. You can see that here, too.) They were good… but not “Disney show good,” in my opinion.

So, we took the boat back to the hotel and went to dinner at the Island’s dining room. The service was great… the food… meh. Actually, the first thing we ordered was AWFUL… lol. It was supposed to be an Asian chopped salad… It was more like bad coleslaw with some chicken slapped on it… But we reordered and all was well.

Back to the room… with showers.. and AWESOME fudge that we picked up on the way out…and VERY comfortable beds, and getting ready for the next day. We knew that Tuesday was supposed to rain, so we planned to get the most out of…

DAY TWO: Monday

We woke up all revved up and ready to go… We took off down the path and had to wait a little bit to get through the metal detectors and make it to City Walk. We had early access, so we got to the park an hour before it OFFICIALLY opened. I set off EVERY metal detector on the trip… not sure why. We did run into a snag a few times with our fingerprints as well. I understand that they have to fingerprint you to make sure that it’s YOU using your park pass, Things would have been better if I had shoved my ID in my lanyard, too. If I go back, I’m going to sandwich a credit card and my ID between the park pass and the express pass/room key in case I have any other glitches.

Since we had decided that we like the thrill rides, we went with the biggest and baddest of all to begin: Velocicoaster!! Since this one doesn’t have an express pass, it’s great to get to it first thing in the morning.

Oh my GOODNESS this was soooooooooooooooo fun!!!! You accelerate to 70 miles an hour in 2.4 seconds… TWICE. You hang upside down over the water… The DROP is nearly 90 degrees. It is AMAZING. Even watching the POV right here I feel my heart rate pick up and my breath taken away all over again!

I like the way that they handle the lockers for this ride. There are none on the outside. You drop your items when you are just about to get on the ride, and you pick them up on the other side when you get off. The lockers everywhere at Universal are great. The free ones are very small, but big enough for two small fanny packs and a wand. You scan anything with a bar code, and it chooses a locker for you. When you come back, you scan the same barcode, and it opens the locker. Usually, you can keep your cell phone with you, but for Velocicoaster, you have to go through a metal detector because of the magnets. FANTASTIC ride.

From here, we walked over to Hogsmeade, although not quite as spectacular and overwhelming of an entrance as Diagon, it is still so beautiful!

We were going to go ride the Hippogriff first (a kid’s roller coaster), but the wait was long, so we walked right across to Forbidden Journey. I did not make the test seat in this one. The ride has a weird setup where four people are in these little coffin like stalls and facing forward. I couldn’t get my arms in a place where I could pull it down over my shoulders, so I didn’t take the ride the first day. Still, the queue was the BEST one of any we had seen. Just Mom rode on the first day, but don’t feel sad for me. I went back and tried again on our second full day, and I did just fine. I just didn’t pull my elbows in so tight. It was a FUN ride. From there we did the Hippogriff, a fun kid’s roller coaster, then had breakfast at Three Broomsticks. It was a HUGE breakfast on a TINY chair lol. The chairs are literally about 18 inches off the floor. You have to really practice your squats not to just collapse when you sit down.

We left Harry Potter for awhile at that point and went to do another roller coaster. When I saw that the test seat for Hulk would work for me, even though it was over the shoulder, I was THRILLED!!! I rode modified, but I probably would have fit regular. While not as smooth or fast as Velocicoaster, this one was a LITERAL blast, too! Plus, I LOVE to go upside down!!!

From there we did Spiderman and Kong, both of those are the combination motion simulator/motion rides. Lots of fun and not as intense as the other rides. We walked back over to Hogsmeade and considered doing Hagrid’s again, but the ride was delayed and the line very long, so back to Diagon Alley we went.

But today was the time for the “other” rides… I was super sad that The Mummy was closed, but it’s a great reason to go back!!! Here, I’m starting to forget the order of things, BUT I know we did the last of the big roller coasters, Rip Ride Rocket. This one is fun because you get to choose your own music… which I forgot to do! I did ride modified on this, but I didn’t check if the regular seat worked.

We grabbed a burger and fries at Mel’s diner before watching the Universal parade. Then we went over to the Horror MakeUp show, which was really more about the history of Horror movies, and was a lot of fun.

Also here, we walked through Springfield and did the Simpson’s simulator. (You are in a “car” with other people Very little ACTUAL motion on this one, but it’s still fun.) We did the oldie but the goodie of ET, We also did Transformers, which is a simulator plus motion… that made me angry because it beat me up for no good reason. Ha! We stopped to listen to the Beat Boys while making our way to the rides. We also watched the Bourne Stunt Spectacular which was a really cool combination of live actors doing stunts and super high definition movie.

Then, we walked out the front and back over to Islands of Adventure because we had a dinner reservation at Mythos. I don’t know if we were just really hungry, but the food was WONDERFUL. We had a great waiter (Steven from England), and spanikopita dip, calamari, Mom had salmon and I had a gnocchi Bolognese. The atmosphere of the restaurant was very cool as well! From there, it was time to buy more fudge (the M and M fudge was CRAZY good), and some Christmas ornaments before making our way back to the hotel.

DAY THREE: TUESDAY

The weather had said it was going to rain all day, but I KNOW I have better luck than that… and indeed I did! It was cloudy but NOT rainy as we made our way to the park before it opened. We were even earlier on Tuesday than we had been on Monday, and we beelined back for the Velocicoaster because it had been such a great way to start our Monday. It was incredible again! From there, it was back to Harry Potter for playing around with the wand, and I wanted to try out the Forbidden Journey test seat again since I fit everything else in the park. This time, it worked.

We had “finished” all the rides at Islands of Adventure the day before, and the weather was starting to look a little ominous, so we decided to go over to Universal Studios to do the last few rides we hadn’t done there. Onto the Hogwarts Express we went. We stopped to have breakfast of a lovely leek scone and some warm Butter Beer based on the recommendation from the shrunken head at the Knight bus. After using the wand for a bit in Diagon, we went to the Men in Black which we had done 25 years ago. It’s part ride, part video game, and ALL fun!! (I did kick mom’s BUTT this time!) Then, we went to Despicable Me… the story was cute, but the ride, like the Transformers, made me mad because it beat me up for no reason… but at least the story was better. Then, the promised rain started to happen. so we ducked into the Animal Actors show. We remembered that we had seen it 25 years ago, and it was still wonderful now.

From there, it was back to Diagon, and we decided to do Gringott’s again because neither of us remembered it well. (I think we were too hyped up for the first day!); then, we took the train back to Hogsmeade. (We decided we liked the movie better from London to Hogwarts). The rain was coming down pretty hard by this point, BUT we saw the line for Hagrid’s was only 20 minutes long, so we went to do that ride again! It was fun in the rain, but WOW did it feel like it was pelting you in the face! Since it was raining, we decided to go grab lunch at Three Broomsticks and had a tasty split pea soup. We also bought the blanket Mom had wanted and some souvenirs for the nephews at Finch’s Emporium

As we walked back towards the exit of the Islands across the bridge, Mom saw a family with several kids and donated her well enjoyed interactive wand.

We considered doing Velocicoaster one more time… but decided against being pelted with rain… and just did Kong one more time because it was so pretty.

It was only about 3 in the afternoon, but we were wet and had done all the rides and seen all the shows. Mom REALLY wanted to come back that night and see the lights at Hogwarts. I REALLY did not. But we both decided to go back to the room for showers and some coffee. We stopped on the way at Toothsome chocolate emporium, and I got some BEAUTIFUL macarons to bring home.

Once showered and coffeed, I acquiesced and said that I would return to the park because Mom REALLY wanted to see the lights at the castle. We took the boat to the park for the first time… once there, however, we realized that Islands of Adventure was closing early and there would be no lights. I had canceled our dinner reservation for that night because we thought we would be at the lights… and there was no longer a reservation available.

We decided as long as we were there, we might as well walk over to Universal Studios again to say goodbye to Diagon Alley. The only ride we hadn’t done, yet, was Fast and Furious because I’d heard it was terrible. My expectations were VERY low… so I thought it was fun… ESPECIALLY the bus chase part at the very end. Besides, who doesn’t like to look at Vin Diesel and the Rock?

It was still raining, and it actually made for a quite BEAUTIFUL night in Diagon alley… the streets were all wet and the stores were all lit up. It was so pretty. We had seen the dragon blow fire a few times before, but she wasn’t in the mood that night. People had been standing there for thirty minutes, cameras in hand… Just waiting!

Universal does “Mardi Gras” from February-April. We didn’t really participate in any of the food offerings available, but, since we didn’t get to see the lights at Hogwarts, we stayed for closing at Universal Studios to grab a FANTASTIC brisket crepe at Central Parke Crepes and watch the parade before going back to the room and calling it a wrap on Mother/Daughter trip 2022.

We walked until we thought our feet might fall off, ate until we were stuffed, rode rides that took our breath away, laughed until our cheeks hurt… and had an AMAZING time overall!!!

Life is never about the THINGS, it’s about the experiences. And this was one AMAZING experience!