Judy-game ground rule for pictures in Hogsmeade: for this update we'll just count pictures that Judy appears in somewhere as "1" ie. not "1" per reflection etc., or we'll be here all day.
Okay, back to the trip report.
The ride started up pretty soon after I took the spoiler picture actually, and we continued on without further interruptions. Knowing a little bit about how the ride worked, and the interruption itself, did detract from the experience somewhat, but it was still a great ride. One moment we were flying behind Harry in a Quidditch game, and another moment we had a dragon's head just about come into our ride vehicle. The rest of the time we got whipped around in the dark, what more could you ask for? We met up afterward and we all agreed that we enjoyed it a lot!
Okay, in reading my trip notes it looks like a great story has become a little fuzzy due to the ravages of time. My notes say "stupid locker lady", but I can't remember the details that caused me to write that. I think the lady's locker was near mine and she either had stuff on the ground or she had trouble getting her locker open or something like that that kept me from getting to my locker. And you don't want to irritate me, 'cause I'm a trip report writer and I'll make a note of it and then people on the internet will read all about it. I'm talking people numbering upwards of double-digits. Potentially. There...you've gotten your comeuppance, "stupid locker lady"! (Whatever it was you did.)
We left the ride through the store (imagine that! A store at the end of an amusement park ride!) and discovered that we could have entered the lockers through the store. It might have been quicker to go in that way than the way we went, maybe something to try next time. I did have to laugh at a little boy who was in the store looking at wands. He was testing them out, checking the weight, balance, and action of each one. He'd heft one in his hand, look at it and give it a good "flick and swish", and then move on to another one. Too funny! Doesn't he know that the wand chooses the wizard?!
From there, we moved on to the Flight of the Hippogriff. I think this picture of Hagrid's hut was taken near there.
The Flight of the Hippogriff is a kiddie coaster, and pretty much lives up to that billing. I think I remember it having some circular turns at the end that were fun, but other than that, it was a ways below our thrill level. I'm not trying to knock it though, it's a good kiddie coaster.
After that ride we went out into the courtyard and were able to talk Judy into getting a picture with the Hufflepuff flag. Hopefully you remember from this earlier chapter,
link to the Hufflepuff milk chapter, how we accuse her of being a Hufflepuff.
Just like a Hufflepuff to blink for a picture.
James thinks he's a Gryffindor.
Yeah, right! Tell it to the Sorting Hat.
Anyway, we reconvened there and talked about how we'd made a mistake not going through the standby line for The Forbidden Journey. The girls wanted to go back through, but Judy's a Hufflepuff so one ride on Forbidden Journey and one on Flight of the Hippogriff had already put her at her limit. (Old Expedition Everest neck injury, if you remember that from a previous trip report.) So, naturally, I took one for the team (yet again!), and volunteered to go back to the Forbidden Journey with the girls. James decided to hang out with mom, so we loaded the two of them down with our extra miscellaneous stuff so that we didn't have to visit the lockers again, and raced back to get in line. ("Extra miscellaneous" may sound redundant, but when you're talking about stuff youre carrying at an amusement park, it somehow seems to be an accurate description.)
Here are some cellphone pictures from our second ride, as we went through the standby queue.
Things are looking up! With their use of forced perspective, I'll bet that the tippy-top of those towers are at least a good 10 to 12 feet away. Okay, maybe a little bit more than that.
I kinda liked how graphic this warning sign was. No beating around the bush.
Ahead of us in line were 3 girls, who kept looking back through the line. I soon realized that they were looking back for their family members, to see if they were working their way up to them. After a little while, the rest of the family finally did the "excuse me, excuse me" dance past everyone to join the girls. There were no less than
10 people who crowded past us to get to those 3 girls. Not cool.
We went up some steps and came to this Greenhouse, where Herbology would be taught to wizarding students. Obviously.
I half-expected to see some kind of man-eating animatronic plant here, but they all seemed to be no more than houseplants. Toxic, venomous, magical, don't-turn-your-back-on-'em houseplants.
Lauren had to tell me that these hourglass thingies were used to keep track of the house points, en route to the
House Cup annual award. I mean, I knew about the House Cup and points and all, but I didn't know about these hourglasses.
If I remember correctly, the lady behind me in line tried to get past me when I paused to take this next picture. Sheesh, gimme a break. I'll close-up the gap in the line in just a second. Oh thanks, now it's blurry.
And we saw the hall of portraits. Well, that's my name for it...it probably has some official name, of which I'm unaware.
This picture didn't turn out very well, but in this one room real snow came floating down, which we thought was really cool. No pun intended.
I think this portrait is supposed to be the one that hangs outside of the entrance to the Gryffindor house.
We got in line at 8:55 and came out at 9:45, so just a little bit less than an hour at that point in the day. Probably not too bad actually, considering the time of year and everything. And not to mention (but I will) the fact that 10 people had budged in front of us. Still, it was great to go through it a second time and see all of the sights in the standby line and to experience the ride again. We give it two thumbs-up!
Meanwhile, the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor-wannabe walked around Hogsmeade. Here are Judy's pictures.
I loved how these cast members (I guess I'll call them that even though this is the "park that must not be named") stood just like the characters in the movie. These are the students from other wizarding schools who've come to Hogwarts to compete in the
Triwizard Tournament.
Now for some window shopping.
I think this might be the dress that Hermione wore to the Yule Ball, which followed the Triwizard Tournament?
The girls and I came out from the ride at about 10am, and I took a picture of the crowd in Hogsmeade as we tried to find Judy.
I snapped a real quick picture of the entrance to The Three Broomsticks.
Then we took care of another "must do". When you go to Hogsmeade, you have to try Butterbeer, right? Right! So we did. We got ours from the cart in the street, and we didn't stop at just Butterbeer, we tried 1 regular, 3 frozen, and 1 pumpkin juice.
Is this one of those "drinking pictures" that can get cost you a job if a potential future employer sees it on Facebook? I sure hope not.
James got a little bit of Butterbeer foam on his nose, although it's hard to see. It looks like he likes it though!
What did we think of it? We liked it! It didn't sit well with the Hufflepuff, but what else would you expect? (Check what House you're in before ordering exotic beverages like this.) Anyway, I guess the best way to describe the taste is that it's kind of like cream soda, but with more foam. We liked the frozen version better than the regular, but the regular was still good. We also liked the pumpkin juice, but not as well as Butterbeer. I wrote down that it was thick and syrupy, and tasted like cider with cinnamon and clove flavors. I'm glad that we just got one to share because as syrupy as it was it would've been hard for one person to drink a whole bottle of that themselves.
continued in next post
Link to next post