Harry Potter World w/ a yo and 7yo

[pixiepurls]

Hello everyone. Hoping for some advice! We leave tomorrow for Orlando. My husband travels there for work so this time we are accompanying him. I plan to hit the park without him (save some $$).

I think my kids are at the 42" mark, My 7yo might be 48 but we won't go on any 48 rides I don't think.

From reading here it sounds like we can do a "castle tour" so the kids can see inside the castle? I actually went to hogsmead the year it opened by my husband stayed with the kids and I rode it alone, they were both too tiny. I adored it. If its true you can do a castle tour I think thy would love that and it would get us out of the heat for a bit. Is this for real?

I think they both can go on Gringotts, what sort of seats is it? Does it have those things that come down from above, is it a roller coaster or do your feet dangle like on the castle ride?

I have a little fuiji X100 camera, would I be okay to carry that on those sort of rides if we are only doing the 42" ones? I usually wear a cinch sack on my back with the girls cardigans in it and a few snacks. In disney world I just wore it on the rides it was never a problem as it is so small. I placed my phone inside it during rides and then just put my back on the pack. The camera usually is in my pack or around my neck as its really not very big and it has a neck strap. On the ride again I pop it into the cinch sack and place it behind my back.

Now for the interactive wands, I predict this is going to be the kids favorite part. They adored the portals at disney world so I want to try and hit all of these. Should we go to olivanders in hogs or in diagon?? I have a 3 day one-park-a-day pass so we can pick which park we go to first. I could not afford the park hopper so we can not ride the train sadly. I would love if one of my kids got picked to do the wand interactive thing, how many people go back so what is the % chance of getting picked.

I am thinking about just buying 1 wand for my oldest, and letting her share it with the little one and then allowing them each to pick out one present in the park and not have the wand cost against it. I really don't want to have to buy two wands. Ironically i bought myself one there the year i went but i have no idea where it is, it was not an interactive one though so i think it would be useless to bring.

Advice welcome! I have a 3 day pass and we will be there from mon-sun so I am thinking of going tues/wed/thurs but I wonder if those may be more high traffic days... I would imagine saturday would be worse though. We also really love going in the evenings, more atmospheric!

 

[macraven]

go early as it will have crowds in the parks.

 

[bumbershoot]

How old is the non-7 year old? The number is missing in the subject line.

Everyone can go through the lines and just exit before seating. Everyone. Yes there's a castle tour, but we found that it was too short and maybe we've just had short lines before, but I didn't feel I saw much of the normal line with it. So honestly I'd just go through the line if it's not terribly long. (if terribly long, of course, do the tour)

Not sure of height reqs of Gringott's but it's individual lap bars. You can't bring things on Gringott's (except for, I believe, wearing a 3-prong waist pack) so you'll need a locker for that cinch sack. If you're in a line to just walk through it, not ride it, you can bring things in, but the Team Members will be asking about it, so just let them know you're not riding.

Unless the kids can handle NOT getting picked, I wouldn't go to Ollivander's for the show. And the wand that is involved there isn't character wand, in case that matters. They can turn that wand down and get another, but that wasn't what my son was capable of doing (which then ended up in him having a birth month wand AND a Potter wand, then later on a Ron wand, and now I believe he has a Snape interactive wand because DH is a total softie) so be careful.

 

[pixiepurls]

How old is the non-7 year old? The number is missing in the subject line.

Everyone can go through the lines and just exit before seating. Everyone. Yes there's a castle tour, but we found that it was too short and maybe we've just had short lines before, but I didn't feel I saw much of the normal line with it. So honestly I'd just go through the line if it's not terribly long. (if terribly long, of course, do the tour)

Not sure of height reqs of Gringott's but it's individual lap bars. You can't bring things on Gringott's (except for, I believe, wearing a 3-prong waist pack) so you'll need a locker for that cinch sack. If you're in a line to just walk through it, not ride it, you can bring things in, but the Team Members will be asking about it, so just let them know you're not riding.

Unless the kids can handle NOT getting picked, I wouldn't go to Ollivander's for the show. And the wand that is involved there isn't character wand, in case that matters. They can turn that wand down and get another, but that wasn't what my son was capable of doing (which then ended up in him having a birth month wand AND a Potter wand, then later on a Ron wand, and now I believe he has a Snape interactive wand because DH is a total softie) so be careful.

SORRY 5 yo!

 

[irene_dsc]

Note that it definitely gets less crowded in the evening, after about 6. We were there Wednesday and Thursday, and I expect it will be similar when you will be there. Figure on doing the wand stuff in the evening. We chose to spend the time shopping and exploring instead of the wand, however. Dd got a shirt instead.

Fwiw, I liked the castle tour (did single rider). Not sure how much I missed, but it was nice to avoid the line!