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| Clay helping himself to Bertie Bott's Everyflavor Beans |
After breakfast, it seemed even colder and windier as well as the crowd continued to build. Clay's goal was Honeydukes, the sweet shop. He wanted to get me a birthday cake! Uh-huh! Among other things... First he filled himself a bag of self-serve bulk candy at (I believe $3.99/pound for all of them.). Then he did buy a Cauldron Cake for us to share (just had a big breakfast!) and a giant piece of treacle fudge (I think cakes were around $4 and worth every penny! Fudge was priced at I think $3.99 a piece and all pieces were not equal!) Treacle fudge was white chocolate with caramel and raisins and milk chocolate swirls, I think. Looking up from in front of the bakery style counter where you order your cakes and fudge and caramel apples, there are extendable ears! Continuing on past the counter is Zonko's Joke Shop.
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| Extendable ears! |
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| Hogwarts Express locomotive on arrival |
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| Debbie studying the schedule, pretty pricey fares! |
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| Owl popped out of clock's tower on Owlery |
As we were checking out the entry area in sunshine now, the clock starting chiming and an owl popped out! It was not striking the hour, it was the half-hour. If it strikes on the hour, we never saw or heard it.
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| Frog Choir |
We walked around now to see the themed lines for the Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge ride and the Forbidden Forest theme of Flight of the Hippogriff. Both really well done with lots of stuff from the movies. We did not ride either one. First we walked through Dragon Challenge which had stuff from the Goblet of Fire movie. While we walked up the hill to enter the Champion's tent area, we saw and heard the Frog Choir from above. This turns out to be an excellent vantage point, when we saw the Beaux Batons and Durmstrang Spirit Rally from the ground level, I couldn't really see anything for all the people standing in front of us.
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| Hogwart's School from Dragon Challenge queue |
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| End of Hogsmeade, turn the corner here and see Hogwarts |
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| The Weasley's enchanted car |
At the top of the hill going into the Dragon Challenge entrance building, you can see the Weasley's enchanted flying car crashed in the Forbidden Forest as well as the back side of Hagrid's Hut. You can hear Hagrid warning students off from the Forest as well as Fang barking.
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| The Weasley's wrecked, enchanted car |
Once inside the Champion's Tent, you can circle the Goblet of Fire (on fire!), be greeted as a champion, and see the cots, brooms, and refreshments for the champions who are waiting for their turn at the Dragon Challenge. Then, inside the castle area to see the TriWizards Championship Cup, and the floating candles of the Great Hall.
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| Goblet of Fire |
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| Refreshment table in the Champions' Tent |
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| Broom and cot for waiting Champions |
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| TriWizards Cup (also a secret portkey!) |
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| Floating candles ceiling of Hogwarts' Great Hall |
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| Clay in front of Hagrid's Hut |
I had thought to ride Flight of the Hippogriff since it is a kiddie coaster, but Clay freaked out watching it and said no way was he riding and neither should I, so we didn't. I was a little scared to take a chance of setting off vertigo anyway and was just as happy to only go through the line. Since it wasn't crowded, that worked out just fine! I asked and the attendant at the ride boarding area allowed us to go up on the boarding platform and to the far right end so we could get some good photos of Buckbeak with Hagrid's Hut behind her and watch her bowing to the people on the ride as they passed. So, we got to see Hagrid's Hut and Buckbeak in a nest. You could hear Hagrid's voice and Fang barking inside the hut. Cool!
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| Buckbeak in his nest |
As we exited the Flight of the Hippogriff, the young men of the Durmstrang Academy were demonstrating their stick fighting skills and the ladies of the Beaux Batons School were dancing. We rounded the corner just as they started, put I couldn't really see the show over the people in front. After they made a line for photo opportunities but we did not wait. Clay just took a picture of some other random people!
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| Hagrid's supplies! |
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| Durmstrang students |
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| 4 Beaux Batons, 1 Griffyndor, 2 muggles and 3 Durmstrangs |
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| Bob with frozen Butterbeers! |
The sun was out now and warm even though the breeze was chill. We decided to try frozen Butterbeers and sit in the sun. (Let me insert here that I strongly prefer regular Butterbeer! Clay liked both and he had to finish mine. On a hot day, Frozen Butterbeer would probably be worth more than gold. But, today, it was sooo cold, it was giving me chest pain! And brain freeze!) So, we went back to the Hogshead Pub/Three Broomsticks and sat out on the back patio with a view of Hogwarts. Frozen Butterbeer in a souvenir mug is $10.99. You can get refills for $2.99 I believe and in the rest of Islands of Adventure, you can get a Diet Coke refill in it for $.85. I wanted to have a mug as a souvenir! Clay got the 16oz. frozen Butterbeer in a disposable cup for $4.25. After we wandered around more and took some pictures since it did not seem too busy around lunch time. Also, they had out actual meals behind glass in Three Broomsticks and the chicken and ribs combo out was dark meat. I asked if I could come back later and get that meal with white meat. We hung around while some one went to the kitchen to ask. The answer came back yes, they would do that if you ordered it specifically that way and it was rung up that way. More later...
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| Bob is amused. |
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| Inside Three Broomsticks |
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| Happy Birthday to Debbie in Hogsmeade with Bob |
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| The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! |
As we shared a delicious caramel creme filled Cauldron Cake in the Owlery for my birthday, we watched about a half dozen screaming kids go by in Hogsmeade. Clay commented that 52 was about the perfect age to enjoy a birthday in Hogsmeade. I agreed and since it was getting a little unhappy in Hogsmeade, I suggested we backtrack and see some other things in IOA (Islands of Adventure). We sat through the Sinbad live action show. Then we walked through the Poseidon's Fury attraction. Both in Lost Continent. We also watched a magic show in a magic shop. It was basically a sales pitch for their products, but there was a lot of audience participation and it was funny. Then we walked through Suess Landing and I talked Clay into riding my only ride of the day! I played in If I Ran the Zoo and I found and sat on Horton's Egg, with Bob. Suess Landing was just as amazing as Hogsmeade and much less crowded! Loved how the trolley train rode around the inside of the ceiling of the Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoo-pendous restaurant! Clay rode the Cat in the Hat alone and said the wild spinning at the end would have done me in and it was good I didn't ride.
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| Debbie & Bob sit on Horton's Egg |
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| Bob with Max and the Grinch |
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| Debbie, in Suess Landing, having the best Birthday ever! |
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| Here we are on the one and only ride we took together! |
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| Clay walking Marmaduke! |
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| Hogwarts from Jurassic Park |
We walked through Toon Lagoon and Marvel Super Hero Island without doing any thing. We went in the Discovery Center in Jurassic Park and watched a dinosaur egg hatch and I played with some of the other interactive displays. Clay was now deciding that he should ride Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey, or he would regret not doing it. We headed back to Hogsmeade as the sun set for a last look at night and dinner at the Three Broomsticks.
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| Hogwarts from Jurassic Park |
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| Scary! |
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| Hogwarts from Jurassic Park |
We could see and hear Professor Sprout's Greenhouse at Hogwarts from Jurassic Park. Clay decided he would ride Forbidden Journey and that way we would be able to walk through parts of the castle we did not see on the Castle Tour line this morning. There was still not really any waiting, it was almost walk-on status. Clay only had to wait once I left him at the sorting hat because someone had thrown up on the ride and they had to stop it to clean up before they could continue running it. I asked Clay about the Whomping Willow and the Dementor's kiss and Aragog, all things I missed by not being able to ride and he said he didn't see any of them because he had his eyes closed. We looked as his photo from the Dragon's fire breath section and sure enough he had a white-knuckled grip on the restraint and his eyes tightly closed. He did not buy the photo! He did not like the ride, he found it too much like Epcot's Soarin', which completely freaked him out with its feeling of being loose at a great height. Oh, well.
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| Back to Hogwarts! |
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| House points |
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| Debbie in front of entrance to Dumbledore's office |
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| Bob with fish and chips and Butterbeer |
We did some more shopping and then we went to dinner at Three Broomsticks. I ordered the white meat chicken and ribs combo and Clay ordered the fish and chips. He liked the fish and chips and was glad I had talked him out of ordering the ribs that he ate off my meal. He said that they were too saucy and and it was too strongly smoky-flavored. The chicken was fine. Service was not what it had been earlier in the day. It had really fallen apart. We waited a long time expecting that might be normal since we had made a special order. Finally, when people who had ordered after us started going ahead of us to pick up, we stepped up to the counter and asked. They told us they had already given out our meal! They never called our number while we stood there. They basically accused us of having taken the tray and trying to score another free meal. Not. Good. We showed them our receipt (which did not have the special white meat request on it!) and showed them our empty Butterbeer mug (receipt did show a $2.99 refill and a $2.99 regular Butterbeer). Someone else came and spoke to us and they decided maybe someone (besides us) had made an error and they would give us what we had ordered and paid for, but they were pretty surly about it. Kind of took the joy off the day there at the end. (Well, that and Jacob at the Trading Company Store at 4:12pm where we found and bought Hermione's Time Turner key chain. He had the same don't-interrupt-my-coworker-conversation attitude and then rang up $8.35 in change and handed over only $6.35! We are only guessing that he pocketed the extra $2 for himself. That is bad, but we could have done without the hostility as well.) We have to say that those 2 negative staff interactions really stood out in the context of all the rest of the people we encountered really excelling and going above and beyond in their jobs. Anyway, sometimes maybe too much staff is worse than too little it seems. When things were really busy, the staff we encountered were very in character and interacting with the customers. But, when things were slow and there were too many people standing around talking amongst themselves, they seemed to resent the customers as an intrusion. Not good and just commenting on it to give a full accounting. The best birthday ever was not without its down moments.
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| Bob with ribs, chicken, potatoes and corn on the cob |
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| Strawberry and peanut butter ice cream |
After dinner, I went back and ordered 2 bowls of strawberry and peanut butter ice cream and through the still hostile angry gauntlet at the pick up counter. More peanut butter would have been better, but it was really good. Never had it before. About $4 a bowl. Afterward, we realized they were serving hot chocolate. I think that would have been really good and a more weather appropriate choice for dessert, but too late and I was stuffed again! Clay bravely finished my ice cream for me.
We walked out of Three Broomsticks at about 20 minutes to 7pm. Closing was at 7pm. Hogsmeade still seemed open for business. We made a final stop in Honeydukes for some candy and cake to take home. We walked through Lost Continent and everything was closed or being closed. We got to Suess Landing as the Trolley Train went overhead. I told Clay that we had to ride once more in the dark! We got there about 5 minutes to 7pm and we were not the last train! It was cool to see everything lit up in the dark from our vantage point up there. Glad we got to do it twice, especially since it was my only ride! We were walking out the Port of Entry gates a couple of minutes after 7pm. We walked through CityWalk with no more stops and on to the Four Points by Sheraton hotel. Clay decided that he needed to get some exercise and went to get some quality time on the treadmill in the fitness room. I decided to tend my heel blister and elevate my swollen feet and ankles!
What a great day! We slept better with the black-out shade lowered tonight and we have complimentary hotel buffet breakfast to look forward to in the morning before the 9-hour drive home. More later.
