Wizarding World of Harry Potter & Universal Studios Hollywood

I have several items to write about from our latest trip. We had a fabulous time, but it will probably take me awhile to get all the items written up that I want to talk about! I thought I would start with what I have been asked about the most: “How was the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and how does it compare to the one in Orlando?”

I am going to split the post into 2 parts: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the rest of Universal Studios Hollywood.

The Wizarding World was fantastic. To me, it seemed exactly the same as the one in Orlando, with the exception of not having the dueling Dragon ride and Ollivanders is in a different spot. There is, of course, no Diagon Alley either. Otherwise, even the stores seemed the same. Each store we went in reminded me of the one in Orlando. The Castle queue for the Forbidden Journey ride – the same. We didn’t have a line for the ride, so we quickly just walked through the whole castle, but still got to see/enjoy the experience. The child swap area even seemed the same.

The Hippogriff ride seemed the same to me too. A fun little roller coaster my little boys loved. They let you child swap right on the platform. You go by Hagrid’s hut while in the line.

The Three Broomsticks seemed smaller here, but that is probably just my perception, they are probably similar in size. Ollivanders had a much better queue here, as I am sure they planned for the popularity better here after Orlando.

We, of course, had several butterbeers – so good! Nothing like drinking down $5 of a sweet drink in a matter of minutes. We had several entrees, but my favorite was the Bangers and Mash! It was surprisingly soooo good. I would almost go as far as to say it was the best entrée we had on our entire trip. Maybe I just like caramelized onions and mashed potatoes together.

We had the sticky toffee pudding. We had to eat it first, since it had ice cream on it. Yeah, that really bummed out my kids *sarcasm* – YAY for dessert first! It was good, but to be honest, I make a better sticky toffee pudding. We also ordered the Butterbeer potted cream. This was less than stellar. To be honest, it just tasted like a thick Butterscotch pudding. Between the 6 of us, we barely finished it off. It was just ok. We did get to keep the cute container though, so not a total loss!

We planned to get the interactive wands for our little boys, since our big kids already have wands from our trip to Orlando. However, it got soooo busy in there, we skipped paying the extra $10, because it was impossible to move around and actually get to the places where the wands would work. They didn’t want to wait in another line, just to use their wands. They were happy just watching and seeing what the other people’s wands did. We ended up buying them just regular wands and they were happy with that. They were still $40, so not a cheap souvenir! (and people think Disney is expensive!). We also picked up a decoy detonator. We had several other things from our other trip in Orlando, so we didn’t need too many items.

We are HUGE Harry Potter fans, and I am glad we went for the experience because it is really cool! However, we will not be going back to the one in Hollywood, and now I’ll explain the rest of the park….

The rest of the park is LAME. I remembered why we haven’t been there in about 12 years. There is a reason we have purposefully not gone back. Now that we have seen the Wizarding World, we will not be back again (at least not for many years!) If we want to see Harry Potter again when the little ones get older, we will be going in Orlando.

The problem with the rest of the park is that there is only like 5-6 other rides in the ENTIRE park. If you’re used to Disney and riding rides all day, this is a HUGE downer. Because there are so few rides, they have LONG lines. They don’t have fastpass either. They have a pass that they CHARGE you for, to get you to the front of the line. It is like $30-50 a day. Lame. We were there in the off-season, but they all still had 20-50 minutes waits.

If you like to watch shows, they have a few of those, but we were not interested in any of them. I mean, who even saw the movie “Waterworld?”

We enjoyed the Simpson’s land, because we are big Simpson’s fans. We actually REALLY liked the Lard Lad donuts! They were surprisingly good! At $5 each, they are one of the best deals in the parks too! We bought 2 large donuts and it easily fed the 8 of us all a snack. I think the big pink one tasted the best. I could go for another one of them right now actually!

Once you got on the rides, they were pretty good. If you don’t enjoy 3D rides, then you aren’t going to like any of the rides, since all but the Jurassic Park, the Mummy, and the Hippogriff ride, are 3D rides.

I will give them credit, we all enjoyed the Studio Tour. If it weren’t for Harry Potter, Simpsons, and the Studio Tour, it would have been a terrible day. The Studio Tour is about an hour, and it works well for a break on your feet and as a ride. Plus the ENTIRE family could go on it. The baby nursed and slept the whole time. We all actually enjoyed the Studio Tour – some things were the same as 12 years ago, but there were some different and fun additions too.

All rides there are at least 40 inches. I really think I should get a refund on the admission I paid for on my 3-year-old. They probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t paid for him anyway… but being honest and all… He did ride the hippogriff ride, which is only 39″. At Disney, he was able to ride ALL the 40″ rides. Well, even though they would measure him at the beginning, saying he was fine, they would always kick him off when we were getting on the ride. Arg! He did manage to get on the Simpsons ride. Since there are absolutely NO family rides, other than the Studio Tour, they really should charge based on height, not age. So keep in mind, if you have kids around or under 40″, there is NOTHING for them to ride at Universal Studios in Hollywood. I would not consider this park family friendly at all. At least in Orlando, there are other rides and things to do – they have more than 7-8 rides in the ENTIRE park. If you are going to spend the money, you get much more bang for your buck in Orlando.

I felt like I ended up paying over $10 per person, per ride for the day. Lame. I have no plans to pay that or go back again. Too busy. Too many people. Too few rides and things to do.

I would probably recommend to people of they really want to see the Wizarding World once, then yes, it is worth the trip – ONCE. Don’t expect much or anything from the rest of the park and just know you are paying experience Harry Potter. I won’t be going back – I’ll pay the money and go to Orlando instead, much better park overall. Even though we didn’t think much of the rest of the Orlando park either, it was still better than the rest of the Hollywood park.

Think I am being too harsh? Maybe… Perhaps I am just spoiled by Disney. Legoland is much superior too, especially for little kids, in my opinion (way more rides/things to do/experience). All I know is, now I remember why we haven’t been in 12 years. It was worth it to experience Harry Potter again and to compare the 2 parks, but I’m good now and just can’t see us paying the money to go back to that park again anytime soon.

If going to Orlando isn’t in your budget/future and you really want to see the Wizarding World – then go! It is worth it once to experience the Wizarding World and drink some expensive butterbeer. The Harry Potter part is Amazing. The Studio Tour is good too! Just tell yourself you are paying for Harry Potter, and anything else in the park is just gravy on your day 🙂 And don’t go if you only have small children (we have a wide range of ages, so this doesn’t work for us… but if all of our kids were say 5 and under, we’d wait to go)