Florida's Islands of Adventure, home to the famous Harry Potter World. We had to rise early in order to make the most of our day, not knowing what the crowds and lines would be like. By 7 a.m. all 4 of us were showered and out the door, on our way to Orlando, just in time to hit the morning rush hour. Being battle hardened from my years fighting the morning commute back in Chicago,
this 20 minute hiccup in the plan was nothing to me and before everyone else could finish complaining about it, we were already inside the confines of the park. Once we got through all of the ticketing windows and layers of security, the park was ours to explore. We were ecstatic when
we realized that today wasn't going to be a busy day. We walked right on to the Hulk, our first ride of the day, and because the line was non-existant, we decided to do it twice. Next, we went to Harry Potter World, which is its own section within the park. As we rounded the corner into Diagon Alley, we
were all blown away. Every storefront from the books and movies was brought to life before our eyes. There was even giant barrels of butterbeer strewn throughout the street, tapped and ready to serve. We immediately started going through all the shops, picking up and examining all of the hokey imitations of things from the movies. Next we made
a stop in the Hogs Head Tavern and enjoyed our very own butterbeer, which sadly is not beer at all. After the initial shock of entering the world wore off, we decided to head back to the roller coasters. The entire day
there was only one ride that we had to wait in a line for more than 10 minutes to get on. We rode every thrill ride in the park at least twice and even finished off the day getting soaking wet at a Popeye themed Thunder Canyon. We were all now pretty cold since the sun had set and we were drenched head to toe. Since we had done everything we wanted to, twice, we decided to walk through HP World once more and then head to the City Walk for some dinner. Katie picked out Bob Marley's Jamaican Cuisine for her birthday dinner. The food was beyond
all of our expectations and it ended up becoming a makeshift tapas meal because everyone kept wanting to try things off each others plates. At the end of the meal, Mike alerted the waitress that it was Katie's birthday and we all got to split a free order of cheesecake. Mike drove the 2 hour drive back to Jacksonville while Katie and I dosed in the back. If the cheesecake at the end of the meal wasn't the icing on the cake, then the ice cream cake that we picked up just before reaching home definitely was. It was no surprise to Katie and she even got to pick the flavor, but she was extremely happy all the same. Exhausted from our full day, we went to bed as soon as our slices of ice cream cake were demolished.
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