Florida Highlights

We packed a heck of a lot into our two weeks in Florida - some of which I didn't manage to get photographs of. However, have a look at the highlights of what I did catch on camera. Of course shopping was a huge highlight for me too, so much so, a whole other post was dedicated to it here.

Hot Air Ballooning over Orlando and Kissimme was great - well worth the 4am rise too!

The Kennedy Space Center was brilliant too. I loved seeing Atlantis and was really taken aback when we walked through the door to see it (they have a fantastic build up and reveal of the shuttle which made it all the more impressive). We were pretty gutted as a few days after we visited there was an unmanned launch which both of us would have loved to see, if it wasn't for the fact it was Harry Potter day that it happened then we may have driven back across to watch.

Harry Potter day is here! The rest of Universal and Islands of Adventure were pretty good too, it had started to rain after we did the Harry Potter section so a lot of the rides were closed but we did manage to get on a few other things that were good fun (The Revenge of the Mummy and The Hulk were fab!). 

As you may have guessed though, I was most excited about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As a huge fan of the books and the films, it was amazing seeing Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade come to life in front of you and then taking a trip on the Hogwarts Express, which topped it off for me. We visited 5 days after Diagon Alley opened and it was still heaving with people which we did expect, this meant that we didn't get on to the Escape from Gringotts as this was permanently a 2hour+ wait which we weren't for doing. We did however get on the Dragon Challenge and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey which were excellent. I, of course, made sure that G kept to his promise and got me a wand while we were there and we enjoyed frozen Butter Beer. Now I want to do the Harry Potter Studios tour!

Disney! We visited you on a day where it poured from the heavens but still managed to get on Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and Space Mountain alongside other shows and smaller rides. We also managed to catch the fireworks (pictures didn't turn out very well for these as it was raining! Boo!) even though the first Electrical Parade was cancelled due to the weather we decided to stay after the fireworks to see if the rain would ease for the 11pm parade. It did, and we managed to get into the reserved seating area as the group supposed to be in there didn't show up! Even in the rain, it was a brilliant day!