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Day 1

At the end of a business trip for work, I met my family at the Universal Studio Cabana Bay Beach Resort hotel for the evening (Friday). I took a taxi and arrived at the front of the hotel, which was impressive and styled in a retro 50s theme. The rooms were small, but nice, clean, and obviously very new (the hotel was built in 2014). A huge wading pool sat at the center of the buildings–the hotel was designed with families in mind.

For dinner, we headed to CityWalk on the hotel bus (free) and ate at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant. The food was decent (CityWalk is a huge tourist trap) and the restaurant had live music. On the more expensive side, but that was expected at Universal Studios. We spent the rest of the evening walking around CityWalk and exploring the shops and other attractions.

Day 2

Universal Studios Islands of Adventure
Universal Studios Florida

We woke up early on Saturday and hopped on the bus to visit Universal Studios. The bus drops you off at CityWalk, and you walk through that area to enter at either Islands of Adventure or the main theme park. If you stay at a Universal hotel, you can enter the parks an hour early and head to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We chose Islands of Adventure, and followed the path to the back of the park to visit Hogsmeade first and avoid the crowds. It was a rainy morning, but we made the right choice–Hogsmeade was not yet crowded, and we were able to go quickly through many of the lines. We started by getting wands at Ollivander’s (I recommend the interactive wands, although 1 shared interactive wand amongst a few people is more than enough fun). After, we went on the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. The ride was much more of a thriller than I expected–not recommended for young children or easily scared adults!

After exploring the rest of Hogsmeade, we visited the rest of Islands of Adventure. The rest of the park is mainly roller coasters, with a Dr. Seuss land for children. Then, we hopped on the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley in Universal Studios Florida.

Diagon Alley was even better than Hogsmeade, with several rides (including a ride through Gringotts), and several locations to have butterbeer. I tried the frozen butterbeer, which was fantastic. We walked through the entire area, and it felt like being on the set of a movie. After leaving Diagon Alley, we explored the rest of Universal Studios. AT this point, after midday, lines started to get long for some of the rides (especially the new Minion ride). I downloaded the Universal Studios app to help keep us informed of line times, so we could head toward shorter lines and make the most of our time at the park.

To leave, we took the Hogwarts Express one more time (you get a different experience riding both ways) to exit from Islands of Adventure. We easily visited everything we wanted to in both parks in a day, and left early around 5 PM.

For dinner, we ate at CityWalk again, this time at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then headed back to the hotel to leave in the morning for home.

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Universal Studios and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter