My Animal Kingdom Lodge Grand Villa Vacation!! With a side trip to see Harry!

Yep! A grand villa at Animal Kingdom Lodge. :sohappy: No words can describe the awesomeness. Any other resort, no matter how deluxe, is going to be a letdown from here on out. In fact, my house was a bit of a disappointment when I got back. :lol:

Who: Us, the DVC members who were kind enough to use our points to take family. That's me Tammy- travel agent extraordinaire:lol:, dear hubby - air force officer extraordinaire who was wise enough to buy DVC two years ago, ds15 - our high school student/the quarterback who missed a football game for this trip and whose coach wasn't very happy with me :lookaroun and dd12 - who turned 13 today.

My in-laws whom you may recognize from my Mediterranean cruise report from May.

My brother in law and his family.

Here we are!

When: October 3-10. On my niece’s fall break. My kids flat out skipped school.

What: This was supposed to be a relaxing, enjoy our resort kind of trip. I think we succeeded. We took a lot of breaks. We also took advantage of our full kitchen. The in-laws loaded us up on groceries. We ate breakfast in the room every morning and came back for another meal most days. We were trying to cut down on the quantity of food we ate.

Disclaimers: First, I took a bazillion pictures and am working my way through them, but life gets in the way. This report may take a while, but I've got the first couple of days done. Second, I am not good at food pictures. I forget to take them and someone's usually eating before I get a chance.:lol: You'll have to go elsewhere for those. Third, I may offend some with my rather conservative opinions on Disney appropriate behavior. You may think me a prude and I don't mean to offend, lets just agree to disagree.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

 

[Disneyfalcon]

First, the parking at Universal is crazy far from the parks. I mean we walked for a good 10 minutes and we were among the first people there and in the first few rows!

 

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We entertained ourselves in line:

I don’t know why my husband feels like he needs to throw up in so many of my pictures. I think it goes back to that old Steve Martin song where he’s singing some beautiful love song and starts wretching. Ever since, Dh has felt that pretending like he is throwing up at inappropriate times is funny.:lol:

Finally we were through!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

When they opened the gate, we walked with a small mass of people straight to Hogsmeade. The crowds actually weren’t bad that day at all. On busy days you have to wait in a line just to get into the Wizarding World.

The walk to the back of the park was quite long! Here’s our first glimpse of the castle:

Still walking:

 

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Almost there:

We were there!!

I gotta say, when you walk up, it is just amazing. They did such an awesome job with the castle and town. It truly left me a little breathless.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We went right to the Forbidden Journey. Once we did that, the rest would be gravy.

The workers were all dressed in their school uniforms. It was perfect.

The ride was great. I don’t do simulators real well, so I took some Dramamine that morning. This ride combined simulators with real scenes. I desperately wanted to try it so I went on it anyway. It was a little like Soarin on drugs. :lol: I was queasy for a while afterwards, but very glad I did it.

You have to put everything that won’t fit in your pocket in the lockers at the entrance to the ride. I was so sad to leave my camera.

The queue was excellent. Just excellent. You go through Dumbledore’s office, the greenhouse, etc. etc. The characters are setting up the ride the whole time. I took some pics with my niece’s camera. If I ever see them, I’ll add them to the report.

We only waited about 15/20 minutes, and we moved so quickly through some of the rooms that we missed the setup. In fact, I have no idea what the ride was about, I just enjoyed it.

When we got off, I knew the next busiest place would be Olivander’s wand shop. Sure enough, when we got out, the line was already a good 45 minutes to get into the store. We decided we could miss that one and buy our wands elsewhere.

Everyone who wasn’t queasy went on the small Hippogrith coaster next.
We wandered through Hogsmeade and through some of the stores. The stores had some great merchandise and theming. Unfortunately they’re about 4 times too small. Even on a low crowd day they were packed. You couldn’t move in most of them, and there were lines to get in several of them.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Most everyone decided to go on Dueling Dragons. This was the one part of the area I was not impressed with. It’s just the exact same roller coasters that were already there. I don’t think they were even painted. They really looked out of place to me. Now having said that, I didn’t go on the ride. I was still a little queasy. Those who went on the ride said the queue had a good theme. They also loved the coaster itself.

I wandered and took pictures while I waited.

 

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Honeydukes!

Here’s Zonkos joke shop:

 

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We got a snack from Honeydukes when everyone got back. Check it out! A chocolate frog! Ours didn’t jump out of the box, thank goodness!

Here’s dd with the conductor:

Next we decided it was time to try ButterBeer. We got in line and then decided we might as well eat lunch. We ate at the Three Broomsticks.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

The theming was great, food was good and prices weren’t awful. The butterbeer was surprisingly good! It was sickeningly sweet and we couldn’t finish one glass between the 4 of us, but it really was quite tasty. Here is Ds trying it. There was a great foamy top.

Here’s the chicken:

Lemonade:

Bil and Sil:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

After lunch it was time to buy our wands. We went into the Owl Post. It was so well done too.

They had stacks and stacks of wands.

They had character wands and other random wands. You could give them your birthday and they would tell you your preferred wand. My dd had been saying for months she was getting a wand! Well even my uber cool 15 year old was taken in. At some point he whispered that he kind of wanted a wand too. :lol: How could I resist? Neither of my kids went with their preferred wands. They just went with the ones they liked the most. Dd got Sirius Black’s wand, and Ds just went with a cool one. It was an agonizing decision, I assure you.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Check out the Monster Book of Monsters that was snapping at us on the way out:

We caught the singing frogs next:

Finally we were done with our Harry Potter experience! I don’t know that we will ever spend the money to go back, but if you are a Harry Potter fan, you have got to do it once. On the whole, it is excellent. My nitpicking complaints didn’t take away from my enjoyment of it at all.

 

[HollyBelle]

Great update, Tammy! Your Wizarding World pictures have me so excited to get there. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE that Ally picked out Sirius Black's wand. He's one of my favorites. And she's totally channeling Sirius in that picture. She doesn't look like a muggle at all. :lol: What's the going rate for a wand?

I have to agree with you, the walk from the parking lot to IOA/Universal is brutal.

When did they get rid of the murky green water at the AKL pool? It really enhanced the whole watering hole effect, and I kinda miss it.

 

[MKCP 1985]

looking forward to Harry Potter in December - i don't suppose there is any cure for the smallness of the area and shops. Great photos!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Great update, Tammy! Your Wizarding World pictures have me so excited to get there. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE that Ally picked out Sirius Black's wand. He's one of my favorites. And she's totally channeling Sirius in that picture. She doesn't look like a muggle at all. :lol: What's the going rate for a wand?

I have to agree with you, the walk from the parking lot to IOA/Universal is brutal.

When did they get rid of the murky green water at the AKL pool? It really enhanced the whole watering hole effect, and I kinda miss it.

Seeing as how she has read each Harry Potter book at least 5 times, she will be thrilled not to look like a muggle!:lol:

All wands are now $28.95. They come in a beautiful box lined with silk (or fake silk probably:lol. I've got pictures of the boxes at some point.

I think AKL had so many complaints that the water was dirty in the pool that they decided it wasn't worth it. :lol: I don't remember how long ago they did it.

looking forward to Harry Potter in December - i don't suppose there is any cure for the smallness of the area and shops. Great photos!

Nope. We waived our wands to make them bigger, didn't work.

 

[fractal]

Subscribing to thread.


Great report so far!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Subscribing to thread.


Great report so far!

Thanks, Fractal!

 

[Auroragirl]

Loving the report!!
Great pics.... AKL looks AMAZING!!!

Cant wait to read more!!! :sohappy:

 

[Southern_Tink]

What a great TR! So many things so far that I just LOVE...your pictures, your unreal villa, your beautiful family, your opinion/pictures of Harry, the kids (your daughter in particular) with their wands...it's just ALL GOOD! I cannot wait to read more!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

the wwohp looks AMAZING! i want to go so bad but i can't stand crowds! i want to wait until the hype dies down a bit but from looking at all the pictures, i doubt that will happen anytime soon. :lol: maybe next year. and i didn't know they sold wands! i want one! :lol: never thought i would have said that!

sounds like a great start to your trip, even though it wasn't spent in a disney park!