My dream came true. I am a big Harry Potter fan, but in Germany we don’t have many things you can visit that are about Harry Potter. So I just went with my family to an exhibition with some of the costumes and props from the films, and I watched “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” three times.
Because of this, I was very excited when my host family told me that they are planning to travel to the Universal Studios-Orlando Resort in Florida during my exchange year.
At the beginning of January, the time had finally come. My host mother, my two host sisters and I went to Orlando. I was really nervous and excited to find out if it was really as good as everybody says.
The first thing we did when we arrived was going to Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. When I walked into Diagon Alley I felt like Harry Potter when he first saw Diagon Alley. There were so many details. For me, it was like I was going to shop for things for Hogwarts for the first time. Gringotts looked so real that I was ready to go to my vault and get my Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. The fire-breathing dragon on top of Gringotts transported me to the scene when Harry, Ron and Hermoine broke out of Gringotts.
Knockturn Alley was so dark that you couldn’t really see where you were going, and I had the feeling that a Death Eater could come across me at any time.
Hogsmeade was really beautiful. It felt like I was on a Hogsmeade weekend from Hogwarts. I really liked the snow on the roofs, especially because it was cold, so it didn’t seem fake and it gave a magical appearance.
The shops in the Harry Potter worlds are just amazing. The design inside, outside and in the shop windows have so many details that you can never see all of them. I also really liked that the merchandise that you can buy in the shops is special for the shop you’re in. At Ollivander’s you can buy wands, at Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions you can buy robes and other clothes and at Honeydukes you can buy sweets. That really helped to keep the atmosphere.
When I finally saw Hogwarts, it was like my dreams came true. It was beautiful and looked exactly like the movies. The waiting area from “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” was where I felt like I was finally a student at Hogwarts. I loved the details, like in one room the four founders were talking as paintings and the mandrakes in the greenhouses. You could even see the Fat Lady painting before you entered the Gryffindor common room.
At “Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure,” I loved that it had magical creatures from the books, like a silver unicorn and a golden foal unicorn. When I read about the Blast-Ended Skrewts in the books I could never imagine how they looked, so I liked that they were built into this ride. I really appreciate that the people who built the Harry Potter World showed that they have read the books and are not just using things from the movies.
When I went my second time to see “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” I tried a butterbeer for the first time. In Universal Studios, I had the chance to drink it in the Leaky Cauldron and it tasted even better with the atmosphere of the pub.
In the Harry Potter parks, you can do spells with the wands they sell. After I bought a wand, I was really excited to try the spells. My host sister, Josie, is also a big Harry Potter fan. We tried to do all of the spells in both parks. It was sometimes difficult to activate the spells, but that made it more exciting if it worked. Some of the spells were hidden and that was more difficult because you didn’t know what movement you had to do.
The best two shows you can see in the Harry Potter worlds are the “Ollivander’s Wand Experience,” where a child is chosen and a wand then chooses the child. It was exactly like in the movies and it is so magical to be in the same room. A show I also really liked was “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” where the actors use masks and puppets to let the The Tale of the Three Brothers come alive. The “Tale of the Three Brothers” is my favorite tale from Beedle the Bard, so I really loved it.
During my four days, I also had the chance to ride “The Hogwarts Express” in both directions. I liked the ride from Platform Nine and Three Quarters to Hogsmeade because they could include more scenes from the movies because it is more shown. They also included the Dementors and I really liked it because it is very scary to deliver the cold and scary atmosphere. We also got chocolate frogs at Honeydukes on our first ride, and that really gave the feeling of the first movie.
The Universal Orlando Resort, especially the Harry Potter World, was better than what I expected and was one of the highlights of my whole exchange year.
