On 4/9/11, my family and I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter part of Universal Islands of Adventure. Wizarding World is the newest addition to Islands, and is only about one year old, if not less. It’s a replica of Hogsmeade and includes a disproportionally small Hogwarts Castle. You enter in front of a steaming Hogwarts Express in a snowy Hogsmeade. Never mind that it never snows in Florida, especially on days like that one. After about 20 pictures of the Hogwarts Express, we entered Zonko’s Joke Shop and Honeydukes sweet shop. We bought some Honeydukes merchandise and then watched a wand show after a long line. I bought myself a hawthorn wand. Why? Because it looks amazing. We skipped the Dragon Challenge roller coaster because we valued our sanity. Bypassing that, we went to perhaps the best theme park ride I’ve ever seen (yes, I hate roller coasters. BRING ON THE FLAMETHROWERS!), Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, a moving simulator. After a line that moved quickly (but was a mile long) through the herbology greenhouse (lots of twists) we entered Hogwarts Castle. And OH JOY, there was a half mile line in there, too. This was made nicer by the very nice set pieces such as video portraits and the like. I think I even heard Rowena Ravenclaw chastising Salazar Slytherin for critiquing the riders. On the actual ride itself, amazing things happened. We flew out of the castle at ridiculous speed and were suddenly chased by a dragon. Then, when we escaped that, we got stuck in the Forbidden Forest and attacked by acromantulas (Aragog’s colony, or whatever it’s supposed to be called). We got rid of them, but were nearly bludgeoned by the Whomping Willow in the process. We got to a Quidditch game and flew around at breakneck speeds, but, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, we got attacked by dementors. Frikkin’ amazing, right. We finally got back to the castle and saw another video portrait of the Hogwarts staff and other important characters congratulating us. When we got outside, we went on the Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster and ate some of Florean Fortescue’s ice cream. After that, we went to the rest of Islands of Adventure, which, I note, has significantly less advanced technology than Wizarding World.
On the second day of our vacation, 4/9/11, we went to the Everglades. The Everglades is a famous national park. It’s a swamp that’s widely known to be covered in alligators and crocodiles. We were not disappointed. We went to the West Palm Beach part’s visitor center, first. There, we went with a group of people on the Anhinga Trail, named after a bird that lives in the Everglades. There, we saw a number of vultures, alligators, anhingas, and cranes. My sister did the Junior Ranger program and became a Junior Ranger. We moved on to the next trail, which went through pinelands, large areas covered in many, many thin, tall trees. They kind of looked liked juvenile redwoods in size. If you don’t know, for the first few decades, maybe even a century (or however long it takes), a redwood only grows straight up. Once it’s reached maximum height, it will keep growing fatter and larger for the rest of its (hopefully) 2 millenia long life. But redwoods aren’t the focus of this post, now, are they. After walking through the pinelands, we went to an overlook where I took a number or pictures. We then reached the end of the road: the Flamingo side of the Everglades. The Flamingo visitor center looked like an ugly, FLAMINGO pink high school building. It’s right on the coast and has a seaside café. We ate some food before leaving to an alligator farm. Sadly, we got there late and weren’t able to do what we were going to. The next day, we did go, though.
On the third day of vacation, 4/10/11, we did an assortment of water activities. First up was jet skiing! Incredibly fun thing to do. We went pretty far out to sea off of the coast of Miami. My dad was going very fast and the water was flying. We stopped over a sunken boat and went snorkeling. I saw about a million fish, which is lucky, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live fish. BRING ON THE FLAMETHROWERS! But while snorkeling, I learned an unpleasant fact. If you accidentally swallow seawater, it tastes bad. Very bad. Very, Very bad. So bad that I want a little green monster that wants hugs and says SsSsSsSsSs… to make a hole in the ocean. Afterwards, we went around Miami Beach and saw the houses of famous people. I’d want an artificial island mansion, too. Finally, we got back to the harbor. Next, we moved onto the alligator farm. Yes, they exist, and I don’t like them. Why? It’s a nice place to go to; it’s that it’s like every other farm: they breed gators, and then they chop them up and sell the bodies to make worthless purses, belts, and other frivolous objects. It’s like Megamind’s “Custom baby seal leather boots.” That’s probably the most evil thing he ever did. Baby seals are cute. Anyway, now that I’m done with my mini-rant, we saw many alligators there. We went to a snake show as well. I was the first volunteer and I held up a constrictor. It tried to crush my arm. It failed. Next, we went on an airboat around the place. Really, all it was was going around at very high speeds in a swamp. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.
On the last day of our vacation, 4/11/11, we went to the Kennedy Space Center. We’d heard it was amazing, and boy, those reports weren’t exaggerating. First, we went to the launch pad viewing gantry and saw the enormous crawler machine. It carries up to 9 MILLION pounds and can maneuver to about 1/8 of an inch. And of course, it costs $400,000 to fire this baby for twelve seconds. Er, I mean to drive it. At the gantry, we saw a show about space shuttles and saw an actual engine for one. Next, we moved on to the Saturn V rocket launch facility. Saturn V’s were the size of skyscrapers, and were widely used and incredibly powerful. They are famous today for their role in the Apollo missions, though they have been retired. At the facility, we learned the entire, long story of the Apollo missions: why they started (the Russians might attack), why they were delayed (the deaths of three astronauts), and their successes. We saw a mockup of the launch featuring the ACTUAL CONSOLES that were used at the launch. Afterwards, we went on the space shuttle simulator, which can’t compare to the Forbidden Journey, but was still fun, if not exactly intense. Finally, we saw an IMAX presentation of Hubble. It was a great movie, what with the astronauts breaking the fourth wall in zero gravity and the information about the Hubble space telescope. After that, we left to the Orlando airport and went home. Today is 4/12/11.
