The Inn Between - Wizarding World Of Harry Potter With The Squiggle

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Wizarding World Of Harry Potter With The Squiggle
June 26, 2010

The Squiggle FLAN (that's the Florida Local Area Network branch of the Squiggle - my romantic network) went to the new opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure in Orlando Florida. It was amazing! The section of the park is not very large, but it's completely immersive. The detail in the buildings along the street was just fantastic, the ride was great, and the butterbeer! Oh the butterbeer! It comes in frozen and "on tap", and is a non-alcoholic sweet drink based on the slightly-alcoholic drink the kids have in the books when they visit the town of Hogsmeade on school breaks.

Basically, the WWOHP section is made up to look like you have entered Hogsmeade Village, which sits at the base of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the main characters attend school. Within the village of Hogsmeade, we find the most memorable buildings from the book, such as The Three Broomsticks Inn, Zonko's Joke Shop, Honedukes candy store, Olivander's Wand Shop, Hogsmeade Owl Post Office, and Hogsmeade Station with the Hogwarts Express. It was designed by the same guy who designed the movie sets, and he said this was his chance to put his vision into 3D reality, instead of separate pieces that movie sets are. He is an actual architect too, not just a set designer, so he was also excited to build fully functioning buildings, not just movie flats. I had such a good time, and I was so impressed with the detail, that I went back again later with my good camera and did nothing but take pictures all day. Those are on another page. These pictures, however, are a mix of pictures I took and that Jessie took with Datan0de's camera.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger images. Please do not steal these images. If you wish to copy these images, show these images on your own website or link to mine, please ask permission first.

Please let me know if your name is incorrect and/or you want a link to your website at your name, and I will fix it.

The entrance to the Wizarding World Of Harry Potter, with Datan0de in front	Datan0de & Kim at the entrance	Datan0de, Kim, & Anklesnake	Datan0de, Kim, & Anklesnake
The entrance	The Squiggle-FLAN, Datan0de, Kim, Jessie, Zensidhe, me, Anklesnake	The Squiggle-FLAN	The Hogwart Express
			Hogsmeade Village Skyline	Hogsmeade Village, crowded with people
The crooked chimneys	Hogsmeade Village		The Hogsmeade Owl Post Office	The Owl Post roost
And the clock tower	Zonko's Joke Shop	Honeyduke's Sweet Shop, with Kim, Zensidhe & Anklesnake	A large Chocolate Frog	A closeup
Kim inside Zonko's Joke Shop	Extendable Ears		Datan0de finds pumpkin juice!
	Datan0de finds Robot Liliput	Pink Coconut Ice in Honeyduke's	Peppermint Toads at Honeyduke's	More Honeyduke's candy
Anklesnake displays the Honeyduke's Chocolate Frogs	Kim & Zensidhe	Chocolate Cauldrons	The Butterbeer vendor	Anklesnake, Zensidhe, Kim, Datan0de, & me in front of the Three Broomsticks Inn
The Owl Post roost	Hog's Head Tavern sign		Inside the Hog's Head Tavern	Inside the Hog's Head Tavern
No, the camera isn't crooked, the walls are!	Kim & Zensidhe in front of Dogweed And Deathcap Exotic Plant Shop	Some exotic plants in the window	More exotic plants in the window	A Mandrake plant
Me resting in the shade on the back patio of the Hog's Head Tavern	The front entrance to the Owl Post	Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop	Some quills in the window	The quill shop interior
Quill shop display	Owl Post sign	Window display	Potage's Cauldron Shop is actually in Diagon Alley in the book, but here in Hogsmeade at WWOHP	Kim & Datan0de peer into a shop window
More of the quill shop interior				Jessie in front of a snowman
The view of Hogwarts from Hogsmeade Village	Hogwarts looms over Hogsmeade Village		The plaque at the entrance

		The front door to Hogwarts	Inside	The Mirror of Erised
A magic morror that shows the deepest and msot desperate desire of our hearts		Some statue	Zensidhe in front of the statue	The door to the Potions Classroom
Same door, with flash	Spooky grate	Potions Storeroom	Jessie	Jessie in front of the kitchens, naturally
Zensidhe looking somber	Zensidhe looking silly	The Greenhouse	A mother duck & baby ducklings scurry across the queue line	Hogwarts from outside the Greenhouse
Professor Dumbledore's Tower & Hogwarts	The towers peeking over the greenhouse	Datan0de, Anklesnake, me, Zensidhe	Anklesnake's tummy	Zensidhe
The main ride warning sign				Inside the greenhouse
		Anklesnake's giraffe tattoo	Anklesnake's giraffe tattoo	Anklesnake's tattoo
Inside the greenhouse				Jessie, Kim, & me in the back
Another statue	House Points	The tally of points each of the 4 houses have won this year	Another statue	The statue & Anklesnake
Approaching the entrance to Dumbledore's Office	Kim poses in front of the Gargoyle guarding the office entrance		A unicorn tapestry	A magical portrait
A map of the Hogwarts grounds	The "magical portraits" show up as black in pictures because they're LCD screens playing video of the portrait subjects	Hall of portraits	Hall of portraits	Some of these portraits talk to the muggles in line & to each other
		Kim & Zensidhe in the Hall of Portraits
Dumbledore's Office		Dumbledore speaks to the guests of what's to come next		A 3D projection of Dumbledore makes it feel like we're really in his office
Professor Dumbldore is the Headmaster of Hogwarts School	Stuff in Dumbledore's office		Dumbledore's Pensieve
The Defense Against The Dark Arts classroom	A dragon skeleton
Datan0de presents the 3 main characters of the books		Like Dumbledore, the 3 kids are a 3D projection of the actual actors, speaking to the guests
	Kim, Datan0de, & Zensidhe listen to the kids		Ron accidentally makes it snow in the classroom	Much like the magic portraits, it's hard to get a good picture...
because of the nature of photographing video screens & projections	More stuff in the classroom			It's snowing
The Fat Lady's picture frame, that guards the entrance to Gryffindor Tower			The best picture I could get of a "magic" moving portrait	More magic portraits
	Zensidhe, Kim, & Datan0de	You can't see the magic portraits at all with the flash	Without flash	The Sorting Hat
The Sorting Hat chooses which young wizard will go to which school House	The Sorting Hat talks to the guests in line
Unfortunately, my camera's microphone died several months ago, so no audio, but you can see the Sorting Hat's mouth move. This is the last thing you see before boarding the ride
Across from The Sorting Hat is a bulletin board with a magic Newspaper	After the ride, we walk back to Hogsmeade	Jessie being cute	Jessie with a gator hat on	Zensidhe approaches me
The backside of Hogsmeade Village	Jessie bites Kim's braid	Me in the background, Jessie being silly, Zensidhe looks confused, Kim looks annoyed, Anklesnake looks amused	Kim on the Carasousel	Kim on the Carasousel
"No, no, no!" says Kim the Fish	Kim & the Fish	Jessie with Thing hair		Hogsmead at night
Hogsmead at night	Hogsmead at night