My Trip to Universal Studios

Last weekend my husband and I took a couple of days off and headed to southern California with his family to go to Universal Studios. 

On our drive down to southern California we shopped for lunch at Harris Ranch.  I had never actually eaten there since growing up I usually got onto Highway 5 a bit south of there. The cow decor everywhere was cool but I wasn't crazy about the food after all the hype.

Once we got to southern California we tried to get all settle into our AirBnB but there were all kinds of mix ups on the part of the property company that we ended up going straight to dinner. We met up with my sister in law at a Korean BBQ place.

After dinner we finally were able to get settled into our AirBnB and as headed to bed as soon as we got there.

Friday morning we were up bright and early to head to the park. It was actually fairly cold in LA while we were there but we still had a good time.

I had been to Universal Studios a couple of times in college but that was a few (or quite a few) years ago so there were quite a few new things for me to explore. What I was most excited to see was Harry Potter land so that is where we headed first.

While I wasn't overly impressed with the themeing and attention to detail of the rest of the park Harry Potter land was extremely well done.  It was as well done as anything you would find at Disneyland and if you know me you know that is a complement.

We went into Olivander's shop and watched as he helped a little kid pick out the perfect wand before venturing into the part of the shop where we could get our own wants.  I ended up picking out an ivy want.  The cool thing about the wands is that while in Harry Potter land you can use them to cast spells.  Many of the shop windows have markers outside of them telling you how to cast a spell and when you do something happens in the window like it lights up or makes noise or things spin.

In addition to the wand and all the stores there are two rides to go on in Harry Potter land. There is a kiddie coaster and a really cool flying broomstick ride. We discovered the broomstick ride had a single rider line so I may or may not have ridden the ride 3 or 4 times in the 2 days we were there. When in Harry Potter land you can't not get a butterbeer so of course I had 3 or 4 of those also while we were there.

I promise we did go to the rest of the park but it wasn't as picture worthy so I didn't really take many pictures of the rest of the park.  After two days in the park we had breakfast on Sunday and then we headed home but not without a stop at Anderson Pea Soup!