Universal Studios Orlando, Fl 2024 | Part 2: Days 1 & 2

Hey everybody! This post is part 2, of my Universal Studios mini series. If you missed part 1 about the planning that lead up to the trip, you can go check that post out first. Let’s jump right in!

Day One…

Of course we caffeinated first thing, thanks to the conveniently located Starbucks in the lobby of our hotel (we stayed at Cabana Bay). Then we went to the shuttles to head to the parks. Shuttle wait times were virtually non existent throughout our entire trip, which was very impressive to us. After a short drive, going through security, and taking the moving pathways over to City Walk, we finally arrived!

Because we were staying at Universal’s Cabana Bay Resort, we had access to early entry, however while we were there Universal Studios did not have early admission. We entered at 9am with a goal of doing all things Harry Potter! We went straight to Diagon Alley, took tons of pictures in front of the dragon, and then headed to breakfast at The Leaky Cauldron.

Hands-down this breakfast was my favorite from the entire trip. Both in terms of regular breakfast and theme park breakfast it was delicious, and I am not the biggest fan of breakfast food in general. I had the traditional english breakfast, but stayed away from the blood pudding.

After breakfast, we exchanged our Muggle dollars for Galleons at the Gringott’s Money Exchange. Here, you can exchange U.S dollars in increments of $10 or $20 and get Harry Potter “money” gift certificates. If you do not use all of your HP money you can exchange it back to U.S dollars. However, these certificates can be used anywhere in the park, especially at Ollivander’s Wand Shop to purchase your very own wizard wand.

I grabbed my very first butter beer before hopping in line for the Ollivander’s Wand Ceremony, but word to the wise you cannot bring drinks into the show and the line moved a lot faster than I thought it would. I opted for the frozen version of butter beer, since it was starting to warm up outside. It was delicious, but definitely sweet and not something I would drink every day… unless I’m in a theme park. Haha!

At Ollivander’s, we only waited in line for 5-10 minutes for the Wand Ceremony. It was a really cool immersive experience that makes you feel like you are in the movie (or book) as a wand is choosing the wizard that was selected randomly from the audience.

Continuing with sweet treats… I threw out all of my nutritional knowledge and ate ice cream for lunch from Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. I heard rave reviews of the strawberry and peanut butter ice cream before we went, so I decided to try it. Even though i’m not a pb&j girly, this flavor was surprisingly delicious! The rest of the ice cream flavors were all pretty different from your usual ice cream shop, and I also opted for a scoop of apple crumble (just in case the pb&j wasn’t my favorite). I expected to like the apple crumble, but I didn’t expect the crumble pieces to be so fresh and not at all mushy even though they were submerged in ice cream.

At this point in our day, we decided to head back to the hotel for naps for the little ones. This plan didn’t exactly work out, because the kids fell asleep on the way to the shuttles and woke up when we took them out of the stroller to get onto the shuttle. By the time we got back to the hotel, everyone was wide awake and hungry for something other than butter beer and ice cream.

We had planned to eat at Mel’s Diner, but our ice-cream-lunch and unsuccessful-nap-time lead to us going back to the hotel without grabbing food at the parks first. Thankfully Cabana Bay had a few choices for us and we grabbed lunch from The Bayliner Diner and The Hideaway Bar & Grill instead (P.S. the nachos were delish!).

While our family attempted to get their kids down for a real nap, Brian and I and my mother-in-law went back to the parks to do some more exploring in Universal Studios.

The rest of our family rejoined us in the afternoon to complete our park time for the day, and then we headed over to Antijito’s just in time for our dinner reservations. We love Mexican food and eat it at home at least once a week, so this was a must for our trip. I made the reservations through the Universal website ahead of time, which allowed us to walk right in and sit down.

After dinner, we walked around City Walk for a bit and grabbed dessert from Voodoo Doughnuts. Like all other sweet treats at Universal, this did not disappoint and is worth all of the hype and waiting in the long line that forms outside of the building (or placing a mobile order ahead of time through the Universal app).

Day Two…

Islands of Adventure did have early admission during our stay, so we got in line and got into the park a little before 8am. We had to stop at Seuss Landing on our way to Hogsmead so our niece could explore a little bit. Then we made it to Hogsmead for breakfast at The Three Broomsticks. Both Three Broomsticks and Leaky Cauldron have almost identical breakfast menus, but the atmosphere is different and it is all delicious either way! I got the pancake breakfast for day 2.

After breakfast, we explored Hogsmead and took a walk through Hogwarts Castle (the waiting line for the Forbidden Journey ride). Thankfully, there was no wait and we were able to walk right through. If you do not want to get onto the ride, just ask to exit at the end of the walk through and the team members will be happy to lead you to the exit into the gift shop.

We looked around Hogsmead and stopped into the shops there. In my opinion, Hogsmead is the most picturesque but Diagon Alley has to most to do. But I still recommend visiting both if you have the chance, because they do each have their own unique things.

Once again there was zero wait for the Hogwarts Express Train, so we rode it both ways to see both versions of the in-ride show and then went to lunch in Islands of Adventure.

As we explored Islands of Adventure, we stumbled into this kinda secluded area in The Lost Continent. We snooped around the rocks across from Mythos Restaurant and we found what used to be known as Poseidon's Fury; a walk through attraction that closed in May of 2023. It was kind of cool to be able to see the closed ride and imagine what it must have looked like in it’s glory days, but my favorite part was the little courtyard area beside the ride which I would call the perfect hidden photo spot if you’re looking to have a little photo sesh for your Instagram photo dump after your trip.

We ate lunch at Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoopendous in Seuss Landing, rode the carousel a few hundred times, took a photo in front of the “Bliss Street” sign since we were about to celebrate one year of wedding bliss, and then explored the rest of Islands of Adventure.

As the weather got hotter that afternoon, I started craving some ice cream, so we walked across City Walk and went to Schwab’s Pharmacy in Universal Studios on our way to Lombard’s for our dinner reservations. Schwab’s had pretty basic ice cream flavors, but nothing unique and it was not as good as Florean Fortescue’s, however they did have tables and air conditioning, which was a plus.

Dinner at Lombard’s feels like walking into a fancy restaurant for date night and their menu feels the same. I ordered the salmon with brussel sprouts, pomegranate seeds, and mushrooms. This would almost be a normal meal for me (without the pomegranate seeds), but I will admit that their menu was on the more unique side for some of their pairings and might not be the best fit for a picky eater.

After dinner, a few of us went back to City Walk for the escape room at The Great Movie Escape. This was different than the escape rooms we have at home, because you cannot come and go from the room as you please. That stressed me out a little bit, but overall it was fun and we made it out alive. We were told that we did a pretty good job, I think we made 8 out of 10 points.

That was a wrap for our first two days at Universal. There will be one more part to this series, so make sure you start tuned! As always, if you have any questions about our Universal Studios experience, make sure to leave a comment and I will be happy to answer it for you!

Thanks for reading!
xo Sami