As if things couldn’t get better…we made our way around to the Curious George play area.  None of the water stuff was on while we were there because it was so cold but the girls still had a ball.

And they met one of my childhood favorites, Woody Woodpecker. 

And Curious George!

We literally had to drag Avery away from the Curious George area and made our way around to the Simpsons.  We really aren’t big Simpsons fans but we did have doughnuts from the Lard Doughnut shop there and they were delicious!  Chad proclaimed them the “best theme park food ever.”

We had limited time because we were going to start driving back home that day so we went straight to Diagon Alley.

Want to take a ride on the Night Bus?

But it was really so crowded that we just looked around and headed for the Hogwarts Express. This was the SOLE reason we bought the park-to-park passes for Universal.

We loved the ride and I wish we could have done the one from Hogsmeade to London as I’m told its a different experience.

The train takes you to the other park so we made our way back through Seuss Landing.

Met some more characters…

And then made our way out of the park. 

We left dinner and headed north.  We made it all the way to Savannah that night and then drove the rest of the way home the next day.

A few thoughts on Universal Orlando…

• The Universal Orlando park seemed to have more attractions that were age appropriate for my girls (ages 7 and 5 at the time) than Islands of Adventure.
• We took the girls on the ET ride and they had no clue who ET was.  I wish I had let them watch the movie before our trip.
• It was really cold in January.  If you’re going then…bring your gloves from home!  They were ridiculously expensive there.
• The only way to ride the Hogwarts Express is to have the park to park tickets.  Otherwise, we would have purchased the single day tickets instead.
• Bring your autograph books!  I didn’t expect many characters to be there but we were pleasantly surprised to get almost as many signatures there as we did in the Disney Parks. 
• Diagon Alley was crowded but there was hardly any wait throughout the rest of the park on the day we were there.
• I bought our tickets through Undercovertourist.  They seemed to have the best prices when we went.

Have any questions or other tips?  Feel free to post in the comments below!