Chapter 49
Do the Hippogriff

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(Originally posted October 11, 2012)

Back into the gift shop we went after our journey was completed. We really wanted all the owl plushes we found there, but especially Hedwig!

Again, we put off buying for now, and went back outside. Was it time for round three of the Forbidden Journey?? Not quite. But we did take a couple pictures with the castle.

Whoever took this picture for us, while it was nice of them for doing it, was not able to get a very good shot of Hogwarts behind us… I wish Universal photos could magically be included on my Disney Photo Pass…

Instead of another spin around the castle, we opted for the only other ride we were planning to ride at Universal today, the thrilling roller coaster: Flight of the Hippogriff.

When we were at Islands of Adventure in 2008, right after construction had very first begun on the Wizarding World, we rode The Flying Unicorn to try to get a peek over the construction walls. Little did we know that that coaster would remain in its entirety, be slightly rethemed, and turned into Flight of the Hippogriff a couple years later.

Tracy made the height cutoff to ride (though just barely…)

Obviously, the main attraction in the queue for this ride is seeing Hagrid’s Hut from several different angles.

And there is the majestic hippogriff preparing for his flight down the track.

There are actually a few angles on the castle that you can only see from this queue/ride.

It looks really REAL from this angle.

Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the line for Flight of the Hippogriff was still really short at this early hour, so I didn’t get many pictures before we were to the front of the line. I didn’t even get a single shot of Buckbeak, though we made very sure to bow to him as we went up the incline. This ride is very similar to the Barnstormer in that it packs slightly more of a punch on the first drop than you might expect. You definitely feel like you’re moving pretty quickly. The funny thing, however, is that right after that initial drop, the ride is basically over, and before you know it, you’re pulling back into the station for unloading. Our ride ended and we were quickly spat back out into Hogsmeade.

We liked this snowman with a pet Hedwig.

I think I was trying to pet the owl, though it didn’t line up quite right…

Now it was time to start exploring the village a little, since we had already basically accomplished everything we had set out to do when it came to rides.

Luckily, all the shops and shop windows in Hogsmeade are so intricate that you could easily spend all day looking in them and still not notice all the details.