Chapter 54
The Butterbeer Scandal

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(Originally posted October 31, 2012)

For some reason that I cant explain, we got in line at the Butterbeer cart to get our second helping of delicious frozen beverage.

Yes, it was a terrible idea. Yes, we knew it was a bad idea going in. And yes, we did it anyway. There are no words to describe how slowly the line moves for the Butterbeer cart. I think that we got in the queue because there were only about thirty or forty people ahead of us, so we thought it couldnt be that bad of a wait. Then a half-hour later, we were still in line. But by that time, we had moved up almost to the front, so we still didnt give up.

Once we actually got to the front of the line, we found out what was wrong. The frozen Butterbeer dispenser at the cart was broken, so every time someone ordered a frozen Butterbeerpractically every time a new customer got to the front of the linethe woman working would have to go into The Three Broomsticks, get a frozen Butterbeer, bring it back to the cart on a tray, and then apply foam from the machine. The system was absurd, ludicrous, and SO indicative of the way Universal Studios is run as compared to Disney. Anyway, when we got to the front of the line and ordered our frozen Butterbeer to split, the woman went away for about five minutes and returned with a Butterbeer that was already beginning to melt from her trek across the Wizarding World. She applied the dollop of foam and prepared to hand it to us.

Is there any way you can give us a little more foam? I asked, Because the Butterbeer we got earlier came from a broken foam machine so we barely got any.

Sorry, the lady replied, the foam is premeasured. They watch us on camera to make sure we dont give out any extra.

Wow. That was simply a new low for Universal. But we paid and took our Butterbeer to go because there really wasnt anything else we could do. Beginning to walk away, I felt a little angry at how this had all been handled.

So even as we drank our new, delicious Butterbeer, we decided to try to do something about the issues wed had. Walking back into The Three Broomsticks, I asked the first employee I found if I could please speak to a manager. He must have been a little higher ranking than the general food service people because he asked about our problem. I explained that in enjoying our current Butterbeer, we noticed how the one that we had gotten earlier in the day had been lacking because we hadnt gotten very much foam. We explained that it looked like the machine had been running out, but the person who served us hadnt done anything about it.

Taking a very serious attitude, the manager asked which employee had helped us earlier in the day. Not wanting to get anyone in troubleits just foam for petes sakewe said we couldnt remember. He clarified that the reason he was asking was because the Butterbeer (with requisite foam) is a trademarked drink, so for them to serve it in anything but a perfect state is actually ILLEGAL. We still insisted that we couldnt point out the person who had served us, and the manager asked us to wait for a minute while he grabbed us a replacement Butterbeer to make up for our unsatisfactory one.

A minute later, he came back with not one but TWO new Butterbeers in the souvenir mugs! We were pretty excited. We had one souvenir stein from our last trip, but it was starting to fade after many washings. Now we would have two new ones to replace it! We went outside to the patio to enjoy our drinks.

In reality, only one of these new Butterbeers was even that great. The other started melting too quickly and got that taste common to slushy-drinks where all the flavor goes away leaving only unflavored shaved ice at the bottom. Luckily between the drink we got from outside and these two new drinks, we had way more than we needed. We just drank the best ones and threw out the remainders.

After finishing up, we walked around the village a little more.

Having bought our picture frame, we decided we needed to take a good picture to go in it! We went out to the bridge leading into Hogsmeade and asked a passing woman to be our photographer. She got a great picture.

Of course, what we hadnt thought of is that the frame is horizontal instead of vertical. So we had to ask her to take another one.

Suddenly, without much warning, it started to sprinkle.

And the drizzle quickly turned into real rain.

We hurried back into the village.

And we sought out shelter in the same covered patio area of The Three Broomsticks where we had eaten lunch. Hogwarts was looking more real than ever in the rain. If it did exist in real life, the castle would probably see more rain than sun.

In our sheltered area, there were several little birds flying around collecting peoples crumbs.

Our favorite was a young sparrow who was definitely old enough to fend for himself, but instead forced the mother to go collect crumbs so he could eat them out of her mouth. He was a brat, but we liked it.

While we sat down, it rained, and it rained, and rained. The deluge.

The other bird of note under our shelter was a duck with a broken leg. It had apparently flown up onto the patio and collapsed under its weight. We werent sure if it was an injury that we should report to someone or whether it would be fine. While we were watching, one of the employees from The Three Broomsticks came out and brought the poor guy some crackers to munch on, which he ate ravenously. And then, after about ten minutes of being coddled and fed, the duck decided to move along. He took flighta feat we thought he couldnt manageand disappeared down into the water between the Islands. We were never quite sure whether he was actually nursing a new injury or if he just knew how to milk an old one for all it was worth! Regardless, we were glad that he appeared to be in better shape than it had seemed at first glance.

Suddenly, almost as quickly as the rain had started, it stopped. The sky quickly cleared.

As we walked past the Hogwarts Express conductor, he was simply holding his umbrella in case it became necessary again.

The rain had stopped just in time, as it was almost time for our return shuttle to Disney. We bade farewell to Hogwarts as we walked back to the Islands of Adventure entrance.

We left the park icon behind us as we headed back toward the shuttle lot.

When our shuttle arrived (a few minutes early), we got on board. This time it was a full-sized Mears motor coach like the ones that fill in as Magical Express buses sometimes. Finding Nemo was playing on the TVs, so we quickly got engrossed in the movie. It made me want to watch that movie in its entirety again, which we can do when it comes out on Blu-ray in a couple months! Half watching the movie and half napping, we found the journey back to Disney property to be a relatively easy experience. The only annoying thing was that we had to stop off at Sea World to pick up some more guests, and that took a while. Luckily, once we did get back on property, our resort was the first stop. We hopped off the bus and walked back toward our room.

The resort had a certain new quality to it in the post-rain.

We passed this fountain and rose garden every time we made the trek back across the property. It was very pretty.

Finally getting back to the room, we were greeted by Duffy, who appeared to have had a pretty relaxing day.

And now, we were faced with a decision as to how to spend the rest of our penultimate day in WDW!

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