Fair warning, this got a tiny bit long. Sorry for that. I will be posting photos from WWOHP this weekend, hopefully! Some great ones of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade at night too!
So this is a few days delayed, but a quick report about WWOHP from this past Tuesday. I stayed with a visiting friend at their hotel near Wet N' Wild and we arrived around 7:30 to the IOA gate. By 7:45ish, we were waiting in JP around the pizza place. Once we'd arrived, a friend and I left our other friend in line and went to grab breakfast from Cinnabon at the front of the park and we were back around 8:30ish. We had enough time to sit down and eat, then wash our hands at the adjacent restrooms before they let us in at 9am. Honestly? It felt like no time at all. Perhaps it was the company I kept, but all the same. We hit up FJ first and what was said to be a 70 minute wait was probably fifty minutes - or less! The most time we spent waiting was in the greenhouse and we strolled through the rest of it, more or less. You're so interested in watching everything, once you're in, you're amazed. FJ was glitch-less and perfect. We were let out into Filch's and looked around. In just a few weeks it's amazing how much merch isn't there anymore. I later noticed in the other stores as well.
Once off FJ, we strolled into an hour long line for Ollivander's, leaving one person in line to wait while we got butterbeer for all of us. I tried my first frozen butterbeer and was completely let down. It was good, sure. But it wasn't as amazing as regular. I'm a purist through and through! Besides, it LOOKS better and I'm all for aesthetics. Anyway, once we got back, it was nearly our turn since the butterbeer line took about 20-25 minutes roughly and we'd decided mid-line for Ollivander's to go grab some. When we got back, the conductor came up to us in line and started talking about them with us, said that some people preferred frozen, others not frozen - just like some people preferred the Firebolt, others the Nimbus 2000. I teased him and told him he looked like a Clean Sweep sort of guy. He leaned in and slyly said that he may or may have not ridden one when he himself was a student at Hogwarts. It was perfect. Two of us - the locals - made a plan that if we got picked, we'd try to push it off from a friend who was from a land next to the land down under before heading in. I was certain a little boy who was dead center going to be it. But it wasn't - it was me. Attempting to go along with it ("You know, it wasn't me, but you're close. I did, however, bring my friend along all the way from SUCHANDSUCHPLACE to get his") and was told "it is not yet his time, it is your time." The experience was even better than the last because I got to share it with people I know. No wand purchase, but I was interviewed by a reporter afterward too! Pretty cool!
After Ollivanders, we went into Owl Post and Dervish and Banges, looking around. All the stores were cramped, but I didn't care really. I was happy as all get up and I'm usually a positive person so it didn't bother me that much. After D&B, we hit up Zonkos and Honeydukes where I purchased a t-shirt and a friend bought a chocolate frog. Once we'd shopped, we went to Dragons where I held the bags since a friend had purchased wands and quite frankly, I'd done the rides a few weeks before during softs. We hit up another round of butterbeer, visited Myrtle, checked out the Hogwarts Express, and departed for other parts of the park around midday and Uni in the later afternoon (my first go on Rock-It - it malfunctioned!). We returned to WWOHP in the evening for a go on the Hippogriff, one last butterbeer while sitting in the Hogs, then wandering and photographing the streets of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, and generally feeling the magic of the place. Needless to say, Id didn't want to leave.
I think, for now, I'm done with trying to get to WWOHP for the recent time being. Just a few months and the tourists will be gone and the lines will be more reasonable. At least, fingers crossed! I will probably find some way back, admittedly, if only to just soak up the ambiance and drink butterbeer between now and then. I know myself better than that!