Okay, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. I’ve read the books, queued for half of them on the first day of release with other Potter geeks, watched the movies, re-watched them with my then-boyfriend now-hubby so that he could catch up with my obsession, did many random quizzes to find out where the sorting hat would sort me, and quoted the books on daily conversations. Not a crazy fan, but definitely worthy of being a fan, I reckon.
So if you’re like me, these photos that I’m about to show you from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at USJ in Osaka would make you scream in excitement.
So I visited the USJ few months ago and although I was a little (or a lot) disappointed with the rest of the park, I kept making myself think that it is at least worth it for the Harry Potter section. And it was from the get-go!
First, you’d find the “flying car” Ford Anglia that many muggles spotted at the start of the second book when Harry and friends decided to storm through Hogwarts with the car. I’ve included some muggles in the image above.
As you entered the Harry Potter world, you walked into Hogsmeade during the winter season where Harry and friends would visit during their break (openly or under the invisibility cloak).
You’d also notice the Hogwarts Express train looking gorgeous! If only one could ride in the train too, that’d be extra special.
Hogsmeade with the fake snow looked so good, it really felt as if we were transported to winter in Harry Potter land.
There were quite a few fancy muggles around when we were there, including this group of colourful-haired boys. Maybe they were not muggles after all…
This was the one thing that got me so excited: Butterbeer stall everyone! I queued up to get myself a special mug with cold Butterbeer (I heard they’re better than the warm ones, plus I prefer cold drinks).
Whilst some people have told me that they found the experience of drinking Butterbeer worth it, but the taste disgusting, I found both the experience and the drink amazing. I’d go back for more, except the hubby told me I could probably just drink rootbeer and it wouldn’t taste so different. Probably.
We then walked towards Hogwarts, the castle stood tall and beautiful.
We went straight for the queue to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey 3D ride, and realised that we had to queue for more than an hour.
The only consolation was that at least they’ve made the queueing area slightly more interesting, as they recreated the greenhouse where Neville Longbottom found his passion for Herbology.
“Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.”
Plus, the resident wizard who was trying to get us to behave was really nice and even posed for my photo! Thank you so much Mr. Wizard…
As we continued with our queueing journey, we saw many more cool things like warning signs with moving images, because it’s the wizarding world yo!
And we also got to view the castle from different angles, pretty much.
When we finally entered the inside of the castle (still queueing btw), we were told to put all our stuff in the locker before proceeding as a safety precaution and so that we wouldn’t lose our stuff during the ride. So… I didn’t have many photos of the inside of the castle. But it was cool, and I wish I could live there. Or maybe not, it was a tad creepy to see the moving stairs and frames.
The ride itself was very exciting, much better than any 3D rides I’ve been to. I’d let you experience it yourself instead of trying to explain the fun. But yup, this was one attraction that was worth the queue. It did make me a little dizzy though.
We left the area and went straight into Filch’s Emporium (smart way of making us buy stuff, guys), a Harry Potter shop that would suck money out of all you geeks. Yes, myself included, but I have good self control, I think.
We left the shop and went to the next “mini-attraction”: Ollivander’s wand shop. The fake shop itself looked pretty cool, with thousands of wands covering the whole space. The show was probably more geared towards kids, but I love how one lucky person got to pretend to get their wand chosen for them by Ollivander himself. Cool short experience.
Once that was completed, we were again brought to the gift shop which had not as many wands available, but yep if you wish, you could also buy your own wand. I didn’t, because as a muggle, it would be pretty useless.
There were a few gift shops in the whole Wizarding World, with some overlaps of things, but I love how nicely designed each shop was.
And if there was one shop that I had to visit, it would have to be the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes joke shop with plenty of practical jokes and those awfully flavoured Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.
The architecture of the whole theme park was pretty impressive too…
And equally impressive? All the Japanese cosplayers in USJ. I covered more of them in my other post, but these were some that we saw whilst in Harry Potter world.
The first thing we did when we entered USJ was to queue up for a fast pass for the Wizarding World, however towards the end of the night, we decided to return (without a fast pass) and realised that there weren’t as many people then.
The flying car was still there stuck in the Whomping Willow, but this time around everything looked more magical because it was night time. And as we approached the entrance, oh… I was in love all over again.
Everything was lit up, and they looked gorgeous at night! Probably even better than day time view, or at least different. And to get to see both day and night of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, oh I was a happy girl!
“Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.”
And of course, we also visited the Hogwarts castle area once again. If it was so cool to see it in real life in the afternoon, it was even better at night time!!! Like, seriously… just look at that!
And check this out! Well, not so cool because this is just a photo, but basically, these words appeared slowly as if it was handwritten at that moment…
They also had some musical performances with magicians and even Fleur and the beautiful ladies from Beauxbatons (not pictured, sorry guys).
As we slowly said good bye to the Wizarding World, I couldn’t help taking as many photos as I could.
Totally breathtaking. Definitely worth the visit at day time and night time. Even the Hogwarts Express looked more impressive in the evening…
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
And with that, we said our farewell to the land of magic and returned to muggle land. The only physical memory left is the Golden Snitch bracelet I purchased and an Instax photo of us geeking it out in the Wizarding World…
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in USJ is totally worth the visit if you’re a huge Harry Potter fan. If you’re not, why are you not?! Go read the books and fall in love with Harry and friends. Oh and if you do visit, make sure you go both during the day and at night.