Greetings from another lovely day here at the Universal Orlando Resort. It’s a busy Monday morning, and everyone is heading right to Islands of Adventure for the reopening of Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. The attraction closed last month for refurbishment, and today is the scheduled reopening date. Let’s head over to Hogsmeade and check it out.

Right on time. Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure has reopened. And there’s already a wait. We arrived during Early Park Admission and found the ride had a 2 hour wait. By the time the park officially opened, the line had a 180 minute wait. The entrance has gotten a fresh coat of paint, and the path in the queue has reopened after repairing damage from Hurricane Ian. Take a closer look in our post here.

Personally, I would rather spend 2 hours in line at the end of the day, so I opted to go into Honeydukes. With the hot weather starting to creep in, we’re excited to see that Honeydukes is now selling prepackaged ice cream. There are four flavors in the case, which are also available inside Three Broomsticks. It can be a bit difficult to get into the restaurant most days, so having these grab-and-go ice creams inside Honeydukes is a great alternative. Obviously, Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour in Diagon Alley is the ultimate place to get a cold treat in the Wizarding World, but these are also really delicious. There’s Butterbeer, Dutch Chocolate, Strawberry Peanut Butter, and Vanilla to choose from. Strawberry Peanut Butter is my personal favorite!

With everyone in line for the attractions first thing in the morning, this is a great time to get some good photos of Hogwarts Castle. The bridge was empty. Perfect timing!

VelociCoaster had a 60 minute wait compared to the 180 minute wait at Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. There’s a good chance people who didn’t want to wait 3 hours decided to ride VelociCoaster instead.

We backtracked to the Lost Continent and found even more spooky stuff in the All Hallows Eve Boutique. We found a spell book the other day, and now there’s a beautiful cauldron bubbling and boiling in the back of the store. It looks like a pair of trick-or-treaters are conjuring up a spell. Is it Halloween yet?

Over in Toon Lagoon, we found Marmaduke has escaped his leash. The rope that usually hangs from Marmaduke’s collar is missing.

Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges is scheduled to reopen soon, but we can see that there’s still some last minute work happening around the entrance of the attraction.

There are a lot of tour groups in the parks, so certain areas look crowded when you encounter them, but for the most part, it’s been a quiet morning. A lot of this could be due to the reopening of Hagrid’s, too.

In the Port of Entry Christmas Shoppe, most of the Earl the Squirrel merchandise is now 30% off, including the Spirit Jersey. Time to stock up for the holidays. Let’s head out of here and see what’s new at Universal Studios Florida next.

There’s a little bit of painting along the edge of the entrance to the new Villain-Con attraction. It looks like this could be painted purple very soon. There’s a thin strip of purple on the right side and another small patch of paint at the top.

Not too many changes to Minion Cafe.

The Canada food truck was closed, oddly. All the other Mardi Gras booths in the park were open, but we were surprised to see that Canada was closed today.

The pegs along the lower half of the rock climbing walls have been removed. We noticed the climbing wall was recently blocked off, and now this appears to confirm the closure of the climbing experience.

The San Francisco Candy Company has gotten a bit of an updated look inside. There’s some new rustic decor displayed in the store. This is an interesting change.

The Media Center is open for previews. If a Team Member asks you to participate in the preview, we encourage you to do it. There is often a gift card given to you for your time.

Time for a snack! The Liege Waffles from the Belgium booth are some of our favorite items from Mardi Gras this year. We’re eating as many of them as we can before the event ends.

That’s all for this visit to the Universal Orlando Resort. Thanks for following us around the parks today. We’ll be back again soon, so stay tuned for more updates!

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