If you’re on Spring Break and worn out from skiiing there’s only one sure-fire remedy to make you forget your troubles – take three overtired kids round the Florida theme-parks for a couple of days.
We cheated and hired a guide – as well as buying fastpass tickets to the various attractions.
Once you pony up the dough for a professional, they make sure you get your money’s worth – or die trying.
Disney is not for the faint of heart. Our guides had us ready before eight am to hit each ride in turn. Universal was only slightly less crowded, and by nine am I needed a vacation from my vacation.
But there was one thing that could break through a hassled mom’s world-weariness and that was the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This was my third year in a row, and my love of the attraction has not diminished one iota. Starting with my niece and finishing with my youngest, I have been forced to read all the Harry Potter books multiple times in a row out loud since I first read them for pleasure. Guides and fast passes may cost the earth, but you get to walk up a back entrance inside of Hogwarts’ castle and skip hours of queues to ride the Harry Potter ride- in my view, the best rollercoaster on earth.
The Gringott’s ride was not quite as good, in my opinion, but nonethless represented a superb addition to the park, I thought, when I first rode it last year. So I was definitely looking forward to doing it again.
Especially as there was no chance of flying our broomsticks around Hogwarts multiple times.
‘But we did it last year,’ I wailed.
‘Universal offer their own VIP now, so we can’t.’
I tried not to sulk like a four year old. Professor McGonagall wouldn’t be impressed with that.
We used our fast pass and I shepherded the three children up a back entrance into Gringott’s. There was then about twenty minutes of missed queues, apologies, waiting and technical misfires, but patience is a virtue. The kids were seated and turfed out of a car twice with many apologies before we actually got to ride. An attendant lowered the bar – it was very tight across our thighs, far more so than on many other rollercoasters – you really can’t move.
The car lumbered forward two feet and – stopped dead.
We waited about twenty minutes, increasingly uncomfortable, at the very top of the ride, unable to go forwards or get out. I’m not claustrophobic, but I am a massive wuss on rollercoasters and did not fancy a trip round a malfunctioning one. Rather like Neville on his broomstick, I hated being out of control.
Finally, the lights dimmed and the automated woman’s voice that said ‘There is a slight delay. The ride will begin at any moment,’ stopped lying and started to tell the truth. We zoomed around Gringott’s, enjoyed it hugely and got out.
‘We’re sorry, we’re so sorry,’ the very nice attendants said. ‘You can go again.’
No double rides at Harry Potter world any more, so I jumped on the opportunity like Dudley Dursley on a giant cake. ‘Yes please, come on kids,’ I said, and only five minutes later we were back in the cars again.
This time we swooped past Bellatrix and Voldemort – and stopped dead. But not at the top of the ride. In the middle of it. ‘Oh no!’ my eleven year old daughter said. ‘How long this time?’ asked my eight year old, in a falsely bright voice. But I was not scared; I was fascinated.
‘Look, guys,’ I said. ‘Look. You can see everything. Wow.’
The car had come to a halt on a flat piece of track. To my right was an incredibly detailed rock wall, to my left a screen that projected the background for a non-present Bill Weasley. We were still locked in tight from the waist down but I no longer cared.
Every inch of the Gringott’s ride was incredibly detailed. As I craned my neck, the only Muggle-worthy bit of it was a glimpse of four planks of wood in a ceiling several stories up. Everything else was wizarding-world approved.
‘The lights are still down,’ I said, like an expert. ‘They must think they can fix it.’
The guide next to me still had his iphone and was busy texting my husband, telling him to leave the waiting room and go get a Diet Coke outside.
After five minutes the car moved, but unlike the first time, it inched forwards, very slowly indeed. This was unexpected magic. Instead of Gringott’s Goblins warned by Hermione Grainger to get us out, we saw rough-hewn slate rock and the cavernous inside of the ‘vaults’. Bill Weasley waved at us, but said no words. I was looking past him at the track over our heads – the Gringott’s ride is a duelling coaster, where tourists enter cars on two separate tracks to maximize passengers. We rocked, very slowly, as trolls did seem to attack the cars. A screened part of the ride that mimics the car plunging into Balrog-like depths did appear, but with no sound. A Weasley waved his wand, but there was no ‘Arresto Momentum!’
If we were Escaping from Gringott’s, we were doing so very slowly. That was fine with me. My kids were also enjoying it. The car trundled like treacle around corners I had shot past before, and you could see why J. K. Rowling so approved of the Universal Diagon Alley – a silent dragon came towards and breathed fire that generated warm air. Weasley had found his voice – ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ he said. But we drifted upwards extremely slowly, as if powered by a first-year Seamus Finnegan. Round the corner, minus a warning goblin, we were getting an unusually detailed Muggle tour of the vaults. Rowling would have loved the way that the goblets of gold, piles of Galleons and draped chains of jewels were stacked in the vaults. I stared hungrily, wishing I had snuck a camera on board. The crossed arms, shields, and special vaults of the Blacks and Lestranges were absolutely gorgeous in their powerful detail. And the inner walls of the ride, the opposite side of the projection, were accurately covered in ‘ancient stone’. When Bellatrix eventually appeared I was only sorry that we couldn’t spend more time with her. The non-existent dragon at the end of the ride wasn’t missed as we scrutinized the empty backdrop of caverns that looked as grey and old as a Viking fantasy.
When we finally got out again, our guide managed to get two ‘golden tickets’ for any ride in the park because of our duel ‘ordeal’. We might have spent an unexpected hour in Gringott’s, but my kids (OK, OK, me. Me!) would now get to fly around Hogwarts itself three times in a row. Bankers get a rough deal in today’s political climate, but for my money, you can trust Gringott’s to give you a run for yours.
