The park was going to close in less than an hour but drinks finished we went over to check out The Forbidden Journey wait time. It wasn't very long, I think 15 minutes, so we hopped in line.
I had not noticed the awesome lights that had the name of the ride at the castle entrance before and spent a ridiculously long time trying to get a decent pic to show my sister. They weren't noticeable during the daylight but were so cool at night.
The line didn't even start until after the greenhouse so we did not wait long at all. The tour through the castle is perfect and the ride is still my favorite theme park ride of all time. Weird Sam however, preferred Gringott's to FJ.
By the time we were done it was full on dark. Hogsmead was so pretty at night. I wanted to check in at Honeydukes to bring G home some treacle fudge since it was cool and we were about to head back to CBBR soon and it wouldn't melt. They didn't have any and I figured that they were just sold out and we could get some another time. Well it turns out that they don't make it anymore. G was disappointed but i can see why it was discontinued. We tried it out on our last trip and I thought it was super gross. I know that Brits and Americans like different types of food but it was a dirty trick to put raisins in fudge. ICK! Mom and my sister both thought it was ok but probably wouldn't try it again. I hated it but G loved it which just proves to each their own, LOL.
They were selling the cauldron cakes as a buy one get one free deal so we got two as they were on my list to try anyways. We took them back to the hotel and ate them for dessert.
By the time we were finished in Honeydukes this area was almost empty. On the way out I couldn't resist a visit with the HE conductor. He was so sweet and gentlemanly and offered me his arm.
Funny story, a boy bout 11 or 12 walked up as I was leaving and asked the conductor where Jonko's was. The conductor stayed in perfect character and kept pointing at the sign which still shows Jonko's as being next to Honeydukes. The boy was getting frustrated and saying,,, but, but, but, that door won't open there's nothing there. I finally took pity on the poor kid and whispered in his ear about store fronts and that you could see unique joke items in DA at WWW. Poor Muggle!
The park was closing so we headed out to catch the bus back to CBBR. We didn't wait long at all, 3 minutes at most and were back to the hotel quickly even with the mass exodus of the parks going on.
Since we had eaten such a late lunch we chose to grab something at the food court for dinner. We both grabbed what we wanted an took it back up to our room to eat it.
There were a lot of nice choices, I went with a pizza and Sam just wanted to try the burgers. His was ready really quickly but mine was taking forever. Like long enough that I might have canceled it and gotten in a different line and eaten something else had there been anybody actually working in the pizza area. There were 3 people in the pizza place but none of them were doing anything. Just standing. Eventually a manager type guy came over to see why the line had about 15 grumpy people waiting. He got the three standers going and we all had food quickly. He was fantastic and saved the experience for me. He even took Sam's burger box and put it on the warmer so his food wouldn't get cold while he waited for mine. The man at the check out counter was wonderful too. Overall I would go back. It was very crowded since the parks had just closed so I will give the service the benefit of the doubt. I think the 3 standers were new and needed a bit of direction, maybe!
Here is the view from our room when we got back there. It was super pretty at night.
Here is the pizza that I ordered. It was cheese and strangely enough it was fantastic. It was way better than typical theme park pizza. It tasted more like the specialty pizzas that you can get in Italian restaurants. I loved this and would order it again any time. It was huge though. Even though I was very hungry I ate a little under half.
Sam said his burger was pretty good. He said that the bacon was very good and called it a food court burger but better.
I was very pleased to try out the famous cauldron cake. It was pretty good. I liked the dense cake because the cream in the middle was light and kept it from being dry. The bottom and the handle though were dark chocolate which I don't like so I just had a few nibbles of that for testing purposes of course. Sam liked it as well. I would have liked it better if it had milk chocolate instead of dark but that is personal preference. Overall we had a nice dinner and dessert.