Diagon Alley Tour Part 3: Florean Fortescue, Ollivanders, Gringotts Bank, Magical Menagerie

Today I bring to you part 3 of our 4-part  in-depth tour of Universal Orlando's new Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley expansion. I'm sorry its been split over 4 parts, but its taken some time to put all this info and photos together. Part one took a look at the London Waterfront, Diagon Alley Entrance and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Part two went into The Leaky Cauldron, Knockturn Alley and Borgin and Burkes.  Today we walk further down Diagon Alley and explore Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, Ollivanders Wand Shop, Magical Menagerie and Gringotts Bank.

This is the place to get dessert in Diagon Alley. Its a very clasic look and feel, with checkered floors. They serve hard scoop and soft-serve ice-creams with unique flavors like Strawberry Peanut butter, Earl Grey & Lavender, sticky toffee pudding, banana chocolate, pistachio vanilla and butterbeer.  They offer a range of pastries like Banoffee tart and crumble cakes, as well as some sweet drinks (like classic frozen butterbeer).

Harry Potter Mythology: The shop and proprietor Florean Fortescue play a small role in Harry's adventures. On Harry Potter's first visit to Diagon Alley, Hagrid presented him with a large chocolate and raspberry flavored ice cream with chopped nuts, which likely came from Fortescue's shop.  Above is a photo from the London Warner Bros tour showing the exterior set of Florean Fortescue's as it appeared in the background of Diagon Alley in the movies.Unique Buys: How do you top Butterbeer? How about Butterbeer flavored ice cream? Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour is the only place in the Wizarding World to buy such a treat. Butterbeer ice cream is one of the shop's soft serve ice cream options, mixing the signature butterscotch butterbeer taste in a swirl of vanilla ice cream. This seemed to be the uncontested favorite new food item in all of Diagon Alley by preview visitors.  I had a small cup and can attest its pretty great. (That said, I still prefer the original frozen beverage version of Butterbeer.) And if you're not in a Butterbeer mood, let me also recommend the shop's Chocolate Chili scooped hard ice cream, which mixes chocolate and spice for a nice kick.

Ollivanders Wand Shop isn't new to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. When Hogsmeade was originally created for Universal's Islands of Adventure, they included Ollivanders Wand Shop despite the fact that the shop was located in Diagon Alley in the movies and books. But back then they didn't know they would be expanding into Diagon Alley so they mashed up some of the best locations into the original Wizarding World.

The Diagon Alley version of Ollivanders Wand Shop is much larger in scale and features a big indoor queue — rumor has it JK Rowling didn't want to see any lines on the streets of Diagon Alley. The shop features the same magical Ollivander experience where aspiring wizards are bestowed the wand that finds them. The shop is two stories, although the first story is the only one park guests are allowed to roam. Wands stick out from every bookshelf and corner.

The shop itself sells both the original wands (for $34.95) and the  new interactive wands for $44.95 ($10 more than the normal wands). All 13 of Ollivanders 13 original wands which remain unique to the shop and are also available as interactive wands. Of the 26 famous witches and wizard character wands sold, only Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Dumbledore's wands are available currently as interactive wands (although I was told that could change depending on demand).

Harry Potter Mythology: Harry Potter was taken by Hagrid to Ollivanders in Diagon Alley to get Harry a wand for his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry was chosen by a wand of Holly and Phoenix Feather, the brother wand to the one that had killed his parents, and had almost killed him as a young child.

On Closer Look: Our friends at InsideTheMagic have recorded the entire Ollivanders Wand Shop show in Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando. Watch it above.Unique Buys: The Ollivanders wand experience is extremely popular among children who visit the store in Hogsmeade, but the interactive wands are the cool new thing. You can read my full write-up of the interactive wizard wands here. But the gist of it is, when guests purchase the new interactive wands, it will allow muggles to perform magic around Diagon Alley and also in Hogsmeade.

Prospective wizards with interactive wands can find the spell locations on a map, and in person via bronze medallion markers in the pavement. Recite the marked spell, and with a flick of the wrist and a wave of their wand in the indicated pattern, a fun magical moment is created. There are 9 spell locations in the original Wizarding World of Harry Potter land of Hogsmeade, and 25 spell locations between the new Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.

There are a bunch of storefronts on the main drag of Diagon Alley for stores that don't actually exist. They contain excellent displays which you may or may not be able to interact with the new interactive wands.

The Fountain of Fair Fortune is a pub-looking beverage store which sells all kinds of Wizarding beverages,, including Butterbeer, Frozen Butterbeer, Fishy Green Ale, Gilly Water and Draught Beers like Wizards Brew and Dragon Scale.

Harry Potter Mythology: The Fountain of Fair Fortune is not a store that appeared in Diagon Alley in the movies or even the books, but the name is from Potter mythology. The Fountain of Fair Fortune is actually the name of one of the stories in the wizarding fairy tales collection, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. One of the most popular stories in the collection, the story told of a fountain where once per year, one person could bathe to have his or her problems answered (of course, this urban myth was not true). In the story, three witches and a knight come to the fountain to try it together.Unique Buys: In The Fountain of Fair Fortune, you can order Butterbeer in a collectible mug which is different than the one found in Hogsmeade.On Closer Look: If you look around the store you will see a representation of The Fountain of Fair Fortune illustration from the book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Gringotts Bank is at the top of Diagon Alley, complete with a dragon sculpture perched on top which breaths fire from time to time. As you can see in the above photos, the fire looks cool during the daytime but looks way more impressive in the darkness of night.

Gringotts is also the entrance to the land's flagship attraction Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, which you can read more about here. You enter the bank and are presented with a room filled with animatronic goblin bank tellers, giant crystal chandeliers and marble columns. You are ushered to a photographer who takes your photo for your Gringotts bank ID (which you can purchase after the ride). We've chronicled the rest of the ride in the reaction post linked above, so I'll skip that here.

Harry Potter Mythology: Hagrid retrieved the Sorcerer's Stone  from the bank vaults while escorting Harry Potter to Diagon Alley. Later that very same day, a very powerful wizard broke into the vault hoping to steal the artifact. But the Gringotts bank was a larger part of the Deathly Hallows books/movies, where Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley broke into the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange to steal one of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, This bank break-in is actually reimagined as part of the Escape from Gringotts ride.On Closer Look: A statue of the bank's 1474 founder Gringott stands outside, standing on top of a gold an eight foot stack of gold coins.

Magical Menagerie features all sorts of magical creatures in the window front including a giant animatronic slug along with giant frogs and other fantasy creatures. A giant cage hangs from the center with silhouettes of jumping rats putting on a show. One of the highlights of this store is the animatronic Kneazle on the second floor, along with the statues of other mythical beasts. If there is a creature from the wizarding world that you need to own, this is the place to buy it in stuffed animal form.Unique Buys: At this store you can buy a stuffed animal version of crookshanks and Cornish pixie figures, not available elsewhere in the wizarding world.On Closer Look:  If you look above you will see a Crumple-Horned Snorkack living on the second level. Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch says she fell to her knees when she saw the creature in the store for the first time. Lynch's character Luna Lovegood searched the world for her favorite fantastical magical creature but it was never found. Author J.K. Rowling even confirmed to the actress that the fantastical beast isn't actually real in the books, and is likely just a delusion of Xenophilius Lovegood. Here is Evanna Lynch's tweet:

Also, if you go down the dark alley way on the side of the store, you will find a hidden window front with a 20 foot long animatronic snake. If you have some of the dark arts in your blood, he might even talk to you in Parsletongue tongue.

Tomorrow, we'll be back to conclude our Diagon Alley tour.

Check out my other articles on Universal Orlando's The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley expansion: