My World Showcase: Wizarding World Hollywood

Today's the day... The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood is officially open! I've been able to go during their technical rehearsals and although I'll miss how empty it was during those visits, I'm excited that it is now truly open. No need to search Instagram and Twitter anymore; one can now just look up Universal's hours and then head over! My husband and I have been Universal Studios fans for a while now and usually go at least once a year so it's been really neat to watch it's transformation as they continued to add new sections and rides to the park like Transformers, Minion Mayem, a Despicable Me section, and Springfield. The one we were most excited about was the Wizarding World so we kept trying to catch glimpses of it as it got constructed. Because it's finally opening day, I thought it'd be fun to look back at some photos from when the Wizarding World was under construction and compare it to now!

In this photo from 2014, you can see the construction in the distance behind where the palm trees are. There wasn't much to it yet.

Here's a photo from the same area but in 2015. You can see a lot more of the buildings.

And now a photo from a week ago of some of those buildings in Hogsmeade. It's so cool to see them up close.

Let's look at the entrance! Here it is in 2015 with a big fence around it.

Next is a photo from early February of 2016. The fence was smaller and we could peek in. I didn't know at the time that I'd get to go in just a couple weeks later!

And then here it is - the entrance open. It was so exciting to finally go in and see what was behind the fence. It really is magical.

Here are two photos next to each other for comparison: 2016 photo on top, 2015 on the bottom:

It's amazing to see what they've created after seeing the construction over a couple years. I still remember hearing the news that it was going to be built and now opening day is finally here. I'll end this post with a few more pictures from over the last couple months.

The sign telling me to be patient earlier this year. ha!