Wiseacre's Orrery

If you've never been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, I highly recommend it. It is the most realistic and immersive recreation of a movie theme world I've seen. Most places like this are kinda-sorta like the movie, but rendered in such a overtly cheesy and commercial way that you're never able to forget you're looking at a profit-making enterprise. While there is a bit of Velveeta and whole lot of commerce going on at The Wizarding World, they've done such an amazing job creating a detailed and authentic look and feel for it, that is easy to immerse yourself in. It is very much like being in one of the movies, with the biggest disruptions to the experience being the lines of people and the humid heat of Florida. 

Dotted throughout the park are numerous gift shops (it's an amusement park after all) that sell ridiculously expensive souvenirs. But the stores themselves are very much part of the experience, themed like curious magical shops on Diagon Alley. Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment is a particularly memorable shop, painted in blues, purples, and golds and filled with fascinating, steampunkish mechanical contraptions of brass and mahogany. Suspended from the ceiling is a giant orrery. It's a centerpiece in the store, but there are so many interesting things jockeying for your attention that it's easy to not to pay much mind to it. But if you take the time to really study it, it's just exquisite – wonderfully detailed, impressively crafted, and perfectly set among ornamental stars and telescopes and odd mechanical devices.

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