This is a really long one, so be prepared. :)

Trip Report- Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure 11-13-15

The people- me and my family- wife Margaret (who was ill most of the
weekend), daughter Amber, and son Joseph. We also met up with Brian and
Jay, and their son William
Weather- very nice. A bit warm and humid Sat turning to rain, and cooler
Sunday
Crowds- moderate overall- light in some areas, heavy in others

Brian Farrel gave me a call about a month back letting me know that he was
planning a trip down here with Jay and his son William in mid-November,
and wanted to know if we wanted to join him. As it turns out, I finally
got a full time job that gave us the finances that allowed us to go and
pick up passes to Universal. So we agreed on days, and with some
coordination we were off to Universal for 2-3 days.

We took off from the school that my entire family works at or attends
around 2:50 to start the drive to Orlando before the traffic picked up.
We pulled into the parking garage at the parks right around 4:30, so we
made good time, even with my traditional wrong turn. To much later and
the 70 minute drive would have turned into almost 2 hours. And with the
park closing at 6, we wanted every bit of time we could get.

To get from the garages/ entry area to the park entrances, you have to go
through City Walk, which is their outdoor mall/ restaurant plaza, tourist
trap, that you reach after several long walkways and promenades.
Thankfully they’ve put in moving sidewalks throughout, or this turns into
a very, very long walk, and while it was well done, it also became one
thing that I didn’t like- no option or way to skip it or to avoid the
walk. While it’s good for getting more tourist dollars, when you’re tired
and just want to leave, it’s a royal pain in the neck. To top it off,
they were having their “Beer Festival” this weekend, which meant in the
afternoons and evenings it was crowded shoulder to shoulder with people
everywhere, many of which had a bit much to drink, and the overwhelming
odor of their drink. Enough so that it made me and my daughter queasy
with the smell, and having to push our way through the people to get to
and from the parks was not fun either. It would have been very nice if
they had made a drop off point or some form of parking either in the
middle of the citywalk, or with someway to bypass it, but unfortunately
you’re stuck with it. Nice when you want it, but frustrating when you
don’t.

We made our way up to the entrance of IOA, admiring the lighthouse as we
approached, and paid our first installment on the payment plan for our
passes, entered the park and went straight away to the left to get them
processed. After getting our pictures taken and being done with that
fairly quickly, we had about an hour left until the park closed, and
decided to take advantage of it with a couple of rides.

First though was Ports of Entry, the front plaza of the park designed as a
Meditteranean style village, with accompanying sounds, music, etc, and
immediately sets the tone for the park. This is a park like no other
except for maybe Disney when it comes to theming. You truly feel that
you’re walking into another world, and we absolutely loved it. One of our
regrets was that we didn’t have more time to stroll around here and poke
into the shops and other areas, but we’ll certainly do that on subsequent
visits.

After walking through the gorgeous entry, we made a right turn and crossed
the bridge into Seuss Landing, the world of Seuss come to life, again just
to look around and see what to see for a few minutes. The line for The
Cat in the Hat was a short 15 minutes according to the sign outside, so we
gravitated there and hopped into our car when it came up. The ride is a
dark ride, retelling the classic story, and the props and animations are
done very well, though none of the story elements stands out as
particularly new technology. But they are all fun and very conducive to
the ride. Where it truly stands out is the car you’re riding in, which
turns, twists, and at times spins around in full circles along with the
ride, making this a ton of fun. It very quickly moved into our list of
family favorites, and may vie for my favorite dark ride of all, but I’ll
have to think about that one some.

After exiting the ride, we took in a little more of the landscaping, then
turned back the way we had come, crossed briefly through Ports of Entry
and took a look at Hulk as we walked under it and into Marvel Superheros
Isle. Our destination at this point was a ride my son was literally
begging to ride, the one he was most excited about, and one that I did to,
though I was a little concerned- Spiderman. As most of you know, Spidey
is a mix of 4d movie and immersive, interactive thrill ride, and has a
great queue that first time riders really really should go through as it
sets the stage and the story for the ride (as Brian found out later when
we took a spin on it) From there it’s into your “high tech reporters’
carriage” and into the ride.

I won’t give away storylines here, but I’ll say that it is one incredible
ride. And the kids both came off with huge grins and Joseph loudly
proclaiming for everyone to hear, “Best ride, EVER!” There wasn’t one of
the four of us that didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, and it is definitely one
that we’ll be riding over and over again on future visits.

At this point the park was about to close and Margaret was worn out, so we
headed out, went to our hotel, and after a nice dinner at Denny’s were all
asleep by 8:30. Yeah, even me, which is rather frightening. :)

The next morning we woke up, had breakfast in our room, then called
Brian. He was running a bit behind us, and Margaret was washed out, so it
started out with just me and the kids, while Margaret slept in a bit and
planned to meet us later. Because of the long walk, especially with
CityWalk in mind, and because our hotel’s first shuttle to the park didn’t
leave until 20 minutes after the park opened, I drove from the hotel to
the park and used my free parking with my pass. We were there almost an
hour early, so we looked around City Walk a bit more, took a couple of fun
pictures around it, and were at the entrance of IOA around 40 minutes
before it opened.

While they didn’t open the front plaza early to let people hand around
there, which is what I hoped, they did actually open up the whole park
about 10 minutes early. So we were off and walking quickly towards
Jurassic Park by way of Marvel Superheros and Toon Lagoon. The gorgeous
scenery and theming continues throughout the entire park, and it was a
great effect to enter Jurassic Park and see the Pteradon Flyers cruising
overhead. That was our destination, and we were the first ones in the
park to arrive there. Amber and Joseph took one car, and I took another
by myself behind them.

Pteradon Flyers is a Caripro suspended coaster with the passengers sitting
in what looks like a lawn chair hanging from a pteradon, one seat behind
the other. Outside of a seat belt, there isn’t much holding you in, but
that’s one of the nice things with this- feeling free as you ride. They
only run 3 cars because of how long the coaster is, but they did a pretty
good job dispatching- enough so that we were all able to get in 2 rides
each before anyone else even arrived at the coaster, though it did get
longer lines later on due to it’s low capacity. While not a scary coaster
by any means, it is, however, quite a lot of fun. On my coaster scale of
1-10, it would score a solid 7.

Being as this end of the park was still empty, and we had about 20 minutes
until we were supposed to meet Brian and Jay at Spiderman, we decided to
take a chance on the River Adventure, and ended up with a boat all to
ourselves. This is the ride you may have seen featured on TV, with the
dinosaurs next to the boat, etc. Again, without ruining the ride, it has
a rather dramatic, tension filled ending. Unfortunately, this one proved
to be a bit to much for Amber and Joseph. If you’re local, you may have
seen a commercial with a woman squeezing her kids to death on this ride.
That was pretty much us at the end, with the kids holding on to me and me
holding them to keep them from getting to scared. A great ride, but not
one that younger kids should go on due to the story. Funny thing was,
they both asked to ride it again later on since they then knew what would
happen, but we didn’t’ let them.

After this it was over to meet Brian, Jay, and William at Spiderman, and
my memory of what exactly we did when gets a bit fuzzy, so might be a bit
off here. We took a round on Spiderman, taking advantage of the baby swap
for William. Which brings me to something else I wanted to mention.
Universal for their baby swaps has waiting rooms at just about every ride
that would need it. You can actually take the baby and go sit down in a
nice comfortable area as opposed to sitting on an exit ramp getting run
over as so many parks do. Kudos to how they do the swapping.

We grabbed Universal Express passes for Hulk (think fastpass) and headed
around to the other side of the park, stopping for the Caro-Seuss-el in
Seuss Landing for a ride there, and eventually made our way over to
Dueling Dragons- one of the few rides without a baby swap area. We used
the observation area outside as a sort of substitute, with my kids helping
to watch William while we took a quick round on Fire. After running into
and saying hi to some friends from Westcoaster that happened to be
visiting, I was lucky enough to manage to grab a front seat ride on Fire
for my first ride by filling an empty seat when I had been lined up for
the second row.

Fire is a great ride- Almost everything I want in the coaster itself, and
great visuals with it’s interactions with Ice. I really enjoyed the
layout, the theming, and everything about it. On the scale, it would be
an easy 9 out of 10, and maybe higher, depending on my mood. However, it
was also here that we ran into one thing that did bother me about the
park. They were only running one train on each side, and their dispatch
times were horribly slow. But that wasn’t the only thing slowing them
down. Apparently they also offer VIP tours which get to cut the line,
enter from the exit, and wave at everyone waiting in line. When they let
these groups on, though, it slows down their loading of the ride so much,
it’s horrendous. Some delay is understandable, but they were very, very
slow getting these groups on. And with a couple of large groups, it was a
long delay that didn’t have to be anywhere near that long.

With the lines growing, and not wanting to leave the kids out to much
more, we made our way back towards the front of the park. Our pass time
for Hulk was also drawing near, and I was looking forward to experiencing
the ride that so many have talked about. We made a short stop at the
talking fountain for the kids, which was asleep this time around, admired
more of the incredible theming and scenery, then made our way back over to
Hulk.

We used both our passes and a child swap on Hulk, which meant that all of
us were able to a ride in pretty quickly, with me getting a front seat
ride when I swapped in. Loading up, the launch into the zero-g was
great! The cobra roll and loop went by in a hurry. And then it becomes a
blur. That’s because for some reason the Hulk decided to pound me
repeatedly to my head. Not just in the corkscrews/ flatspins, but
throughout the rest of the ride. So much so that I came off dizzy and a
bit sore. As much as any Arrow ever did to me, which was really sad.
Brian and Jay didn’t have any problems, but for me it was anything but a
smooth ride. So I didn’t come off to happy. I took another chance later
on near the back with Margaret, but both of us got knocked around on that
one, and I actually had a small headache. Surprisingly, Brian, who
usually is the one hurting, didn’t get that. Somehow I guess I’m just the
wrong size on this one, but it hurts- enough so that I don’t have to much
of a desire to ride it again. I’m sure I’ll give it another chance
though. But if I were to grade it right now, it would be around a 3 out
of 10.

Margaret had by this time rested up and now met up with us at the entrance
of the park. With Margaret now joining us, we headed back through Seuss Landing and up
to the Lost Continent, which has 3 sub-areas in it- Atlantis/ Poseidon,
India, and a Medieval Europe send off. Seeing Poseidon, and after
discussing it a bit, we decided to give it a chance. Poseidon is a walk
through show with several stopping points for the story elements. Some
great special effects, but enough scary parts that it was hard for the
kids, and enough of the mythological/ magic elements that Margaret wasn’t
to keen on it either. The kids gave it a rousing “sort of liked it.” I
might have found it enjoyable but for dealing with the kids being scared
and the wife not approving and wanting to leave. :)

We also poked into Mythos and admired the beauty as well as the out of
reach prices, and then stopped at the Flying Unicorn, a custom Vekoma
Roller Skater that they were running 2 trains on and dispatching very
quickly. Dragons could take some serious lessons from the people running
Unicorn. It was a fun little coaster, and if you like Skaters, you’ll
like the Unicorn. 6 out of 10.

From here we took an extended stay at Camp Jurassic, which is in the
middle of Pteradon Flyers. While Amber and Jay got in line for the
coaster, and Margaret took a long sitting breather, the rest of us ran
around and played with the water guns, rope bridges, and more in the play
area. It’s the first one where they actually seem to have designed it
with adults in mind on the rope bridges and walkways, and was a heck of a
lot of fun. After playing there and the girls getting their rides in, we
took a stop at a small water fountain play area where William had a great
time splashing around, shot some free water cannons off of Me Ship, the
Olive onto those on the rapids ride, and then decided to head over to
Universal Studios as the weather started to threaten rain.

After shoving and pushing our way through the City Walk crowds gathered
for the beer festival (this at around 3pm) we headed into U.S. While it’s
theming isn’t as immersive as IOA is, it is still a very nice park and
very well done. And we headed off to find something with a relatively
short wait that we could all enjoy. We ended up at Tornado, and did a
swap of William with Brian and Jay so we could all take it in. After
having experienced a real one, I can tell you that Margaret and I were
both going through flashbacks a bit, with it only missing the roaring
train sound. Very immersive, and frightening Margaret and Amber a bit.

Coveniently, as we got in line for it, it started to rain for real. And
from this point on, it didn’t stop the rest of the day. I had left our
ponchos in the car, and we put off buying more in the hopes it would
stop. So for the next hour or two, the goal was to stay out of the rain.
With that, we took a short hop up to Jimmy Neutron, which gave a fun romp
through NickToons that all of us enjoyed a lot. William was smiling and
laughing through it according to Brian, and we loved it just as much.
This is another one I want to do again.

Then it was dodging rain for bathrooms. We were going to take in Shrek,
but the stroller parking was outside where it was raining. Why they don’t
have a covered area for stroller parking at the shows, especially the ones
where kids are going to go and in a place where it rains frequently, is
beyond me. That seems like a rather obvious thing to do on the park’s
part. As it is, they wouldn’t allow the stroller in the line to hold
William, so we ended up skipping it after a short dispute with the
attendant over the matter. So instead Margaret and Jay took the kids to
one of the restaurants to try to wait out the rain in the hopes it would
stop while Brian and I headed over to get the Mummy, since everything else
would be an extended walk in the rain without ponchos, which we didn’t
want to do.

The Mummy was interesting. A great queue, reminiscent in many ways of
Indiana Jones at Disneyland. The trains are one car long, with 4 rows of
4 passengers, and the loader was efficient, as long as he wasn’t
distracted by people loading in from the exit side (again!) The ride
itself is more of a dark ride at the beginning, with some great effects
before you get to the backwards portion, which turned out to be pretty
short, before turning around again and then launching into a short, but
fun, coaster section. Without revealing any secrets, the coaster part
ends up interrupted and a bit awkward. I would have preferred a couple of
changes to the middle of the ride, and some of the effects on the coaster
part almost seemed a bit silly. While fun, it was a bit of a
disappointment. We took a quick second round, but overall it just didn’t
impress me in the ride portion all that much. I would have liked it to
either have more coaster, or uninterrupted, or just a dark ride. But the
mix of the two came out a bit awkward. As such it gets a 6-7 out of 10.

AT this point, not only was the rain not quitting, but it actually seemed
to be getting harder. So we bought a couple of ponchos for the wives and
kids and headed out through the crowds still drinking in the rain and on
the long walk back to the car. Thankfully most of the walk after CityWalk
was covered. A nice dinner and we were back in bed and mostly asleep
before 9. At least in my room. :)

Sunday would be a shorter one due to us having to drive home this
afternoon and Margaret still not feeling well. We met up in the morning
and I chauffeured all of us to the parking garage and arrived at IOA’s
entrance about 20 minutes or so after the park opened. Shooting to head
over to Dueling Dragons so that I could catch Ice early, we realized as we
passed through Seuss Landing that there were no lines for Cat in the Hat
or One Fish Two Fish, so we caught quick rides on each of those. The kids
then had some fun with the fountain, which was active this morning. Then
while the wives and kids looked around some shops, Brian and I headed to
get in my first ride on Ice.

This time we lined up for the front row since the lines were short, and
once again they were running only one train for each side and the crews
seemed to be moving very slow. The one train didn’t bother me at this
point, since there weren’t really any lines to speak of, but the slow
crews seems to be a consistent problem. And it’s striking in a place
where so much stands out as excellent otherwise.

Ice, on the other hand, didn’t disappoint. While not as intense as Fire,
it still delivered a great ride. Fast, smooth, and with some great
fly-byes. I loved the near-hit with the castle wall. And for both sides
the head on encounter is just great. Not quite as great as Fire, but
still a fantastic ride and earning another solid 9.

We made our way back through the Lost Continent and Seuss Landing again,
letting the kids get necklaces from one of the costumed workers for making
silly faces, and playing in the If I Ran the Zoo playground while William
took another ride on the Caro-Seuss-el. From there it was back out
through the wonderful Ports of Call and back to Universal Studios to try
to catch some of what we had missed the day before.

Our first stop after eating at Mel’s Diner was Shrek, and in a word, it
was great. The preshow was a lot of fun, and the movie itself carried on
from the first one perfectly. Far better, I think, than Shrek 2 does. We
all loved it and are looking forward to visiting it again on future visits.

We then wandered up Hollywood to Kidzone, where we caught our rides on
the normal- sized roller skater, Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster.
We then headed up the walk a bit to Men in Black. At this point Margaret’s
strength was starting to fade, but we managed to get in a ride together-
once where Brian sat out with William, then Brian and Jay getting in a
ride. I would have had the high score in our car but for Jay, who is
apparently a crack shot. I think her score the second time around was
230,000 or something like that. Wow.

Unfortunately, at this point, Margaret was done. Drained and worn out
from her illness, she performed well for being sick. But with a drive
ahead of us, and not feeling good, it was time to go. So after a bit of
souvenier shopping, we said our goodbyes and headed out.

The parks overall were absolutely fantastic. The theming was perfectly
done and very immersive. Employees with a couple of exceptions, were
friendly and efficient, even down to the one coloring with sidewalk chalk
in Seuss Landing each day. And the rides were great, with the special
effects tying in very well on the rides itself. There was a lot that we
didn’t get to do for various reasons, but it gives us a lot to look
forward to on future visits and will make our passes well worth the money.

At least it better. I was joking with Brian that our budget for park
passes this year went from our normal $250-300 a year in the past to about
$1200 this year for the parks here. Wowch! And that doesn’t even include
Disney, which would easily more than double that figure. But the parks at
least do well in making it worth the money.

Thanks for reading this huge, long monster, and I hope you enjoyed it. I
know that I did typing it up.