Islands of Adventure

Florida Trip Report Part 2


Well with about 3 hours left in the operating day me and the gang made our way out of USF and over to IOA. First we hit the hulk as soon as we got in and it was a 3 train wait for the front so i just couldn't pass that up. The launch out of the tunnel is 10 times cooler in the front row then anywhere else. Hulk was a great ride as always but was starting to show its age a little bit.

Then we hustled over to the lost continent where we embarked on both sides of
Dueling Dragons. The lines were a little longer in this part of the park, so no front row rides here. I think i liked Ice better because of the cobra roll by the wall.

And while on Dueling Dragons it was where you get an idea of just how large The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is going to be, construction for this section was ALL OVER the lost continent and i think this is gonna be HUGE when it hits orlando in 2010. I took some construction pics and posted them over at Coaster Crew. After the dragons we took the obligatory ride on the flying unicorn to check out the construction a little more.

Then it was time for Jurassic Park, where i really noticed the difference between Disney & Universal. First was at lunch when the service at the pizza shack was painfully slow. Then there was the river adventure where some of the animatronics were not in great condition. The last straw was the Pterandon Flyers which is the smallest capacity slowest moving line I ever waited in.

Now it was still fun. Me and Garret got a River Adventure boat all to ourselfs, which was very cool. The lines were so small that anyone could ride the flyers, which isn't normally the case so i picked up an unexpected coaster credit (#279).

We skipped over Toon Lagoon cause popeye was closed and i didn't feel like getting wet on Dudley. So it was off to one of the best rides in orlando, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. Incredible ride, and although universals attraction upkeep wasn't the greatest on river adventure or cat in the hat it was nice to see Spidey still in perfect condition.

The last stop was suess landing, where i hopped on the only ride at IOA that was new to me The High In The Sky Suess Trolley Ride. A neat attraction very similar to the loved TTA over at the Magic Kingdom and it has 2 tracks with a bunch of different audio tracks. I liked it and it was good to see it finally open after so many years of just sitting up there. After a last ride of the day on Cat in the Hat, my Universal day had ended. And I was tired.

But not too tired for a night at pleasure island, which i will discuss in part 3.