The party is split into six areas, Marvel Super Heroes, Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, the Lost Continent and Seuss Landing.
Marvel Super Heroes
The first ride you come across in this section is the Incredible Hulk coaster; unfortunately my daughter was too small to ride on this ride so I can't tell you much about it, apart from to say it looks amazing.
Doctor Doom’s Fear Fall is the next to ride you come across, where we passed by this ride the wait time was only five minutes so we decided to give it a try without actually looking up to see what sort of ride it was. It was only when the doors opened to our seats that I realised it was the ride we'd seen from the other side of the park, and was one of those rides that shot you up into the air at high speeds. The initial experience of being catapulted into the air is quite fun, but that's it really and the next few seconds of the ride where it bounces up and down a few times is a bit dull. So on the whole I give this 6/10.
The next ride we went on was the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. This is a 3-D ride in which Spiderman is trying to save New York from Goblin and a few of the other comic book villains (I can’t remember their names because Marvel comics weren't something I used to read as a child). The 3-D effects are really good and you really feel like you are flying around even though you are sitting safely in your car. We went on this ride three times in all so I have to give it a 9/10.
Also in this area you will find Storm Force Acceleration, however I can't even remember seeing it so I can't say anything about it at all.
Toon Lagoon
The first ride we went on was Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges. This is a ride where you sit in a boat with seven other people, a clue to how wet you get on this ride is given when you get on the boat and notice that there is a section in the middle that is covered over so you can keep your bags and cameras dry, which is something I've never seen on a water ride before. On the ride you go over different rapids and bounce about from one side of the river to the other, as you go the rapids huge waves splosh into the boat, you might think at this point that if you're lucky you'll get the seat that manages to miss all the water, but then you go through a couple of waterfalls so there isn’t a single person who stays dry. Having said that the ride is a lot of fun and we actually went on it twice, I'm giving this ride and 8/10 purely because it's so horrible walking round soggy for the next couple of hours.
Whilst we were wet we decided to go on the other water ride in Toon Lagoon which is Dudley do Right’s Rip Saw Falls. This is a ride based on the TV series Dudley do Right which I've never watched so the characters meant nothing to me or to the kids. The ride is more of an old fashion log flume than the previous ride and just has a couple of big drops, the second of which is the steepest and the wettest. Not a bad ride 7/10.
The other attraction in this area is the Me ship, The Olive, which is a rather strange name. This isn't a ride it's a small playground area for children which has slides and water cannons to shoot at people on Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge barges, and a couple of other interactive things. At nine and 11 my kids were a little too old for this attraction.
Jurassic Park
The main ride in this area is the Jurassic Park River Adventure, this is yet another water ride where you travel along in a boat and entered Jurassic Park. There you get to see some of the different dinosaurs in the Park, a couple of which kindly spray you with water as you're going past. It's quite pleasant ride until you enter the raptor area when suddenly you start to go up and find yourself facing the T Rex, luckily just before the T Rex decides to eat you the ride drops away and you plummet to the river below, getting soaked in the process. I would have given this ride an 8.5/10, but two of the three times we went on the ride when it came to exiting the worker who was controlling the boats made it jolt quite badly and it really hurt my back, so because of that I can only give it 5/10.
Just opposite the River adventure you'll find Camp Jurassic, this is a huge playground with lots of slides, rope bridges and water cannons. My kids really enjoyed the water cannon flights with the other kids who were there, and it also gives parents time to have a rest. In this area you'll also find the Pteranadon Flyers, this is a ride just for children where they can fly around the area and see camp Jurassic from a bird’s eye view. I was sat near the entrance whilst waiting for my children to go the ride and really felt sorry for the young girl who was allowing people into the ride. The amount of adults that were arguing with her because they wanted to go on the ride was ridiculous. And when my kids came off the ride it turned out it wasn’t worth the effort anyway, they both came saying it was really boring.
The Lost Continent
We actually missed out this section both of the times we went to the Islands of adventure, there was nothing here that really gripped the children's imaginations, and none of the rides really interested them.
Seuss Landing
The only ride in the entire park that had a queue over 30 minutes on the two days we went was the high in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride, and after waiting 30 minutes to go on the ride I have to say I have absolutely no idea why the queue so long. The ride takes you over the top of Seuss Landing so you get to look down on everybody and get different view of the area, whilst at the same time you hear a Seuss style story of the alphabet being read out, but the ride is so slow you could almost fall asleep whilst riding on it. A very poor 2/10 for me.
The next ride is the Cat in the Hat, another ride for younger children. You ride on the couch through the story of the book, having never read the book I can't say how accurate it is but it's not an exciting ride, there are a couple of times when the couch spins around but that's about as wild as it gets. 5/10 for this.
There is a Caro-euss-el, which is basically a carousel with Seuss characters and is about as much fun as your average carousel. 5/10.
The final ride One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. This is an octopus style ride which goes round and the arms open down individually depending on whether person riding wants to steer up or down. The ride plays a little tune which tells the rider went to go up or down in order to avoid getting wet, however I'm sure everybody gets wet anyway. 7/10 for this ride.
Shops and cafes
As you'd expect there are shops at the exits of the majority of rides, each shop sells souvenirs which are based on the characters in that ride or in the area. There are also plenty of shops which sell a little bit of everything, including characters you'll find in the Universal Studios side of the parks.
There are also plenty of cafes around the Park, these mainly sell fast food, pizza, fried chicken, etc. But in Toon Lagoon you will also find Chinese, Italian and Mexican food, or in the Lost Continent you'll find some healthy salads.
Then all around the Park there are snack bars for you to top up your drinks and buy crisps or pretzels, etc.
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