Universal Islands of Adventure

Universal Studios Islands of Adventure is the second part of the Universal experience. The Islands of Adventure are accessed from the same car parks as Universal Studios, but after passing the bag check area you need to turn left at the city walk rather than right.

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.

Universal Studios - Florida

Universal Studios was our first stop on our theme park travels. It also turned out to be one of the top two that we visited.

The park is split into six areas; Production Central, New York, San Francisco/Amity, Hollywood, Woody Woodpecker’s Kidzone and World Expo.

Production Central


This is the first section you come across after you pass the turnstiles and here we took in two of the rides. Well not rides so much as experiences, the first was Shrek 4D. As you can probably guess from the ride name it’s a 3D film with the added dimension of moving seats and water/air sprays. The film sees the return of Lord Farquaad, who kidnaps Fiona. Shrek and donkey must rescue her. The 3D animation is good, and at some points very effective, luckily there are only small squirts of water, which considering the film could have been a lot worse. Overall I’d give this attraction 7/10.

We also went straight across the road from Shrek 4D to Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast. Again this is a 3D film, but this time you sit in blocks of 8 seats which rise of the floor and move around with the film, and again you get squirted with water a couple of times. The kids enjoyed this one much more than Shrek, despite the fact initially my son had to be dragged in because he really didn’t want to see it. By the time it had finished he wanted to go again, so this ride gets a 9/10.

Also in Production Central is the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket, which looks fantastic, but as my daughter wasn’t tall enough we had to miss it out.

New York


There are two rides in this section. The first time we visited the park we missed out Twister, which is a ride based on the film of the same name, and to be honest I wished we’d missed it the second time, because it was a lot of standing around and waiting for an extremely poor experience. Only 1/10 for this one.

The Revenge of the Mummy ride was a different kettle of fish. This had to be one of my favourite rides, although the first time we went on it, it scared my daughter half to death and she screamed none stop all the way round (she was able to laugh about it later though). You can’t take bags on this ride, so you have to use a locker, luckily they are free for the first hour. 9.5/10 from me on this one (I think it would be a -9.5/10 from my daughter though).

Also in this area is the Blues Brothers show, which plays 5 times a day. But we were never around at the right time, and the kids weren’t really that bothered about watching it.

San Francisco/Amity


This is an annoying area, because there are loads of stalls like fairground stalls, all of which cost extra on top of the fortune you’ve paid to get in the park. So there were a lot of "no’s" going on there. The only ride we went on was the Jaws ride, which my son enjoyed because Jaws popped up right next to him. The operator of the boat really does make a difference to the ride. The first time we went on there was an older gentleman who just went through the motions , whereas the second time a young woman took control and she was brilliant, she really put her heart and soul into the acting and it made the ride much better. 8/10 for this one.

Hollywood


We actually just walked through Hollywood each time. There are a lot of bits and pieces relating to the old movie stars and a tribute to Lucy, who I presume was someone famous at sometime, but there was nothing there to interest the kids. And we were never around at the right time for the Terminator 2 attraction, but I never really rated the films, so I wasn’t bothered about that.

Woody Woodpecker’s Kidzone


We only went on the ET ride here, which is a very slow and sedate ride helping ET get home. It’s a bit annoying when you have to queue up for your ET passport, although I can understand why they do it to thin the queue out a bit so you virtually walk straight onto the ride. A little dull so only 4/10 from me there.

There’s also a playground in this area, but it’s mainly for very small children (under 5’s) apart from a couple of larger slides.

Barney also plays here, and there’s a show which highlights the ability of animal actors.

World Expo


The smallest section with only two attractions. The Simpsons Ride, which again is a 3D experience, but is probably the best one of the ones we went on. The kids loved it, I went on twice and the kids went racing aback round a couple more times on their own, leaving me time to rest my weary feet! So 10/10 for The Simpsons.

The other ride is the Men in Black Alien Attack. Here you have to shoot aliens and compare your score to the rest of the people in your party. Luckily I’d read the folder left in the villa with information about the area, which told you what to do to get a good score on this ride, so I won the first time around. 8/10 for MIB.

Shops


Apart from the rides there are loads of souvenir shops and plenty of places to get snacks and drinks. We purchased the souvenir cup which meant refills were only 92c each, we saved a fortune doing that, because it was so hot the drinks were disappearing as fast as the cup was filled up. Each ride had its own shop at the end, but as you’d expect the items were wildly overpriced, not that it stopped the kids buying things though.

Toilets


The toilets were all very clean, and always had plenty of loo roll. But for some reason the doors didn’t quite reach the door frames so people could see you on the toilet, which is something I didn’t like at all.

Meet and Greets


At regular times during the day it’s possible for kids to meet Spongebob, Shrek and Donkey, Hollywood characters and Madagascar stars.