Universal Studios Florida 173 photos HERE at Flickr. Day two in Florida begins. This is my hotel. I got it for just $25 a night on Hotwire, but was informed after the fact that there was a $15 a day resort fee. Still a great deal, but the kicker here is that I have no idea what the resort fee was going to. The whole place was pretty much a ghost town except for me. The water park was closed, the arcade was closed, both bars were closed, and nothing at all was going on. Not that I had much time to hang around the hotel. The destination for the second day. My goal was to do both parks in one day, despite them closing at 6 PM. Continuing the cheap/free theme of the trip, I had free tickets for the parks from the Super Bowl promotion where the park gave away thousands of free tickets. I had never been to either of these parks before, so I was pretty excited to be there. The famous globe out front, and in the background the new addition to the Studios for 2009. That new addition will have to wait a bit, because Rip, Ride, Rockit did not open with the park. First ride of the day: Revenge of the Mummy. This thing has the longest most ridiculous queue I have ever seen. I cannot even imagine how awful it would be to have to wait through the entire thing on a busy summer day, although at least it is indoors. On this day, there was no wait at all. I loved the ride. Great dark ride section, and the coaster is a lot of fun. Next, Men in Black. Another walkon, and another really cool ride. Probably my favorite queue as well, as the storyline of entering the secret MIB Headquarters works really well for a ride like this. Rip, Ride, Rockit was testing. A good sign. The next ride is a bit of a sore spot. I have loved Back to the Future since I was a kid. It is probably the only movie that was a childhood favorite of mine and remains one today. I always wanted to ride Back to the Future: The Ride, but last year they replaced it with this. That said, I loved it. Best simulator ride ever. As a casual fan of the show, there was so much humor and subtleties I noticed that were intended for fans. The whole preshow was hilarious, as was the ride itself. It is incredibly rare for me to be enthusiastic about a motion simulator, but this one is a total winner. Luckily, there are still some remnants from Back to the Future: The Ride. Doc's train from Back to the Future III... And of course the Deloreon. So awesome. Rockit looms above the studio skyline. Not a very convincing Doc Brown. The line for Rockit was growing, but I didn't want to waste time waiting for it to open, so I hit one more ride. Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast. Nothing too special about this one. The film is pretty good, but it's an older theater with clunky 4 person cars. Rockit had just opened when I got out. An enormous line was beginning to form, and the ride was still running at low capacity, but fortunately I was able to walk right into the single rider line and get on in about 15 minutes. Station fly-by. Eventually the trains will supposedly load while in motion beside conveyor belts, but none of that was working yet. Before the train leaves the station you can choose from 30 songs to hear while riding. Or, you can hold down the ride logo and get access to a secret key pad, where you can enter a 3 digit code that will correspond to a hidden track. Having read some of these tracks before hand, I went to the hidden menu. Since most of the rock and pop songs on the ride are terrible, I had no choice but to enter the code for "Rainbow Connection", as sung by Kermit the Frog. There are few things more bizarre than going 65 miles per hour on a roller coaster with that playing. The speakers are very clear, and I could only hear mine and not the person beside me. As for the ride itself, well, I think I got the wrong train. There have been reports that one train is giving a very rough ride. I would assume that is the one I was in. It was uncomfortably rough in a number of spots, but I think I would really enjoy it without that. There are a few great moments of airtime, and the layout is definitely unique. The signature element is this crazy non-inverting loop. My favorite part may have been where you drop steeply then burst through this facade, because it looks like there is no way the train is going to be able to fit through the tunnel as you are coming down. When I got off Rockit, the single rider line was already closed, and despite the park seeming so dead, the wait was huge. One ride would have to be enough on the Rockit. Too much to do to spend such a huge chunk of time in line. As I was doing well for time, I decided to finish out the park. First, I got my ride on Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster. Then, E.T. Adventure. As this ride is almost 20 years old, my expectations were not that high. But, it was great! It seems like it may be a candidate for removal in the future, but I hope that never happens. The suspended vehicles (designed to look like bikes of course) are a cool twist on the dark ride concept, and the ride has a great storyline. The part where you travel to E.T.'s home planet seems like it would be terrifying for kids. Another older ride that I thought might be cheesy: Jaws. Like E.T., expectations were exceeded. It was a blast. I imagine a big part of it has to do with how good the employee working your boat is, and for my ride the guy was really good. That's it for Universal Studios. It only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes for me to fully enjoy the park, so that left a little over 5 and a half hours to enjoy Islands of Adventure next door. This is one of the meccas for amusement park fans. I had heard so much about it for so many years, and finally I made it there. These lizards are everywhere in this park. Fits well with the Jurassic Park theme. Incredible Hulk is a pretty standard B&M looping coaster, but with Universal's attention to detail when it comes to theming, and the major twist of a launched lift hill. It's a very fun ride, and there was no wait for it. Dr. Doom's Fear Fall seems like it could have an awful line during crowded days. No line of course on this day. I was a little bit disappointed, because I expected there to be something at the bottom before the cars launch, but there was really nothing special about it. And now, the ultimate dark ride. Or so they say. $200 million invested in one ride. I thought the queue, designed to look like the interior of The Daily Bugle newspaper offices from Spiderman, was a neat touch. Funny too. The closest I had come to a ride like this was Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens, essentially a poor man's Spiderman. Spiderman is simply in another class. I know I'm very late to the game on this, but it is one of the most impressive rides ever made. The 3-D effects, physical effects, and vehicle motions are blended seamlessly. This is definitely the closest anyone has ever come to Universal's old slogan "Ride the Movies". I had hoped to ride Pteranodon Flyers since the crowds were so light, but no go. Kids only. I can see why they do this, because the ride had a 30 minute wait even with the height restriction, whereas nearly everything else in the park had zero wait. Continuing on around to the other corner of the park, it was time for one of the more unique roller coasters in the world. Or, should I say, one of the most unique pairs of roller coasters in the world. Fire and Ice by themselves are nothing special (but still great rides), but together they form the great concept of dueling roller coasters. You've also got one of the most unique queues in the world. Like Revenge of the Mummy, this queue, built to look like the inside of a castle, is massive. There is a lot of potential for when the ride is rethemed to Harry Potter next year. Once I finally completed the long walk to the station, it was time to choose. Dragons actually did have a bit of a wait, because the park was running only one train on each side. I rode Ice first, in the back seat, and then waited to ride Fire in the front. I'm glad I waited for the front seat at least once, because it definitely heightens the experience. Racing head on toward the other train before pulling up at the last second into the loop is quite a moment. I think I preferred Fire, although I was only able to ride each side once. It was a very intense ride. Speaking of Harry Potter, work seems to be progressing quite well. Flying Unicorn will have to wait until next time, and I assume it will not be called Flying Unicorn by then. What's going on back here? Hogwarts is huge in the books and movies, so it will be interesting to see how the park handles the smaller scale they have to work with. One of my favorite movies when I was younger was Jurassic Park, so I loved how they replicated the visitor's center from the park in the movie. There were a few clever little things inside, like this area where you can watch a somewhat convincing dinosaur hatching. Looking out across the lagoon (big version at Flickr). This is one thing I did not do that I probably should have. Poseidon's Fury. By the time I made it back over here, it was closed, as it appearantly closes an hour before the rest of the park. The last area of the park I had to visit was Seuss Landing. I ate here. I sort of wanted to eat at Mythos, but did not really have time for a full service meal. It took seven years for The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride to open, due to a number of complications. It is a monorail tour of Seuss Landing themed to the "Sneech" story written by Dr. Seuss. The capacity isn't great, so this had the only other wait at the park in addition to Dueling Dragons. It's a pleasant ride, but there are not really any scenes to advance a story, and it is a bit short. There is plenty of story here, though, at Seuss Landing's dark ride. Cat in the Hat is an excellent dark ride with cars that turn to face the riders toward scenes and even spin at some points. The cars go through the Cat in the Hat story from start to finish; the book is perfect for a ride like this. Now, I normally don't like getting drenched at an amusement park, but it would be a crime to visit Islands of Adventure and not ride what is probably the best collection of water rides anywhere. I emptied my pockets and placed their contents in a locker along with my socks. Then, I headed for Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. Absolutely loved it. I'm not sure it beats Splash Mountain, but it is of that quality. And hey, this seems to me like more of a roller coaster than many of the "water coasters" I have been on (I'm not counting it, though). I rode this just in time, because immediately after there was an e-stop and the water was drained. Now it's time to get absolutely drowned on Popeye and Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges. There was no one in line, and I was on a boat completely to myself. It was as though I had jumped into a pool. I would like it a lot better if I could change into a swimsuit first. One of the best rapids rides out there, though. The wait was actually zero minutes. Another fantastic ride. The Jurassic Park boats take a pleasant journey through Jurassic Park (complete with the huge entry gates from the movie) with some great animatronics, but then of course everything goes horribly wrong when the boat is diverted into the raptor compound. The indoor section of the ride is really well done, and the huge T-Rex animatronic suspended over the boat just before the big drop is a great finale. After doing everything I could to dry out my clothing, I made a final lap around the park. Thankfully, the storms came at a more reasonable time on this day. The rain started around 30 minutes before park closing, and I had already done everything I intended to. Both of these parks were wonderful. Islands of Adventure was essentially what it had been hyped up to be, but the Studios park was really a surprise to me. I had expected a much smaller park with few great rides, but I actually enjoyed it almost as much as Islands of Adventure. The trip was off to a great start. Return Home Content copyright Jonathan Hawkins