6th Stop: Universal's Islands of Adventure, Orlando, FL

Truly a "Theme" park

And now for something completely different: A real "theme park," where thrill rides take a back seat to the overall experience. At all of the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks we visited, while most of the rides are "themed" to some degree (e.g., Top Thrill Dragster puts forth a "drag racing" theme) and there are a few areas for the kiddies that feature a cartoon character or two, none of them come close to the total immersion and level of detail that Universal applied to Islands of Adventure.

In addition, we arranged something unique for this trip: A full guided tour, including "backstage" tours of many of the attractions. We expected up to twelve people to be on this tour, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was only the two of us. Not only that, but we had two tour guides (one of whom was in training).

We arrived to enjoy valet parking (included in the tour package) and a continental breakfast, and we were quickly off with our guides for what turned out to be over four hours packed with information and fun.






The park is divided into discreet areas of adventure, as depicted in this map. (Double-click to enlarge.)  Within each area, not only are the rides themed specifically in accordance with the theme, but everything around you, from the lampposts to the landscaping, architecture, vending, and signage is harmonious as well. And the level of detail and Universal's obsession with being true to the theme is astonishing.

Nothing illustrates this more than the "Seuss Landing" area, where everything, and I mean everything, is "Seussed." If you remember Theodor Seuss Geisel's books, he never incorporated so much as a single straight line; everything in every illustration was curvy. So in Seuss Landing, every lamppost, sign, surface and feature was curved and colorful.  They only used palm trees with radically curvy trunks that were recovered from hurricanes, for example. 

You might think that this would be garish and cacophonous, but somehow it all works and it is simply charming. You just cannot avoid feeling a bit like a kid in this area of the park.

One more factoid gives you an idea of the effort that they went to to keep true to the theme (and, reportedly, the demands of Geisel's widow!). If you remember your Dr. Seuss, there were the "Zax" characters, the very epitome of stubbornness. One Zax would only walk northward, and the other only southward. One day, they met face to face along a trail outside of the town, and neither would give way to the other, since nether would move sideways. Years and years went by, during which time the town expanded out to where they stubbornly stood. The famed "Zax bypass" was built to route a highway around them as the town engulfed them.

So when Universal built Seuss Landing, the very first thing they did was to erect a stand upon which they placed the statues of the Zax. Then, just like in the story, the built the rest of the area around them.

Here we are, aping the Zax as they stand, unmoving, under their Zax bypass. (You might also note that each individual post in the curved fence around them is not only curved, but curved differently.)

We even braved the bizarre Seuss animals on their truly unique carousel.

Similarly, the relatively new Harry Potter area is simply over the top in its scope and level of detail. The buildings in that area are amazing, right down to the "snow" on their roofs.

Yes, yes, this is a roller coaster tour, so let's get back to the subject at hand!

First is The Incredible Hulk. This ride starts with the cars in the train being launched upward through a giant tube out into the sky and immediately into a roll and half-loop (that is, a split-S, for you airplane nerds).  Even though the ride "only" propels you up to 40 MPH in 2 seconds (a pittance compared to Top Thrill Dragster), it's still a big kickoff, and the rest of the ride is twisty and fun, with seven inversions. (It does top out at 67 MPH.)

Our guides provided us with some interesting information about the ride. First, the unique aircraft tire-driven launch portion was designed and built by Universal themselves, while the rest of the ride was done by B&M.  Also, one notices that this ride is quite noisy. You can hear the cars whooshing over the track from just about everywhere in the park. Turns out this was intentional. They did it by omitting the sand that the ride rails are normally filled with to deaden the sound.  Why did they do this? To keep true to the theme, of course. (When Dr. Bruce Banner transforms into Hulk, he becomes incredibly loud as well as strong.)

Our next "ride" was the 3D full-imersion virtual reality Spiderman.  I'll let Universal describe it:

The diabolical villains of the Sinister Syndicate have stolen the Statue of Liberty and it's up to Spidey to save the day. You'll follow right alongside the web-slinger, careening and crashing through the streets, scaling skyscrapers and plummeting to the pavement below in a simulated 400-foot freefall.

In this ride, you're completely in the scenes as you travel along with Spiderman battling the villains, with spectacular hi-def 3D surrounding you and effects that rock your car along with the action. Upon encountering Hydro-Man, water splashes down from his heaving fist. And when Hobgoblin throws a flaming jack-o'-lantern, pyrotechnic fire heats up the space. At many points you're flying along at incredible speeds through the buildings in the scenes, and you even plunge 400 feet to the street below (very convincingly) only to be rescued by Spidey's web at the last second.

We learned that despite how it feels in there, the track the cars ride along on never varies in hight more than three feet. The cars can rotate completely, as all connections are through a transfer disk. The 20 cars they built for the ride cost $1.5 million each. The ride itself cost $100 million to create. It was worth it. (We rode it three times.)

There's a new, similar ride "experience" in the Harry Potter section called "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey." Again, you are immersed in the events as you fly hither and yon with Potter as he encounters "magical creatures," and you later ride along during a game of Quidditch (which I guess is meaningful to those who have read the books; we hadn't).  The "behind the scenes" aspects we learned about described how industrial robot arms, mounted on trollies that move the cars through the scenes, manipulate the cars in a manner similar to that used for full-motion flight simulators.

Patricia liked this ride even more than Spiderman,  but Gordon gave the edge to Spidey.

Finally, what visit to a park in the hot and humid climate of Florida would be complete without a water ride? After getting mildly wet while dodging dinosaurs on the Jurassic Park Adventure ride,  our guides gave us the option of getting even more wet on the flume ride "Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls" or getting truly soaked on "Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges."  The latter was so radical that one of our guides had never ridden it! Of course, we selected that one.

You pretty much do everything but drown on that one, folks. There are even places where kids adjacent to the ride are given giant squirt guns which they gleefully use to hose the poor riders down with (although you are so soaked at that point it is moot).  Here's how we looked after getting off:

As has become a tradition with the parks we've visited, Patricia had an animal encounter (with some squirrels) and Gordon found an airplane.

We had a lot of fun at Islands of Adventure, but after drying off we were ready to move on to our last stop, Six Flags over Texas.