Islands of Adventure, Orlando - Review
Posted by Jackie Hewett on Sun 16th November 2008 at 01:27 AM, Filed in USA Florida
This park is situated right next to the Universal Studios park, just of Universal’s city walk. I think it’s a bit of a schizophrenic park in that there are quite a lot of thrill seeking rides coupled with a great area and rides/play areas for little kids and not a lot in between. That said – no holiday to the Orlando parks would be complete without a visit, assuming you have the time. We visited both in October 2008 and 2006. If you are serious about your roller coasters you should either think about getting a fast pass (you have to pay around $40 extra per person for these) or about staying in the universal resort hotels as they chuck it in for free.
The kiddy area I am talking about is of course Seuss Landing. I love it – it’s just like walking into the pages of a Dr Seuss book. Absolutely nothing is straight – bridges, signs, pavements, lamp-posts, even trees are wonky. You are very likely to see characters here (they appear throughout most of the afternoon) – we saw the Grinch (very much in character throwing kids pencils and autograph books down), Cat in the Hat and Thing1 & Thing2. The merchandise is great here too – some lovely T-shirts and toys.
Seuss Landing - If I Ran the Zoo – is a great really interactive play area, lots involving water. There are many little poems dotted around – probably wasted on the kids but I liked them and you can have a chill-out time while the kids wear themselves out. It’s also pretty good for cute photos of your tots too.
Seuss Landing - The Cat in The Hat – this ride tells the story we all know and love. There are a few sharpish twists and turns, but nothing kids can’t handle – its very much made for them after all.
Seuss Landing - One Fish Two Fish – my 6 year old loves this little ride, especially as he’s in control of the height and as kids sit towards the centre with adults on the outside he can control how much either I or his father get wet!
Seuss Landing - The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride – nice views over the area, and you will be taken through one of the café’s too while on the ride. Look out for ‘sneeches’! Queues are generally not more than 10 - 15 minutes.
The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man – this ride is awesome and to my mind a ‘must do’, and although it doesn’t spin you about or dip that much it’s not for the feint-hearted. You wear 3d glasses and sit in quite a contained car. You will feel like you are with spider-man swooping over and around buildings and at one point you feel you are heading straight towards the ground from the top of a sky-scraper – great illusion. My 6 year old screamed quite a bit and took his 3D glasses off as he found it quite intense, but he wasn’t too shaken when he came off! If your little kids don’t want to ride make sure you go on it yourself.
Pteranodon Flyers – the park literature states that you can only ride on this is you are with a chid – so my 6 and 16 year old went on together. However, while seated underneath and waiting for them to pass overhead and get a photo there were plenty of adults riding without kids. It’s basically a really swing (flip-flogs etc have to be taken off) that goes around a high track with a few sharpish turns. Although the queues were pretty long (50 minutes) for such a short ride both kids said they loved it and it was their favourite thing in the park. I believe queues can get up to 75 minutes so if you definitely want to do this ride get to the park early and go there first.
Poseidon’s Fury – this is a sort of walk-through but accompanied by an actor. It’s the usual good vs evil theme and the 6-year old got a little worried at one point as he’s not good in the dark. You get ‘stuck’ in a couple of secret chambers and need to find your way out – with help from the actor of course. There are a couple of good special effects – you walk through a tunnel of water at one point and the pyrotechnics in the last chamber are quite impressive – if you stand near the front you’ll certainly feel the heat
The Mystic Fountain – this is an interactive fountain in the middle of the ‘street’ that will entertain the little ones when it squirts them and the big ones watching them get wet.
The Eight Voyage of Sinbad Stunt Show – there are only 2 showings of this a day and we planned to see the second one, only to arrive at the doors to be told it was cancelled. Needless to say we were disappointed – so if anyone has seen the show and can comment about it would great if you could do that. I have read other reviews that state they have experienced the same thing which isn’t impressive.
Jurassic Park Discovery Centre – this is great for dinosaur obsessed kids – periodically a scientist calls the kids over to witness a dinosaur hatching. Lots of interactive play and quizzes too.
We didn’t do much else in the park as many of them are white knuckle coasters which aren’t our thing, and the 6 year old wouldn’t go near them! The Jurassic Park River Adventure looks good to me – there is a large water drop at the end (but no loop-the-loops!) and I believe the dinosaur bit at the beginning is very good. Also, the Popeye & Pluto Bilge Rat Barges look a lot of (very wet) fun – but no-one in our party other than me fancied getting wet that day so I didn’t bother. For thrill seekers there’s the Hulk ride and Dualing Dragons – both of which I believe are great fun.
Eating
Both times we visited this park we ate at the Mythos restaurant. I think we all felt that the restaurant was better on our first visit in 2006 than in 2008. I am not sure if they’ve changed the menu – but the food didn’t seem quite so good. It’s quite steak and burger (but home made burger) oriented and there are daily specials. It’s a table service restaurant and has a nice cave-like interior. It wasn’t as expensive as some of the Disney park table service restaurants but them we felt on our return visit it wasn’t quite as good.
In summary – I have read some reviews of the park knocking it – expensive parking ($12 but that’s the same as all Disney parks), long walk from the car parks (but there are travellators), it’s not as good as Disney (possibly not but it’s a good change) and food can be expensive (difficult to comment as we opted for a ‘fine dining’ experience which was reasonably priced). All in all I’d recommend giving it a go if you have time for a change of park – especially if you have very little ones or really like the roller coasters. However, if you only have time for one of Universal’s theme parks I’d make it Universal Studios.
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