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(reconstructed from memory)
Today was the day I had set aside in advance to spend with Riff at Universal Orlando. After breakfast we headed on over to the park, and I picked up my annual pass (actually a two year pass, thanks to a coupon from Burger King - Ben ate the fries, I got the coupon.. yay!) The parking garage is roughly two time zones away from the actual park entrance, so once we parked it took a wee bit of walking to make it to Citywalk, which is Universal's big shopping/dining/nightlife area. Past there we headed over to Islands of Adventure, and proceeded to stand in line for The Amazing Spider Man.
The two most popular rides currently at Islands of Adventure, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, are both located right near the park entrance, which only serves to increase the size of the crowds since they are the first e-ticket rides you stumble across when you walk in. Our wait for Spider-Man was well over an hour, but it was worth the wait. The ride combines a moving ride vehicle, live sets, live environmental effects (rain, wind, fire, etc.), and 3-D film projection all combined in such a way as to completely suck you into the ride and then do impossible things. I loved this ride for it's masterful engineering, and I will be riding it again the next chance I get.
The Incredible Hulk was similarly exceptional. From the outside it doesn't look like much as steel coasters go. Lots of loops and drops, but it doesn't look particularly fast. That is an illusion. The initial lauch is nothing short of spectacular. You start going up the lift, inside the barrell of a giant gamma accellerator. At first it is like the first big climb on any coaster, then all of a sudden the accellerator kicks in and you are rocketed forward and out the barrel of the gun where you make a sudden twist and drop to the left. From there it keeps you spinning, twisting, and looping in such a dizzying manner that you never even get a chance to look around. Beautiful.
Our next stop was to head over to the Lost Continent (the park is made up of a series of islands, each themed differently). Poseidon's Fury was a classic Universal ride -- a peice of theatre that moved you through the chambers of a recently discovered Atlantean temple led by a Bruce Campbell-style guide who inadvertantly awakens the demons of the past. Very nicely done.
A stop for lunch, and then it was on to the Dueling Dragons - two coasters that launch side by side and which are intertwined in such a way that you are frequently come only twelve inches away from colliding with the cars on the other track. For some odd reason there was no wait time at all for either coaster, probably due to an impending thunder shower. For whatever reason we were able to walk onto both coasters in rapid succession, and they were both spectacular.
With a rainstorm on the way we decided to head over to the main Universal Orlando park since it consists mostly of indoor shows. Twister was great, as was T2 3-D. Back to the Future was a lot of fun, but I was a little too tall for the ride so I could actually see the banks of ride vehicles which kind of spoiled the ride a little. Men in Black was a heck of a lot of fun, a more adult variation on the Buzz Lightyear ride in Fantasyland. Jaws was cheesy fun, and Earthquake had a better pre-show than the actual ride itself. The version in L.A. is actually a part of the tram tour, and it works better that way. We didn't get to see Shrek 4-D because the lines were too long, but we did walk back over to Islands of Adventure to do Jurassic Park. Great log ride, the final drop was much higher than I expected.... and I lost my hat. In the ride photos going out, my hat was flying up and completely obscuring the face of the poor woman behind me. Her two friends thought it was absolutely hysterical.
After that we pretty much called it a night. Stopped for dinner on the way home (home!), and then off to bed.
Today was the day I had set aside in advance to spend with Riff at Universal Orlando. After breakfast we headed on over to the park, and I picked up my annual pass (actually a two year pass, thanks to a coupon from Burger King - Ben ate the fries, I got the coupon.. yay!) The parking garage is roughly two time zones away from the actual park entrance, so once we parked it took a wee bit of walking to make it to Citywalk, which is Universal's big shopping/dining/nightlife area. Past there we headed over to Islands of Adventure, and proceeded to stand in line for The Amazing Spider Man.
The two most popular rides currently at Islands of Adventure, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, are both located right near the park entrance, which only serves to increase the size of the crowds since they are the first e-ticket rides you stumble across when you walk in. Our wait for Spider-Man was well over an hour, but it was worth the wait. The ride combines a moving ride vehicle, live sets, live environmental effects (rain, wind, fire, etc.), and 3-D film projection all combined in such a way as to completely suck you into the ride and then do impossible things. I loved this ride for it's masterful engineering, and I will be riding it again the next chance I get.
The Incredible Hulk was similarly exceptional. From the outside it doesn't look like much as steel coasters go. Lots of loops and drops, but it doesn't look particularly fast. That is an illusion. The initial lauch is nothing short of spectacular. You start going up the lift, inside the barrell of a giant gamma accellerator. At first it is like the first big climb on any coaster, then all of a sudden the accellerator kicks in and you are rocketed forward and out the barrel of the gun where you make a sudden twist and drop to the left. From there it keeps you spinning, twisting, and looping in such a dizzying manner that you never even get a chance to look around. Beautiful.
Our next stop was to head over to the Lost Continent (the park is made up of a series of islands, each themed differently). Poseidon's Fury was a classic Universal ride -- a peice of theatre that moved you through the chambers of a recently discovered Atlantean temple led by a Bruce Campbell-style guide who inadvertantly awakens the demons of the past. Very nicely done.
A stop for lunch, and then it was on to the Dueling Dragons - two coasters that launch side by side and which are intertwined in such a way that you are frequently come only twelve inches away from colliding with the cars on the other track. For some odd reason there was no wait time at all for either coaster, probably due to an impending thunder shower. For whatever reason we were able to walk onto both coasters in rapid succession, and they were both spectacular.
With a rainstorm on the way we decided to head over to the main Universal Orlando park since it consists mostly of indoor shows. Twister was great, as was T2 3-D. Back to the Future was a lot of fun, but I was a little too tall for the ride so I could actually see the banks of ride vehicles which kind of spoiled the ride a little. Men in Black was a heck of a lot of fun, a more adult variation on the Buzz Lightyear ride in Fantasyland. Jaws was cheesy fun, and Earthquake had a better pre-show than the actual ride itself. The version in L.A. is actually a part of the tram tour, and it works better that way. We didn't get to see Shrek 4-D because the lines were too long, but we did walk back over to Islands of Adventure to do Jurassic Park. Great log ride, the final drop was much higher than I expected.... and I lost my hat. In the ride photos going out, my hat was flying up and completely obscuring the face of the poor woman behind me. Her two friends thought it was absolutely hysterical.
After that we pretty much called it a night. Stopped for dinner on the way home (home!), and then off to bed.