Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I should add, last time I was in IOA was before Kong or HG Express existed, so you are right… there are two more options.
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- Thread starter Darkbeer1
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I should add, last time I was in IOA was before Kong or HG Express existed, so you are right… there are two more options.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I agree with the general notion that IOA could use more indoor rides, although admittedly you named more indoor rides than I remembered existed.
The ACTUAL worst park for Florida weather, though, is not IOA but Busch Gardens. There are NO indoor attractions at Busch Gardens, so if storms shut down the park you can...look at animals I guess, or ride the train. There's nothing else!
Rich T
Well-Known Member
I was mainly just objecting to the thought that IOA in the rain is a complete bust. It’s not. While I agree Cat could use some upgrades, its still does an amazing job of telling that story in ride form. Another 2 C/D ticket dark rides? Absolutely. In general, I think IOA is a fantastic park that definitely needs a few more attractions for guests who can’t/don’t want to ride coasters.
choco choco
Well-Known Member
Not to dispute your argument but a small point of clarification: Poseidon's Fury has permanently closed.
Honestly, I like that theme and felt they could have adapted the attraction from walk-through to an actual ride; this would have been an economical way to make the park super strong.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Didn't Poseidon's Fury actually reopen a few months ago?
Rich T
Well-Known Member
When did you last check? Poseidon’s Fury reopened several weeks ago and is scheduled to open at 10 AM this morning.
Rich T
Well-Known Member
Yes, it did. And, for better and worse, spruced up but unchanged.
choco choco
Well-Known Member
Oh wow. I'm totally wrong on this one. Well that's heartening to me. And gives me hope for my dark ride idea.
Ne'er-Do-Well Cad
Well-Known Member
Any tips on visiting USH these days?
I'm bored and thinking about heading over next Saturday morning/afternoon with the wife, who has never been. I visited for the first (and only) time a few years ago and found the park pretty lackluster, but I missed some critical attractions (Studio Tour and Transformers, & also this predated Jurassic World & SLOP). I also arrived mid-day, when all the lines were 60+ minutes.
Am I correct that the conventional wisdom is to hit the Lower Lot first and then backtrack to the Upper Lot?
These are my must-dos. If I arrive at park opening and hit them in this order (with lunch/Butterbeer thrown in, & maybe anything enticing with a ~20 min wait), I should be okay, right? Any other pointers?
I'm bored and thinking about heading over next Saturday morning/afternoon with the wife, who has never been. I visited for the first (and only) time a few years ago and found the park pretty lackluster, but I missed some critical attractions (Studio Tour and Transformers, & also this predated Jurassic World & SLOP). I also arrived mid-day, when all the lines were 60+ minutes.
Am I correct that the conventional wisdom is to hit the Lower Lot first and then backtrack to the Upper Lot?
These are my must-dos. If I arrive at park opening and hit them in this order (with lunch/Butterbeer thrown in, & maybe anything enticing with a ~20 min wait), I should be okay, right? Any other pointers?
- Transformers
- Jurassic World
- Forbidden Journey
- Studio Tour
- Secret Life of Pets
Ne'er-Do-Well Cad
Well-Known Member
Also, I downloaded the app, and the park is dead today. Shouldn't it be crowded on the 4th of July?
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Definitely get there early! You get pretty decent wait times for the first couple hours or so especially at the lower lot.
Don’t forget to join the virtual queue for SLOP or you may not be able to ride later in the day. I’m not sure if they always use the same process but I believe sometimes they do standby in the morning and don’t open the virtual queue until late morning or early afternoon. Keep an eye on it in the app which is where you will join the virtual queue.
You have the right idea. Skip Minions and Simpsons unless you have extra time after you have done your Must Dos. I hear Waterworld is great but I haven’t seen it since I was kid. Any reason you don’t want to ride The Mummy? It’s one of the best rides in the park through sheer virtue or not being a screen ride and being coaster. Aside from all that it is fun. Not as good as the Orlando version from what I heard
For the tram tour go for for the third tram car as you have the best views during the various attractions throughout the ride. Right side I believe is better. Just tell the Cast Member you want to sit there.
Get lunch at Three broomsticks. Food is just ok but ambiance is cool. Its better than almost everything else I’ve had in the park which to be honest isn’t much. I kind of have a weird nostalgic soft spot for a Jurassic Cafe. Just brings up some good memories of elementary school, when Jurassic Park came out and what a phenomenon it was as well some trips I took to USH when I was a kid. The Cuban style chicken with rice and beans honestly wasn’t bad and maybe better than anything I’ve had at 3 broomsticks. It was better than the same dish I had at Versailles (Cuban restaurant) recently as the skin was crispier.
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mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I dunno I think locals view it as a place to go for a few hours here and there and probably have other plans today.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Get there at opening or maybe a little early and have breakfast at City Walk. The lower lot opens a little later than the upper. Do SLOP first until lower opens. Then do Transformers, JW and Mummy. Head back up hill for Studio Tour. Forbidden Journey can be single rider and time of the day. See Water World and the Special effects show. If you do it right you should be done by 2pm. You can do the smaller kid stuff like Depictable Me, Simpsons and Dreamworks theater and animal actors. Maybe repeat some stuff or do the Tram again.
Ryan120420
Well-Known Member
Like with Disneyland, USH has a large Annual Passholder base. All Annual Passes except for the Platinum Pass are blocked out for July 4th. Also, international travel still has not returned to normal, and USH is a huge draw with those guests.
Skip
Well-Known Member
Definitely recommend making Secret Life of Pets one of your first stops. If you manage to get there at opening, you can probably hit the two Potter rides, hit Pets, and then head to the Lower Lot to see Jurassic World/Mummy/Transformers. If Mummy is open, do that first - it has the smallest capacity of the three (and they've only been running one station), and the wait rarely lets up once it builds throughout the morning. Jurassic World and Transformers take longer to fill up.
Studio Tour should have a reasonable line until lunchtime. Definitely check out Waterworld, but show up early to guarantee a good seat. The Special Effects Show has also temporarily returned for the summer and is a good time - some cool live stunts.
Ryan120420
Well-Known Member
Mummy was running 2 stations last Wednesday when I was at the park.
The most ideal way to tour USH is to get to the park 45mins prior to open. They start admitting guests into the park around 30min prior to opening and the rides on the Upper Lot will open 15min prior to opening. During the 15 mins prior to opening, The Simpsons Ride is the attraction you should ride first. The line for that ride gets long and stays long until the last 30mins of the day. Assuming you are one of the first groups of guests to ride Simpsons, by the time the ride is over, the Lower Lot should be open and all 3 attractions will have near walk-on waits.
Only after the Lower Lot is completed should you go to the Secret Life of Pets, Studio Tour, or Potter. Secret Life of Pets uses a virtual queue when the line extends outside of the building. Recently Universal has made some changes to how the distribute the Virtual Queue and if they are using it, the wait when its your time to ride should be no more than 20mins.
Studio Tour is a capacity monster and during the first 2 hours of the day the wait will most likely stay under 25mins. Never do this attraction first thing in the morning.
Forbidden Journey is the ride that most guests go to in the morning and the wait times will swell. I highly suggest waiting until late in the afternoon or close to park closing to ride. Wait times at this ride fluctuate wildly. Also this ride has a extremely effective Single Rider line that will often times cut your wait by 75% or more.
Flight of the Hippogriff, waits for this very short family coaster can get excessively long during the early morning and afternoon. I suggest waiting until mid afternoon or just before park closing to ride.
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Looking forward to seeing this on the tour, and looking forward to seeing the movie in general:
Creepy Amusement Park Set From Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ Opening On Universal Studios Tour Day And Date With Film
The Creepy Amusement Park Set From Jordan Peele's 'Nope' Opening On Universal Studios Tour Day And Date With Film
deadline.com
Rich T
Well-Known Member
More IOA reactions from this Californian:
Still in Florida, I zipped over to Islands of Adventure yesterday for another early morning ride on Hagrid’s (which is how EVERYONE refers to HMCMA) and to try some of the experiences I’d missed until now.
Hagrid’s just gets better every time I ride it. What a wild, wonderful, exhilarating, completely satisfying ride—and this time (my 4th)—I experienced no motion sickness. Knowing when to lean into the turns helps a lot.
First time on Kong: I’ve never experienced the Hollywood Tram Tour version, so this was my first experience with any form of this attraction. I hit it just as the rest of the park opened for regular hours, so it was a walk-on. The act of navigating the dark, scary queue alone was its own kind of fun house.
I liked the ride. The 3D was crystal clear, and all the effects fired off and synced up perfectly with the truck shakes. The big animatronic at the end was impressive, but, y’know, ya keep waiting for it to DO something, and it just growls and sulks and looks like it’s waiting for someone in the truck to hand it a GatorAid. And the guide is gasping “Everybody keep still and maybe Kong won’t lash out!” Mission accomplished, I guess! Overall, great fun, but—Yeah, I’d be let down if I’d waited an hour or more for a brief adventure that ends way too abruptly.
Saw & rode Caro-Seuss-el for the first time, as it just recently returned from refurb. Charming and wonderful! The entire presentation is beautiful. Hadn’t known many of the beasts have animated eyes! And I loved how, as it ends, the music goes all wonky and stumbles to a halt as if the calliope ran out of steam.
Linked to the carousel reopening, the Right Hand track of the Sky Trolley was back in business. I got the”alphabet” narration, and this one really charmed the heck out of me. It really captured the unique form of gentle, wise whimsy Seuss’s worlds invoke, and the narrator—I don’t know who he is, but he nailed it—Perfect blend of joy with just a hint of sadness at the edges. He should be hired to rerecord every Seuss audiobook!
Also, I didn’t know till now that, in normal mode, the 2 tracks are actually one mobius loop. Neat!
Ate at Thunder Falls—Had the Mojo Chicken Rice Bowl, and it was over-the-moon fantastic. One of the most satisfying, relaxed and top-restaurant-quality theme park meals I’ve ever had. This and the Fish and Chips at The Leaky Cauldron are my 2 favorite park meals so far.
Also found the Aesop and Son Photo Op. This Jay Ward fan nearly fell over from nostalgia overload.
Left at noon as the crowds and heat ramped up. Getting my money’s worth out of this pass!
Weirdest souvenir spotted: Chris Pratt plushies!
Still in Florida, I zipped over to Islands of Adventure yesterday for another early morning ride on Hagrid’s (which is how EVERYONE refers to HMCMA) and to try some of the experiences I’d missed until now.
Hagrid’s just gets better every time I ride it. What a wild, wonderful, exhilarating, completely satisfying ride—and this time (my 4th)—I experienced no motion sickness. Knowing when to lean into the turns helps a lot.
First time on Kong: I’ve never experienced the Hollywood Tram Tour version, so this was my first experience with any form of this attraction. I hit it just as the rest of the park opened for regular hours, so it was a walk-on. The act of navigating the dark, scary queue alone was its own kind of fun house.
I liked the ride. The 3D was crystal clear, and all the effects fired off and synced up perfectly with the truck shakes. The big animatronic at the end was impressive, but, y’know, ya keep waiting for it to DO something, and it just growls and sulks and looks like it’s waiting for someone in the truck to hand it a GatorAid. And the guide is gasping “Everybody keep still and maybe Kong won’t lash out!” Mission accomplished, I guess! Overall, great fun, but—Yeah, I’d be let down if I’d waited an hour or more for a brief adventure that ends way too abruptly.
Saw & rode Caro-Seuss-el for the first time, as it just recently returned from refurb. Charming and wonderful! The entire presentation is beautiful. Hadn’t known many of the beasts have animated eyes! And I loved how, as it ends, the music goes all wonky and stumbles to a halt as if the calliope ran out of steam.
Linked to the carousel reopening, the Right Hand track of the Sky Trolley was back in business. I got the”alphabet” narration, and this one really charmed the heck out of me. It really captured the unique form of gentle, wise whimsy Seuss’s worlds invoke, and the narrator—I don’t know who he is, but he nailed it—Perfect blend of joy with just a hint of sadness at the edges. He should be hired to rerecord every Seuss audiobook!
Also, I didn’t know till now that, in normal mode, the 2 tracks are actually one mobius loop. Neat!
Ate at Thunder Falls—Had the Mojo Chicken Rice Bowl, and it was over-the-moon fantastic. One of the most satisfying, relaxed and top-restaurant-quality theme park meals I’ve ever had. This and the Fish and Chips at The Leaky Cauldron are my 2 favorite park meals so far.
Also found the Aesop and Son Photo Op. This Jay Ward fan nearly fell over from nostalgia overload.
Left at noon as the crowds and heat ramped up. Getting my money’s worth out of this pass!
Weirdest souvenir spotted: Chris Pratt plushies!
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