Islands of Adventure, pics and more 1999.

[Melonballer]

Hi,

Well over the last few weeks I have posted pictures and anecdotes from my first WDW vacation. What I never got around to doing was posting for my trip to Islands of Adventure on that same trip. SO here we go! BTW do not use these pictures without my permission, please.

MY mother and I went to IOA on Wednesday, right in the middle of our WDW vacation. We rode a Mears shuttle from WDW with a family of 3 and got there at about 8:20 or so. IOA was to open at 9am so we wandered down the citywalk to the gate. Well at 8:30 they let us all in. ONly SPider-man and Cat in the HAt were open, but there was no one there, so it was a great opportunity.

WE headed straight to Marvel SUperhero Island.



I was really impressed with the large comic character cut-outs, especially scine they were done by comicbook great Adam Kubert. The Island is very colorful and the comicbook geek has lots of details to check out, like the windows that were supposed to be the offices to characters like Matt Murdock (Daredevil) and Donald Blake (Thor).



We headed to the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. I was blown away by it. THe way they synchonize the 3-D with the car movements is incredible.



Peter Parker's Office in the queue.

We took 2 quick rides on the attraction. There was no line. IMHO this is one of, if not the, best dark ride. It's certainly my favorite. Some rides just have some pictures of characters and they consider it themed. This was a Spider-Man ride.

Since the rest of MArvel SUperhero island was closed until 9am we went over to Suess LAnding.



Seuss Landing is quite stunning. There is not a single straight line in the place. They even went out and got trees that had been bent by hurricanes to decorate the area. IT was very bright and colorful.



The Green Eggs and Ham diner.

The Cat in the HAt was open so we headed towards it.


Did I mention how immersive and colorful the themeing is?

The ride while not as cool or groundbreaking as Spider-Man it is a nice calm dark ride that everyone could enjoy.

By then the rest of the park was opening so we headed back to Marvel Superhero Island for the Incredible Hulk Coaster.



Well my mother and I had never been on a large coaster. We had never even done Space Mountain, BTMR, or the Matterhorn. There was little line so we did not have enough time to chicken out. Before we knew it we were strapped in and heading up the liift hill. All of a sudden the coaster accelerates and shoots us out of the tube in the pic above and we invert. I was swearing like crazy! The surprise of that moment was awesome. When we got off the ride I was a little unsteady, but I told my mother that we needed to do that again right now! We headed around the attraction and into the queue and were on again within 5 minutes. My mom was quite the trooper, especially since she had drunk her way around World Showcase at Epcot the night before. We had a blast.



We headed over to Dr. Doom's Fearfall next. Its just like Maliboomer at DCA, but good. Its higher up amd there is no faceshield. Also the queue was great since you enter the Latverian Embassy and there are Doombots all around.

Next we headed to Toon Lagoon. This island is themed to comic strip characters liek Heathcliff and cartoon cahractrers like Popeye and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Its my least favorite island. Its not as well themed as the rest and there is only 2 rides. We decided to skip Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges after we got completely soaked on Kali River Rapids earlier in the week. However, we did ride Dudley Do-Right's RipSaw Falls.



The outside is very nicely themed to the Jay Ward cartoon. There are some animatronics on the ride as well, but not as nice as those on Splash Mountain. However, the falls themselves are more thrilling than those on its Disney cousin. I give Splash Mountain the edge, but I do really like DDRF.

[Melonballer]

After this we headed to Jurassic Park. When you enter this section you go through the gates, just like in the movie. The pathways have impressions of leaves and ferns for a nice touch. Occasionally the bushes rustle and you can hear strange noises.



Camp Jurassic: a playground for kids. Pterodon Fliers already had a 45 minute line since it is such a slow loader. This was the only ride in the park that had a line that was more than 10 minutes all day. We never did ride it and to this day it is the only ride in IOA I have not ridden.

The Jurassic Park River Adventure was nice, but too short in my opinion. The dinosaur animatronics are great, especially the T-Rex right before you take the big drop.

Jurassic Park also has a Discovery Center just like the one in the movie.



There is a gift shop and lots of exhibits that are actually fun and educational. Well maybe not too educational, but still.

In 1999 there was one attraction that has moved on to Yesterday Island since I was there; The Triceratops Encounter.



YOu basically go down a path to a room where a vetrinarian is giving an exam to a real live Triceratops.



Ok, Ok. Maybe he is not real, but he is the most amazing animatronic I have ever seen. Granted I have not seen Lucky the Dinosaur yet, but this huy was amazing. The creature would move aroundand you could see the muscles move with it. It also would sneeze and do soemthing I have never seen another animatronic do, it would urinate. That's right, urinate!
Unfortunately this nice little diversion has closed now.

We had lunch at Pizza Predatoria and moved on to my overall favorite Island, The Lost Continent.



Yep that's 1999 me. I still have that shirt.

Now the Lost Continent has 3 sections to it. First is an Arthurian section. Merlin wanders around in this section of the park. Here you can find the Enchanted Oak Tavern.



This amazingly themed restaurant is themed like a tree that has been shaped to look like Merlin. Inside is dark and cool, like a Hobbit Hole. Yes you can get beer here.



This stained glass window can be seen by looking up in the center of the room. No hanging ghost host here. How's the food? Well I did not eat here on this trip, but I enjoyed it the next time I was there a few years later. It's not the greatest, but its better than lots of other theme park food.

Directly across from the Oak tavern is Dueling Dragons.



This inverted Dueling coaster has one of the great queue lines in all themeparkdom. YOu enter an old dilapidated castle where stained glass windows tell the story of the poor kingdom that the Fire and Ice dragons fight over. As you continue down into the castle it gets darker and more sinister. YOu find knights melted into the walls and ceilings. Then you find more knights frozen into icicles. As you get farther down you come across skulls and skeletons in the dungeons. Then you must chose to ride the fire or ice dragons. We chose ice since a cm said it was the best. When they release the 2 coasters the systems will hold back one if it gets too far ahead on the lift hill. This is so you can have several close run ins while the dragons "battle" outside. The 2 tracks are not the same and have different paths so you should ride them both. Ice has one really grea moment where it looks like you are going to run into the castle wall, but you suddenly go into a loop as you feet dangle towards the wall.

For some reason we did not ride Fire, and we headed towards the next section, which has an arabian theme.



Here you can find the Eighth voyage of Sinbad. I do not do stage shows so we skipped it. BTW you may notice all the wet ground. Did it rain? Nope. This fountain will splash you if you are not careful. It can throw water high in the air and it will laugh and taunt you will it does it. It took me more than 5 minutes to get this shot since so many people wanted to play with it.



A detail on the wall outside the show.

The last sub section is greek themed.

Here you can have an elegant meal at the Mythos restaurant.



Inside is well themed and a small stream runs through the restaurant.



notice the sculpture in the support beam.

On the backside of mythos is a large statue of Altas. This is one of those great details that many may miss if they do not look for it.

[Melonballer]

This section also has The Fury of Poseidon. Many people miss this attraction and it has changed since I saw it, but is pretty interesting. It is a walkthrough attraction.





Inside the temple of Poseidon a storyteller tells you all about Atlantis and how it sunk. Suddenly all goes dark and a strange passageway opens. As you travel along you find out about the feud between Poseidon and Zeus as you puzzle your way through the passageways. At one point the passage to Atlantis opens and you enter a tunnel of water. In the final room Posedion arrives and threatens you. The storyteller turns into Zeus and the two battle it out in front of you with large explosions of water and fire. Its like an indoor Fantasmic.

After we left FOD we went back into Seuss Landing to ride the other attractions.



The Truffula Forest with one fish two fish red fish blue fish in the background.

Now OFTFRFBF could be seen as just a Dumbo rip off, but its not. Its actually better. How can that be you ask. Well while you circle around the there are fish sculptures on the outside of the ride spit water at you.
What makes it interactive is that there is a song that plays while you rotate. The song lyrics tell you how to avoid the water (or get wet if you are so inclined). For example it might say one fish, red fish, up up up, 2 fish blue fish down down down. So if you were in a red fish you would go up and the water would be timed so that you can avoid getting splashed. It gets even more complicated when the song tells you to do the reverse of what it says. We got splashed.

Probably the highlight of Suess Landings is the Carouseussel.



Instead of horses it uses creatures from Seuss's books. An interesting thing about this ride is that it has wheelchair accessible sleds that someone in a wheelchair can roll into and get the up and down motion that others on the creatures get as the ride spins.

We finished up back in Marvel Superhero Island where I rode Spider-Man again and got a chocolate milkshake at the Captain America Diner.



A mural of Black Panther, Captain America, Ant-Man and She-Hulk inside the diner.

One of my favorite things about the Marvel Superhero Island is how it recognizes not just the big names like Spider-Man and Hulk, but also smaller characters like Ant-Man and the Black Panther. I bought 3 tie-dye tshirts while I was there of Captain America, the Silver Surfer, and Rogue from the X-Men. They were awesome and I still own all 3. I wear them rarely these days to preserve them as long as I can.

After this we headed out and had dinner at the Hard Rock Orlando and then caught out shuttle back to Dixie Landings. I hope you enjoyed my report. IOA is my favorite themepark I have been to (tied with Disneyland).

[BackIntoYourSystem]

Loved the Pictures. I've only been to Islands of Adventure once but the park is pretty cool. I love the Spiderman ride, it blew me away the first time I rode it.

[filmfreak11]

Only been to Florida once. IoA is awesome. Dueling Dragons was one of my first fast, looping coasters. Ice seems to be smoother than Fire somehow. I liked the Sinbad show. I'm probably going to post my video of the show sometime. One of the characters took my camera and pointed at the audience- I just happened to sit at the spot where he usually takes them. Spider-Man has got to be the best Universal ride ever. The water rides REALLY get you wet. Fury of Poesidon was indeed interesting. Cat in the Hat wasn't exactly calm, at points it spins you around really fast.

MIB ride was totally cool. Twister was a good alternative to Backdraft. That Hanna-Barbeara ride (now Nickleodeon) the emmployees messed up with the number of people entering the simulators so we had to watch the pre-show video again. Luckily this was the 1st ride we got on and we ended up with special universal express service tickets to use at both IoA and USO

Glad you have a good time at IoA.

[figment1986]

wow.. look how bright and clean everything is... it's the disney park disney didn't make... lol

well, was... it needs more care now... (more regular paintings, at least Seuss is painted bright again..)

great photos... you caught almost everything but the sign telling of Mcmonkey mcbean's very usual driving machine coming in 2001... lol

[Melonballer]

great photos... you caught almost everything but the sign telling of Mcmonkey mcbean's very usual driving machine coming in 2001... lol

Thanks. Actually these are not all the photos, I just picked some of my favorites. Though I have to admit I do not have a picture of the sign for that ride.

[Disney Analyst]

wow, amazing photos.