Islands of Adventure Trip and Phot Report

[mark]

I just posted an Islands of Adventure trip and photo report on my blog. It was an eye opening experience in a theme park experience other than Disney. Some great successes and some spectacular failures. And guess what? Disney didn’t always come out on top in the comparison. Check it out: www.insightsandsounds.blogspot.com.

[Hakuna Makarla]

Originally Posted by mark

I just posted an Islands of Adventure trip and photo report on my blog. It was an eye opening experience in a theme park experience other than Disney. Some great successes and some spectacular failures. And guess what? Disney didn’t always come out on top in the comparison. Check it out: www.insightsandsounds.blogspot.com.

awsome! I was wondering about this park as we are going down to Orlando in the fall. thanks I am off to look now!

[Hakuna Makarla]

Excellent review! thank you,

[kcnole]

I guess you get the luck of the draw when it comes to the JP River Ride. When all the effects work it is an amazing ride. It does seem as of late that I've yet to have a ride in the past year where all the effects were working and timed correctly and it really does bring down what is normally a great ride.

I also agree that the island really needs one more real ride there. I've never quite liked the idea of building a land around one ride, but at least have 2-3 smaller C tickets in the area. You don't really get anything other than some nice theming and the river adventure in Jurassic Park.

[mark]

Could be great competition to Disney if that hadn't cut back on so many things like upkeep!

[Hakuna Makarla]

I really wish you could have added the report and pics here, ( bigger pics) I enjoyed reading your thoughts on that park. it kind of took our sails out of going there, now we are rethinking and talking about going to sea world.

[mark]

Didnt mean to discourage you- go see it for yourself.

[kcnole]

No reason not to go. I have an AP and go to IOA all the time. I have a great time. Sure the park needs a few more rides to flesh it out, but its still a wonderful park. Rarely is JP as bad as he said in his review (although I don't doubt that he did see it that way). I've seen it really bad once, other than that it was pretty good and I've been on that ride a lot.

I actually prefer Universal Studios next door over IOA but that's because I'm not a big thrill ride person. I love Jaws, ET, Simpsons, The Mummy (about as thrilling as I like), Horror Makeup Show, etc... I think they're both great parks and have a lot going for them.

[JtnOrl]

Although I briefly considered changing parks, I realized most of the Studios attractions could be found in California, so I stuck to my plan.

A minority of attractions are shared, actually. Besides that, the actual park itself is completely different.

The falling jeep effect was not working

There is no falling jeep effect.

Unfortunately, budgets must get axed at Universal as well, as both coasters are entirely outdoors aside from the station

Dueling Dragons was never intended to be indoors.

[kcnole]

Yeah the Universal studios parks are completely different.

Here's the listing of shared rides/attractions:

Revenge of the Mummy (although they're both very different rides)
Shrek 4d
Terminator 2
Fear Factor Live
The Simpsons Ride
Animal Actors show

In California you can't get
Jimmy Neutron (not a big loss though)
Twister (again you've got Backdraft so no loss)
Jaws (you have your little bit on the tram tour but this is fantastic)
Men In Black
ET
The Horror Makeup Show (One of the best theme park shows ever)
And the theming of Universal Studios in Orlando is much better than in California.

However you guys do have Waterworld, Backdraft, and the wonderful Tram Tour which we don't have. I actually like that both parks are relatively different. Makes for a good reason to visit them both.

[ralfrick]

Originally Posted by Hakuna Makarla

I really wish you could have added the report and pics here, ( bigger pics) I enjoyed reading your thoughts on that park. it kind of took our sails out of going there, now we are rethinking and talking about going to sea world.

But you could just as easily focus only on the positives in this report. Like the statement about Spiderman :
"I have nothing but wonderful things to say about this attraction! It alone was worth the money spent to visit the park."

This was actually a (dare I say) fair and balanced view. There was good and bad, which can be said about most parks. I've read too many Universal reports that seem to either go out of their way to either bash Disney or complain about how Uni isn't Disney. And this is nothing compared to what Al was writing about DL a few years back. Although it's been 3 year's, we decided after visiting for 2 days that next time would be at least 3. And it's really apples and kiwis between USF and USH. One is a designed theme park resort, and the other is an actual studio where shows and attractions have been added over the years on a mountain where no one would've ever considered building a park from scratch. And Spiderman IS that good!

A bientot.

[aimster]

I've only been to Islands of Adventure twice, but enjoyed both of my visits. I'm thinking about going back there (and to the Studios park) in August for my birthday instead of my usual WDW trip... just to be different.