1st time

[haley's mom]

I have never been to Universal. We are taking a trip to WDW in December and thought about 1 day at Universal. What is there to do?

A little about my family. DD15 and DS9 LOVE thrill rides. DD5 likes thrill rides that are not dark. At WDW she will not ride BIg Thunder Mountain Railroad due to dark tunnels. I don't want to have a bad experience at Universal due to this.

Anyone help?

 

[Ileana]

For the older kids - they would LOVE Islands of Adventure

Rides here: http://www.universalorlando.com/ioa_index.html

The younger one - just check her height against the height requirements for the major thrill rides. The only dark ride I can think of is spiderman, but it's not a coaster type ride (but still just as cool) so I think she would enjoy it (or not - you know your child best)

Check out the info on the website and ask questions

 

[zgirl]

You can watch a lot of the rides on YouTube to get an idea of what they are like, but it may spoil it for you. DD5 should like Suess Landing and the Flying Unicorn at IOA. You will probably have some height issues though (we did with my DD8). A lot of the rides at US are inside and therefore are on the dark side. I personally think it will be difficult to do IOA and/or US unless you want to split your family up - some do thrill and the others do stuff with DD5. Just my opinion though.

 

[Darcy03231]

Your 5 y.o. won't be tall enough (unless she's really tall for her age) to ride some of the thrill rides. DN (9) who is on the petite side (she was wearing a size 6X last summer) wasn't tall enough to ride the Hulk, Dr. Doom, or Dueling Dragons IOA. She did ride Jurassic Park, Spiderman, Dudley Do-Right (I would compare it to Splash Mountain), Popeye (compare to Kali River Rapids), Flying Unicorn in IOA w/out any problems. Jurassic Park, Spiderman and Dudley Do-Right all have parts where it is dark. Posieden's Fury is also dark. At US she was able to ride everything. Twister, The Revenge of the Mummy, Men in Black, Terminator, ET, Earthquake (now Disaster) also have parts where it is dark. Men in Black is like a ramped up version of Buzz Lightyear. As a previous poster pointed out, most all of the rides at US/IOA are inside so they are dark.


Hope this helps.

 

[damo]

The younger one can still have lots of fun. There are great playgrounds at IOA and discovery type centres. Suessland has some rides that she would enjoy and more play areas.