First Timer! Universal Rides with their WDW Equivalents!

[butterscotchcollins]

I have a question for the Forbidden Journey queue, we have the Express passes because we're staying at Hard Rock, does that mean we won't get to experience the queue in the same way?

Yes, Express Pass queues are much shorter and take you basically right to the loading area. This is one that's worth skipping EP and doing the full queue the first time, the details are incredible and not to be missed!!

Flight of the Hippogriff is also an enjoyable ride. It's basically for the kiddos but is enjoyable and you get some nice views of Hogwarts. Not really worth getting in a long line as it's pretty short but to me it's like a less intense Slinky Dog, which is already pretty tame IMHO.

THANK YOU I was waiting for someone to mention Flight of the Hippogriff! It's such a baby coaster but so fun and charming, I think your wife will like it if she can handle small coasters (think Barnstormer).

 

[choirbird]

I’m here now! Here are my ratings:

MIB: has a decent amount of spinning, but my husband didn’t feel sick. We didn’t have a “partner car” to shoot at us though.

Gringotts: Fun, just the right kind of intense for me. Medium drop right at the beginning, some slightly scary effects (3D snake, little mists of water, simulated fire). Not as intense as Everest, but more than Slinky.

FJ: Too intense for my husband because of the screen/motion sickness. Too intense for me because the non-screen effects (dragon breathing “fire”, huge spider, Dementors) were much closer to my face than I liked.

Hagrid’s: almost too intense on my first ride, super fun once I knew what was happening. One small drop, some backwards motion and VERY fast acceleration. Speeds felt similar to RNRC, but no upside down.

Jurassic Park River Adventure was less scary than I expected - the drop felt similar or less than Splash, although I believe it is taller. Animatronics in the beginning are so cool!

ET is the best and we got stuck on it lights on which rocked. Basically Peter Pan.

Minions was gentle but the screen bothered me a bit. Fallon was fun. I didn’t try Simpsons, Transformers, or Sp

Kong and Fast/Furious were just OK - they splash you with water/mist and are loud. Kong has 3D so I would consider FF less intense.

Mummy was a Space Mountain/Dinosaur hybrid for me - fire, loud noises, bigger drops than I anticipated and dark. I might do this one again tomorrow but it was more than I thought.

Personally I find sensory stuff worse than motion, and I don’t appreciate all the water/fog/mist in my face!!

have funnnnn

 

[queenofthehill]

I'll add that I never have any motion issues at WDW. Universal is a very different story. I cruise often (pre covid) never need motion meds EVER. At universal I take a tablet everyday that I am there. I ride everything except Simpsons. There's not enough meds in the world to help me on that one.

 

[disneyguy87]

I wanted to update and thank everyone for how this trip went! My wife and I stayed in Universal for 8 days and we tried all of the rides on my list, all Dr. Suess rides, E.T. the Marvel Storm teacups, and more. She loved the rides and took all of the rides REALLY well!

We did both take Dramamine at the start of each day. On the last day we ran out and she felt dizzy for over 24 hours. That said with the Dramamine we had a really amazing time and thought we've always visited WDW this Universal trip we fell in love with.

My wife even did Escape from Gringotts like a champ 3 or 4 times even though she hated the starting drop and was nervous every time she went on, she did enjoy the ride being a big Harry Potter fan. On our last ride, she saw how the drop really wasn't that large and it made her feel better about the ride and she ended up liking Gringotts too.

What really surprised me is how much she loved Forbidden Journey. She wanted to ride it repeatedly and we did (though on our final day on our final Forbidden Journey ride we did get stuck for a few minutes which wasn't great!). Spider-Man and Forbidden Journey were her two favorite rides.

Some of you mentioned F&F being disappointing and at first, I wasn't sure why I thought it was kind of interesting and then when I saw how quickly it was over I realized why haha!

We did Popeye at the end of our first park day twice in a row to end out the day and we both loved it. On our second go on Popeye's ride we had the whole vehicle to ourselves since the park was closing. We think that ride is better than Kali River Rapids and being soaked was the only thing that stopped us from riding it on our other days.

We even enjoyed Men In Black which we rode about 3 times both on the lower and upper tier of the vehicle. Ironically I'm the one who didn't enjoy Men In Black when on the upper tier because I felt the spins way worse which she thought was fun!

All in all, it was a great trip, we thoroughly enjoyed the rides. We did not ride any coasters, however. I would have ridden Buckbeak and Hagrid's coasters but I really didn't want to ride alone. The parks were oddly empty but it was great because though we had the Express Passes there was pretty much no wait on even the stand-by lines for anything the entire trip. We were able to do many Harry Potter experiences (and ate at the Leaky Cauldron twice for breakfast and the Three Broomsticks once for lunch). Having Diagon Alley so empty was such a treat and I know no other trip will become close to that experience.

Thank you all again for all of your tips on the rides, we rode just about anything that wasn't a coaster, Jurassic Park's flume ride, and RipSaw Falls. All of your tips had us better prepared and still pleasantly surprised on the rides.