IOA Skipper Tours

[cbdmhgp]

Does anyone have any information/pictures of this old IOA ride? I know it closed long ago and we were foolish not to at least give it a try before it went out but I am just curious! Always sad to see an attraction, no matter how insignificant, go!

 

[Bluer101]

Opened with the park in 1999, Islands of Adventure's Island Skipper Tours was a leisurely boat ride through the park's Inland Sea. Primarily used as a transportation ride, the trip linked the Port of Entry to Jurrassic Park (a third station was planned for Toon Lagoon, but never built). Along the way, the boat captains would point out details or trivia about the islands.

A fleet of three boats (Boatney, Samplane, and Tropical Trader) were utilized for the attraction. The maintenance channel for access to dry dock and storage for the boats sat between Poseidon's Fury and Suess Landing.

Island Skipper Tours closed in 2002 due to low ridership and high upkeep costs. With the park's small design (with bigger attractions on the outside edges of the park), a transit system like this was deemed unnecessary.

In 2008, construction for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter forced the park to build a temporary bridge from the Lost Continent to Jurassic Park, making the loop even shorter and blocking off the Jurassic Park boat dock. With this bridge now thought to be permanent, this attraction may never return.
The docks and queue are still there.

 

[Bluer101]

Here is a link to the original soft opening park map. You can see on it the IOA Skipper Tour marked A.

CLICK HERE

 

[cbdmhgp]

Very interesting! Thanks for the info, something that has always bugged me!!

 

[Planogirl]

How interesting! We must look for the docks the next time we are there.

 

[mesaboy2]

Opened with the park in 1999, Islands of Adventure's Island Skipper Tours was a leisurely boat ride through the park's Inland Sea. Primarily used as a transportation ride, the trip linked the Port of Entry to Jurrassic Park (a third station was planned for Toon Lagoon, but never built). Along the way, the boat captains would point out details or trivia about the islands.

A fleet of three boats (Boatney, Samplane, and Tropical Trader) were utilized for the attraction. The maintenance channel for access to dry dock and storage for the boats sat between Poseidon's Fury and Suess Landing.

Island Skipper Tours closed in 2002 due to low ridership and high upkeep costs. With the park's small design (with bigger attractions on the outside edges of the park), a transit system like this was deemed unnecessary.

In 2008, construction for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter forced the park to build a temporary bridge from the Lost Continent to Jurassic Park, making the loop even shorter and blocking off the Jurassic Park boat dock. With this bridge now thought to be permanent, this attraction may never return.
The docks and queue are still there.

Thanks for the interesting history lesson. I've noticed the dock near JP several times and wondered if anything ever used it. I also got the sense that waterway between Seuss and LC had a purpose other than having to build a bridge to go over it....

Not to go too far off-topic, but regarding the map you linked: How come I can make out what appears to be the High-In-The-Sky Trolley Train track in Seuss Landing on a 1999 map? I thought that was added years later.

 

[Bluer101]

Thanks for the interesting history lesson. I've noticed the dock near JP several times and wondered if anything ever used it. I also got the sense that waterway between Seuss and LC had a purpose other than having to build a bridge to go over it....

I don't think the bridge by LC and Seuss has a purpose besides making an island theme and pedestrian raffic.

I never rode the Skipper tour when there because I thought it was kind of stupid to go from one side to the other.

But now I wished I did.

 

[mesaboy2]

I don't think the bridge by LC and Seuss has a purpose besides making an island theme.

I guess that makes sense too.

I never rode the Skipper tour when there because I thought it was kind of stupid to go from one side to the other.

Apparently you and many others figured this out quicker than IoA's designers.

 

[cbdmhgp]

Thanks for the interesting history lesson. I've noticed the dock near JP several times and wondered if anything ever used it. I also got the sense that waterway between Seuss and LC had a purpose other than having to build a bridge to go over it....

Not to go too far off-topic, but regarding the map you linked: How come I can make out what appears to be the High-In-The-Sky Trolley Train track in Seuss Landing on a 1999 map? I thought that was added years later.

The High-In-The-Sky ride was initially intended to open when the park opened in 1999 but it wasn't until a few years ago that they finally worked out the problems and such!

 

[macraven]

skipper boats were kewl !

i was at ioa in late may/ early june 1999.

 

[Bluer101]

The High-In-The-Sky ride was initially intended to open when the park opened in 1999 but it wasn't until a few years ago that they finally worked out the problems and such!

Sylvester McMonkey McBean's Very Unusual Driving Machines was an attraction due to open with Islands of Adventure on May 28, 1999. It was to be a twin-track ride above Seuss Landing where guests would board individual cars which featured rider controlled speeds. However, it was pushed back due to contractual disputes and safety issues. Although Universal very tentatively tried to set the ride's opening date for Summer of 2001, the bankruptcy of the ride's original manufacturer postponed its opening indefinitely in 2002. As such, the original vehicles for the ride were removed, and replaced by Seuss characters on cars which would run along the track. In 2006, the ride and track were re-built and re-designed as The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride.

 

[Bluer101]

If this ever was made there would be no WWOHP:

Jurassic Park Helicoptours

Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure park opened in 1999 with a large expansion hole right in the back of the park. At the time, the plan was to build a simulator ride themed to a Helicopter tour of Isla Nublar, and possibly an attack from it's inhabitants. Today, this expansion space is being used by Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

Then after that they thought of Van Helsing. After the failed attempt to install the Jurassic Park Helicoptours at Islands of Adventure, a new ride was planned for the plot of land between the Jurassic Park River Adventure and the Flying Unicorn. Van Helsing, utilizing the prototype Kuka robotic arm, was designed to take guests into Castle Dracula, meeting with several other monsters from the film.

While the film was a success, it was critically lauded and not turned into a full-blown franchise, and the ride was lost along with the proposed sequel. This paved the way for a new ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey to open on the same plot of land (and with a similar ride system) in June 2010.

 

[macraven]

thanx bluer.

you are a wonderful homie to give us this 411 !

it is very interesting looking back down on memory lane for me.

 

[Bluer101]

thanx bluer.

you are a wonderful homie to give us this 411 !

it is very interesting looking back down on memory lane for me.

My wife and I love anything Universal. Its great to look back on what was there or in the works. A while ago I found photos of the resorts and IOA being constructed. I can't find them now.

The internet is a great thing, also without it we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[macraven]

OH.....

i have oodles of pictures when ioa was being constructed......


i took so many from the parking lot, entrance and where ever i could...


each year i would take pics of my brats standing inside the arch of universal studios.

there was a small column inside the gate area.

i would do that to see how much they had grown each year.




but with the revamping, that column is now gone.......

 

[mesaboy2]

My wife and I love anything Universal. Its great to look back on what was there or in the works. A while ago I found photos of the resorts and IOA being constructed. I can't find them now.

The internet is a great thing, also without it we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Very interesting--thanks!

Now, what do you know about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?

 

[Bluer101]

Very interesting--thanks!

Now, what do you know about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?

I now know thanks to google.

 

[mesaboy2]

I now know thanks to google.

I trust you got the Ferris Bueller reference.

 

[Bluer101]

I trust you got the Ferris Bueller reference.

Yes I did, but had no idea what the act was.

 

[macraven]

Scenes of exquisite boredom at school, as the teachers drone on about such traditional crowd pleasers as the Smoot-Hawley tariff act. Scenes of exquisite calculation at home, as Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) fakes an illness that will spare his fine intelligence another assault by the proponents of useless information. Ferris is no ordinary truant. The point of his exercise is not to waste the day but to spend it wisely. Or wise-guyly. So he will spring his best girl (Mia Sara) from school. He will get his best friend (Alan Ruck, who is lovely as a boy struggling for security) to abscond with the family Ferrari so they can tool about in style. They will talk their way into a chic restaurant, enliven an ethnic parade and, at every point, avoid the forces of propriety. Chief among these are Ferris' sister (Jennifer Grey), who just hates the way he gets away with everything, and the dean of students (Jeffrey Jones), who distills all the pettiness of spirit and smallness of mind in a teen's view of adult authority. Jones provides John Hughes with the comic mainspring he needs to launch himself successfully in a new direction. In The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, Hughes portrayed adolescent angst in a fairly realistic light. But from the moment Ferris turns to the camera to address the audience, we know that realism is out. Ferris and his adventures represent a teen's dream of glory: to have, at one's fingertips, the technical skills to sabotage the adult world's machinery of oppression and, at the tip of one's tongue, the perfect squelch for grownups' moralistic blather. Here is a dream as old as adolescence, and it is fun to be reminded of its ageless potency, especially in a movie as good-hearted as this one.


“In 1930, the Republican controlled House of Rep, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the…Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act which, anyone? anyone? Raised or lowered?… Raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal gov’t. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the US sank deeper into the Great Depression.” Thank you Ben Stein for trying educate millions of students and others on this important subject of economics in “Ferris Bueller’s Day off.”

i loved that movie......one of my favorites..
blah, blah, blah......
Over 7 days right before and after the Smoot-Hawley act was passed in mid June 1930, the DJIA fell 15% but got most of the decline back by late July before falling more than 30% into year end. Let’s hope the just announced tire tariff on China and their possible response is just a one off spat but global stocks are down as a result............