And now the moment you've all been waiting for the last day before returning to the UK! Ladies and gents, I present you my trip report on Universal Islands of Adventure, enjoy.
Day 7 Universal Islands of Adventure
Let’s just get one thing clear here: I don’t like Universal Islands of Adventure. Now before you all go: “Oh my god you hate Universal?! I KILL YOU NOW!” hear me on this. Most of the rides at Islands of Adventure consist mostly of roller coasters you people are feel free to like roller coasters and that’s fine with me but what’s not fine with me is the fact that besides flume rides there isn’t any other rides that branch us out to people who really hate roller coasters with a passion. And I’m one of those people who hate roller coasters in general.
Back before we went to Disney World and we were still in the planning stages of the trip, my mother went on and on and on about how we must go to Universal for the Harry Potter land they had recently built but I kept telling her again and again that I didn’t want to go and neither did my father I couldn’t for the life of me get myself to even like it, I tried liking it but I still thought at the end of the day that it was lacking the charm that Disney World had and to this day I still don’t see why Universal is such a great park at least in my opinion and there were some things that needed improving and it was clearly shown at the entrance to Universal Islands of Adventure and when I got to the ticket counter I was just thinking: “Alright I’m here at Islands of Adventure, do your worst, park.” So we go straight to the Harry Potter land my mother and sister are very excited as hell, ready to enjoy themselves, we then reach the land and to our surprise it’s so freaking small and there’s nothing to do it! And here’s my biggest problem with the Harry Potter land now for the record I’m a former fan of the series and I haven’t seen the seventh film (Part 2 doesn’t count because it’s continuing from the last film so I consider both Part 1 and Part 2 the same film) and naturally I don’t have anything against the series itself but what I don’t understand is the fact that Universal put up commercials advertising that land making it out that it was supposed to be the “main attraction of the entire park” I mean you watch the commercial and you go: “Wow it looks awesome I wanna go there!” but when you do actually get to the actual land the majority of things to do in that land are shops and restaurants and there are only three rides and two of them happen to be roller coasters so in actual fact there’s nothing to do in that entire land! WHY IN THE NAME OF SCOTT PILGRIM’S LAZY *** UNIVERSAL DID YOU OVERHYPE A FREAKING LAND IN COMMERICALS WHEN IT’S NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL?! I mean I know it’s a popular franchise but come on there is no point to that land! Pro-tip Universal, don’t overhype a land when it has nothing to offer and the fact that they made a Harry Potter land in Islands of Adventure still boggles my mind I mean they don’t even own that franchise if they really wanted to replace Merlin’s woods I think that’s what it’s called then why the hell didn’t they use their own franchises instead of just borrowing from Warner Bros? (Sighs) In my opinion the Harry Potter land should’ve been it’s own theme park over in the UK probably appearing somewhere in Britain or in Scotland that would make sense whilst here well…it just seems so out of place and the only reason it’s there just to attract Harry Potter fans.
But enough moaning about it let’s get to the actual land itself. Well for the most part it’s got the look and feel to the movies it’s very well designed and they do have things from the series like Honeydukes, Hogshead, Zonko’s joke shop but like I said there’s nothing to do while you’ll there and you will be going into the shops most of the time while your there. Also the entertainment there…ohhh boy I really have a lot to say about this one…this is gonna be painful…
To put it simple the entertainment is really earth shattering crap we have The Frog Chorus with The Beaubaxtons and Durmstrang students as an “after flavour” as it were. (Sighs) Alright I’ll start off with The Frog Chorus and then I’ll have The Beaubaxtons and Durmstrang students for afters. God that last sentence made me sound like Killer Croc for some reason, huh. Anyways The Frog Chorus and like it’s namesake basically it’s a choir with frogs just like in the third film but here’s where the crap-fest starts basically they are like the Dapper Dans on Main Street USA whilst I’ve heard the Dapper Dans are good with making renditions to various Disney songs the Frog Chorus on the other are completely different story. They pretty much take the songs that made the Harry Potter films great and just toss them out of the window it’s like if Lady Gaga meets Heavy Metal music. Now I haven’t seen the Frog Chorus up close while I was there but I have seen one of the performances on
YouTube I have to say it’s very, very abysmal and cringe-worthy I mean it would’ve helped if the choir was on a stage or something but they are just awkwardly positioned at the centre plaza and that’s it. And they treat Double, double toil and trouble as if it were a freaking pop song when you think about it’s just so horrible from what I can assume just standing there and watching a group of teenagers butcher the Hedwig theme. It’s just the stuff that makes people want to vomit whenever they start singing it’s just…urggghhh…words just cannot describe how bad it is…now to be fair Universal aren’t known for their entertainment value but god damn it at least try to make the entertainment somewhat entertaining. There’s not much to say about The Beaubaxton and Durmstrang students other than it consists of The Beaubaxton students dancing with those flag-things that are used for ballet and The Durmstrang students just basically jumping about the plaza with poles in their hands and yeah that’s all they do and they don’t do anything spectacular considering the fourth film had them pull off more amazing feats than that. There was one good thing about the land while I was there and it was The Forbidden Journey. I have to say for a simulator ride it was glorious it really made you feel like you were there with Harry and his friends. Oh and the bit with the Dementors and Spiders? Very effective and probably the best part of the whole ride no questions asked. I think they spend more time making this ride look good than on the rest of the land they only bad thing I can talk about that ride was the queue line. God the waiting time for this one makes Splash Mountain and Buzz Lightyear’s laser blasters waiting times look normal compared to this.
This is the actual waiting time for the ride and I’m not making this one up. The waiting time was 1 HOUR AND 20 MINUTES! 1 HOUR AND 20 MINUTES FOR JUST THAT ONE RIDE IT’S BLOODY RIDICULOUS! It doesn’t help the fact that the queue line is so ridiculously long and that it’s such a popular ride! Hell it broke down when I was there and the queue stopped moving and then we had to wait for ages until they had fixed the damn thing. I would love to go on The Forbidden Journey again but I don’t wanna risk having another incident like that again so I’m not taking any chances. Overall the ride was superb but one ride isn’t enough to save the land. Bottomline? The Harry Potter land sucked, it wasn’t worth the hype and it wasn’t really that big of a deal I’m sorry but it just didn’t cut it for me so yeah.
Next we went to the Jurassic Park land I haven’t seen the movie but god damn it I wanna see it now I mean it’s like one of the best movies Steven Spielberg ever made for god sakes! And then we went on what was possibly my favourite ride while I was there: Jurassic Park river adventure! Hell yeah I really loved that ride I mean I know the park consists of roller coasters and log flume rides but god damn it, it’s bloody Jurassic Park! What more do you want? I would have more to say about the ride but again I haven’t seen the movie hopefully I can get it on DVD this Christmas. Surprisingly considering the long drop at the end of the ride was 85 feet tall and you’d think that I would've screamed from that height but I actually enjoyed that bit. Damn I must be braver than I thought. 85 feet drops? Nah, they mean nothing to me! We then went to the Jurassic Park discovery centre and I’ll be honest with you it’s nothing but a blatant rip-off to Rafiki’s Planet Watch in the Animal Kingdom. In fact while I was going through Islands of Adventure I really didn’t feel like I was in a completely different park altogether I felt like I was going through Disney World again, a cheap imitation to Disney World and it’s various parks to be precise. There’s hardly any rides in the entire park to interest me and it just can’t decide what it’s demographic audience is meant to be. What are you Islands of Adventure? Are you a theme park for kids, or are you a theme park for teenagers? Make your bloody mind up! I could go on with this but I’d pretty much be repeating myself here so moving on I had some lunch at the Thunder Falls Terrance while I was there I had the Chicken Tortilla wrap but I really couldn't get myself to finish it because I found it to be rather tacky and tasteless I had to eat some of my mother’s chocolate cake for lunch.
After lunch we went to Toon Lagoon and I can pretty much sum up the whole experience like this: Gift shop, gift shop, gift shop, gift shop. That’s pretty much what I did there because honestly I have absolutely nothing to say whatsoever on this land because from my understanding this land is meant to based on the works of King Features Syndicate and Jay Ward and I really see this land to be very forgettable. Why? Because they have the hugest collection of generic and bland characters in history! I mean apart from four characters that I know of which being: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Spiderman and to a lesser extent Flash Gordon apart from those four I don’t know any of the characters from both King Features Syndicate or Jay Ward! I can remember Betty Boop because she was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit for a cameo appearance along with maybe Popeye but even they were vague and seriously lacking in character depth! Most of the characters are either mundane families or one shot cartoon wonders from the 1930s! This is the problem when you try to base a land on a freaking line of characters that no one is gonna remember! AND WHAT 9 YEAR OLD KID IS GONNA REMEMBER FELIX THE BLOODY CAT?! Sorry I just had to get it out of my system but that’s the whole land I’m talking about! A land based on boring characters from either comics or cartoons! There’s so much stupid leaking from Islands of Adventure there really is!
The last land we went to was Marvel Superhero Island or whatever the hell it was called. I really find this land hilarious because Marvel are now owned by Disney and Universal being one of their biggest rivals when it comes to the theme park business happen to have their franchise! It’s just mind boggling when you think about it! Didn’t do any rides while I was there again it was nothing but gift shops I mainly stayed by my mother's side while my father and sister went on a few rides while we were there. But then again I did miss my chance at riding that Spiderman ride heard it’s supposed to be pretty good anyway but I doubt I ever will ride it seeing as my opinion stands that I hate Islands of Adventure in general. In fact most of the time while I was there it was just gift shops and there were hardly any rides that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don’t go to a theme park just for it’s shops I wanna try everything that a park has to offer and Islands of Adventure clearly didn’t anything to please me.
Out of all the parks that I’ve been to whilst in Florida, Universal Islands of Adventure is the one park I downright hated on the trip people keep going on and on about how Islands of Adventure is one of the best parks in Florida but I’m sorry I just don’t see anything “great” about it. It tries to be something that it’s clearly not and most of the time it doesn’t know what to do with it’s audience and it doesn’t branch out to anyone who isn’t a roller coaster enthusiast. And that’s why I’m never going back to Islands of Adventure I hear the studios are supposed to be better for me but there’s only 3 rides that really spark my interest and I’m not going there just for those rides and before you ask the rides include: The ET, Men in Black and Simpsons rides. To sum up I hate Universal in general, there cheap, there tacky and they just don’t live up to my expectations.
Overall I had a great trip when I was over in Disney World and Florida I thought it was one of the best holidays I’ve ever been to. However the same can’t be said to my family but that’s their opinion and their entitled to it. Disney world was everything I wanted it to be and I really enjoyed myself. I’ve shared some great experiences over there in America, the fun I had, the drama, the thrills and the excitement of my inner childhood. Thank you America for giving me a wonderful experience, you are awesome to visit. I mean yeah your crazy at times but really you Americans have the best intentions for us brits. I’ve enjoyed myself over at the happiest place on earth and I hope to return there again in the near future.