Hidden gems of Islands of Adventure?

City Walk on the weekends is open till 2am I belive, seems to be the same on weekdays, but it was dead when my girlfriend and I were there on an early December Sunday.

On Friday and Saturday during Halloween it was crazy, really fun.

As far as "not to be missed in the surrounding area", the Starflyer on I-Drive is up and running. Katanga is gone, but the SkyVenture is still open as well.

Called the number 2 nights ago It's working just fine

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dexter said:

Maybe they had to do it for machanical reasons or something.

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It wasn't for mechanical reasons. They had to dumb down the story because the GP didn't get it. Keeper is gone (and of course so is Zeus), and now Poseidon is the hero not the villain. The new show is pretty simplistic. I forget exactly why we move from one room through the water chamber into the exact same room--and then it disappears. I liked the old way much better, although I understand the effect often didn't work, because people would leave the show. If anyone was detected leaving the theater or in the hallway, the final effect was halted.

Crashmando-

As of two days ago the number was still active.

*** Edited 2/21/2006 1:06:52 AM UTC by Michael Darling***

If you are going to Islands of Adventure, take it from me (been to the park more than 50 times) start at the back of the park with Dueling Dragons and definately get the front seat on the ice dragon and then get a quick re-ride on the fire dragon. By that time do the jurrasic park river adventure as those two lines get very long by the middle to end of the day. Spiderman and Hulk are not to be missed and they will both have about an hour wait all day long. I usually went and got a express pass for spiderman and then went and rode DD and JPRA.

By doing this you will have time to wait in the other lines and probabbly do more on your day. I did every ride in the park that way in one 7 hour trip with some of my middle school kids. This will allow you lots of time to stroll around and take in the scenery, which is the true hidden gem of Islands of Adventure.

Read all of the signs in toon lagoon. Be sure to ride Dudley do right and Popey (quite possibly the two best water rides ever built not at a disney park). Explore Seuss landing if you are a kid at heart like me. Eat the green eggs and ham and ask for one of the stickers that says that you ate green eggs and ham. Drink the moose juice or the goose juice in suess landing (I like the green one, but try both). Explore the Jurassic Park visitors center. It's a restaurant, but in the bottom they have animatronic hatching raptors and such. Its pretty cool. Take in the que lines of Dueling Dragons, Dr. Doom and Spiderman. They are better than most rides in most parks

If you do have to eat at the park, I've been told the Athenos restaurant is awesome. I personally like Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in City Walk. The volcano erupts about every hour or so and it erupts margarita mix into a huge blender and then burps when it's done....definately a site to see.

Just take in the atmosphere that they imerse you in....listen to the music, and enjoy one of the great theme parks ever built!!

So it's all set, I bought the tickets and reserved the hotel room. We're staying four nights so I think that should give us enough time to do everything we want (although I doubt we'll spend every day at one of the parks). I was pretty surprised at how cheap the 3-star hotels were by the park.

Now all I have to do is wait here at school for another week...hopefully I'll be able to stay motivated in my classes.