IOA and USF 3/18/04

This is my first trip report so bare with me. We saved these two parks for our last day in Orlando since they are our favorite. We decided to do the VIP tour at IOA and it sure added a lot to the day. The valet parking, restaurant and shop discounts, and no waiting sure made the price worth it.

IOA

After meeting up with our group we headed to the Cat in the Hat, a little more spinning than I remember but overall a decent ride. Next was Dueling Dragons, two rides on fire, one on ice, it was funny to hear the guide describe the elements of the ride (I corrected him more than once). Overall great ride and fire is coming close to passing up Raptor as my favorite inverted coaster. JP was next, theming was okay but I never got into this one that much.

Next was Popeye's water ride (forgive me I forgot the name). I was a baby and took advantage of the free ponchos they gave us for our ride, didn't matter though still got soaked, dont ask me how. Dr. Dooms was next, and boy I didn't remember the airtime at the top, definately better than PT shoot, ending up riding 3 times.

Three rides on Hulk followed and reconfirmed that I really don't care for this coaster. Rode front, back, and middle, besides the launch and first inversion this ride leaves me a little less than satisfied. Spiderman was next, and we got a new experience on this one. After the first 3D scene the ride went completely black and saw no effects other than our car bouncing around the course. This may sound boring but man moving around in the dark like that with no effects sure got me disoriented-loads of fun. After the problem was fixed we rode two more times and the ride was great as always.

We hit a few other things but nothing worth a mention. Our tour guide overheard us say we were going to USF next and really impressed us with his dedication to making us happy. We waited about ten minutes for him to finish up for the day and then he walked us over to the other park, got us in shrek with no wait and gave us exit passes for three other rides-very cool and not expected at all.

USF

We hit everything here that we wanted to in about three hours. Shrek did nothing for me, I think they overdid the 4D effects a little and it got annoying. MIB was fun, definately better than Buzz Lightyear, plus I got a pretty good score so that helped.

All the other rides were just as i remembered, ammusing in their own ways. Talked to some employees about Mummy who were all very excited about my interest in the ride. The only info I was really told is that is was designed by the same people who did spiderman, definately has some coaster elements, some employees have cycled through, and they have really high hopes for it popularity.

Another great day at the two parks. They had the best staff the entire trip (Disney's staff was really sub-par this trip) and was really impressed about how great our tour guide treated us. Definately going to come back this summer to hit these parks again and hopefully mummy.

p.s. Hit SWO also, Kraken is the first floorless I actually enjoyed and I finally understand peoples obsession over JTA.

Good job on deciding to go to Universal Resort. I would personally pick Uni over Disney any day, and IOA is one of the best parks EVER!! Good trip report. By the way, which DD did you like better. My favorite is Fire