Associated parks:
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Next I made my way to Popeye and found a short wait. Nice theming here as well in the queue house after the long outdoor path. The ride is regarded to be the best rapids ride in the world by those who haven’t ridden Grizzly River run at DCA, will guess what I have ridden GRR J The thing that kinda annoyed me on this ride and other rapids, is all the screaming women and children, they know their gonna get wet, but everyone screams like heck! Gets annoying after a while (the whole trip it did!) But the great part was when the big fat villain was operating the lifthill while we were going up it; Dudley had the same effect. This ride was long and a very nice bath I might add! I loved it and also loved the area to rest your feet to keep from getting wet, and the loose item container! I definitely want to ride these 2 water rides again and think they are among the finest I have ever had to pleasure of riding!
I caught back up with my sister (didn’t want to get real wet) and went to Jurassic Park again, if you read the previous TR, you know how I feel about this ride, simply brilliant! Sat in back still was able to avoid a soaking. Then onto Flying Unicorn for the count in my track record, my sister doesn’t care but she rode with me anyway! I think this is a Vekoma roller skater if I am not mistaken but anyway this ride had a little wait, and the weather started to turn towards the ugly. The cool thing about this ride was it had 2 trains so the line moved at an OK pace. A nice ride my sister only liked it cause she could put her hands up, whatever! Next we went to DD were there actually was a wait! Yeah not a bad thing I got to enjoy the last part of the queue, the wait wasn’t bad and if you have been and can remember, there is this little dungeon door were you can speak through and really scare some one! Well, anyway I heard tons of comments about the queue’s length but also how freaky it was great job IOA! My sister really doesn’t like fire much so we went for Ice, and loved it! I can’t remember if we re rode Ice or did Fire, but I believe we went to Hulk cause the line was long.
Hulk
Had a very long wait into the outdoor queue a little bit, so we did single rider and got on the back, very good ride still! Now we wanted to get to Universal, my sister like USO better so we needed to get there! The weather however, was really about to get flat out ugly. We spilt up and I got a Universal Express for Funtastic World of Hanna Barbara, this attraction is leaving in January I am almost shure of, either way it won’t be around for long same with Alfred Hitchcock (Shrek to replace it), went to Jaws, a ride I wanted to ride yesterday but was rained out, and now, the ride had a posted 30 minute wait, and the line was out the queue, just after I got it, it jumped to about 45 and the second queue room was opened, Jaws, an original attraction, is quite popular I say! I loved the queue for this ride, it’s a pretty standard and very large collection of 3 queue houses, WJWS TV, are absolutely hilarious! This creates very eerie setting for the ride as well as the theming in Amity and the HUGE Jaws that is strung up by his fin in front of the ride, people were taking pictures everywhere in front of this thing! The ride really had me white knuckled waiting for Jaws to attack, especially when we were surrounded by fire, and in the boathouse! The ride needed a better ending though (boat house should have been the finale with just a little more bang that fries Jaws which is how we kill him in the attraction) This ride also has an actor/guide leading you through the trip, I was right next to her and she was very convincing. So after a very fun ride, the whether was really dark and I could just feel a rain storm coming! It was Express time on Hanna Barbara so I went there and rode the ride
This ride rocked! Where can you see The Jetson’s Flinstone’s, Dick Dastardly, and Scooby Doo in the same cartoon and get to ride aboard a space ship with Yogi Bear! Elroy( boy in Jetson’s ) he was captured by Dick Dastardly when Elroy is getting a big break. Ah, selfishness in showbiz! The ride was a typical theater style simulator and after the interactive area was cool, the best thing was the voice overs of cartoons. So ride it
cause it is going bye bye! Then I went to the Kids area and check Woody Wood Pecker’s line and it was too long for my liking, I went to by a super soft and good pretzel but they were all out so I went to ride ET. A wait just outside the new preshow area, and they actually added some theming to the area right before it, all because of the 20th Anniversary of the movie. During the pre show E.T. and Steven Spillberg
inform us we need to save E.T’S planet by taking him there on our own bikes, so we enter the forest themed indoor queue for a small wait. I rode this in Hollywood and previously in Orlando and got to ride in the front row in the far right hand seat of the 3 row 9 seater bikes that are suspended from the ceiling. The cool thing was that when the cars nearly crash into you, so that was an extra thrill, and E.T, with perfect timing says your name at the end of ride and got mine right this time! Yeah! I got my Pretzlyle and Lemonade, and it was good and I went to sit down accros from Hanabarbera, on a bench right by a weird alley that no one was in. And it starts to rain, yuck. When finished, I ran over to Earthquake and got soaked in the process. The ride had a 30 minute wait but it had a completely covered queue, so I was loving it! I rode this ride previously and was in the Earthquake it portrays, that being the 89 SF Bay Area quake, they did an awesome job re creating the trains and train stations, it really looks like that! I didn’t volunteer to be in the pre show stuff, which I did in 98,. This ride still creates a false sense of calmness as we entered the train. There were a lot of little kids, toddlers boarding the ride, I was making shure I sat as far away as possible, I wasn’t in the mood to see a poor kid get traumatized. The ride was great, the effects were awesome and of course as the ride was backing up and resetting it self, I heard numerous parents explaining to their kids, I "it’s OK! It’s not real see? See the stuff go back? It’s fake!" I also heard another parent proclaim their kid sure wasn’t ready for a natural disaster yet! BTW, those payphone are glued together so don’t try to use them J Ah yuck it’s still raining well, lets run to MIB for some single rider action! This time my score was in the 110,000’s. but our car still failed to pass and we also go hit in the duel part! ( Which is so cool, you get cleared to enter an area and then you face the other car and they turn into a bunch of aliens with targets on them, funny!
So It’s still raining like cats and dogs and I run allllll the way were AI met my sister in front of the park, and I showed her to way to Jaws and we would meet at Back to the Future. So I ran over to see the Animal Planet show, It was great, the dogs in competeion wouldn’t do anything! And Kendel and 3 year old chimp, stole the show with his hire wire acts after the Bats were not clear to fly ( he released them anyway and they flew about an inch over my head! ) So the show was great but the weather was not! We met up, and ran through citywalk getting soaked, and met our mom in Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, and had a good dinner, then back to IOA where the weather was much nicer. Still kinda a light rain. I was reaaaal hyper and felt like running and I had about an hour and a half so I ran to Storm Force and made it just as we were about to go, the mist effect was off L but I liked the ride, don’t worry about getting sick if you just ate ethier, I didn’t feel it at all.
Hulk the line was gone and I ride a couple times, the wait for the front was still there, maybe later. Great ride even better at night! The station is soooo loud even when no one is in there! Must be hard on op’s ears!
I was running trying not to slip, ( don’t run after exiting Hulk on that steal floor by the entrance, you will fall down) I ran into an almost vacant Suess Landing and walked on Cat in the Hat, I like dark rides and wanted to ride earlier but the line was long. I had the car all to my self, a weird felling! The ride is about thing 1 and thing 2 wrecking your house, and your parents are coming home. But The Cat in the Hat is lurking, and he saves the day with a typical Cat in the Hat device! The whole ride is narrated by a fish out of water, a long and great spinning dark ride!
I then ran to DD and rode Ice and Fire, A LOT I finished off with 2 front row rides on each and Fire was great but Ice a little better, a very cool thing was this crazy op on the Fire side, holding a fastest load contest, he lost every time except for like once! The op at the booth would announce the race to! Very funny but I hope no one ever gets hurt, but I know this ride is so safe they don’t even need to check this stuff. After some incredible and painful ( due to rain ) rides I raced back to Hulk trying to ride a couple more times and in front. While running, I noticed Suess Landing smells very nice! I got 2 or 3 rides on Hulk, none in front, I f I would have waited for the front I would probably not have gotten to ride, I had to be out in the drop off area by 9 to, but hey I loved getting my multiple rides! So I was now done with Universal, wow IOA was great and Universal was still a very good park!
Thanks for reading now look for the first of the Disney TR’s, MGM!
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See THE ULTIMATE in Orlando TR'S! Right now in the TR fourm!
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-Sean Newman
88 coasters in Track Record!! Hypersonic XLC Coaster # 100 in July.
Nitro Laps:105
B+R Launches:28
I can't wait to get back to IOA.
PS-Too bad you missed BGT. Oh well, a reason to go back!
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TOGO!
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