Universal Orlando buys land under and around its Wet 'n' Wild water park

Universal would not say Thursday whether it has any plans to expand or change the theme of Wet 'n Wild in any way.

I would love to see them invest in themeing Wet 'n Wild to something less generic.

Waterworld? ;~)

They actually did a Waterworld stunt show at USH when we visited in....2005ish? I knew nothing of the movie, but thought the show was fantastic - Lights, Motors, Action on H2O.

rollergator said:

I knew nothing of the movie

And neither did anyone else. And there in lay the problem.

We thought Wet n Wild was a very fun water park. It would be great to see them invest in an expansion.

Orlando's Wet n Wild is one of my favorite water parks ever. I like the no theme aspect of it, it allows them to add different attractions and dress them up any way they want, like the traditional amusement parks.

Water park themes seem tired with only a few options that make sense, Ocean, Aussie, Jungle, Safari, South Seas, stuff like that. The slides all have names like Python Pit.

Ok, throw a snowed-in ski resort in there too, but that's it.

The thing that scares me about them adding more rooms is that it threatens the included Express Passes that you get with the three existing hotels. I hope they don't remove that perk all together down the road.

I don't think the new hotel gets you express access.

It doesn't. No boat, no Express Pass. But who knows what they will do down the road.

No canal boat rides to the parks? That stinks. IMO, that's the only worthwhile feature of Portofino. Okay, and the 'bay' is kind of cool too.

I think the strategy with the new hotel is that it's very much the second tier. The rooms will be cheaper, and won't include the perks of the other three hotels. That makes sense to me. While one would compare and say that this is their version of Pop Century or All-Star, and I would agree, there are definitely other differences beyond room quality and distance to the parks.

The parks are still within walking distance though, right? That is the downside of the value resorts at Disney. I'd pay more just to avoid the long waits for the busses.

The walk from Portafino to Citywalk, passing Hard Rock Hotel, is really nice, when I worked at the park ages ago, anyways. I'd take that walk just to chill out before or after works sometimes. The boat ride was nice too.

Google maps is saying that to walk from Citywalk to Wet n, Wild is just about 1 mile. That's not really bad at all.

I did that walk once from Royal Pacific, because we had a morning appointment at the spa before the boats started running. It's not a bad walk. I doubt the walk from the new hotel will be that big of a deal. While I've never done the walk from the parking deck (I've stayed on-site every time), I doubt it's worse than that.

The walk won't be bad but you will have to cross a busy street to get anywhere. Takes some of the illusion of the resort away.

Actually, there will be a foot bridge.

Was that project actually approved? Bridge or not, you still have to cross a busy street. I guess it does go with the motel theme of the hotel.