Photo TR: Universal Orlando

Rastuso · September 7, 2010

TR: Universal Studios and IOA 8/17 & 19

We hit the Universal parks a lot last fall when we stayed at the Hard Rock due to free Superbowl 7 day tickets, so this trip was only two days, and that was greatly because of a small land they added recently that you maybe haven’t heard about, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We had some old tickets still, but then I ran across some 3-day passes at Costco that didn’t expire for like 4 years, as opposed to 14 days for most 3-day passes. Hell yeah!

Since we were staying at Royal Pacific, we could have entered early, but we were exhausted, and needed to sleep in. Plus, we had Express, so no need to get up early except for Potter, and we had heard that that area clears out in the evening. So, we leave for the park around noon. The walk from the RPR isn’t too bad. A bit longer than the HRH to USF was, but not much, I think the heat was making a difference. And if you ride the boat, you had to walk way back to the boat, and then a long walk from the dock to IOA. If they put a tiny 10 foot cut through from the back of the parking lot, a lot of walking would be cut out.

IOA was packed. Most I’ve ever seen, by far. Now, I’m never at IOA during the Summer, but there is no question their attendance numbers have taken a healthy jump. We check some of the Potter merch in the main store. As expected, it’s pricey. My wife had said she hoped they had Crookshanks, Hermione’s cat familiar, and sure enough they did. But they didn’t have Harry’s Owl. It was about 20% higher than most other plush, which seemed to be about the same for everything. I wonder if JK is getting 20% of merch sales? Although Seawold seemed to have been in dreamland when pricing their stuff, it was insanely expensive for just normal animal plush.

First check was to see if Green Eggs and Ham was open. It was!!!! Yeah! So we go there to see the menu of burgers. Booo! I do notice a small extra sign saying they did serve their namesake still, so we order up a few. They are awesome. We hadn’t had one since the preview days, I don’t think. Great to see this place reopened.

We then head to Marvel, get a place in Café 4 to cool off, and drink from our refillable mug. Universal is great for having these. We drank gallons of PEAK tea, and they seem to filter the water for their drinks. My son is begging to get on Hulk, his favorite. So, we do Express. The whole inside queue was full. WOW! We pretty much walk on for a fast, intense ride. My son goes for a reride, I fell like an old fart and go sit down in the AC. I never could ride mega loopers much, although I do recall a day of riding Drachen Fire over and over. I’m definitely too old for that shit, sad to say.

We then head to Spidey. The line was out the door, but even the Express line started damn near as soon as you went into the hallway from the entry room. It was about 10 minutes. Spidey still kicks all sorts of ass. I love it, always have.

We then prepare to get wet. I give my wife most of our stuff, since she’s sitting out the wet rides this time. We head to Popeye, passing an hour line and get right on. I had my new Fuji underwater camera, and shot a full onride. Everyone took their shoes off in the tube. The worker said a comment about it being against the rules, but that was it. The boat wash had a big backup of boats on it, and some folks would get stopped under a constant stream of water. I love this ride. We rerode and I took pics throughout.

I took full POV of Popeye. Here's part 1:

Here's part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zc8wOdiOl0

We then went to Dudley. The lines seem to change every time I ride this. Now, the Express still goes way around the mountain and in with the normal line. No one was joining the normal line. The 110 minute wait was probably scaring them off! It was probably 20 for us. We do talk to a guy behind us about Celebration the whole time.

Here's the big drop:

We notice as we get off that all the logs behind us are empty. We seemed to have gotten on the last log for a while. We decline to reride since even the Express was a long wait. So, we head to JP. My wife even rides with us. I take more pics and vids. This ride, while once incredible, really hasn’t aged well. Just not enough happening.

We then get to Hogsmead, but decide to cut across to Lost Continent. We decide to stop at Mythos since they have a mushroom appetizer that sounded like the one we loved from years ago. We plan to get a few appetizers, but soon realize the entrees are a MUCH better deal, and I switch to the pork with a berry/nut sauce. The mushrooms appetizer wasn’t as good as the one from before. The pork tasted amazing, although was a little fatty. It came with a big chunk of baked mac and cheese. My son got a pizza that was quite good.

We then head to Poseidon. My son didn’t remember going through it, but he did a few years ago. He really liked it. We got bitched at for going to the front section of the second room at the beginning. They let the last people in go to the front. That’s stupid. I guess it’s to keep the first people in the first room in the front of the second room, but it isn’t fair to those who know what’s going on. The portal opens up, and I’m amazed to see the water vortex!!! This had been shut down months ago, with no inkling that it was to reopen. I later find that this was the second day of its return. Cool! The second show room’s flames seemed awful close to us. I really like the show, especially the surprise in the final room.

My son goes to the fountain where he’s called a hippie for his long hair, and gets soaked again. They cancel the Sinbad show we were planning to see. All the actors were out in front doing pictures. Must have been a technical issue.

So, it is now time to head to Potterland…

It really does look perfect. I can’t imagine it looking better than it does. The snow looks a little drab, but that’s very minor. And it was packed. So much for it emptying out at night. We got there about 7, and it was packed. Huge line for Olivanders. Long line at Butterbeer keg (well on one side, the other side was a walkup, wonder which side I went to) and other shops. Forbidden Journey was showing a 75 minute wait.

We enjoy our very good Butterbeer (the foam is killer awesome, and the rest is a very good cream soda). Those that say it is too sweet have some sort of problem. Someone took some to a lab and it is much less sugary than Pepsi/Coke. The foam is pretty sweet, but you don’t get a whole lot of it. We didn’t buy anything. The lines in the stores were huge. But, it was very cool to be in the exact same shops as the movies. The Sirius Black sign from the movie was great. The frog choir was great. The actors were all totally in character. I really can’t imagine it being any better. It took a while to get used to where things were, realizing you were standing in front of the old Oaken Tavern, even though the paths were a LOT different.

We got on the Hippogriff coaster. Buckbeak was fairly well hidden from the queue. You zip by him pretty fast, but he looked very good.

The Dueling Dragons queue has been castrated. The once amazing queue is now just dark castle hallways for the most part. I’m glad I took one last journey though last year. We rode Fire together, and my son went back to ride Ice. And of course, the awesome statue of the dueling dragons is gone. I remember being in awe of it on my first visit. Just standing there looking at how if you were centered, all three dueling points of the coasters were in between the dragons. It was perfectly lined up. Now, a very non-descript castle wall is the entrance façade. For shame, Universal.

By this time it was getting dark, and the Forbidden Journey ride was at 45 minutes. We fight the crowds for a locker, and see the droves of people in Filches. Just horribly crowded, and I don’t see this section ever changing. The ride will always be spitting out this many people all day.

We choose the regular queue for the first experience. By the time we finally make it through the greenhouse, I’ve got to pee pretty bad, and am getting nervous. Luckily, the inside wasn’t all that long, and I did make it without a bladder bursting.

You first pass a few statues and artifacts, and then through Dumbledor’s office, the common room, a classroom and then the load. Only about 15 minutes in the themed section.There’s a weird setup where the single riders cross the normal crowd in the final room. I did witness some people waiting in the single, then just going in the normal line after the hold point.

The effects in the line are very unique, and continue the very good work of making the ride perfectly match the movies. Once the sorting hat greets you, you get on the magic bench. The audio mentions a spot for carryons, but I didn’t see one, and none were allowed. The load station is very loooooong, which is a smart thing. It always seem parks skimp on the stations, making everything clustered. You sit for about 15 seconds with the Potter music playing before seeing Hermione cast her spell.

I won’t go through the ride again, but will make my opinion comments. The practical effects are kickass. The fact that you are only a few feet away from them is really cool. I do wish the dragon breath effect was working when we were there. I wonder if they turned it off due to complaints. I’m sure it really sprays into your face. Some wuss probably said it hurt them or something. The animation was surprisingly fairly minimal. You moved, but the props didn’t that much. The dementors looked fine to me. People complain about them being basic, but they aren’t going to have CG robes and faces in the ride, so what do you want?

The film sections (there are three, plus two moving projections on walls at the beginning and end) aren’t the greatest. They tried to do too much, and the camera is moving like crazy, and I did get some motion sickness, enough that two rides was enough for me. The frenetic camera also made the film look blurry, which is wasn’t. When you slowed down and see Hagrid, he was crystal clear. The projections seemed too dark also. The ride is purposefully dark, but the projections need to be amped up a bit. The colors seemed really muted too. The Quidditch section was awesome, if it had only been longer, and little less crazy.

The final walls closing in section was totally unnecessary, and did nothing but add more motion sickness.

All in all, the ride is extremely unique, and is a really great ride, but there are a few headscratcher decisions, like the frenetic camera, and the lack of animation to some objects. The ride was designed for one ride, not multiple ones where you start really looking at things. The transition from film to practical was seamless. Getting flipped onto your back got old, but is necessary to change scenes in the practical areas. I’d love to see a layout of the ride, and pictures showing how the practical scenes are with respect to each other.

It’s better than any ride Disney has done in the last decade. Mickey seems to have no interest in pushing boundaries anymore. I still think Spidey may be the king, and I have extremely high hopes for Transformers. However, Forbidden Journey is a totally unique, very high tech experience that I really enjoy. If the motion sickness hadn’t gotten me, I’d love the ride a whole lot more.

On our return to IOA Thursday, we just hit Spidey, Harry, Cat, and my son hit Hulk for a night ride. Cat in the Hat had the spins toned down some.

We did single rider both times for Harry on our return. The first time we just stood there for quite some time. I think the grouper just quit using singles for a while, because if the grouper does a good job, the single rider line should move VERY quickly. The dragon breath still didn’t work. People gripe about being able to see the Dementors before you get to them, but I think that’s no big deal. There are lots of Dementors. They could maybe put in a black wall here or there to help hide them, but I like that scene. If only the fog screen effect worked consistently.

We had frozen Butterbeer this time, getting a mug for a friend of my son’s. It was better, in our opinion. Pumpkin juice was decent, but didn’t taste enough different from hot cider, and was ridiculously expensive.

The big question is how long will the Potter-effect keep helping Universal. I see it for at least 2 years, since not everyone can afford to just jump down to Orlando because a new ride opened. It will be interesting to see how Pottermania continues after the last movie next Summer. Will it truly be a Star Wars level phenomena. Only time will tell.

We hit the Hard Rock after leaving the park on Thursday. Damn near left my mug on the table. They have some cool touch screen archive computers on the wall with tons of pictures. The burger was awesome as usual, but sadly no real hot waitresses.

We hit the Studios park for a while Thursday. Really just did the rounds. Express didn’t help worth squat for Shrek. We should have been able to avoid the wait for the next movie. That movie still just blows away all other 3-D movies in clarity. It surprises me every time. T2 still looks great, but not as good as Shrek.

We did Mummy 3 times. I notice one time someone going into the normal queue boarded before we did. After hitting a few queues, it was obvious that IOA was MUCH more crowded than usual and USF was about what it is when we visit in October. This made the Potter-effect much more clear. The first Imotep was working, although he looked cheaper, basically just a rubbery skin over a skeleton. I recall him being a more complex animatron, but maybe I’m wrong. The girl in the fake unload wasn’t working at all, but you spend much more time there in the fire, which is a good change, imho.

Rip Roarin’ Rocket SUCKED! It was shakey as all hell, and just not fun. Even my son didn’t like it. As soon as we hit the bottom of the first drop, I wished I never got on it. Something horrible has happened since last October. I’m done with this ride.

Nothing else of note really. A great two days at Universal. Disney just can’t hold a candle, on a park to park comparison. We are definitely now in the mode that we go to Orlando for Uni (usually including HHN), and hit Disney for a day. And with absolutely nothing on the horizon, except the Mermaid ride, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

And, we love the Uni hotels. True resorts at resort prices, as opposed to Disney's normal hotels at resort prices.

-RO