Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios, Again

14 Dec 09--It looks like only Emily is looking at my blog anymore, so I will tell Emily that we went to Islands of Adventure and back to Universal Studios today, another 85 degree and sunny day. It was better today than on Friday....better rides and certainly better weather.

Went on a few roller coasters...3 were great, but one was painful. We started out at The Hulk...and that was the painful one. It was great to begin with...they shoot you out of this cannon-like thing on your initial climb, and they have lots of twists and turns, but unfortunately your head is banging side to side the whole time and all the screaming you hear is people begging them to stop it! haha

These 2 coasters are called Dueling Dragons, and although they are separate roller coasters they run parallel initially, and as the ride goes along it looks like you are going to crash into the other one. Both of these were smooth rides, so they were really fun. Notice that some rails are blue while the others are orange, denoting 2 different coasters.



And then there was the best coaster of all, the one that was closed the other day, the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit! They take you up at a 90 degree angle, straight up thru those loops, and then almost straight down the other side and on thru other loops and turns...it was also a smooth ride, so it was great! All day we only had to wait 5-10 minutes to go on any of the other rides, but this one was a solid 45 minutes...and worth every minute!

It got a little warm because there was no breeze, but even though they had what looked like some good water rides at the Islands park, we didn't want to walk around soaking wet like these girls...not pretty!

After the roller coasters, the best rides were Spiderman and the Simpsons. Spiderman was in 3D, and as you were on the ride Spiderman characters seemingly came right at you, even landing on the front of the cart you were riding in. And the Simpsons was one of those where you are not actually moving, except side-to-side or tilting forward and back, but because of the optics you feel like you are flying or plummeting at the speed of light....it was really good.

We went into the Jurassic Park section, but there was nothing to do there but act foolish...Look at poor Cathy, she is afraid of the dinosaur...and do you like my hat?

Storm Force was an old standby ride they have at all parks...where you sit in a cup and twirl the plate in front of you to make you spin. Here are a series of shots of Cathy as she spins ever faster...notice how much fun she is having the faster we go.

The rest are just a few random shots of the park, along with a few pictures of the kiddie area. The overhead "roller coaster" for the kiddies was cute. That's me with the policeman!

And finally, in 2010 they are opening a Harry Potter ride...they are constructing the castle and advertising it now, so I thouhgt I would help them out!

So we are thru with Universal, on to Disney from here. Tomorrow is supposed to be another great weather day, so we will probably go there then. I am a little tired tonight...lots of walking the past few days, but I think it supposed to rain on Wednesday, so we shouldn't waste tomorrow resting. You would think I would be losing weight with all this walking, wouldn't you?!