by Richard
One of the places I spent time at during my recent time away from the family was at Universal Studios Orlando. My buddies and I hadn’t planned on going because one of our number had been there and at Walt Disney World for 10 full days just a couple of weeks before. We didn’t want to kill the poor dude.
However, he relented and decided that going wouldn’t cause irreparable damage to the frontal lobes of his brain. Although, having known him for more than 30 years, I’m not sure he really can damage his frontal lobes any more than he already has. Still, we decided to go.
Universal Studios Orlando is divided up into three sections. There’s Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios and the city walk area.
Islands of Adventure is where most of the high-power roller coasters are located, along with Marvel Comics super heroes, Jurassic Park rides, cartoon strip-based areas for kids and an entire section based on the works of genius writer Dr. Seuss. Universal Studios is more movie based. There are shows based on the Terminator movie franchise, the Jimmy Neutron cartoon, Shrek, the Simpsons and a whole bunch more. There are also exhibits based just on movies in general, not any specific one. The City Walk is the area leading from the parking garage to the other parks. It’s full of a movie theater, tons of great restaurants and live entertainment.
As for admission price, you can choose to buy separate tickets for each park. (The City Walk ticket is only available at night and costs about $12.) However, I’d recommend that you buy the two-park pass. This lets you into the City Walk for free and then allows you to walk from Islands of Adventure to Universal Studios and back and back as many times as you’d like. You can also add on the VIP Express to your ticket and I really recommend it. The VIP Express pass allows you to, basically, walk to the front of the line for any ride as many times as you’d like. I won’t lie to you. It’s expensive, about $150 for a fully loaded adult ticket. Still, if you’re going to go there, you really need to get this sort of ticket. You can ride tons of rides, while most people are still waiting to get into their first one.
Speaking of rides, on the Islands of Adventure, make the time to ride the Hulk coaster and the Dueling Dragons coasters. The Hulk ride has a great series of twists and turns and loops, but it’s a little surprise early in the ride that really grabs you. And, no, I’m not going to spoil it. The Dueling Dragons ride consists of a fire dragon and an ice dragon. They are two different tracks laid out within and around each other. At times it feels like you’re about to crash into the other coaster. All good.
For the less coaster inclined, there’s a great 3-D Spider-Man ride and an exciting Jurassic Park water ride (sort of like Disney’s jungle river ride). For the little dudes and dudettes, there’s the toon section and the Dr. Seuss section. Both were being highly enjoyed by the little dudes.
At Universal Studios, the best ride is definitely the Simpsons 3-D motion simulator. It’s a wild, wild ride. We must have done it three times, if only to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. We also enjoyed the Hollywood movie make-up show. It was loads of laughs with a little education thrown in.
Personally, I’d rate this over anything Disney has to offer, but I might be prejudiced by having had to go there oh, so very many times over the years. Still, I’d give Universal Studios Orlando 3.5 dudes out of five. I took off a half dude because it really is expensive and I’m a cheapskate at heart.
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