City to City in Universal Studios

I recently returned from a non-national park trip. Maybe I’m broadening my horizons. Maybe I like mixing things up. Maybe it was a family trip, and I didn’t get to choose the destination. Whatever the reason, I was stoked to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That’s right folks. I went to Orlando, Florida.

We had a little less than a week there, so we decided we would spend two days in Universal Studios, but save Wizarding World for the second day, and do it all at once (Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley). Aside from the Wizarding World, I didn’t really know much about what all is in Universal Studios or what it would be like.

I have a little experience with actual theme parks from going to Silver Dollar City too many times to count (shout out my fellow midwesterners!). I don’t just mean general Six-Flags-Style amusement parks, but actual parks with a theme, like Universal Studios ended up being. I loved the fake streets filled with pedestrians that separated fake city blocks that made up fake cities, like San Francisco, New York City and London. It made me feel like I had stepped out of reality. Which was the goal, because it was supposed to look like an actual film studio lot. So it was trying to look like a place trying to look like another place. Theme park Inception! This also meant that a lot of the cutesy looking shops were fake. Found that out the hard way!
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Every once in a while, we would run by some sort of cool paraphernalia that, of course, I would feel the need to take a photo with. So can you blame me for taking this cheesy photo next to the DeLorean from my absolute favorite movie?

One of my favorite “cities” in this park was The Simpsons’ Springfield. The Simpsons is the one adult cartoon that I actually like, so when I had the chance to try a real Duff beer, I took it. Was it good beer? No. Did I hold it up to the sign and take a photo anyway? You bet your sweet patootie I did.

So many of the rides at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are kind of virtual rides. I hadn’t had any experience with a ride like this before this trip. The first one we got on was Jimmy Fallon’s Race Through New York. “Virtual ride” is probably not the technical term for rides like these, but what I mean is that they would give you 3-D glasses that blocked out your peripheral vision so you could only see the huge screen in front of you and sit you down in a… room, I guess? Definitely not a traditional roller coaster car. Once the “ride” starts, the room/car/thing would shake around and move with the action on screen so it felt like you were there. I got off the Race Through New York, and I was so impressed. I’m a fan of normal roller coasters, and I won’t compare this kind of ride to that, but it was fun in it’s own way. My dad, however, was more sick than impressed. I hadn’t been paying attention to him during the ride, but he told me afterward that he was so nauseated in the beginning seconds that he took off his goggles, and when that didn’t help, he had to close his eyes for the rest of the ride to avoid throwing up on the people sitting in front of us. It can definitely mess with your head. He didn’t go on anymore of the virtual rides. And there were a lot. And unlike the Race Through New York, some of them were on a track and still moved you along, switching from real sets and props to screens and back, like Skull Island: Reign of Kong.

In fact, I think the only real thrill roller coaster we went on on the Universal side was our first ride of the day, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. You have to pass by the Minions to get there (on no. what a tragedy.), but it’s pretty close to the entrance of the park. This ride was so much fun, and what made it really cool was that when you sit down on the train, you can pick the song you want to listen to from a list of options on a screen in front of you. Everyone can pick a different song. I chose Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, which I highly recommend, but my dad wasn’t quick enough to the draw, so it picked something random for him. So know getting on that you have to be pretty quick.

Other than that I think the only traditional thrill roller coaster was the Incredible Hulk in Islands of Adventure, which is essentially just Universal Studios part 2. With these two parks, you can buy park-to-park passes or just a ticket to one of them. We only did park to park on the day we did Wizarding World, so I’ll talk more about that in that post.

Islands of Adventure was also separated into sections, except they weren’t exactly cities, like on the Universal side. It had a comic-themed section of the park where there was not only the Hulk ride, but a Spiderman half-virtual/half-actually moving ride. (I’m really starting to wish I knew the real name for that kind of ride.) And there was a Dr Suess section of the park, which was tons of fun to just walk through. It makes you feel like you’re in a Suess book, which, yes, is pretty trippy.
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Basically, anywhere in both of these parks transports you to wherever they want you to be, fictional world or otherwise. It’s magical. And I haven’t even gotten to the Harry Potter part yet...