Board 8 > Board 8 if you've been to Universal Studios help me out

(+) Yeah! (+)

We went to Islands of Adventure yesterday and had a blast. Stealth ranking of what we rode:

The Incredible Hulk
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Jurassic Park River Adventure
Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
Popeye and Bluto's Bilgerat Barge
Skull Island: Reign of Kong
Cat in the Hat

We also did the Halloween Horror Nights which we definitely can't recommend.

We're going to the regular Studios tomorrow to do the rest of Wizarding World attractions and ride E.T. What else is a must-see ride or attraction?
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There was a new rollercoaster that I never got to ride because it was closed (Hollywood Rip Ride or something)

I enjoy the Mummy ride

Men in Black is so much fun

And try to catch the Hollywood Make-up Show. I really like that. It's not far from ET if memory serves.
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That said I haven't been since...Christ, 2010.

Need to sort that out.
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It shouldn't hard to hit everything "big."

Is the simpsons ride still a thing? That's pretty neat too.

The Nickelodeon ride is pretty good if you like those franchises.
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I havent been since the Harry Potter stuff came out, but I remember The Mummy ride being fun.

Oh shit yeah

They replaced BttF with a Simpsons ride and I enjoyed it

But yeah it really isn't hard to hit all the big ones.

Terminator is seriously fucking dated btw. Like really dated.
...and I just checked to find out they finally closed the thing. Yep, about time
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I actually just went there earlier this year!

The Mummy is an amazing indoor rollercoaster. My girlfriend and I constantly quote it. "Your death is my beginning!"

The Harry Potter Grigotts ride is super fun too. It's a 3D rollercoaster. That whole Harry Potter part of that side of the park is great too. I don't recommend the Butter Beer though.

I think Transformers is the best 3D rollercoaster they have though. It's so much fun and such a rush. Bonus points if you go there and mark the fuck out for Starscream to get everyone else to start cheering for him too.

The Simpsons ride is like a stationary AR rollercoaster. If you love the Simpsons, you will positively adore this ride and everything leading up to it. If you don't, you'll still have a lot of fun. Be warned that it will make you feel a bit queasy, so plan your eating schedule around it. And get a Duff beer. It's an actual craft beer from Florida. A Flaming Moe is fun too because you get to keep the glass. We actually met the wife of the guy who made the glass they use to make the Flaming Moes. It's a nice party trick for us now!

I don't care for the MIB ride personally. But it might be worth going on if you have time.

The Rip Ride & Rockit is a super awesome rollercoaster. You can pick the music you want to listen to while you go on it. It has a straight vertical incline at first. It's so cool. I recommend Kickstart My Heart and Stronger for your listening pleasure.

The Shreck 4D is not great. Do not recommend.

You can go to Jimmy Fallon if you want a lot of the queue to be trying to make you buy Hashtag the Panda merchandise after it. It's worth going on though. It's an auditorium roller coaster, which won't make sense until you go on it.

We never got a chance to go on the Minions ride. It was a 90 minute wait minimum for it every time except first thing in the morning. I hear it's good though.

I think that covers it. The E.T. ride sucks btw. So don't go in with high expectations.
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Bonus ranking of the Islands of Adventure park.

The Incredible Hulk
Amazing Adventures of Spiderman
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Dudley Do-Right Log Flume
Jurassic Park River Adventure
Popeye and Bluto's Bilgerat Barge
Skull Island: Reign of Kong
Dr. Doom's Doom Drop

If you have time to eat at City Walk, the that Cowfish Head place is great if you like sushi and burgers. And you absolutely need to get a milkshake at Toothsome's. Best god damn milkshake I've had in my life.
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Please pick me up 2 boxes of Krusty Os at Simpsons Land
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

You can pick the music you want to listen to while you go on it.

Did they ever update the songs?

It felt dated years ago
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I think that covers it. The E.T. ride sucks btw. So don't go in with high expectations.

It's all atmosphere, but I do love that atmosphere.
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If you are in Florida IMO the best thing there is actually in Sea World, a place most people wouldn't expect to find something great.

They have a 3D omni theater there. You walk in with a group of people and stand in the middle with 3D glasses and they play some like basic turtle video, but not only is everything all around you, but it also pops out and is really like you are actively part of it.

It's fairly new if I remember right and is definitely something you shouldn't miss, it blew me away. Plus Sea World has some ok coasters, so there is other stuff to do there besides just seeing the animals.

Everything else in Florida ranges from ok to overrated IMO.
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What was wrong with the horror thing TC?
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I actually thought Sea World has awesome roller coasters. Manta is totally unique and awesome. You're flying like a damn manta ray and skimming the water. Mako goes really fast and is very fun. The Journey to Atlantis is totally worth it too. You get more wet on the drop that people can't see.

I have bad thoughts about Kraken because it's one of those VR roller coasters and we wanted to try it out. My VR headset repeatedly bashed me in the nose and the bridge of my nose was actually a little bruised from it. And then my girlfriend's headset flew off and she was afraid it was going to whip back around and nail her in the face. Unsurprisingly, they shut down the VR after that run and they announced this year that they have removed the VR from it.

We mainly wanted to go to Sea World for Infinity Falls which was probably the most awesome raft ride ever. It would raise you straight up with just water jets. But it got pushed back for the whole summer and I think it only just opened recently.

But the best part of Sea World was the Ignite fireworks show. I recommend going to Sea World JUST for that. It's a laser rave party at first (with hilariously dumb rave jelly fish and eels on sticks) and all kinds of laser dancers. But the fireworks and laser show is the best thing, bar none. You spend a whole day at the park and you hear all the music, and they mash it up into an orchestra track and the fireworks go off to the tune of the song. It was one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
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FlyingForever posted...

What was wrong with the horror thing TC?

I was also going to ask this as I wanted to go to this, but I didn't want Genny to waste time talking to us when she could be enjoying Universal. But please enlighten us later!
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

FlyingForever posted...

What was wrong with the horror thing TC?

I was also going to ask this as I wanted to go to this, but I didn't want Genny to waste time talking to us when she could be enjoying Universal. But please enlighten us later!

Answer could be a simple as TC is a baby and it too scary
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FlyingForever posted...

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

FlyingForever posted...

What was wrong with the horror thing TC?

I was also going to ask this as I wanted to go to this, but I didn't want Genny to waste time talking to us when she could be enjoying Universal. But please enlighten us later!

Answer could be a simple as TC is a baby and it too scary

Oh no that definitely wasn't it. I'll have a big long rant about it later, but the nutshell version boils down to this:

--way too many people
--way too expensive
--way too little organization
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I did Halloween Horror Nights when I was 13 (as opposed to XIII)

Fucking brilliantly terrifying

But then I was XIII
Uh, 13
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pjbasis posted...

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

You can pick the music you want to listen to while you go on it.

Did they ever update the songs?

It felt dated years ago

Oh, I missed this.

I don't think they have updated it, no. I didn't explore outside of Rock and Hip Hop though. They probably ought to though, huh? But if you give me Kickstart My Heart, I could listen to that every time and be happy.
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I enjoy the Dudley Do-Right Log Flume for the ride itself but also just spending the whole time wondering how many riders have absolutely no idea who Dudley Do Right is
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Harry Potter ride is fun but yea I don't think it can be overstated that you should go on The Mummy ride, it is probably in my top 3 rides for both parks.
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Thank you for the suggestions, all
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Alright so Halloween Horror Nights had a whopping ten houses with different themes, and in Universal's desire to make buttloads of money they will sell UNLIMITED tickets to visit these houses at exorbitant fees. Even though HHN lasts for almost two months the business never really ebbs because Orlando is the most popular tourism destination in the country so on any given night that's several hundred thousand people moving throughout a finite area and the organization of the traffic is practically nonexistent.

In fact there's more organization INSIDE the houses than outside actually moderating the lines- which is a shame for two reasons: one, the staff directing the traffic flow inside the houses aren't in character or costume at all which breaks the immersion, and the few staff outside can't control the numerous nasty guests that often successfully cut in line. They also forget to collect tickets they hand you to discourage line cutters (whoops).

Furthermore since HHN has to entertain sooo many guests, unlike any other house we've been to they make no attempt to stagger the flow of people inside, and in fact they seemed to be designed to have a constant flow of people moving through them, and therein lies the issue. How could anything ever be scary when you hear it happen right before it happens to you? Actually there was one monstrous situation when the guests in front of us got all the jumpscares and my party got nothing but to bear witness to all of it, made all the more monstrous by those very same guests being obnoxious in the line to get to the house, and by stopping traffic multiple times.

Because of all the line cutters and the volume in general we only got to experience 7 of the ten themed houses, and though I feel like we chose well the overall night was soured as the only way to do them all would've been to buy the express pass for an additional fee when the tickets were already too expensive to begin with! As it is we would probably never come back, at least certainly not under the same circumstances.

You can take all that with two grains of salt because we apparently went at the absolute worst possible time (weekend night, mid-October oooops), but our experience was super mediocre.
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I can 100% understand all of these complaints. They seem fair.

But did you go to the only haunted house worth going to?

The Happy Death Day house?
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Where would charon rank on that list in the opening post, Genny? *wiggles eyebrows*
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I can 100% understand all of these complaints. They seem fair.

But did you go to the only haunted house worth going to?

The Happy Death Day house?

Yesss it was my second favorite (after the Stranger Things themed house but that was mostly because I was nerding out half the time)

Inviso posted...

Where would charon rank on that list in the opening post, Genny? *wiggles eyebrows*

The charon is not a ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure! It is a ride at a certain hotel. >.>
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This probably doesn't help you right now Genny, but for anyone planning a trip in the future, I cannot stress enough that you should stay at Cabana Bay. Firstly, it's an awesome hotel with two pools, two hot tubs, two bars, and good (and more importantly cheapest) food. More important than that though is that you get to go to the Volcano Bay waterpark two hours before the general public can go, and it is not even five minutes walking distance to it. So a few of the mornings, we just got our tickets and walked over to the park and got to do literally everything there just as people were coming in with a max wait time of maybe three minutes for anything. It was absolutely awesome. We juggled our mornings between that and Harry Potter early access.

Edit: I also forgot to mention the margarita thing. You pay $13 the first time for it and get a cup. Every margarita you get after that is $10. It's actually a great deal, and they're very good.
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The california one we knocked out the whole park in a day so I am guessing florida is way bigger
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The Florida one is much, much bigger.

Also, the Universal Studios Orlando App was an absolute must. We managed to get a ton done each day just by following it and we waiting no less than 30 minutes for any ride during the summer, which is super impressive. It was worth walking from one park to the next when, say, the Incredible Hulk Coaster was at a 10 minute wait randomly. The only one we ended up waiting for more than that for was the Kong ride, only because it was the newest. Fortunately the wait line attraction was great and has added many memes and jokes to our repertoire, so it was worth it.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

More important than that though is that you get to go to the Volcano Bay waterpark two hours before the general public can go, and it is not even five minutes walking distance to it.

The water parks down there is one thing I didn't get a chance to do and was wondering about the quality of them vs others throughout the country.

The clear beaches are another thing I missed.

Also missed the Kennedy Space Center (but did other space stuff like in Epcot).

I also really like minigolf and only got to do one course there that was ok, if anyone happens to have any info about them down there it would be appreciated.
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Mozzezz posted...

The water parks down there is one thing I didn't get a chance to do and was wondering about the quality of them vs others throughout the country.

Volcano Bay is probably the best water park I've ever been to. The raft water slides are tops and let you get tons of hangtime, their Aqua Coaster is tons of fun, and their body slides are soooo good. They have two trap door ones at the top of the volcano where you're going so fast and it just plunges you in at the end with tons of speed and force. It was sooooo fun. They have a top tier lazy river (in which I somehow got stuck under a waterfall for 15 seconds) and a turbulent river where you just put on a life vest and go through a wavey, rough river that forces you along that was really fun too. There's also a wave pool that is fun for a wave pool, and the way they have it set up is that there's a mini-beach in front of the wave pool that comes from the volcano, but they have the sight of everything set up so that if you're just hanging out and laying on a lawn chair, it's like you're just laying on the beach.

It's really, really good and well done.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Mozzezz posted...

The water parks down there is one thing I didn't get a chance to do and was wondering about the quality of them vs others throughout the country.

Volcano Bay is probably the best water park I've ever been to. The raft water slides are tops and let you get tons of hangtime, their Aqua Coaster is tons of fun, and their body slides are soooo good. They have two trap door ones at the top of the volcano where you're going so fast and it just plunges you in at the end with tons of speed and force. It was sooooo fun. They have a top tier lazy river (in which I somehow got stuck under a waterfall for 15 seconds) and a turbulent river where you just put on a life vest and go through a wavey, rough river that forces you along that was really fun too. There's also a wave pool that is fun for a wave pool, and the way they have it set up is that there's a mini-beach in front of the wave pool that comes from the volcano, but they have the sight of everything set up so that if you're just hanging out and laying on a lawn chair, it's like you're just laying on the beach.

It's really, really good and well done.

That's so tempting to make another trip for lol.

I've been there twice, didn't get to go as a kid but went twice in my twenties (currently 34 now), about five years apart. I like giving them a few years to update stuff rather then just going every year, but it has been awhile, maybe I'll go sometime in the near future.
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HHN was way better pre-Walking Dead

now it's dumbed down for babies, it used to be smaller and way better/scarier with its own lore and world that i feel barely gets touched anymore

i hate what it's become

like two years back they just made a knock-off Harley Quinn the icon and it was awful

way too expensive too
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ZenOfThunder posted...

HHN was way better pre-Walking Dead

now it's dumbed down for babies, it used to be smaller and way better/scarier with its own lore and world that i feel barely gets touched anymore

i hate what it's become

like two years back they just made a knock-off Harley Quinn the icon and it was awful

way too expensive too

FastPass is what really ruined HHN.

You pay 70+ dollars for a ticket to wait in line for like 2 hours for half the houses, and then are in a house for like 2 minutes.

If you actually want to to hit all the houses you have to pay for fast pass which is like twice the price of the ticket. And the problem is its become kind of a prisoner dilemma where so many people have realized this and started doing it, that even the liens for that are starting to get big. Which leaves the lines for regular people ridiculous
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i know people say this a lot, but HHN needs to expand into Islands of Adventure again, I know it's a "capacity issue" at this point due to the expanded interest, but they've got to figure SOMETHING out

I am not paying for HHN plus the Fast Pass until they figure out their shit, at this point it's better just to watch Press walkthroughs of the houses on YouTube.
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Minion Mayhem
Jimmy Fallon Race Through NY
Transformers, and
The Mummy Returns (x2) down

Onto the next area!
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Did you buy a Hashtag the Panda doll?

Because they really want you to buy a Hashtag the Panda doll.

So I hope you bought a Hashtag the Panda doll.

Did you laugh when he did a dance? And did you laugh again when he did another dance?

Because you were supposed to.
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I did none of those things lawl
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Both the Animal Actors and Make Up Show are fun. The wife and I almost always do the animal actors. Also, even if you dont eat there, check out the monster cafe. Its a cool atmosphere and lots of cool props. We always sit in the Wolf Man area because theres outlets to charge our phones lol. Think everything else people covered. Oh, behind Richter Burger they have a Jaws statue. Its kinda off to the side so its missable.

Simpsons Ride and MIB beaten. My score was 37,400 and the average is like 74,000 wtf?? Charon would like me to refrain from posting his score ahem. Line went from like 5 minutes to 40 so neither of us could get the chance to redeem ourselves depending on how the rest goes.

Accidentally skipped past the Wizarding World and landed in the Fast and Furious Ride. Now we're waiting in the Gringott's line and it's the longest yet (Minions was 10 minutes even right as the park opened somehow).
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Holy shit 30000 is tragic

I take it neither of you pressed the red button
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I hear Fast & the Furious is mediocre. We never went on it because of that. I say wait as long as you need to for Gringotts. It's awesome.
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I enjoyed our vacation, though I think Disneyland was probably better. It's hard to compare though since on that trip we had just gotten engaged. Of the rides we got on, I'd rank them this way:

1. Revenge of the Mummy (incredibly fun and themed, it is the perfect mix of dark ride and coaster for me. I don't really love coasters in the way Genny does. Does anyone know of any rides like this one? It's so much fun. Your end is my beginning!

2. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (very innovative and unique. This is the best flight simulator ride I know of. I confess partial ignorance to the subject matter unfortunately, but I still loved the experience)

3. Jurassic Park: River Adventure (great raft style ride with a surprise at the end. Fun theming but it really scores points because of that. As another note, these top three were the only ones we were able to ride multiple times)

4. Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringott's (not quite as good as the other dark coaster or the other Potter ride, but still with exceptional scenery and props. Probably would have added this to the double ride list if we had had the time for the line again)

5. The Incredible Hulk (as I said I'm not huge on coasters in general, traditional ones at least. They tend to make me a bit sick and dizzy. This one didn't make me lose anything thankfully but I did need some recovery time. The experience itself was nice, and the ill feelings arose after I was off it. Felt like I still moving for a while.)

6. The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman (Hard to believe this ride was made in 99 honestly. I know it's probably received updates but it's still really well done for the age it is. It captures the Spiderman character very well and hits you with a myriad of different sorts of interactive elements.)

7. Skull Island: Reign of Kong (got held up in line here for a while as the ride had a little technical issues, but thankfully the queue is a lot of fun too. The wait may have impacted my final ranking a bit, but the theming is truly amazing. Ride itself makes you feel like you need multiple attempts to catch all the details.)

8. Popeye and Blutos Bilgerat Barge (I've never gotten this wet on a ride before, not even close. In fact, when we went actual whitewater rafting last year I didn't get this wet. I enjoyed the Olive a lot after this also.)

9. Transformers: 3D (Pretty good even if you're not much of a fan of the source material. For once, I think the Michael Bay style works for this. I didn't see any Starscream though... that would make me rate it higher, maybe)

10. E.T.: The Adventure: I don't know why some of you guys were hating. This is great for what it is. It's also the park's only inverted track ride I think. I'd still say this is a must-ride thing, if nothing but for the ascent into that stars and the very end. That's definitely unique; I had no idea why they asked me for a name.)

11. Fast and the Furious: Supercharged (if you are a big fan if this series, you should love this ride. The queue is unique and they spared no expense on this thing. You also get an original story brought to life by projections of all the major characters of this series, and they even have live actors portraying new characters that interact with the real actors via video as if they're actually there. Honestly, I hate these movies and I was still impressed by this ride. If I was a fan it'd be a lot higher.)
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12. Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem (who would ever WANT to be a minion? Not me, they're usually awful. But like the above one, this one should be higher if you are a fan. Animation is within that mimics the same quality as the films and you get an original story to go along with it. This is like the first thing you see when entering I noticed; good job Universal.)

13. The Simpsons Ride (good but a little dated feeling. I think it needs the 3D goggles. You again get a fun story but the ride mechanics itself betray it. Unlike the previous 2, this one is lower for me because of the ride rather than being carried by it. It's not bad or anything, I still liked it I just thought it could be better with a moving cart or 3D tech.)

14. Men in Black (it pains me to rank this low, because the ride was not functioning as it should. There was no second team we were competing against; for some reason they were sending blank cars and only loading one side, despite there being more than enough people in line. It's sad, I don't know how to rank this one fairly. As is, it pales to both Justice League at Six Flags and Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland.)

15. Jimmy Fallon: Race Through New York (I mean this is a weird thing to make a ride based on. I wouldn't call it terrible, it's still worth at least one ride and all. I don't find most of Fallon that funny, at least anymore. It has a few cringe parts and a couple of decent bits of humor. I appreciate that he created the concept himself I guess)

16. Cat in the Hat (I mean, it's for kids obviously. We were in Seuss Landing so we had to ride at least one thing. Basically it's just a visual ride that retells the story.)
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Some comments:

1. NOT EVEN THE MAJAI CAN SAVE YOU NOW!

2. Walking by the Hulk Coaster was always awesome because we would always go "HRAH!" Everytime they sent a new coaster through.

3. The Spider-Man ride got an HD update some years ago. It's so charming and fun to me and I love all the little things they add into it. Also, "It looks like things are starting to heat up!!!"

4. The old witch doing the Kong chant in the line is the best part of the ride. We will often do it sometimes. Also, I don't know if you guys got this or not, bit there are videos of a creepy tribesman in the cave. And there was a real life dude dressed as him scaring the shit ot of people. It was great.

5. The Popeye ride makes you so uncomfortably wet but I love it. The Dudley Doo Right one gets you soaked as well, and it has a ton of really fun stuff in it also.

6. Starscream was the jet that grabbed you out of the sky with the hook and flew you around. He appears a second time to go after you towards the end but gets scared off after he's shot by some helicopters or something. But if you mark out and scream for Starscream the first time, people cheer the second time for him. The beeeest. Surprised you didn't rank this one higher though.

7. Maybe we should have went on Fast and the Furious then. I like the movies when they know they're stupid garbage, but we heard it was pretty mediocre.

8. I agree with your assessment of the Simpsons ride, but I think they wanted it to be able to be ridden by all ages. But Sideshow Bob is my favorite Simpsons character, so that's why I loved it. I hope you guys got a Duff beer!

9. The Dr. Doom Drop is awesome for the queue. It has Dr. Doom hating Reed Richards so fucking much like you've never seen anyone hate someone before. And there's a great propoganda video for Latveria too. The actually ride is great because Doom goes in a long monologue and you never know when they'll fire you into the air in the middle of it.

10. I hope you guys did the Rip Ride & Rocket!

Glad you had fun!
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Hulk is just classic excellence. I see it as like a protocoaster. Does everything it needs to very well.

Spiderman so great

Shame you didn't have a good time on MiB. I love that thing. Would always ride it three or four times.
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XIII_rocks posted...
And try to catch the Hollywood Make-up Show. I really like that. It's not far from ET if memory serves.

This. Universals shows are pretty good in general, don't overlook them (I don't know your attitude towards shows versus rides, but some shows are better). But this is the best one imo
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junk_funk posted...

XIII_rocks posted...
And try to catch the Hollywood Make-up Show. I really like that. It's not far from ET if memory serves.

This. Universals shows are pretty good in general, don't overlook them (I don't know your attitude towards shows versus rides, but some shows are better). But this is the best one imo

We caught both the Horror Make-Up show and the Animal Actors show. Both were very good and the hosts were more humorous than Disney's shows (one even made a crack about how this wasn't Disney and he didn't need to be nice to the kids). The make-up show was tons of fun, even if they talked up their new Mummy movie like people actually liked it. It was informative while still being entertaining, glad we decided to catch the very last show!

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

9. The Dr. Doom Drop is awesome for the queue. It has Dr. Doom hating Reed Richards so fucking much like you've never seen anyone hate someone before. And there's a great propoganda video for Latveria too. The actually ride is great because Doom goes in a long monologue and you never know when they'll fire you into the air in the middle of it.

10. I hope you guys did the Rip Ride & Rocket!

I do pretty poorly on both these types of rides so I opted not to have a bad time. Genny decided neither looked interesting or unique enough to try alone so yeah, we passed on both of these.

Unfortunately, when we headed towards Ripsaw Falls they had a model of the cart out to try out, and I couldn't figure out how to get in it. I'm 6'4", which I don't think is super uncommon, but I couldn't fold my legs into the flume no matter what I did. I assume riding with your legs up might not be uncommon but we were pretty pressed for time at Islands of Adventure as it was.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I hope you guys got a Duff beer!

We shared one, yes. Also a doughnut from Lard Lad's. I wanted to sample other things but they were out of Flaming Moe's somehow... very disappointed in that. I read negative things about Krusty Burger so I avoided it. Our main meal for the final day was at Leaky Cauldron with Butterbeer in all 3 styles of course.
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Are you insane? Get out of here! The curse, it's real!
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