The first park that we went to was Universal Studios which I hadn't been to before but Gemma had. The idea of Universal Studios is to let the visitors "Ride the Movies". The themes of Universal Studio's are targeted at making guests feel like they are in a movie set with rides that are inspired by popular films. The park consists of six themed areas - Hollywood, Production Central, New York, San Francisco / Amity, World Expo and KidZone.
The main rides Gemma remembered as a kid were Jaws, Disaster(simulation of a subway disaster), E.T. ride which involves a flying bike ride to return E.T. home and the Terminator 3D movie. As this was 13 years ago it was hard to imagine these rides would all still be there, however to our surprise they were! In addition to this they were only 4 new main rides which were Men in Black - alien shooting ride, Shrek 3D movie, Simpsons simulator (which made Colin sick haha) and the best of all - Rock It Rollercoaster which obviously is a rollercoaster but its main feature is music. This rollercoaster allows you to listen to a music track while you enjoy the ride. As you sit and strap yourself in the seat each seat has a music player attached with built in speakers at either side of your head so before you speed off you can select your favorite track and sit back and enjoy the ride. This makes the rollercoaster even better!
Universal have also added a new park since the last time Gemma was here which is called Islands of Adventure. The park is currently composed of six distinct "islands", each having its own theme. Visitors start off in the Port of Entry and make their way through the various islands - Marvel Super Hero Island, Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, The Lost Continent, and Seuss Landing. A new island themed to the popular Harry Potter film and book series was announced in May 2007, with a scheduled opening on June 18, 2010.
We were able to buy a 2 park pass and later in the day we went over here to experience even more rides. The main rides here were The Hulk rollercoaster, Lost World Water ride, Dudley Do-Right ripsaw falls, and Duelling Dragons rollercoaster.
The Hulk rollercoaster was the first ride we went on in this park and there was no queue so we went straight on. We hadn't even seen what it looked like so it would be a nice surprise. It took you straight up the track so you were looking at the sky and couldn't see what was coming next, a nice big drop and a few loops followed and it was a really good rollercoaster. The only downside of this ride was it made your head spin so we only went on the once as we were both too dizzy to go again.
Next it was onto the water ride Dudley Do-Right ripsaw falls. We were both glad to go on this as it had been a roasting hot day - well into the 30's. This was your traditional log fume water ride with a nice big drop at the end to really soak you, which we were both glad of to cool us down.
The other water ride we went on was Lost World Water ride - as in Jurassic Park - so it was a nice relaxed scenic water ride through the Lost World of dinosaurs. This was really cool and surprisingly realistic looking, almost like the way they are in the film. Colin really enjoyed this ride as it was more his slow pace. I only wish I could have went on it as a kid as it would have been much cooler and I would have most likely believed the dinosaurs were real!
The last ride of the day was Duelling Dragons which was an insane rollercoaster that allowed 2 tracks to intertwine simultaneously. We both didn't realise until we were on the ride - this added an extra adrenaline rush as the rollercoasters at one point looked as if they were going to smash into each other! I don't think Colin liked this ride much as half way through he looked green and I thought he was going to hurl on me, thankfully for him he managed to hold it in until he came off the ride.
After a great day there the next day was spent at the Magic Kingdom! No matter what age you are there is just something about this place that you can't help but enjoy yourself and the glorious sunshine and cool rides go a long way to helping!
As soon as we entered the park we were greeted with street parades which was cool to see but as we were rushing to get on the rides as quick as possible it was a pain fighting through all the crowds gathered at the side of the roads!
The first ride of the day was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a cool wee rollercoaster based on the late 1800s, when gold was discovered on Big Thunder Mountain in the American southwest. Luckily the queues hadn't started to back up yet and it only took around 5 minutes to get on. However after riding this we moved onto Splash Mountain and the wait time was closer to 30 minutes. The queues would only get worse and a couple of times we had to wait an hour!
Splash Mountain is a great water ride that is suited to the warm day that we had and is based on the 1946 Disney Film Song of the South. It tells the story of the adventures of Br'er Rabbit and the attempts of Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear to catch him. It is a great wee ride through different scenes with lots of catchy tunes - that we are still humming - which ends with a huge drop at the end.
The other big ride here is Space Mountain. This is an indoor in the dark rollercoaster with a space theme. We both remembered this ride from our childhood and thought it was just as good now as it was then. We went on this ride 3 times, twice waiting an hour to get on and even being told it had broken down which added an extra 20 minutes to our wait but we were still not put off! One of the times I was lucky enough to be at the very front of the 1st train which gave a whole new experience as it so dark you can't see the track so you don't know what direction you are going to turn or if you are going to go up or down where as if you are behind the first train you can at least see which way the person in front of you is going to prepare yourself. I stupidly had my hands up in the air then thought better of it in case they got chopped off since you can't see whats going on.
It was great to get back and we were both glad that it was still as good as we remembered it and we were even more delighted that there was plenty of people our age there too so we aren't the only big kids!!
No comments:
Post a Comment