Trip Reports

Islands of Adventure Trip Report- 2-18-11 

Yesterday, my family and I headed down south of where we live to Orlando. We headed down to IoA for a grueling 2 hours, most of which I was annoyed by my sister(s). But finally, we made it there and parked our mini van. We walked to the park and bought our tickets. And finally, my dream of going to IoA again had finally came true! 

As soon as we entered the gate, we headed straight to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, around the left side of the park. We walked through Marvel Superhero Island, Toon Lagoon, and Jurassic Park before we arrived at WWoHP. We headed right into the area and got in line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. After a interesting 45 minute wait with lots of Harry Potter refrences, we arrived at the "magical benches". My stomach was doing backflips as I strapped into the bench with my mom and older sister (my dad and little sister were doing the child swap) and listened to the almost creepy HP music.  Hermione's voice suddenly rang into my ears. "Over here. Observatory on 3. 1, 2, 3." Green smoke filled our faces and we were off on the ride. We soared to Hogwarts' Astronomy Tower, where we heard Harry yelling "Hermione, you did it!". We then moved in front of a circular screen, and the ride showed us flying with Harry and Ron. We encounter Hagrid, who has lost his dragon :?. That's never good. So we fly down and encounter- you guessed it- the dragon. We fly away, but come to a real set. We turn around and there- right in my sister's face- is an anamatronic dragon, who breathes smoke right in our face.  We turn away and now we are in the Forbidden Forest, where we encounter dozens of spiders, some of which who "spit" in our face. We move through the spiders and come to the Whomping Willow, which nearly takes our heads off with one of it's anamatronic branches. Luckily, our bench turned on it's back. This part scared the crap out of me; I thought I was going to fall out of the bench. We escape the evil tree and now we are in the middle of a Quidditch game. We follow Harry, looking for the Snitch, when suddenly, Draco Malfoy appears and attacks Harry. "Taking a tour with your hopeless Muggle fans, eh Potter?" Harry fights off Malfoy and Dementors appear. Harry leads us to safety- or at least tries to. Somehow we lose him and we are in the Chamber of Secrets. We see a large Basilisk skeleton (:D) and dozens of large Dementor anamatronics. They get right in our faces and try to eat our souls. Fortunately, Harry uses Expecto Patronum and makes them flee.  We then escape through the crumbling CoS before we exit at the Great Lake. We soar over it and into the Great Hal, where Harry, Ron, Hermione, dumbledore, and all the students congratulate us. We then exit. And since my little sister was doing child swap, I got to ride it AGAIN with my dad! Definitely the best theme park ride in the world.  

We then went shopping in Hogsmeade. I finally got to have a Butterbeer, and let me tell you, it was SWEEEEEET! Seriously, it was like liquid butterscotch! I kept the cup as a souvenir. We also took a ton of pictures of HP stuff, like The Three Broomsticks and the Hogwarts Expess.

My sister said she wanted to ride something, so we took her to Seuss Landing. She rode the Carro-Seuss-El and The High In The Sky Seuss Trolley Ride. She had a blast, but the line for the trolley was REALLLY long; longer than HPFJ "shock:. But she had fun, so I didn't care. 

Then we were going to go to Jurassic Park for my sister to ride the Pteradon Flyers, but she get scared. Plus, the wait was 60 minutes! So instead, we headed to WWoHP to get a souvenir penny. But it was closed :(. Stupid Universal closed WWoHP to people going in to "keep it less crowded". But you could stay as long as you wanted, and they never kicked you out. It was a lame rule, but we got back in later. And they had no souvenir pennies :cry:. So instead, I got a Hogwarts shirt with the 4 houses and a Hogwarts crest pin. 

My little sister, mom, and I headed to Seuss Landing again while my dad and older sister rode the Hulk. We rode the trolley again while they rode the Hulk. When we were done, we met up at the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. We took a picture with Spider-Man, who said "Look, double webs! This kid knows what he's doing!". Thank you, Spidey! finally, we got in line for AAoSM. We winded through the Daily Bugle and came to our SCOOP vehicle. Again, my dad did the child swap with my little sister, so I rode with my mom. The ride was off once we had on our glasses. We rode through NYC until Spidey told us to be careful. We turned a corner and found the Sinister Syndicate, who have stolen the statue of Liberty. Oh no! :roll: Well,Electro shocked our vehicle with a giant plug. Scream tried to....lick us or something. Doc Ock tried o burn us (with a cool heater thing bhind us, so it made us hot). Hydro-Man got us wet :cry:. And Hobgoblin threw a bomb that blew a hole in a building with fire effects. then Doc Ock lifted us with his Levitation Ray. We soared up 40 stories. Spidey tried to save us, but we fell off the building, hurtling towards the ground. Luckily, spidey shot a web that we landed on. It was so scary! I got to ride again too, because of child swap. 

After that, we left the park to go home :cry:. All in all, it was one of the best theme parks I've ever been to! Move over Disney, Universal is the new King of Theme Parks!