Last week I set up the story of our honeymoon in beautiful sunny and HOT Orlando, Florida. This week I’ll fill you in on our exciting jam-packed first day. And if you couldn’t figure it out from the title, I’m talking all about Universal Studios Resort’s Island of Adventure
We started the day by taking our daily mirror selfie, getting an Uber to the park, and running in like the excited little kids we are.
After getting in, the first stop was Marvel Land’s Incredible Hulk Coaster. This ride was the most memorable for me since the last time I’d been there, and I couldn’t wait to experience it with Errin since she likes thrill rides.
We waited in the line to sit in the front and that was one amazing ride. It’s still one of my favorite rides from the day.
Next up was the Spider-Man ride. I didn’t really remember this one, but I’m so glad we went on it. The entrance and the path to the ride looked like the inside of a newspaper company. It was modeled after Peter Parker’s workplace, The Daily Bugle.
While in line they had old Spider-Man cartoons on replay and it really brought me back to childhood. In fact, all of the marvel themed rides did. I loved the old cartoons and Universal did not disappoint with the theming.
The ride was 3-D and we had to wear glasses. It took us along on a Spider-Man mission with water and fire and a host of villains. It was definitely worth the wait and a now must ride whenever we return.
Errin and I had a disagreement about the next ride though. She loves rides that go straight up and down, while I do not. She convinced me to get on the Dr. Doom ride, a ride that goes up and then drops you down.
It wasn’t the scariest ride, and it only dropped one good time. Not a favorite but worth mentioning.
There’s a reason they call the next land Toon Lagoon. You will definitely get wet. Almost all the rides in this area of the park will soak you. Needless to say, we were NOT prepared.
The only saving grace about these rides is that we did them early in the day. There was plenty of time to try their “people dryer” and use the sun to dry off afterward.
This was also when we realized we should have worn sandals. Shoes are required to get on all the rides, and we were not prepared to walk around in wet socks and shoes. (More on this later).
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
I think it’s safe to say that Errin and I both wanted to visit Harry Potter world for 2 different reasons. I wanted to ride the dueling dragons; she wanted to ride the 3D ride. To our surprise, because we didn’t really look it up, Dueling Dragons is no longer a ride. It’s being made into a different ride that was not operating when we were there.
We rode the 3D ride, and it was amazing, even more amazing than that Spider-Man ride I mentioned earlier. The missing dragons weren’t the only surprise though. For at least 30 minutes, my phone was missing.
Normally, when this happens in an amusement park, your phone is lost forever. However, thanks to Apple and a helpful employee, we were able to locate my phone. Errin also has an iPhone so we used Find my iPhone to make sure the phone was still in the park. We then showed the location to an employee who helped us realize I must have left it on a ride. Long story short, my phone was found.
Characters to Close
After a scare like that, you’d think that we would take it slow, but we actually stepped everything up. We hit all the rides that were left in the park and even got to hang out with a few characters like Po from Kung Fu Panda and the Lorax.
We proceeded to ride all the rides except the Incredible Hulk twice. We stopped for a cinnamon roll and closed out the park. It was awesome.
The fun didn’t completely stop there though. After the park, we had a nice dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp. After dinner, we were exhausted so we headed back to the resort to rest up for our next 4 days in Disney.
The next post in the series will be all about Disney.
Originally published at https://larryg.co on June 13, 2019.
