I’m up surprisingly early after last night’s drunken laser tag. A breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts and I’ve got enough sugar to shake the hangover because we’re off to see one of the highlights of this trip for me – Universal Orlando. This has been split into 2 parks, the older Universal Studios Florida and the newer Islands of Adventure. Islands of Adventure features thrill rides based on Marvel comics, classic cartoons, Jurassic Park and Dr Seuss all themed into “islands” arranged around a series of waterways. Universal Studios is like its LA counterpart only bigger and less well organized with a somewhat confusing layout.
After breakfast, the bus ride up to Universal takes us along International Drive. This is a huge area of hotel resorts, fast food, outlet shopping and diversions that accommodates all those visitors who flock here for theme park fun every year. If you can’t find a place to stay in your price range here, you’re not trying hard enough. We’re dropped off at a bus terminus at the end of Universal City walk, next to a giant cinema complex. City walk in Florida makes the LA one look like a pedestrian mall in Dapto. It is HUGE. We walk past the biggest Hard Rock Cafe complex I’ve ever seen. It includes not only a restaurant but also a concert hall called Hard Rock Live! And yes, being America the exclamation point is part of the name. There’s also a basketball themed restaurant called NBA City with a statue of former local hero Shaquille O’Neal out front. I’m surprised it wasn’t pulled down by a tractor in front of thousands of screaming locals after he defected to the Lakers…
Moving through this mass monument to commercial gains, we reach the ticket booths. The queue moves fast and a 2 park ticket is approximately $80 US. This gives the opportunity to see both parks in a day. I pretty much fall in with a group that includes the couple I spotted bickering in New Orleans plus the posh English girl and two girls who’ve become fast friends on this trip since rooming together from LA. It’s a case of half the bus heading for Universal Studios and the other half heading for Islands of Adventure. I’m in the Islands of Adventure group. There’s a few on this trip not into theme parks or headed elsewhere in Orlando. Others aren’t avid readers of guidebooks. Mine suggests if you have only one day, see Islands of Adventure first, and then head over to the other park. It’s early Fall here, but with improvements in transport, cheap accommodation and generally agreeable weather year round, people flock to the parks all year. There’s not much of an “off” season these days. It used to be that Summer was busy and the rest of the year was quieter, but with events like Spring Break, Halloween, Easter and Christmas all getting themed parades and special deals, the parks are now full more days than they are empty.
The first “Island” we come to is Marvel Super Hero Island. I immediately want to rush for The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, but the blond English girl seems to have placed herself in charge of leading us “colonials” and instead heads for the Incredible Hulk roller coaster. Just watching this thing makes me want to be sick. It doesn’t get pulled slowly up a ramp by a chain, it gets blasted out of a launch tunnel by electro-magnets and goes straight into a barrel-roll inversion followed by three more dizzying loops and another twist before coming back down to Earth. It even glows in the dark when the park is open at night. Needless to say, I’m labeled a “soft-c**k” for staying behind and watching the bags while others ride. Though I do catch sight of Wolverine and Captain America standing around greeting people while I’m waiting.
After the Hulk finishes, the verdict is that the launch was the worst bit. The rest of it is kind of dreamy and smooth, but I would argue it is easy to feel that way when you’ve been numbed into catatonic shock by enduring what only fighter pilots and the terminally stupid usually experience. Maybe I am a bit soft, but being the old man of the group and also inclined to feel that man’s proper place isn’t whizzing around upside-down at 3 times gravity, I’m happy to watch the bags, thanks.
Next we get to Spider-Man. This adventure starts with a movie in the queue where an animated J Jonah Jameson chews out Peter Parker and demands pictures of a group of super villains who’ve stolen the Statue of Liberty and are holding it to ransom. He’s also built a fleet of “news mobiles”, vehicles which can automatically deliver reporters to the scene of big events and allow them to safely observe proceedings unharmed. And we, the theme park visitors are playing the role of human guinea pigs. Needless to say, we are ambushed by the evil “Hydroman” and “Dr Octopus” as soon as we hit the streets of Manhattan. Spidey shows up to save the day and lead us to safety, but other villains including Mysterio and Shriek (not to be confused with “Shrek” across the road at the other park) fling the “news mobile” into the rooftops where we are effectively caught in a game of “keep away” between the villains as they bait Spidey. It’s fantastic. The sensation of movement is great and the finale where Doc Ock drops the vehicle from the top of the Empire State Building towards the street below only to be saved by a web Spidey slings just in the nick of time is amazing. This thing beats out Indiana Jones at California’s Disneyland as my all time favorite theme park ride. At the finish, they calmly announce “please raise your lap bar”. I try to, and it sticks. It won’t move. Before I call for help I look along the row and see the problem. One of the girls in our group has wrapped both arms around the bar and is clinging to it for dear life. “You can let go now,” I say gently. Prizing her off the lap bar, we exit. I desperately want to go again, but our leader has her sights on moving on to the next land.
Next is “Toon Lagoon”, a neat rhyme and also the home of some of the wettest rides in all of Florida. We join the queue for something called “Popeye and Pluto�s Bilge Rat Barges”. This is one of those rapids rides where you sit in a six person round boat and get carried down a churning rapid while jets of water squirt you. Nobody said anything about buckets and fire hoses. There is always a certain distribution of weight in these things that causes the heavier side to get wettest. Who was heaviest? Why, we two big lads of course. I swear, every time we encounter a dump tank, hose or even trickle of water, the two blokes cop all of it. Lucky my bag is in a waterproof pouch they provide, and my feet are kept dry-ish by the shelter of the centre post, but the rest of me is soaked. It is a blistering hot Florida day though, so the soaking isn’t entirely unwelcome. There is more. Next is “Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls”. This is a big-bad flume ride with a double drop. You drop down a slope, pop back up over a rise and then drop again. The special effects in the ride aren’t great, but the drop is a doozy. After that, it’s the biggest, baddest flume in Florida. Jurassic Park.
The Jurassic Park rides plot is that you’re visiting the park and doing a tour along the river. All herbivorous dinosaurs and a playful squirting from a duck billed something-or-other that pops his head up at the start. Naturally, things go wrong and the boat is diverted from the river into a water treatment plant where the “spitter” dinosaurs and Raptors menace you as you are hauled up a ramp to safety by park staff. Then, T-Rex drops in (literally) and the only safe way out is to drop the boat down the “spillway” to the pool at the end. This drop is 85 feet at a 45 degree angle. When Steven Spielberg was asked to test this ride during its construction, he reportedly made them stop it at the top of the hill so he could get out and walk through the maintenance door and down stairs to the bottom. Maybe he just didn’t want to get wet. The boat displaces an enormous volume of water, and most of it ends up in the boat.
Afterwards, we are drying off and get another of those charming reminders of how unworldly our American cousins can be. A guy offering Universal sponsored time share condos asks us where we are from, and we say “Australia” (our Pom has gone off to buy something in a shop at this juncture so we’re spared her for a few moments). “Oh right, next to Germany” he says. “I do have a special deal for people from Europe”. We stop him there and mention we are from the other hemisphere and nowhere near Germany. His face furrows, he looks lost…and keeps trying to do his spiel. Fortunately, our fearless leader has returned, so we leave the Jurassic Park area bound for the “Lost Continent”.
There’s not a lot happening here, there’s another roller coaster but I bypass that in favor of having a beer. The other bloke and I adjourn to a shady spot and curse over the only beer being a $7 plastic bottle of Budweiser, while the girls go off to variously ride the coaster or have their fortunes told, complaining about the relationship between beer and testosterone all the while.
It’s getting towards the middle of the day, and we’ll be stuck here the whole day unless we adjourn to the other park. We head out, passing a sign advertising the opening of something called “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter”. There’s not much construction at the moment (author’s note: it has opened just this past June but was still in early stages during this visit) only a wall and this sign. We completely bypass “Seuss Landing”, which is a Dr Seuss themed area. A shame, I express a desire to ride “The Cat in the Hat” as the book was a childhood favorite, but I’m voted down. Lunch is greasy pizza and I stop to buy a hat at a novelty hat shop having decided it will make a spiffy addition to my outfit for tonight’s toga party. It’s a fake crown with plastic jewels all over it.
We exit and head across to the other park, passing the famous Universal globe. I note this one has New Zealand on it. The one in LA lacked New Zealand for a number of years, but the country is on this one, though the metal looks somewhat newer and less tarnished. Perhaps Peter Jackson had something to do with it? In any case, we enter the other park and encounter a group going the other way. It’s a rushed exchange, we are urged to do “Twister” (an attraction where they use a wind machine to create a real tornado in front of you) but instead make a beeline for “The Simpson’s Ride”.
This ride replaced the old “Back to the Future” ride and even pays out its predecessor. The plot has Krusty buying Doc Brown’s old “Future Institute” to build an extension to his theme park. Professor Frink decides to use his own time traveling DeLorean to stop the deal, but runs over Doc Brown and his attorney when he arrives in the past, handing the land to Krusty by default. The Simpson’s are picked to be first to try Krusty’s new rollercoaster, but Sideshow Bob tampers with the ride mechanism and sends the family on an out of control trip through the park, which is a massive send up of Disney’s offering down the road. Naturally, riders are in the car right behind the Simpson’s and experience what they do. It’s a simulator that stays in place while pitching up and down and side to side, but the huge curved screen in front of you makes it seem real. The intro to the ride is also hilarious – the first time you see it. Standing in the line for this one, we see it about three times through. Handy if you miss bits, but the humor wears off after a while.
Finally, we get to Revenge of the Mummy. This is another giant coaster which is entirely in the dark in a big building with an Egyptian temple motif. Again, I sit it out while others ride. I’ve done the one in California, which is about as intense as Disney’s Space Mountain. This one though is much bigger and badder than its cousin due to more space and bigger budget. After the others get off, I am told it is more intense than the LA version. The group photo showing mouths open mid scream and knuckles white from holding on for dear life makes me feel justified. I may have ridden, except that I argued briefly with our “leader” as we have limited time left in the day and wanted to see Men In Black: Alien Attack first, and she argued there was no time. I sat out the ride in protest as well as perhaps a touch of cowardice.
There we leave Universal and head back to the hotel. We have a couple of hours to get ready for the toga party tonight. I decide first to see about stamps, and finally I can get international stamps here. The postcards I’ve written in 5 days of travel are dumped in a post box and sent away. Next stop is a nearby supermarket for beer. I love that Yanks sell beer everywhere. I can get decent stuff too. Canadian, Mexican and Euro beers as well as the domestic American stuff. I have left my passport behind in the hotel, so I show the checkout woman my driver’s licence. Now, it says on it “New South Wales” which is the Aussie state. But this lady starts asking me about Cardiff and Swansea. I politely mention that’s “South Wales” in the UK. Again, I get that bewildered American look that says “well, I find it’s all just foreign anyway”.
Not much after that. A bit of slothful rest and then gearing up for the toga night. I drink a couple of beers out of my ridiculously cheap case of 24 just to get in the mood, wrap on the toga, attempt to write “Gluteus Maximus” on it in black marker, and get out the rest of my outfit. There’s a Florida licence plate which I secure around my neck using dental floss as string. Novelty stars and stripes sunglasses and the crown plus the toy sword complete my character, King of Florida. Swigging a beer while carrying the case in the other hand, I stagger out (under the weight of the case, not drunk yet) and hit the party by the hotel’s pool. The first thing people ask me is “what does it say on your toga?” I want to ask if they’re unable to read, but looking down at the writing just above the number plate across my chest I notice it’s perfect backwards letters. Having written it while looking in the mirror, I’ve written it backwards. I will need to stand in front of a mirror to read it. That and the letters don’t show up on camera, plus I have to remove the licence plate when people take pictures, as the thing reflects back camera flashes and wrecks the photo. Oh well, I pretend the backwards lettering was intentional.
I’m not outdone, but probably matched by a guy wearing a pink toga with a bunch of plastic grapes on the shoulder and by the South African lad who wears a skirt like toga and a white bra with a cowboy hat. Most of the others are more conservatively attired. I suppose it’s obvious who the attention seekers are. After food and a few more of my beers, I take off the crown, sword, licence plate and sunglasses and leap into the pool toga and all. I am wearing shorts underneath, so it’s not like I’m indecently attired.
The rest of the night passes in a bit of a blur. Someone suggests streaking, but only one girl is bold enough to do it, running around outside in the nude like, well, a crazy drunk person. No, I don’t have a photo of that. My camera was switched off. Hotel security put an end to the party at 11pm, telling us we’re disturbing other guests and asking us to fish all the beer cans out of the pool before we leave. There is one moment I share with the loud West Aussie bloke. I mention that many of the women on tour are a bit reluctant to mix and somewhat reserved. “That’s because they’re Aussie sheilas” he offers. Hmm, I’d never thought of it like that before. But then, stuck on a bus with 20 Aussie blokes, a couple of Poms, at least one Kiwi and a South African? No wonder the Springbok gets all the attention.
With the fun over, I get to bed. Disney tomorrow.
