LisbonJet's Travels: Visiting Universal Orlando Resort

Orlando, September 2016

As I wrote in a previous post, despite the main goal of this trip to Florida was to visit the Kennedy Space Center, I spared two extra days to go to the beach. Why wouldn't I do that after an transatlantic crossing heading to Florida?

But... my friend had other ideas and convinced me going to the Universal theme parks. It took a long time to persuade me since I was not attracted, in my idea, to that kind of fun.

We bought tickets to the two contiguous parks of the Universal Orlando Resort: the Universal Studios Florida and the Universal Islands of Adventure.

Although the parks entrance are paid, you can explore the Universal CityWalk for free - there are shops, restaurants and entertainment areas.

-o0o-
Universal Studios Florida

We started exploring the Universal Studios Florida first. I didn't take many photos since I was more committed to have fun and enjoy the parks, which was totally a new experience for me. The park was crowded and we only had standard tickets without privileges to priority lanes. So we had to wait in line and make some choices of what we would like to see/experience.

I kept a record of the Rides we were taking but I'm not sure I wrote down them all:

Transformers: The Ride 3-D
Revenge of the Mummy
Harry Potter: Escape from Gringotts
Men in Black: Alien Attack
Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem
E.T. Adventure

E.T. Adventure is clearly the oldest ride and you can feel that. Anyway I enjoyed the peacefulness and nostalgy feeling of this ride.

I must confess that before this visit I never took much attention on the Harry Potter saga of felt attracted to it - neither had read the books nor had seen all the movies. But I think that started to change in this moment.

The Diagon Alley sure is impressive:

-o0o-

Hogwarts Express

The way to get to the other park - Universal Islands of Adventure - is to catch the Hogwarts Express, a mover for people with Park-to-Park tickets, which was our case.

-o0o-
Universal Islands of Adventure

So this was the second park to be visited. Contrary to what happened with Harry Potter, I was always drawn to the Jurassic Park saga. So I couldn't miss it:

... a couple of photos of "Poseidon's Fury" attraction:

It seems that this attraction is now permanently closed.

Now a final photo of the Hogwarts Castle:

I must confess that Harry Potter: Forbidden Journey ended up being my favorite ride of all I experienced in these theme parks. You really get the feeling of being truly flying on a broomstick. It was me that insisted to being a second time on the line to repeat this ride.

This is the list of the rides/attractions we experienced in this park: