Universal’s IOA help please.

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Hi everybody it is official I have a ticket to Universals’ Halloween Horror Night on October 2 (I’m really excited). I am going alone and have a express pass to get me through everything fairly quick, so expect some picture without family in them later (I know you guys will like that part). Anyway when I ordered the tickets they offered me a ticket to go to IOA for three hours before the start of Horror Nights for $15.00, I could not resist as I have never been.

So here is my question; (for those who have gone) with only 3 hours what ride/attractions should I do and what order sould I do them?

Thanks for your help.

[markalan]

Dueling Dragons, Hulk and Spider-Man should be at the top of the list. Poseidon's Fury if you have the time. I'm guessing a Thursday in October shouldn't be too busy. Have fun!

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Thanks markalan – just the info I’m looking for.

[Discodude3737]

Definitely hit Spiderman early. That line grows long and quick. Hulk is also a good bet to ride early, but if it has all 3 trains on (which it almost always does) the enormous capacity keeps the line moving very fast. Universal's Express system is amazing, you will have no trouble hitting every attraction in one night with an express pass. Have fun and post a TR if you have the time!

[Avatar]

Thanks Discodude3737 – I don’t have an express pass for the IOA 3 hour tour, I only have it for the Horror Night. Also I can not get in until 4 PM and can stay until 7 PM which is when the Horror nights start.

[Guest TombraiderTy]

Dueling Dragons, Hulk and Spider-Man should be at the top of the list. Poseidon's Fury if you have the time. I'm guessing a Thursday in October shouldn't be too busy. Have fun!

Poseidon's Fury? Are you serious? Um... that building is just waiting to be replaced with a decent ride, maybe a shooter dark ride.

Anyhow, three hours obviously isn't much, but Islands of Adventure is a great park with enough to satisfy. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man is number one on your list. Unfortunately you won't be able to see all the wonderful queue since you'll probably be doing single rider to skip the wait. The Hulk is decent, not my favorite by far though. I can't recall if there is a single riders line, so you may be stuck with a wait. Dr. Doom's is your average launched free-fall ride and Storm Force Acceleration is just tea-cups. Inside Toon Lagoon, both Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls and Popeye's are fun rides, but skip them if you don't want to get wet. You won't get too wet on Jurassic Park River Adventure, however, so I would suggest doing that.

Lost Continent features one good set of rides- Dueling Dragons. To me, the blue pulls off more g's and is the better of the two. Not sure if there's a single-rider line for this...

Seuss Landing has The Cat in the Hat, which is a fun ride, but only if you've finished the others. I would strongly suggest checking out IOACentral.com and all the information it has to offer.

Have fun!

[Delirium_Guy]

Thanks Discodude3737 – I don't have an express pass for the IOA 3 hour tour, I only have it for the Horror Night. Also I can not get in until 4 PM and can stay until 7 PM which is when the Horror nights start.

The crowds are virtually non-existant right now. Wait times for all the major rides have been averaging 5-10 minutes for EVERYTHING at IOA. I stopped by for a few quick rides on Monday, I saw a Hulk train cycling half empty....if that gives you any indication. Actually, we ended up with a Spiderman car all to ourselves :-) Still, I'd recommend going through Marvel first and hitting the goods there. By the time you get around to Lost Continent, even if there was a line for Dragons, it would have diminished the closer to Park close that you get. As for single rider lines, they haven't been using Hulk's in quite sometime. Spiderman's may be open and they usually have Dr. Doom's open. Dragons does not feature a single rider line. If crowds are light like they have been, you will have no trouble seeing the entire Park in 3 hours, single rider lines or not!

Count me in for my first Horror Nights! I have my Frequent Fear pass, I'm totally pumped!!!!

- Todd

[Justin_M17]

If nothing else:

Dueling Dragons

The Hulk

Spiderman

I haven't been to the park in about four years so they've probably put in some new stuff that I'm not familiar with, but the first two are the most amazing coasters I've ever been on and Spiderman is an awesome flat ride.

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Thanks guys for all the info

Todd - thank you for that very insightful bit of information, I know I feel more at ease with your touring plans and expectation description. So when are you going or should I ask which night are you not going?

If you are going on the October 2 and want to meet up let me know.

[Touchdown]

My list in order of what should be first priority:

-Spiderman

-Dueling Dragons

-Hulk

-Dudley Do Right*

-Jurassic Park River Adventure*

-Popeye*

-Cat in the Hat

-Poseidon's Fury

*These rides will get you drenched but trust me every single one of these rides are worth it.

As an added bonus, if you happen to be staying at an Universal Hotel, you get FOL access with your hotel key.

[Avatar]

Thanks Touchdown for your list.

We are staying at the Disney’s POP Century value resort for 11 nights. We are hardly ever in our room and POP is only $92.00 a night but we get free transportation to and from the airport and to all Disney locations and on top of that 2 meals a day (one of them is waiter service) and a snack for each of us (4) is free too. Did I mention all that for $92.00 a night!!!!

I hope Universal starts offering a similar deal as I will start staying there, as it is now it’s cheaper to stay at Disney and commute to Universal/Sea World. Example for $92.00 we get a room and all 4 of us can eat breakfast at the resorts food court go to universal and after they close at 7 PM eat a waiter style dinner at one of the many Disney restaurant’s.

[Vortex]

Well if you have the express pass the lines will not be that long for you. Just be sure to keep it out they do check it later on in the lines like Spiderman. I would hit up Hulk and Spider-Man and then walk over to Dueling Dragons, now if you have time I would go on Jurassic Park River Adventure.

Also don't forget about the new bridge they have around the Jurassic Park area and Poseidon's Fury. I just got back not to long ago myself.

Edited September 19, 2008 by Vortex

[Avatar]

Thanks Vortex – I haft to ask what about the bridge that you are referencing?

Due to work schedule we decided Sunday to add a couple more nights to the end of our trip, which was a bit of a hassle but Air Tran waved our transfer fee so 2 bonus days are now scheduled and one will be at Typhoon Lagoon and another showing of Fantasmic.

Here is the plan now.

Disney's new campaign next year 2009 is “What will you celebrate?” To bad it’s not this year, because they are giving a free ticket on your birthday and I could have used it this year.

[Cory Butcher]

WhOa, that plan is cool! Did you make that yourself??

[jzarley]

Avatar-- Gotta go with the consensus on this one...do Spiderman first. It's my absolute #1 ride/attraction of any park anywhere. (After that at IOA, I'd rank them in order of Dueling Dragons, Jurassic Park, then The Hulk.) If you're a dark ride fan (which considering your appreciation for good themeing, I'll assume you are ) I'd also recommend the "Cat in the Hat" ride.

[Captain Picard]

I think it's going to hard for Avatar to get out of bed on Friday 10/3.

[RailRider]

My break down so your not running from island to island.

Walk in, turn left and move from island to island in a counter clockwise manner.

First Marvel Island. Ride Spiderman and then Hulk, head for Toon Lagoon.

Toon Lagoon is neat, but keep moving. Dudley DoRights is down for rehab.

Next up Jurassic Park. Ride The River Adventure.

Up next is lost continent, Ride both Fire and ICE in the front seat. There is never a wait during peak summer hours so you should have no problem doing these in 10 minutes. Make your way through all the Harry Potter Construction and finish in Seuss Landing.

While in Seuss Landing ride Cat in the Hat. Great indoor dark ride, your daughter would love it so it will give you a reasson to take her back some day.

IF there are no crowds you can easily do this, But if crowds are bad, dont miss Spiderman, Hulk, Dueling Dragons and JP River Adventure.

Good luck and enjoy.

[Beast1979]

Pardon me but what exactly is the Spiderman?

[Touchdown]

^Its hard to describe but its a 4-D Simulator Dark Ride, or for short totally awesome. Ever want to feel what its like to be in a Spiderman comic? Well here is your chance. Dont know anything about Spiderman? Youll still love it, the simulated drop finale is amazing.

[Delirium_Guy]

My break down so your not running from island to island.

Walk in, turn left and move from island to island in a counter clockwise manner.

First Marvel Island. Ride Spiderman and then Hulk, head for Toon Lagoon.

Toon Lagoon is neat, but keep moving. Dudley DoRights is down for rehab.

Next up Jurassic Park. Ride The River Adventure.

Up next is lost continent, Ride both Fire and ICE in the front seat. There is never a wait during peak summer hours so you should have no problem doing these in 10 minutes. Make your way through all the Harry Potter Construction and finish in Seuss Landing.

While in Seuss Landing ride Cat in the Hat. Great indoor dark ride, your daughter would love it so it will give you a reasson to take her back some day.

IF there are no crowds you can easily do this, But if crowds are bad, dont miss Spiderman, Hulk, Dueling Dragons and JP River Adventure.

Good luck and enjoy

.

Just an FYI, Ripsaw Falls is NOT down for rehab. It is supposed to go down in early 2009 for a lengthy rehab to try to modified the logs, once again, and try to fix the awful lap bar system that was installed! Anyway, Avatar, what nights am I not going? I will steer clear of Friday and Saturdays, wait times for the haunts get quite lengthy I'm told! Are you doing Disney this trip?? They, too, have been empty! We were at Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, I only waited 10 minutes for Thunder & Splash :-) Space Mountain was only 20 minutes! Even Soarin' has only been seeing 20 minute waits these days....so you are in for quite a treat! I will let you know about October 2! Just depends on what time I work! We are currently on 6PM closes, so even if I close that evening I could be over to Horror Nights by 830!

- Todd

[Avatar]

Thanks every one for taking the time to share you insights on IOA touring plans, you all have helped and I am more confident I will be able to maximize the time I will have.

Cory – yeah I made the Picture Itinerary myself for us to use and so Miss Rae could see everyday what we where doing on what day. It turned out great so I shared it on a Paid subscription site called TourguideMike.com and immediately was bombarded with hundreds of e-mails from around the world requesting a copy of the Excel file. 18 months later fellow TGM members have either downloaded the copy or had me e-mail one for a total of 3423 copies of the file shared. What is touching about it is I have gotten a lot of e-mails thanking me and how they have used theirs and some letters are so touching that I have actually tear up. Odd I know. If anyone here wants a copy just PM me your E-mail.

Jzarley – you are right I like high theme attractions so thanks for the tip.

Captain – yeah I’ll be tired but that will be my second day at AK and to be honest I work so much and early that I couldn’t sleep if I tried to sleep in. Also to bad we are coming back on the 8th because it would have been possible to run into you guys down there.

Todd – anytime I’m in the central Florida area you better count me in for some Disney Magic, in post 13 it shows what days we are at which park. That would be great if we got the chance to meet, I’ll PM you my info if by chance you are in one of the parks while we are down there and thanks for you insightful park crowd up-dates.

[Vortex]

Here is a link to a picture of the bridge.

[sheikra_rocks]

Ok.... here is my breakdown of Spidey for Beast.

Imagine getting into the mini mystery machine combined with the hydrolics and 3-d of spongebob, and you have "The Amazing Adventures Of Spider-man"

The car moves around a track like a funhouse ride, while it tilts and rocks turbulently like a simulator ride, while your "night vision goggels" puts everything into 3-d.

Moving walls, fire explosions...... um... pretty much a Spongebob / Scooby doo ride on steroids!

Hands down the best dark ride EVER!

My picks would be :

Hulk (best launch on a coaster)

Spider-man

Popeye/Bluto's Barges (puts every other river rapids ride to shame!)

Ripsaw Falls

JP: River Adventure

Dragons

Cat in The Hat

I've done all of this in less than 3 hours in the fall / winter months. But you know... I have just as much fun waiting in Universal's lines as I do on the rides.

[The Interpreter]

...But you know... I have just as much fun waiting in Universal's lines as I do on the rides.

That could certainly be taken in more than one way! I have just as much fun waiting in the SFOG Ninja line as I do on the ride. More so, actually.

[tigellinus]

^^What about the line for Acrophobia?!?

[The Interpreter]

Some people have a ball on that ride. Or something like that....

I like the ride...well, except for the very end.

[tigellinus]

^^I don't quite fancy stationary heights too much (but do like the S&S Double Shots, including the Stratosphere's), but does that 15 degree angle outwards before the drop really make a big difference or not?!?

[The Interpreter]

It makes a huge difference, but whoever thought it was a great idea to stand males up on a bicycle seat and then drop them from great heights, stopping rapidly, was a sadistic sort.

[tigellinus]

^^Hahaha!! Why I stopped my modified way of riding Mantis and Chang...the G's were going somewhere I didn't want anymore!!

[XGatorHead 8904]

I have to agree with almost everyone on here and say Spiderman first. BEST. DARKRIDE. EVER! I've only been to IOA once, about a month after they first opened. Even then, the theming everywhere was simply amazing. The Seuss Landing area in particular sticks out in my mind, walking through that area is just like stepping into a Dr. Seuss book. Plus I learned that I do like green eggs and ham, and that I would eat them in a box, I would eat them with a fox, etc.

We just got back from WDW, and the lines were the shortest we've ever had there. We picked a great time of year to go. Even with a 9:00 close at MK, the only thing on our list we didn't get to do was Barnstormer. We Fastpassed Space Mountain (which only had a 20 minute standby wait) and Jungle Cruise (15 minute standby). Those were the longest lines we encountered.

At Studios, we Fastpassed/Parent Swapped Tower of Terror, which we ended up not having to anyway since we went during the parade and the standby was walking right alongside those of us in the Fastpass lane. Also Fastpassed RnRC, which had a 20 minute standby.

We had a little Disney magic happen, some nice little touches we didn't expect. Once I get the pictures organized I'll post a full TR.

I love the schedule you made up. And I can't wait to read your TR! Have fun!