Raiders of the Lost Blog

Ok, they’re up! Check out the sets from my Disney Trip collection at Flickr. They’re all linked with “Disney World 2007″ and the name of the park, plus the Tampa stopover. There’s also the Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure photos and then pictures from my sister Sue’s trip to Cape Canaveral and the Everglades, which are both in my Travel collection.

We went to Universal Studios Orlando for a half day and Universal’s Islands of Adventure for a day. The Studios had a couple of fun things to do. We saw Shrek 4-D, a 3D movie with special seat moving effects, it was really fun. The Earthquake “ride” was kinda lame. In California the Earthquake portion was on the regular tour bus ride. Universal Orlando doesn’t have a backstage tour, so they had it in its own building. You watch a little bit about effects in a theater, then hop on a subway car that drives forward 40 yards, has the earthquake effects, then drives back. Not nearly as cool as doing it while part of the regular tour at Universal Studios California.

The Jaws attraction also used to be part of the tour in California. Here it has been redone as a boat ride, with a number of shark attacks. This one was an improvement from the California version. There’s also a whole Amity island area where you can buy Jaws stuff.

We rode the Men in Black ride, which is like the Buzz Lightyear ride in Disneyland/Disney World. You can get 6 on a ride car and then use laser guns to shoot aliens while you ride through the ride. It was very fun, I’d recommend it.

The best ride in the park was the Revenge of the Mummy. That coaster rocks! It’s like a cross between the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland and Space Mountain. It had great effects, fire, explosions and was a big thrill. Absolutely recommended.

Universal Studios is worth about a half day only. There’s not a lot to do there, and it’s a ghost town. There was never more than a 5 minute wait for the Revenge of the Mummy. Islands of Adventure, however, has a ton of fun things to ride. Some standouts were the Spiderman ride, Dudley Do-right’s Rip-Saw falls, the Jurassic Park river adventure, the Hulk, and Dueling Dragons.

Go out of your way to avoid Poseidon’s Temple. It looks amazing, a huge ruined temple with statues and more. You think you’re getting on something amazing, but it’s just a crappy walk through tour with some horribly cheesy effects. The final battle between “Darkanon” and Poseidon is lame. It’s supposed to make you feel that they are fighting it out on stage in front of you, but they’re clearly on movie screens, and their size keeps changing as they cut to closeups! How can they be fighting in front of you if they cut do a different scene there? Lame. Avoid at all costs.

The other rides in the park are great though, Spiderman’s a particular standout. It’s a motion car that drives through the ride, but you have 3D glasses on. You get spun around, flipped in the air and more, all from within a ride vehicle. They really put a lot of thought into making it, it’s a great ride.

You can check out my pictures here.

I’m still uploading, but you can check out the photos as they’re going up on my Flickr page. I’ll post again when they’re all online.

Madeline meeting Tigger, originally uploaded by Tom Simpson.

Maddie got to meet Tigger at Disney/MGM Studios

Madeline stealing a sucker, originally uploaded by Tom Simpson.

Maddie likes the suckers in Disney World! Here she is, caught in the act!

Update: My wife informs me that technically this is a lolly pop and not a sucker.  Less time in baby jail apparently, it’s just a misdemeanor with a lolly pop.