Theme Park Review- Universal Hollywood

First on the park slate in California was Universal Studios Hollywood. It wasn't in our original plans, but once we found out there was a new attraction opening on Thursday, July 1, they made up our minds for us.

The park as a whole is very similar to its Orlando brother. It's missing the Rip, Ride, Rocket coaster and the Men in Black shooting ride, but it stole Jurassic Park from Orlando's IOA and has its own mega-attraction in the Studio Tour. Yes you heard that right; the Studio Tour was what everyone was there to see!

To give a bit of reference to this, we should all remember that MGM's backlot tour is pretty much the last thing I would go on in the park. Never-the-less we followed the crowd heading for the Studio Tour as soon as the park opened. Oh sure it may have had a lot to do with the fact that the brand new King Kong 360/3D had its grand opening that day and was a part of the Studio Tour, but either way it was strange to see people sprinting to the Studio Tour.

On this 45 minute tour through the Universal working backlot, there was plenty exciting to see. All of the sets used for multiple movies and tv shows were interesting, as was the anticipation of seeing a celebrity walking through the area. But what everyone was there for was Kong...

In the middle of the tour, the tram takes a turn into a darkened cave representing Skull Island of King Kong fame. Once inside the attraction is like nothing else out there today. It was from the Simpsons/Soarin' but instead of a big screen right in front of your face, there were two hemispheric screens on both sides of you. So the 3D action was going on all around you and it was fantastic.

The only problems with Kong 360/3D was that 1) it was way too short and 2) it was inside of the Tour which left no room for a story line or a good theme in the queue.

Florida Trip- Park Voting

8. Downtown Disney (34 points)
--Ok so we only went to DisneyQuest for less than an hour, but getting kicked out of Virtual Jungle Cruise after 45 seconds was classic enough to get a 3rd place vote from Bonz.

7. Blizzard Beach (33 points)
--Blizzard Beach just edged out Downtown Disney even though we had one of the best Teamboat Springs runs in a while. Nothing like jumping around in the raft during the slide and then pretending to sleep at the end. The Kid also made his first run down Summit Plummet and it was not all it's cracked up to be.

6. Islands of Adventure (29 points)
--The rides at IoA just don't stand the test of time like Disney does. The long walk through the queue of Dueling Dragons was tough to take and Spider Man was (as JJ and I said all along) not as good as Busch Gardens' DarKastle.

5. Universal Studios (27 points)
--JJ was the only one who had been to Universal in a long time, so I was happy to have a bunch of new things on my plate. The atmosphere still couldn't hold a candle to any of the Disneys but between Mummy, Simpsons and Shrek it was a good big three.

4. Animal Kingdom (25 points)
--Maybe the best top four (everest, dinosaur, festival, safari) of any of the parks. Hit Everest twice and Festival was fantastic this year (mostly thank to Lion King Enthusiast sitting next to me during the show. She was going nuts through the entire thing).

3. Epcot (15 points)
--How did Epcot make it this high? Jonny didn't even go. Soarin' is great and the ambiance is always nice, but Test Track and Living with the Land as your two and three? Interesting.

2. Magic Kingdom (11 points)
--Ok so we didn't get on a lot of the big guns this year (splash, thunder, jungle), but it didn't matter because the Brazilians made up for it. Can't get much better than foreigners thinking the Bonz is a celebrity and demanding pictures with him for a good 15 minutes straight.

1. Hollywood Studios (6 points)
--Well it does get better and it's the one-two punch of American Idol and Great Movie Ride. When Tower of Terror and Rock 'n Roller Coaster are your fourth and fifth best rides, you got something going on.

Individual Votes Here at Google Docs