Compare and Contrast

It's been interesting, having gone to three distinct amusement/theme parks in the span of about 2 weeks, to note the differing approaches these parks take to satisfying their guests.  At the end of May, we went to Michigan's Adventure, an amusement park with classic thrill rides.  In early June, we went to both Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando, two sets of parks that depend on theming to entertain the customers. 

Michigan's Adventure has moderate thrill rides and almost no theming.  Their marquee ride, Shivering Timbers, is a huge wooden rollercoaster that sort of fits in with the way the park sort of just appears in the middle of the forest.  They have another ride, a whitewater raft experience called Grand Rapids, which of course is the name of a city in Michigan (President Gerald Ford was from there).  Their one and only indoor, sit-down restaurant is called Coaster's.  It's sort of themed like a 50's diner.

Then you go to Disney, and you get story and theming around every corner.  I don't have to talk too much about it on this blog; anyone reading probably knows as much or more about what Disney has to offer than I do.  There are thrills to be found here:  Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Mission: Space, Rock'n'Roller Coaster, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - all are moderate (at least) thrill rides.  But all depend on theming to make them more than just a rollercoaster with inversions, than a drop-ride, than a log flume, than a dark coaster - to make them memorable and repeatable. 

Going over to Universal Studios, we find a few more thrill rides like Hollywood Rip-Rocket, Revenge of the Mummy, and even The Simpsons Ride.  Again, their rides depend on theming to make them memorable.  Each delivers a fairly unique experience.  Their theming uses a certain edginess, a certain hip-ness, that you don't find at Disney, and that a place like Michigan's Adventure doesn't even try to use. The jokes are different - often aimed at adults and older teens.  There's a blog post in there, somewhere, comparing the "feel" of the Universal Studios Resort parks and the Disney parks.  But I don't know if I'm ready to write it. 

I for one don't connect to either Michigan's Adventure, or Universal Studios in the same way I do to Disney.  I did feel that connection over at Islands of Adventure, but that was a year and a half ago, and I think much of it was due to the current-ness of the Harry Potter movies and the timeless feel of Dr. Seuss and some of the other properties they used there. 

Our next trip will likely feature more visits to Universal and maybe even none to a Disney park.  If it happens that way, it will be because of Disney's all-or-nothing pricing policy, where it doesn't make sense to buy a two or three day ticket instead of a 6 or 7 day pass.  Orlando and central Florida have more to offer than Disney, but we have discovered very little of it.  So I'll see if those parks seem to foster more of a connection in the future. 

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Other Parks: Universal's Islands of Adventure - Day 1

We spent Monday and Tuesday at Universal's Islands of Adventure Theme Park. We had never been to these parks before, and our plan was to spend one day at IOA, and the other at Universal Studios. Well, the Studios will have to wait because we ended up hanging out at IOA both days.

The first day was sort of a wash-out. Literally. It poured rain in the afternoon (although the morning weather suggested that there was only a 10% chance of rain that day), and we were totally unprepared. We had brought umbrellas to Florida, but they were at the bottom of our luggage. So we got drenched. It is not very comfortable walking around in soaking wet clothing when there is very little sun, even when the temperature is in the 70's. (I'm not sure what the temperature actually was after the rain - it felt COLD to me in my soaking wet clothing.)

Most of this first day was spent in lines. We got there a bit later than we planned to, since we were still more or less on Chicago time, and of course Florida is an hour ahead of us. We had trouble waking up before 7:30 am their time (which of course would be 6:30 am at home), and once we got ready and drove there, it was probably somewhere between 10:30 am and 11 am their time.

Universal has those enormous parking decks, but they don't have the parking down like Disney does. I think there were four or five booths open, and then all of those cars were funnelling into basically one lane as we got to our parking level at the top of the deck. So that was sort of slow, after experiencing the parking at Disney, where everything just flows.

I was impressed with the system for moving guests from the decks to the CityWalk area. I thought their CityWalk (analogous to Downtown Disney) was very cool. Cool restaurants and stores and a really neat look. We located Emeril's and other restaurants, and headed toward the Islands of Adventure park. Entry was fairly easy; we had our tickets we had purchased at Costco, and everything went beautifully.

Once we got in, we were impressed by the level of theming in their version of "Main Street", which sets the tone beautifully for the rest of the park. I took a couple of photos with the iPhone, as you can see. Then we came to the end of the street, and had to choose right or left. A staffer was there pointing out where the lines for The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter started. Turns out that at this point in the day, one of the two entrances to the land is closed and you have to queue up to get into the land.

Anyway, we walked into Marvel Super Hero Island, thinking that maybe we could do a ride before lunch. The boys and I decided to do Doctor Doom's Fear Fall, which said it had a 20 minute wait. So we entered the queue (it was a well themed queue, sort of dark and interesting), and got to the end of the line. In about 20 minutes, we still had a long ways to go. I decided that we better not chance it because we might miss our lunch reservation at Mythos, so we left the line. I am not sure why we weren't moving; was the ride broken down, or were Express Pass people keeping this line from moving? Whatever, we left. I wasn't impressed with my first experience with a ride at IOA.

We decided to walk back into Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park, where we figured we'd scope out the line for Harry Potter, and cross the bridge to the Lost Continent, where Mythos was located. Line number 2 was at this restaurant. Turns out that what we thought was a "reservation" was actually "priority seating", which means you get to wait a long time until you get seated. Our scheduled time was at 12:30 pm, but we weren't seated till close to 1:30 pm. The place is a really cool looking restaurant, and our service and food were both OK once we got seated. They were a little slow, offering as an excuse that the kitchen had gotten "slammed" by a couple of big parties at the same time.

After lunch we went to get in line for Harry Potter. First we got in a line to get a ticket to stand in the real line. Then we got into that rather long line and waited. And waited. I don't know what time we finally got in, but eventually we did make our way into the land. (We still have not gotten on a single ride!)

We got in line to go on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. I'll be doing a post on this by itself later, I think. For now, let's just say that the queue is fantastic and the ride is even better. We didn't mind waiting the 45 minutes it took at that time.

When we got off, my wife had bought a butterbeer. Butterbeer is OUTSTANDING! Can I have more? I miss it, just thinking about it! Very tasty. She got in line to get more butterbeers and I was going to get the kids onto the Flight of the Hippogriff coaster. That's when the skies opened up. My kids got under an umbrella with a line attendant, but I got soaked, and so did my wife. There is no real shelter in Hogsmeade. So then we had to buy ponchos, and at least the ponchos kept us warm the rest of the day. The kids remained relatively dry at least. So then we drank our butterbeers and my wife got in line for Ollivander's Wand Shop, while I put the kids back on Flight of the Hippogriff. They said that they weren't all that impressed with this coaster. It was a very short ride and didn't have much to it, according to them. (I didn't ride it.)

We were silly enough to stand in line for Ollivander's for almost 2 hours. The first 1/3, my wife waited alone while I took the kids on the ride. Then we joined her. (Some might say we should not have done this, that it was sort of cheating, or cutting, but so many people did it that it didn't seem like cutting. You had to wait to get into every store in Potter Land. Crazy. Lines to get into stores!) Anyway, we almost decided to leave after about an hour and 20 minutes, but thought, hey we waited this long, let's see what's in here.

Honestly, it seemed to start moving faster as we got closer. What I think happened was that "Ollivander" started to rush through his show and move people in and out faster. We finally did get in, and it was a fun little show. My kids didn't get picked, but they enjoyed it anyway. And after waiting for almost 2 hours, you're darned right we bought the silly wands for them.

It was late, we were soaked still and the park was slowing down, so we decided to leave. We made our way out of the park through the Lost Continent and into Seuss Landing. My wife checked out the shops and we sat there, taking in the scenery.



What a cool looking land! Just like stepping into the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.

We exited the park, damp and tired, and stopped at Pastamore, having missed our reservation at Latin Quarter. Pastamore could seat us immediately, and so we had some Italian food there. Fun place, good food, nice kids' buffet!

That was Day One. All in all we went on 2 rides and saw the little wand show. The next day was better however. I'll try to get to a post summarizing that day later today or maybe tomorrow.

*****

Back from the World...

We just returned from a week-long vacation to Walt Disney World, and it's back to reality today. But the good news (I think) is that I may have some material for a few blog entries coming up over the next week or two. Today's entry, however, is just a quick recap of the trip, hitting the high points, so to speak.

We were in Florida for seven days, Saturday to Saturday. We spent five of those days at Disney parks, and two at Universal's Islands of Adventure. We had five days of perfect weather, and two days when we had to deal with a bit of mid-day rain and slightly cooler conditions. Very nice weather overall.

We had planned on spending one day at Islands of Adventure, and one day at Universal Studios park, but it didn't work out that way. Our first day was spent waiting in lines and getting drenched. It wasn't supposed to rain that day (Monday); I believe they were giving it a 10% chance. But rain it did, and we were caught unprepared.

Our first line was the line to get into Mythos. We had booked what we thought was a reservation for lunch, but we learned that they really don't take "reservations" per se, just priority seating. So our 12:30 time was just a what? An estimate? We did finally get seated right around 1:30 for lunch, blowing over an hour just doing nothing (because there isn't much to do in the Lost Continent, and the girl at the counter said that if we missed it when we were called, we could just tell her when we got back and we'd be moved back to the top of the list) and then another hour eating. Then there was a line to get a ticket to stand in line to wait to get into Hogsmead. Then a wait in that line, then finally a nice long wait in the line to get on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Then a wait to get into Ollivander's, Makers of Fine Wands. I'd guess this one was close to two hours. (I know. You're saying, "Sucker!" That's what I felt like.) You see a quick show where one kid (not either of mine) was chosen to have a wand selected by the proprietor and to work some spells on various objects in the store. Then you buy a wand, whether you intended to or not, because you stood in line for TWO HOURS!!!

I said high points, didn't I? The point was that we didn't get much done that first day because of the rain, which kept us huddled under an umbrella used by the line attendant for the Flight of the Hippogriff ride, and because of all the lines. But the butterbeer made it all worth it!

So we spent our second day at the same park, and hit more rides, including the Forbidden Journey ride again.

The rest of the week was spent on Disney property, one day for each park, with two (the short Saturday of our arrival and the Friday right before we left) at Epcot. We had some really good meals at Chefs De France, Le Cellier, the California Grill, the Brown Derby, the Yak and Yeti, Sanaa, and the 50's Prime Time Cafe. We stayed at Kidani Village at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but didn't really take the time to enjoy the resort itself - something we will be certain to rectify next time. I'm thinking that perhaps we'll skip the Disney parks altogether.

We hit most of the high points on rides, too. We did NO water rides, just because it felt a little cool to walk around wet all day. But we did most everything else at the parks. Saw a few things we'd not seen before, including the Hall of Presidents and the Festival of the Lion King show. The boys tried a couple of Kim Possible missions in the World Showcase and that was actually pretty fun for them!

So I think I have some more detailed posts coming up over the course of the next few weeks, and even some photos! It's good to be back! I needed to get back to work to get some rest time in!

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