Day 1 of Universal Summer 5/22/12

This day was sort of a spur of the moment. After dinner I decided to head to Universal for a couple hours.

The loose plan was to hit up all of Marvel, walk around to JP to do the river Adventure, do all of Harry Potter, then head to Universal for the fireworks. Could I accomplish it all in less than an hour and a half? spoiler alert: No

As I arrived at Universal, the east side of the parking garage is still not in use, but I can assure you that will not be the case long with memorial day weekend approaching. In fact, there is only two more "slow" days, tomorrow and Thursday, before the crowds levels will be cranked up all the way to Labor day weekend.

I immediately headed over to Marvel and did doom, which had a posted ten minute wait.

The extended queue has been fully in use for about two months now, which gives you an opportunity to walk past the doombots

I got in line at 6:36 and was off by 6:48 so this was accurate. It would have been shorter if a family of 14 hadnt gotten in line right before me and took forever to decide who among them was going to do child swap *sigh* takeoff occured basically right as doom stopped speaking so they were trying to get people through quick, and only one of the two towers are running. As I said, only a couple days left of these "slow day" practices, but even the last hour will be busier starting this weekend.

I immediately rushed to spiderman, where to my dissapointment the single rider line had closed for the night, but with only a ten minute wait it wasnt a huge deal. The line stopped right here.

A very cool model giving you an idea of the ride vechile youll be in for first time riders

This Daily bugle podium was a new addition when they refurbished the ride

After we got out of the theatre room, there was a spilt coke all the way down the ramp you walk up. It made my shoes very sticky. Stuff like this needs to be cleaned up ASAP

I got in line for spiderman at 6:50 and was off at 7:00 sharp so about a five minute wait. The old narration at the end by Peter Parker has been replaced by Stan Lee narration sometime over the past week. Since this change went unannounced by Universal Im guessing this was planned to happen when the ride reopened two months ago but got delayed for some reason. The J Jonah Jameson hanging image also has much better sound quality now, much louder.

I moved onto the Hulk which only had a five minute posted wait, but the bozo locker attendant had every station except one closed, meaning the lines for lockers were long, So I decided to pass up the Hulk today, and started the long trek toward Jurassic Park. The bridge bypassing Potter was open and there was a mob of people on it.

I really love this view of Hogwarts. Its still a beautiful edition to the park and Orlando as a whole.

The mob was prevalent across the bridge into Jurassic Park too

Onto the river adventure, in line at 7:12, off the ride at 7:21, so basically no wait. the ride looked OK, there was literally 0 fog in front of the Trex, so you could see it legs, which is rare, and all the mechanical gears, which probably isnt good. Barely got wet. There was 10 people on the boat, out of a normal capacity of 25 to give you an idea of the crowds. The boat behind mine only had three people on it. After Jp I had a choice between moving to potter or exploring camp Jurassic, i decided to save Camp Jurassic for another day, and went to potter with intentions of doing all three rides.

Forbidden Journey had a posted wait time of 15 minutes, so I moved to the lockers to put my stuff in there and the locker area was jam packed, it was getting closer to 8 and this scared me away, so I passed up forbidden Journey tonight. As I walked back the posted wait time had changed to 20 minutes so I feel I made a good decision.

Onto Hippogrif, in line at 7:28, off the ride at 7:31 so no wait to report there. Next to Dragon challenge. In line at 7:33, off the ride at 7:45, but obviously with the long walk that equates to no wait also, so a pretty empty night relatively speaking. With fifteen minutes until park closing I had three options to consider, back to river adventure for one more ride, to the Cat in the Hat for a ride, or onto Universal to wait for the fireworks. I chose to ride The Cat. On my way there I noticed a ridiculous 25 minute wait for the Seuss trolley, a testament to its low capacity.

This isnt even on my list of rides for the summer, so theres a great chance I wont go on it at all. I cant see any scenario where I will, but never say never. Back to topic, I adore this facade.

A 5 minute posted wait time, I was in line at 7:56, off the ride at 8:05, but I screwed around a bit in line, the wait was even shorter than that. I arrived at Universal studios at 8:16 to quite the line to get in.

This is a very long line for 45 minutes before park closing so I was a tad worried. I walked all the way around to men in black where I was in the very back of the room for the preshow audio, so I would have to work my theme park skills to get to the front. I ended up about 7th out of 40 people in line so I was very proud of myself. I recorded a score of 559,125 on the left side, which is the better side for many reasons.

By now it was past 8:40 and time to get a spot for the cinematic specacular, which I have no photos of as I was just enjoying it. After the fireworks, they were not letting anyone exit down New york, holiday village, or shrek alley, making EVERYONE that had watched the show exit down Hollywood, making for a very congested exit. I normally walk down New york as not many people walk back that way so its less crowded. Not going to happen tonight, as there was security at each street directing people towards Hollywood. This never ever happened during 360 and didnt happen the first week or so of this new show, so why the sudden change? Im not sure if this is permanent or not, but either way it is VFA or very fucking annoying, and I was pissed I couldnt go down new york and had to walk through a congested Hollywood.

tomorrow I am back in the morning, but exclusively at the studios. I also plan on doing the first part of a fourteen part series highlighing in pictures each section of Universal. Tomorrow I plan on highlighting San Francisco. To recap, I did doctor doom, spiderman, River adventure, Hippogrif, Dragon challenge, and cat in the hat all between 6:35 and 8:00. If your smart IOA is very doable in a short time.