I have already shared two blog posts with pictures from our recent trip to Islands of Adventure. Those included my pictures from Hogsmeade and Seuss Landing, where we spent the majority of our time. This last post shares a few more pictures from other parts of the park.
We visited Jurassic Park. I declined to go on the Jurassic Park water ride, but my daughter and I did do Pternadon Flyers which is only for children and one parent.
We did do the raptor encounter which is fun. I got a fun video out of it of me acting like a spaz.
We also spent a small amount of time in superhero island. Since I don’t ride the big roller coasters, our time here was limited to one ride on Spiderman, which is a 3-D ride.
We did a socially distanced meet and greet with Spiderman and Captain America. They sang a fun birthday song to the boy who went right before us.
Each store in different areas of the park had themed Christmas trees, which was quite fun. There was an official Christmas tree scavenger hunt that one could participate in, but I didn’t do that.
We saw these characters in front of where the Poseidon’s Fury show would normally be. It is currently closed due to Covid.
Overall, we had a really fun two days in the Islands of Adventure park at Universal Studios.
I got kind of busy after my first post from our recent Universal Studios trip. I’m finally getting around to sharing my next post with pictures from Seuss Landing at Islands of Adventure.
Of course, this was one of my daughter’s favorite parts of the park as it has rides designed for children (and Dr. Seuss fans of all ages). We spent a lot of time here over our two days in this park and were able to ride each attraction several times.
My daughter’s favorite ride was definitely One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. It is basically a Dumbo style ride, except that you can steer your fish up or down in order to get your parents soaking wet. Any seven year old’s dream.
There were socially distanced character meet and greets.
We had to make a reservation for the meet and greet with the Grinch, I suppose because it is more popular. It was fun, because he acts extra Grinchy, but of course, they are really trying to sell you on a photo package, which is why I only got a random picture that I took myself at the end.
There were also several cute shows telling Dr. Seuss stories or singing Christmas songs.
Our second day at IOA, we wore cute social distancing Grinch shirts that I had made for our trip. I wouldn’t touch you with a 39 1/2 foot pole.
Cute photo ops, but many of the stores and food establishments were closed, I suppose due to Covid?
Horton and his egg
We did order some pizza one day from Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoo-pendous and enjoy it outside.
We enjoyed the theming of Seuss Landing a lot. We even watched The Lorax movie one night during our trip.
We decided to take a last minute trip to Universal Studios in Orlando right before Thanksgiving. We haven’t traveled anywhere since Covid-19 started, and I was feeling an itch to go. Tickets were discounted, so we just decided to go. It was a controversial decision, but I think we did the best we could to stay safe and had a lot of fun in the process.
This post will share some of our pictures from Islands of Adventure. We spent two days in this park. The first day of our trip was the least crowded. Our second IOA day was a few days later on the weekend, so crowds had picked up a bit. On that day, we went to the park at opening, left around lunchtime, and came back at night to avoid the most crowded part of the day.
The part of Universal Studios that I was most excited to visit were the two Harry Potter themed lands. I have not been to Universal since these were built several years ago. In Islands of Adventure, you get to visit both Hogsmeade and Hogwarts!
Hogsmeade was a wintry wonderland covered in snow and Christmas decor.
My family represents three different Hogwarts houses, so we wore masks to represent. My husband is a Slytherin, my daughter is a Gryffindor, and I am a proud Hufflepuff. We just need a Ravenclaw to round out our group.
We visited stores all themed down to the details according to the book’s descriptions.
My daughter got an interactive Hermione Granger wand that allowed her to do spells around both of the parks. Completing the spells was a bit trickier than I expected and did require some practice to get right.
We had a lunch of fish and chips at The Three Broomsticks, which were quite tasty. I also sampled some Butterbeer.
The Hogwarts castle was a sight to behold and even more fun to see lit up at night.
The castle is home to the Forbidden Journey ride, which I quite enjoyed, but my daughter was a bit frightened of. It is an adventure as you fly around Hogwarts with Harry.
My daughter’s favorite ride was Flight of the Hippogriff which is a family friendly roller coaster. She could have ridden that one all day if we let her. Kiddie roller coasters are as far as I go in the roller coaster world, so we didn’t even attempt the popular Hagrid’s Magical Creatures ride.
We saw two shows during our time in Hogsmeade. The first was the Triwizard Spirit Rally, which showcased perfomances by students from the other two magical schools, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.
We also saw the Hogwarts Frog Choir which performed some great Christmas tunes.
We did not get a chance to ride the Hogwarts Express, as we did not buy park to park tickets. Maybe one day!
Looking on the Bright Side 