{"id":12524,"date":"2014-10-06T00:01:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T00:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=12524"},"modified":"2014-10-03T11:56:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T11:56:19","slug":"carys-adventures-in-the-magic-kingdom-part-6-islands-of-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/06\/carys-adventures-in-the-magic-kingdom-part-6-islands-of-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Cary’s Adventures in the Magic Kingdom: Part 6: Islands of Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ISLANDSLOGO\"<\/a>Last time, we left off boarding the Hogwarts Express train from Universal Studios to Islands of Adventure, their sister theme park. Even though it was just a simple train ride, the Hogwarts Express ended up being one of the best rides at the park, due to the theming and atmosphere.\u00a0 Find out why and see more of Islands of Adventure in this blog entry.<\/p>\n

While the Hogwarts Express was just a simple tram connecting the two parks, once you step inside it\u2019s like you\u2019re right on the train from the books and movies. Attendants seat you in compartments that hold about six to eight people.\u00a0 On one side of the compartment is a \u2018window\u2019 and on the other side is a sliding door with opaque windows that only allow you to see shadows of people walking past.<\/p>\n

Once the train starts; you\u2019ll notice that the \u2018window\u2019 is actually a monitor that shows you scenes of what you might see on the Hogwarts train. It starts off with the streets of London, but then you might see owls, griffins, or dementors flying in the sky, or even other characters like Hagrid flying on his motorcycle.\u00a0 If you turn and look at the sliding doors with opaque windows on the other side, you might see shadows and silhouettes of the Harry Potter cast walk by.\u00a0 Highlights include Ron and his red hair peeking through to see that the compartment you\u2019re in is already occupied, or a dementor on the train breathing on the window and turning it to ice!\u00a0 Harry comes along shortly after to zap the dementor, and then they get treats from the trolley like nothing ever happened.\u00a0 And if you take the opposite trip back, the ride is different as well!\u00a0 It\u2019s really neat how they do it all, I have to admit.<\/p>\n

Once you arrive at the other side on the Islands of Adventure, you\u2019re treated to a second section of the Harry Potter theme park. The area here is designed after Hogsmeade, the town near the Hogwarts castle and school. There are more shops here, but it was a shock to the senses to see (fake) snow on the roofs while feeling the humid Florida heat!<\/p>\n

\"HOGSMEADE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also in this area was Hogwarts castle, which housed one of the Harry Potter themed rides in this section. I didn\u2019t do any of the rides here, though.<\/p>\n

\"HOGWARTS\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All in all, the Harry Potter theme park areas were pretty amazing, especially for fans. Can you imagine how it must feel to write a series of children\u2019s books, only to have them be turned into a theme park years later? \u00a0Speaking of which, another popular series of children\u2019s books was made into a section of the theme park here, too.\u00a0 And that was Dr. Seuss books!\u00a0 Like Hogwarts, the theme in this area was pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

\"SEUSS\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They had a couple of rides. We went on the Cat in the Hat ride, which was surprisingly jerky for a kid\u2019s ride.\u00a0 They also had a train that looked kind of neat as it travelled over the area, but we didn\u2019t go on that.<\/p>\n

\"CATINTHEHAT\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They also had a Marvel comics section. This area was made to look like a city, but with bright, comic book colors.\u00a0 I wonder if, when their contract with Universal runs out, if Disney will make a Marvel section in their parks, and what will happen to the one in Islands of Adventure?<\/p>\n

\"MARVEL1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were a couple of rides in this section, too, like a Spiderman ride and a Hulk roller coaster. I didn\u2019t do those though, as like I said, I don\u2019t do big roller coasters very well.<\/p>\n

\"MARVEL2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another section was called Toon Lagoon, and had a newspaper comic strip theme. As a fan of newspaper comic strips, I thought this area was cool.\u00a0 But I also couldn\u2019t help but wonder if this area was irrelevant to kids of today.\u00a0 Do kids even read newspaper comics anymore?\u00a0 Back when I was young, that was a reading staple on a lazy Sunday.\u00a0 And the more popular ones like Garfield and Charlie Brown become must-see prime time TV specials and Saturday morning cartoons, among other things.<\/p>\n

\"COMIC1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were tons of characters featured in this section. Do kids even know who Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible are anymore?\u00a0 I think all these comics are published by King Features Syndicate, that\u2019s why there are so many!<\/p>\n

\"COMIC2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s Heathcliff (is that still around?) and a Comic Strip Caf\u00e9 that looked like it would be fun to eat at.<\/p>\n

\"COMIC3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They also had a Popeye area in Toon Lagoon with a few kiddy water rides, but nothing was picture worthy. There was a neat Wimpy\u2019s hamburger stand, though.\u00a0 Wimpy is the best Popeye character.\u00a0 Also in Toon Lagoon was another water ride called Dudley Do-Right\u2019s Ripsaw Falls.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t ride it either, as with all the rain we got that week, I treasured the times that I was dry.<\/p>\n

\"DUDLEY\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There was also a jungle area with a Jurassic Park ride, but it was also a water ride so I skipped it as I wasn\u2019t in the mood. And that\u2019s really about all we did in Islands of Adventure.\u00a0 In the final part of my Disney trip blogs, I\u2019ll go over the miscellaneous things we did in the evenings, like Disney Quest and Downtown Disney.\u00a0 Until tomorrow, later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last time, we left off boarding the Hogwarts Express train from Universal Studios to Islands of Adventure, their sister theme park. Even though it was just a simple train ride, the Hogwarts Express ended up being one of the best rides at the park, due to the theming and atmosphere.\u00a0 Find out why and see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12527,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12524\/revisions\/12527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}