Universal Studios

So, a little bit of a background of Universal, it was the first park of the three parks to be built for Universal Studios Florida. Universal opened on June 7, 1990 with the concept of inspiring it’s guests to “ride the movies”. Universal consists seven themed areas; Production Central, New York City, San Francisco, London/Diagon Alley, World Expo, Woody Woodpecker’s Kidzone & Hollywood. Each area features a combination of rides, shows, attractions, character meet and greets, dining locations and shops.

As soon as you enter the park you will be in the first area called Production Central. Now when the park first opened this was home to mostly sound stages where actual television shows were filmed. Also, Nickelodeon studios called this area home when it was in its hay day. There still are some sound stages here but they are mostly used for Halloween Horror nights and various talk shows throughout the year.

Some of the rides and attractions that you will find in this area are; Despicable ME Minion Mayhem, Shrek 4-D, Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket, Universal’s Music Plaza Stage and Transformers. You can meet Gru, some of the minions and the girls from Despicable ME, Shrek, Fiona and Donkey from the Shrek Movies and Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Megatron from the Transformer’s Movies. There are two places to eat in Production Central and they are Bone Chillin’ and Universal Studios’ Classic Monsters Café. During Halloween Horror Nights, the Monster Café is turned into a scare actor character dining experience.

The next area that you’re going to walk into is the New York section of the park. This area is home to the following rides and attractions; Jimmy Fallon’s Race Through New York, and Revenge of the Mummy. You can also catch the Blues Brother’s Show through the day. This area of the park has hosted a few iconic rides over years that some of you may know this area for rather than the rides that are here today. Some of those iconic rides are; Ghostbusters Spooktacular, Kongfrontation and Twister Ride it Out.

There aren’t any character meets in this section of the park, but there are a few places to catch a bit to eat. There is Finnegan’s Bar & grill and Louie’s Italian Restaurant. There’s also a Ben & Jerry’s, a Starbucks and Schwab’s Pharmacy.

The next area is San Francisco. And right now, there are currently not any rides or attractions in this area besides a couple of streetmoshpere performances. Why? Because there is a new ride that is under construction! It is called the Fast and the Furious Supercharged which has an opening date of Spring 2018! This is going to be pretty much a clone of the ride that is at the Universal Hollywood location. So, if you would like to get an idea of what this new ride is going to be like just research Universal Hollywood’s Fast and the Furious. This new ride is replacing the Disaster ride and Beatjuice’s RocknRoll Graveyard Revue.

There are however some places to eat in the San Francisco area; you’ve got Chez Alcatraz, Lambard’s Seafood Grille, Richter’s Burger Co. and San Francisco Pastry Compnay.

The next area is the newest area to the park and that is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Diagon Alley. Now when you come across this area all you’re going to see is London and Kings Cross Station; you can only find Diagon Alley through a secret passage way. And those of you that have seen or read the Harry Potter books and movies know why. There are technically three attractions within this area; they are Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, King’s Cross Station and the Hogwarts Express. Now, inside King’s Cross Station you will find the Hogwarts Express, obviously. To ride the Hogwarts Express, you must have a park to park ticket. Why’s that? Because it takes you from Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade (which is in the other park Islands of Adventure).

There are five places in Diagon Alley to get a bit to eat, something to drink and a quick snack. They are; the Leaky Cauldron, Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlor, the Hopping Pot, Enternelle’s Elixir of Refreshment and the Fountain of Fair Fortune. There are two shows to catch while you’re in Diagon Alley and they are Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees and the Tales of Beedle the Bard. You can also exchange muggle money for Gringotts bank notes so that you can pick up everything on your shopping list for your next year at Hogwarts. You’ll be able to get chosen by YOUR wand at Ollivanders, buy a new set of house robes or new quidditch supplies, your new books, a magical creature or just something fun from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. There is A LOT to talk about for the Harry Potter sections of the two parks and I will be doing a separate blog post on Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, so stay tuned for that!

The next area that you’re going to come across is World Expo. There are three rides and one live show in this area of the park. They are; Fear Factor Live, Men in Black: Alien Attack, The Simpsons Ride and Kang & Kodos’ Twirl ‘n’ Hurl.

They are plenty of places to find somewhere to eat and something to drink in this area of the park, in fact there are ten all together. There is what I call a food court type of area where six different places to eat are in one building. Now from the outside it looks like four different areas BUT it’s all one big area inside. In this food court is the Krusty Burger, Cletus’s Chicken Shack, the Frying Dutchman, Luigi’s Pizza, Lisa’s Teahouse and Flaming Moe’s. You will also find Duff Brewery, Moe’s Tavern, Lard Lad Donuts and Bumblebee Man’s Taco Truck. Now! I do want to note that if you decide to eat at the Taco Truck you cannot bring your food inside and eat, you have to eat outside on the tables provided. The same goes for if you chose to eat somewhere inside, you’ll have to eat that food inside. Don’t know why that is, but that’s the rules. Also, you can meet Krusty the Clown and Sideshow Bob as well as Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart just outside of the Simpson’s Ride. You can also shop around in the Kwik-E-Mart.

The next area is the kid zone area and it is called Woody Woodpecker’s Kid zone. There are two rides, two shows, three play areas, three shops and a character meet and greet. The two rides are Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster and E.T. Adventure. The two shows are A Day in the Park with Barney and Animal Actors on Location. The three play areas are Barney’s Backyard, Curious George Goes to Town and Fievel’s Playland. The Curious George and Fievel area do have water features so please be advised that if you bring your children to this area they WILL get wet! And the character that you can meet in this area is Spongebob Squarepants.

The last section of the park is Hollywood. Currently there is not a ride in the Hollywood section of the park. However, there is a show called Universal Orlando’s Horror Make-Up Show, that in my opinion you should see at least once during every vacation at the Universal Orland Resort. It is very funny and takes you a little bit behind the scenes of how some of Universal’s horror movies were made. And it’s not too gory or scary to not take little ones to go and see. There are three dining locations in this area and they are; Beverly Hills Boulangerie, Café La Bamba and Mel’s Drive-In. This area of the park is where most of the characters are available to meet. The most popular in this area are Marilyn Monroe, Betty Boop and Doc Brown. Some of the others are Lucy from I Love Lucy, Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and the rest of the gang, Woody Woodpecker, Curious George and Hello Kitty.

Hollywood is also where the floats from the Superstar parade stop and the characters and parade performers interact with guests. So, you’ll be able to hang out with the minions, see Dora the Explorer and Diego, the Secret Life of Pet’s characters, Squidward and Patrick.

Speaking of the Superstar Parade. It takes place daily at 5pm or at 7pm if the park is staying open late. The parade consists of characters from Despicable ME, Spongebob Squarepants, Dora & Diego and the Secret Life of Pets movie. The parade lasts about 20min long and it makes two stops for an extended street performance. The first stop is in front of the Mummy ride and the second in on Hollywood Blvd. And like I had said previously the characters and street performers interact the most with guests in the Hollywood section of the park.

Universal has a few Annual Events that happen within the park throughout the year. They are Grad Bash and Gradventure, Halloween Horror Nights, Macy’s Holiday Parade, Mardi Gras, Rock the Universe, Summer Concert Series and Celebration of Harry Potter. I will be going into more detail about those events in a separate blog posts because this one has gone on long enough.

And lastly, there is a nighttime firework show that takes place nightly in the lagoon in the middle of the park called Universal’s Cinematic Spectacular. It’s no Wishes or Happily Ever After like over at Disney but it is a nice way to end the day at the parks and pay homage to some of Universal’s iconic movies.

Well that’s going to do it for this post! Again, my intention for this post was to be an overview of Universal Studios. There is so much more I could say about the topics that I covered in this blog post but it would just be way too long, which is probably already is!