Day 4 - Graaaaaahhhhhhhrrrrr
We had a lie in on this morning and by lie in we actually woke up at about 8am. I for one am an early riser and seem to wake up pretty much as soon as there is light if not before. Martin on the other hand could sleep through the apocalypse. So I gently woke him, OK, I shook him awake (per mentioned missing the apocalypse) and asked if he wanted to get to IOA for 9am to ride the hulk. He was game with this so we got ready, grabbed our Wal Mart breakfast and headed out the door.
It was a glorious morning!
We arrived at IOA at about 8:45 just before they stared letting people in the gate. While in the queue Martin popped out to ask again at the guest services if they had any celebrate pins but again he was told they’d had a really small amount come through but they’d run out again. I told him not to worry about it anymore. It didn’t really matter anyway as we were having a great time.
When the gates were open we rushed, no, flew, no, walked as quickly as an early morning would facilitate… yea pretty much, over to the Hulk. I cannot tell you how excited I was to ride this coaster. I LOVE the Hulk. My last ride was in 2010 and it was pretty rough back then but when they announced they’d be ripping down the track and replacing it with new stuff I was ecstatic! Even if it did mean on our last trip to Orlando I wasn’t able to ride it.
But that didn’t matter I was here now and so was the Hulk. We went to the lockers and emptied all our pockets into the teeny tiny lockers. I mean seriously these lockers are small! Enough for Martin and I but only just. I do hear there are larger lockers around the back.
During all this fuss did I remember to take any pictures of the Hulk? Of course not! So I’m going to scrounge some photos from later in my trip report and stick them here. The readers will never know… I mean…. Forget that last sentence.
The queue line was pretty cool although there isn’t much to interest a person stuck in a hours long queue so I do not envy people queuing for a long time in here. At the loading station I could hardly contain my excitement! We got placed on row 6 pretty close to the back which was OK by me.
I’m going to get a big geeky here so please excuse me.
Hulk is designed and manufactured by B&M coasters which is a German manufacturer. The same manufacturer as Dragon Challenge and my favourite coaster of all time, Nemesis in Alton Towers (in the UK) I love their coasters as they are renowned the world over for making smooth but thrilling rides that have the distinctive “roar”. The hulk in its later years was an exception to the smooth rule but definitely had the massive “roar”! I couldn’t wait to have my first “smooth” ride on the hulk I years!
We sat into the chairs and what I like about B&M coasters and it works for all of them, I’m just the right size to get one more ‘click’ out of my harness which results in a very comfortable firm restraint. I call it ‘the Rachel click’. Its so well know that Martin actually turned to me and said, did you get your extra click. I smiled and said YES!
The ride… oh my goodness… the ride. I LOVE IT! The onride audio isn’t really loud enough to be heard in the back of the train but the sensations of this coaster put it right back at my number two spot of roller coaster favourites. The very first inversion as you come out of the top of the tunnel is amazing and the cobra roll and the loop. I LOVE THIS COASTER. Thumbs up Universal for taking the time to refresh this classic. Thank you.
After the Hulk, we collected our stuff from the… “its…. An….. itsy bitsy, teeny, weeny, green and grey, theme park locker” Ah hem… sorry for the sudden outburst of song. I know you’ve spotted a trend here.
Spiderman only had a 5 min queue so we jumped on this ride next. Spiderman is probably one of my favourite rides out of the two USO parks so I thoroughly enjoyed our ride through. I much prefer it to Transformers as I appreciate the more physical sets. I think Transformers is too much screen.
While walking through Jurassic park we noticed the Veloriceraptor encounter had just opened and there was pretty much a 5 minute or less queue. I’d wanted to do this encounter so badly since it opened but there was always a huge queue. We jumped in line. The fun of this attraction I think is you get to watch all the other familys interact with the dinosaur before you do.
*cough* not to spoil any magic *cough* turn back now if you think it’s a real dinosaur *cough* but the person in the suit… I mean
THE REAL VELOCIRAPTOR, is really funny with their interactions with the guests and the trainer is so, so funny too.
When it was our turn I said, “We’re on our honeymoon, is this safe? I don’t want to lose any arms or legs on my new husband”. To which the trainer replied, “Just do exactly what I say and you’ll be fine” followed by a nervous laugh. We backed up to the dinosaur, who initially enjoyed munching on my hair…
After a couple of snaps it turned to eating Martins head!
This is when the trainer cooed while taking pictures “very nice, who’s the cutest little third wheel dinosaur, you are!” That made me burst out laughing!
They gave us back our cameras and we thanked them for the experience. I’m so glad we did it. It was definitely one of the highlights of our holiday.
Next we headed to the back of the park to Forbidden Journey. We took some pictures on the bridge over.
It’s such a good reveal to the castle this bridge. You’re walking along Jurassic Park and you see glimpses of the spires over the top of the trees… then you walk under the Jurassic park gates and BAM…
there’s this huge amazing, detailed Hogsworts.
One more photo…
We headed towards the queue.