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Dan's Musings, Tecumseh, MI (2026)

07/04/2022

DAN'S MUSINGS #7: AEW DYNAMITE: BLOOD & GUTS

This past Wednesday the wife and I headed to Little Caesar's Arena in Detroit to watch our first All Elite Wrestling show. If you don't know, AEW is the new top competitor to WWE in the U.S., and the Blood & Guts match is their version of War Games which you may be familiar with from back in the day in NWA or WCW shows, or more recently in WWE's NXT shows. AEW airs their main show on Wednesday nights on TBS and it's called Dynamite, they usually tape a show to air on Fridays called Rampage for TNT, and also tape two YouTube shows Dark, and Dark Elevation. This show itself had me concerned going in due to very little being announced prior to the day of the event in terms of what would actually be on Dynamite, and a rash of injuries to the roster most notably Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) had to be removed from the match. However, we did know we would be getting a lot of content for our money. The doors to the event opened at just after 6pm with matches being taped for Elevation from 7-8, which was a nice warm up for the crowd but mostly consisted of signed talent facing people no one really knows. From 8-10 we were getting the live Dynamite show, which would then be followed by taping Rampage for Friday night from 10-11 and a little bonus post show content for the live crowd after.

On top of my fears due to the lack of announced card and all the injuries was that I assumed this meant that Blood & Guts would take up over half of the Dynamite show. Thus meaning the tapings would be full of lesser talent leading to us missing out on many of the bigger names that weren't in the Blood & Guts match. My fears certainly proved unwarranted as they snuck in some decent names for Elevation and some extra unannounced matches for Dynamite, on top of announcing the Royal Rampage timed entry 2-ring battle royal match for the Rampage taping that gave us 20 wrestlers in one match to make sure everyone was fit into a match for the night. Even if it was an idea completely ripped off from the WWE Royal Rumble and WCW World War 3, this definitely eased my mind. If you are an old school or even recent WWE fan you may recognize many names and faces across the three shows either commentating, managing, or even wrestling. These include Jim Ross, Taz, Tony Schiavone, Mark Henry, Christian, Sting, Matt Hardy, Dustin Rhodes (Goldust), Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), Billy Gunn, Chris Jericho, Jake Hager (Jack Swagger), Athena (Ember Moon) and Jon Moxley (Dean Ambrose), or if you were really a hardcore fan then perhaps even The Young Bucks or Trent Beretta.

As for each of the three shows themselves, there were varying levels of excitement, but all were solid. Elevation while nothing spectacular, was at least fast paced and never made me regret showing up on time to catch it instead of just waiting until closer to Dynamite. Dynamite itself was a great show, some surprises, a heel turn (good guy became a bad guy), some comedy spots, and the titular match Blood & Guts. Rampage was a surprisingly good show to me based solely on a lifetime of being a sucker for a battle royal/royal rumble type match. In this particular one we had a finish that saw one of the bigger rougher guys in the match (Brody King) being left all alone with the tiny Darby Allin and just completely destroying him. Any time in wrestling I get to see a big bad ass totally ragdoll some cruiserweight it brings a smile to my face, I don't know, it's just always been awesome. I will admit we ducked out during the main event of Rampage as I didn't really care to see that match, but heard from a friend that also attended the show that the post show stuff was not anything special either.

B&G is a two ring match with a giant steel cage around it with a ceiling, two teams of six faced off with timed entries. One man from each team starts in the ring and after four minutes the heel team gets a man advantage, four minutes later the babyface team gets to even the odds, and so on until all twelve men had entered. At this point the match officially starts and one team only wins by getting someone from the other team to surrender. This match lived up to the hype by giving us not only solid comedy spots and wrestling action, but lots of blood which quite frankly WWE just doesn't do much of anymore and it is missed. On top of the steel cage itself there were chairs, tables, kendo sticks, thumbtacks, shards of glass, and more. Fan of falling from great heights? We got that too! That's right, several of the wrestlers busted out of the cage and got on top of it (which is another thing WWE seemingly stopped doing) where one of the good guys tossed off one of the bad guys. This whole exchange and the finish to the match was perfectly located for our exact seats in the low bowl, positioned right at our eye level and basically posing before and after the toss just for us, it was amazing! I know some co-workers that paid much more than we did for seats on the floor that are having some serious buyers remorse now. I learned a long time ago, low bowl is the way to go for wrestling shows.

On top of the show itself, our experience just at the arena was the best we've had there. After parking in the garage we exited downstairs to see a massive line going from the arena doors down past the garage and looping back in a coil. I told the wife to stay in the line and I'd go scope out the situation, sure enough there were actually two lines at the doors and the other side only had about 20 people in it, so I grabbed her and we saved tons of time getting in by not just playing follow the leader like everyone else and actually checking the line situation. After initially being a bit ticked off that a worker wouldn't allow me through gate 19 which clearly listed section 123 on it (I guess it was only for the handicap seating area of the section), we were directed to gate 16 which showed like six sections on it so I assumed we would have to cross through multiple sections of seats to get to our spot then. Turns out we actually went down stairs where half the sections went right and half went left, we walked through a very nice lounge area with a bar and comfy seats and bathrooms right before our steps into the arena. We sat right above those steps, so we didn't have to worry about people standing in front of us blocking our view of the rings. When a break in the action happened we took the 10 seconds to go back down those steps into the lounge that was only for our very small sections in the stands and got drinks almost right away, no waiting in lines for 20 minutes despite the large attendance. Later on we went back down the steps during another break to use the restrooms, walked right into a completely empty bathroom! Don't think I've ever experienced that at an arena, I'm officially buying all my future tickets in this section!

Now I'm definitely not an all roses and sunshine type of person, so clearly there were some things I didn't like about this experience. The arena does lose points with me by being cashless, all transactions are by card or phone, upsetting the old school using cash whenever I can guy in me. As far as AEW, well the owner Tony Kahn (son of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Kahn) is certainly a guy that loves himself some him and comes off a bit d-baggy in interviews, which you could kind of see some of when he was trying to hype the crowd between segments and trying to "bro" it up with the talent at the ramp. The bigger issue that really needs something done about it though was another example of this company consistently failing to properly take care of a wrestler that was legitimately injured during the show. Very early on in his entry into the Blood & Guts match Santana's knee gave out under him during the ex*****on of a slam, and was very noticeably hurt and went to the side and just laid there, attempting once to get back involved and quickly going back to the mat on the side and just laying there. It took them like half an hour into the match before they got him out of the cage. That is a very bad look for the company that has exhibited this problem multiple times before, the most egregious probably being a match where Matt Hardy hit his head hard on the concrete and was very visibly severely concussed yet allowed to continue the match moving around looking like a very drunken idiot. Even if someone tells me Santana was arguing to stay out there to see if it got better, the second he went back down the entire crowed knew he needed to be done for the night, and the people in charge should have too, and got him out of there immediately.

All in all though AEW put on a pretty good event and I'd recommend checking one out if you get the chance. The wife, who had never even watched an AEW show on TV, said it was much better than she expected (despite the obscene level of hugging on the shows that she was not prepared for). While I'm not going to sit here and say it's higher quality than WWE, it's not, I will say that they do hit on a few things that lapsed fans found WWE to start lacking.

07/01/2022

DAN'S MUSINGS #6: MAYANS M.C.

We recently finished watching the fourth and most current season of Mayans MC, and figured a quick summary and my own thoughts on the show and how it relates for fans of its parent series Sons of Anarchy would make for decent musings. The show in general for me is a lot like Better Call Saul (parent show Breaking Bad), both shows are decent enough to continue watching to keep you in the world of the parent show you loved, but I don't really see why anyone that didn't like the parent show would want to watch the new show. Oh and be warned, SPOILERS for both Mayans and Sons of Anarchy are ahead so stop reading if you care.

If you loved Sons of Anarchy, well this is still a show about a motorcycle club, and the Mayans are a club you would be familiar with. The godfather of the Mayans is Alvarez who you probably remember leading the Mayans on SOA. The story is that he sent a favored member (Bishop) to Santo Padre to start a chapter near the Mexican border for the he**in trade, this being their primary source of illegal income. You meet the charter led by Bishop, but the show's central character is EZ Reyes, who is new to the club and brought in by his older brother Angel Reyes. SOA fans can feel all warm and fuzzy over the Sons cast cameos by Gemma Teller, Montez (the rare hispanic and not very fleshed out SOA member in later seasons), Rane Quinn (the other later-seasons not so fleshed out character from Sons, the big guy), a couple Mayans charter presidents, Chucky the accountant, San Bernadino Sons charter president Packer (the bad guy from Terminator 2), Tig, and Chibbs. There are also some recurring and even starring characters on Mayans from Sons in Happy (possibly the most underrated character on SOA), the aforementioned Alvarez, and Lincoln Potter who was the kind of weird guy pursuing the Sons during that season the cartel was involved.

Where the show started out doing well is with the central character EZ. Most complaints I ever heard from people that didn't like Sons of Anarchy was that they couldn't buy the Jax character in that world, a problem that it also took me some time to get over, and you don't really get that from EZ. (Ladies that loved Jax, rest easy, if my wife is any indication you will also like EZ). However, outside of the main three club characters we really don't start getting any other members fleshed out in the story until this past season. There is too much time spent with characters outside the club, compared to Sons where it was very predominantly club characters. One such character is a former flame of EZ's who any fan of story telling could see a mile away that one strong option for where this story ends would be in EZ and her linking back up (despite her marriage to a cartel boss). The main problem there is her character is just not likeable and no one would even want to see EZ end up with her without some serious adjusting to her character in the next few seasons. Though if I'm being honest, who really liked Tara on Sons? So I guess that might not really be a big mark against Mayans. The good job they've done in building EZ's character though took a big hit in this most current season, as everything we've come to like in him and expect from him seems to have completely flipped, and it's going over like a fart in church from what I can tell. Though admittedly it is a bit harder to tell than issues on Sons, as it certainly seems less popular. I personally don't care what other people like, I'll watch what I like regardless, but I can't deny that a show that "everyone is watching" like Sons was for a long time is a bit easier to get excited about and gage interest in storylines and characters when there are people to talk about each episode with after it airs. I've really only had a couple people I could talk Mayans with and that hurts it as well, perhaps more people will check it out as a streaming show?

There are subtle little issues that pop into my head too, that I wonder if Sons and Mayans creator Kurt Sutter's early exit may be the reason for. For instance, we spent a lot of time on Sons establishing how they made "legitimate cash" like the mechanic shop, p**n studio, es**rt service, and ice cream shop, and you would often see the members working on a bike at the shop or bodyguarding at the studio etc. On Mayans though, off the top of my head I can't think of one single thing they've shown us that these guys do to make money they can explain to the government. How are they not going down for this? This recent season also had an entire episode that was other charters spending an entire night in a shoot out with them around their clubhouse, and the cops never showed, how the hell is that?

Now it is starting to feel like I'm bashing, so let me get back to another strong point. Any show knows the people want the central character as the top dog, and despite EZ starting out way further down the totem pole than Jax did on Sons, it doesn't feel like it takes anywhere near as long for him to get there as it took Jax. Can't help it, gonna take another shot. The main thing to know is if you miss Sons and want it back in your life, watch Mayans as it can give you something similar and let you revel in the nostalgia of the characters and feel, but just know it will also make the entire story of Sons and what Jax accomplished for the club completely useless. The two main "good guy" things Jax did for the club at the end was to get them out of the gun running business and abolish a rule that wouldn't allow black people in the club. The issue in watching Mayans is that this is years after that, and the Sons are shown to still be running guns! Also, one of the very few cameos of SAMCRO members not made in Mayans is of T.O., the one African-American that Jax specifically wanted in the club with that rule abolished, so is he even in the club anymore? Is this still just a 99% good old boys club? But hey, if you were really into the warring clubs storylines in Sons, s**t appears to be hitting the fan with EZ leading the Mayans right back into war with the Sons...guess that truce was another thing Jax fixed that was pointless.

06/22/2022

MUSINGS #5 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FINAL THOUGHTS & A LOOK AHEAD TO EPIC UNIVERSE

USF AND IOA FINAL THOUGHTS:

So, after writing about our hotel, the free to enter CityWalk area, and both main parks (Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure), which is better? Well it really depends on what you like. I personally find the rides to be better at IOA, with three pretty intense actual roller coasters (Hulk, VelociCoaster, Hagrid), all three water rides (Jurassic Park River Adventure, Dudley Do-Right Ripsaw Falls, and Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges), a very different type ride with an arm system (Harry Potter Forbidden Journey), the superior bus ride in Kong, and one of the better screen based rides in Spider-Man. So for adrenaline junkies IOA is the better park for you as Studios only has one, maybe two intense coasters, no real water rides, and lesser versions of some others. However; I find the shows and overall theming better at USF. The difference in amount of shows and quality of them both favor Studios, better play areas for kids too, and outside of the Wizarding World areas in both parks Springfield is themed the best. Just speaking to the Wizarding World it pretty much plays out the same as the parks do. In IOA they have Hogsmeade with 3 rides plus the train, whereas at Studios you have Diagon Alley which houses only one ride plus the train. However; we do all prefer Diagon Alley immensely over Hogsmeade for everything but the rides.

Food shouldn't really decide between the parks for you, because you are really better off at CityWalk anyway. If you are perfectly happy with either rides or other forms of time consumption equally at the parks it may come down to your own personal preferences for the different intellectual properties. Both obviously house a lot of Harry Potter, but the rest is quite divided. Studios has the Simpsons, Transformers, Minions, ET, Bourne, Tonight Show, The Mummy, Fast & Furious, Men In Black, Hello Kitty, Spongebob, Woody Woodpecker, An American Tail, Curious George, as well as some original content. Islands has Marvel (Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Kingpin, Iceman), Dr. Seuss, Jurassic Park, old comics/cartoons (Dudley Do Right, Popeye, Cathy, Blondie, Marmaduke, etc), King Kong, and some medievel/mythical Gods areas.

All in all I'd recommend doing both. We find the best trip is using the cheapest premier hotel (Royal Pacific) to get the unlimited express passes and early park admission and spending 4 days in the parks with the park to park tickets. One day you can use early admission to start in Hogsmeade and hit Hagrid's (since the express pass can't be used on it), still likely leaving time to knock out Forbidden Journey (though don't do this during early park admission if it is your first time so you can experience going through the Hogwarts school) and Flight of the Hippogriff before regular park goers flood the area. Then hop the train over to Diagon Alley for breakfast and a hot or potted cream Butterbeer at Leaky Cauldron, hit Ollivander's for the wand choosing ceremony and buy an interactive wand. Use the map to hit all the wand locations in Diagon Alley, stopping to browse the shops, drink a cold Butterbeer or stop for an ice cream at Fortescues, and take in the shows as they happen at the stage. You can walk out of Diagon Alley into London to experience a little more Harry Potter and maybe go into San Francisco to eat at Lombard's Seafood. Then go back to London and hop the train back to Hogsmeade for the wand locations, shows, and shops there.

On another day you could use early park admission again to hit VelociCoaster in Islands (also no express passes for this ride) then knock out the rest of Jurassic Park and Skull Island, finishing with River Adventure so you can hit the other two water rides in the comics area to knock out the water rides in one swoop. You can grab lunch at Wimpy's if so inclined. This is a great time to hit the Marvel area and knock that out, and if there is time looping back around to Seuss Landing for rides and a snack followed by the Lost Continent.

A third day you could sleep in and hit CityWalk for a Voodoo Doughnut or go sraight to Studios and grab a Lard Lad donut. Then hit everything in the KidZone, before going back into Springfield for midway games and the two rides. You bypassed the front of the park in this plan, which that gets busier at the early part of the day since it is the first thing people see. Grab lunch at fast food blvd and head over to the Men in Black ride. Hit San Fran for Fast & Furious, catch a show or two in New York or hit the arcade and ride the Mummy ride for sure. Then you still have the Transformers, Tonight Show, and Minions rides back at the front of the park. Mix in the shows whenever you can, there are a bunch here.

The last day allows you to go back and scoop up any rides/shows you missed and maybe even getting another crack at a few favorites. Now here are some helpful tips to those three planned days. Wizarding World can get quite crowded on busier days, so if your trip includes a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday do Wizarding World one of those days as it will be less busy. As for when to do the rest of Studios or the rest of Islands, the majority of Studios rides and attractions are indoors while the majority of Islands is outdoors. This allows you the chance to choose Studios if one day is calling for rain as most of the attractions will still run, or if it is going to be really hot Studios allows for more time in the air conditioned buildings. Islands does allow you to hit the water rides though on a rainy day that you'd already be getting wet anyway (but the actual coasters will be down), or to cool off on a hot day. So you can tailor those plans to however you prefer to handle the weather. For dinner you are better off eating at CityWalk any of these days if you can work it out.

Assuming your trip isn't in the next week, I'll list a few rumors and known changes coming to the parks that could be in play by the time you go. They have already started converting one of the night clubs into an escape room place. The rumored rooms will be themed to Jurassic World and Back to the Future. Another night club is rumored to change to a Saturday Night Live themed comedy club. Shrek's old attraction and the Classic Monsters Cafe were both shut down and are rumored to both become Minion themed. The old Fear Factor Live show was shut down and may or may not become a new Harry Potter attraction. The Superstar parade was shut down and is rumored to be updated with some Pokemon characters joining the party. Pokemon itself is sometimes rumored to take over the KidZone properties. Other rumors for whole new lands include Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, and Legend of Zelda (either possibly replacing Lost Continent as the theme change may be minimal), but these would be very far out if they ever actually materialize.

EPIC UNIVERSE RUMORS:

Now, if you are thinking about going to Orlando but it will be several years down the road you should consider Universal's Epic Universe. This is a new park they are building that is said to be larger than USF and IOA combined once completed (estimated Summer 2025 opening). The new park will be around 15 minutes down the road from the existing parks and will be constructed like a wheel with spokes. The central hub is rumored to be space themed with a hotel actually in the park, a large fountain that may house a nighttime celebration, a carousel ride, and a large two track dueling coaster that is said to be the class of the park, along with shops and restaurants. Off the central hub will be four different lands (as spokes to the wheel) each with their own shops, restaurants, and attractions. The only land confirmed so far is Super Nintendo World, but rumors also place Universal Classic Monsters, How To Train Your Dragon, and a third Wizarding World land at the park.

On the bottom right of the projected Epic Universe map is the How To Train Your Dragon area which appears to be the largest of the four lands in play. This land may see a sky fly attraction, kids play area, stage show, boat ride, and a large coaster said to be a family launch coaster made by the same people that made VelociCoaster and Hagrid's Motorbike, though less extreme. On the upper right is the third Wizarding World land. The projected drawing shows a show building, as well as a building based on the Ministry of Magic rumored to house a dark ride and entrances where you go through fire places like the floo network from the movies. There could potentially be one more ride at launch as well. Between these two areas is a future expansion area that could either grow one or both of these lands, or house another land in the future.

On the top left of the projected map we can see a land based on the classic Universal monster movies. One attraction has seen rumors of either a theater show or spinning coaster, but the main attraction is said to be a dark ride using an arm system (like Forbidden Journey at Islands) that will be housed in Dr. Frankenstein's or Count Dracula's manor. There are already rumors of a ride expansion that will feature The Creature from the Black Lagoon (water ride?). On the bottom left in what might be the coolest looking themed world is Super Nintendo World, said to mostly mirror the one in Universal's theme park in Japan (look it up, it seems awesome). The land will feature power up bands you can use to rack up points while punching blocks like in the Mario games, a Mario Kart dark ride housed in Bowser/Koopa's castle, a Yoshi train ride, and a Donkey Kong coaster that will give the appearance of actually jumping tracks like in the Donkey Kong Country games. These two areas will also have a future expansion area between them to either grow the lands or welcome a new one down the road.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

With Epic Universe on the horizon and our own desire to try out what seems to be the best holiday themed event in any theme park anywhere (Halloween Horror Nights at USF) my family is already trying to find a way to go back around 2026. This plan would allow our kids to reach ages where they will better be able to handle the more extreme rides and the horror aspects of the holiday events, as well as allowing a full year after Epic Universe opens to calm the crowds a hair and for the park to work out the kinks. Maybe the first expansion of one of the areas will even happen by then. If you've never been I'd recommend you try a Universal trip at least once.

06/18/2022

MUSINGS #4 UNIVERSAL'S ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE

Universal Studios Orlando houses not only Universal Studios Florida (USF), but also Islands of Adventure (IOA). Much like USF, IOA is built up of several different themed "lands", however; where Studios has areas jumping right into one another, Islands, per its name is made up of little islands connected by small bridges. This makes the land separations more clearly defined and easier to escape into each world. Diagon Alley is probably the only area where you truly feel that at Studios. As you enter IOA you walk through the Port of Entry, a rather cool looking land full of shops and places to eat, but no real attractions, as you get to the end of this area though IOA becomes a giant circle where you can go either left or right to start. If you go clockwise you will enter into Marvel Superhero Island, and if you go right you will enter into Seuss Landing. Marvel flows into Toon Lagoon, and Seuss flows into The Lost Continent. Continuing past Toon Lagoon you will see Skull Island followed by Jurassic Park (personally I don't want to even count Skull Island as its own area as it really is just one ride and nothing else, I like to just pretend it is part of Jurassic Park, King Kong is close enough to dinosaurs to me), and past Lost Continent is the Wizarding World's Hogsmeade area, Jurassic Park and Hogsmeade connect as well, so you can actually walk an entire circle after Port of Entry. Once again, I won't much get into shops and character encounters but they are plentiful.

THE FOOD:

We've yet to stop for a bite in Port of Entry, but on top of many original spots, they have well known commodities like Starbucks and Cinnabon here. Marvel Superhero Island's two main restaraunts are Cafe 4 and Captain America Diner, the wife and I ate at one of these our first trip and it was some grade school cafeteria level food for real, not impressed. I can't for sure recall which place it was, so I'd just avoid both to be safe. There is a small food stand right as you enter Marvel that is said to have an amazing pizza pretzel, but we haven't tried that, and an ice cream spot I'm unfamiliar with as well. Toon Lagoon also has a few spots we've never tried based on sunday comics faves Cathy, Blondie (I will definitely have to get a Dagwood here at some point), and the Comic Strip Cafe seems to get good reviews. The one we tried this last trip was Wimpy's (I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today), their cheeseburgers here were pretty good for theme park burgers, but it was a long line and you have to eat outside.

This past trip was the first time we even stepped foot in Seuss Landing and it sure seems like that was a mistake to wait this long. As the Walker family took their crew to the water park, my family had a full Wizarding World and Seuss day, but my crew split up for lunch. The wife and our middle child went to Circus McGurkus Cafe Stupendous and they both loved it, a cool aspect to them was that one of the Seuss rides actually goes through the upper part of this restaurant and everyone waves to you as they go by. The other two kids and I went to Green Eggs & Ham Cafe for Pizza Tots, we all LOVED them and demand to eat here again any future trips! Seuss also has Moose Juice Goose Juice which I want to try in the future and more. We've yet to try anything in The Lost Continent but it can smell amazing walking through this area sometimes. As previously mentioned there is nothing to speak of on Skull Island other than the ride, and other than a stand where we tried the churros that can be found all over the park we haven't eaten in Jurassic Park either, but Thunder Falls Terrace gets good reviews and offers a nice view of the splash down of one of the water rides.

Hogsmeade has the Three Broomsticks from the movies that offers essentially the same menu as Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley, but also connects to the Hog's Head bar where you can get Harry Potter themed alcoholic drinks. We've only had breakfast at Broomsticks, and I'd suggest if you try hot Butterbeer, and you should, do it at breakfast before the Florida heat really starts to hit. Drinks are really the highlight in the Wizarding World, besides the alcohol and Butterbeer options they have some tasty pumpkin and orange ones that were good and many we've yet to explore. This area has big carts that sell Butterbeer at multiple spots and many themed stores and candy shops just like Diagon Alley.

THE SHOWS:

You can catch kind of a mini Marvel character parade if you are lucky, and likewise if you arrive at the right time in the Jurassic Park Discovery Center you can see dinosaurs hatching and maybe even get to name one, but we haven't been so lucky. The Raptor Encounter may be more character encounter than show, but deserves to be mentioned. Depending on when you show it could be a baby raptor a trainer holds, or Blue from the Jurassic World movies, we were able to do both encounters back to back and definitely recommend at least doing the one with Blue, especially if you you have a slightly timid one in your group (mwuhaha).

We haven't been in Seuss Landing when Oh The Stories You'll Hear is going yet, but I'd recommend anyone try the Mystic Fountain in Lost Continent. The fountain will interact with you, talking and asking questions, and occasionally shooting water at you (the kids loved this). I was really struggling with whether to put Posiedon's Fury in Lost Continent with the rides/attractions or shows, but with less shows at IOA I guess I'll do it here. It is a walk through attraction/show that if you consider it a ride is pretty lame, but if you think of it as a show it's worth doing, the higlight probably being walking through a long tunnel of water rotating all around you, almost a parting the seas moment, but only dropping the slightest of sprinkles though.

In Hogsmeade much like Diagon Alley, one stage houses both shows: the Frog Choir and the TriWizard Spirit Rally. The frog choir is pretty much what it sounds like, and the Rally features some ribbon waving from the female performers and fight dancing from the guys, you may recognize their outfits from the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter film. If there is a ride queue you need to check out it is Forbidden Journey as it goes through Hogwarts School. Hogsmeade just like Diagon Alley also has an Ollivander's Wand Shop. The real treat here for shows though is the Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts, a definite must do including eery sounds, a light show on the Castle, and fireworks.

OTHER TIME EATERS:

In Marvel you can listen to phones and call boxes for messages and info, and there is the Kingpin Arcade. Seuss Landing has the If I Ran the Zoo play area for kids that we just missed. Hogsmeade has the option of using interactive wands to cast spells at specific spots just like in Diagon Alley, and Toon Lagoon has midway games and you can go on Popeye's Me Ship, The Olive where the kids can play/slide and use water cannons to shoot people on the Popeye ride much to their dismay, needless to say we were all into that.

But the real spot for this category is Jurassic Park. On top of the rides, food, stores, and Raptor Encounter there is still plenty to do here. There is Camp Jurassic, a cool area with an amber mine, rope bridges, tree houses, slides, and dinosaur footprints with interactive sounds for the kids. How about the Discovery Center for the aforementioned egg hatchings, but also a dinosaur trivia game (Max Walker owned us all), an interactive fossil area to learn about the dinosaurs, and computers set up to create your own dinosaurs "using your own dna" (it's actually just an air blast not a needle poke). Still not sold? Like Springfield and Toon Lagoon this area also has midway games. You can even climb a rock wall for a separate fee (pro tip, if you do this here or in NY at Studios, you can mention that you've heard if you pay at one park they'll let you climb the wall at both, the worker will then say yes and give you their name to mention to the worker at the other park to let you climb for free there). The ladies in our group all paid a separate fee to get their hair braided in Jurassic Park too, while the guys watched people get wet from the cascading splashdown of the River Adventure ride.

THE RIDES:

Seuss Landing as you could probably guess is pretty tame for the rides, but to be honest it was kind of nice to ride a few tame ones after several more extreme ones in a row. The Cat in the Hat is inside (more AC!) but is almost creepy puppet/Child's Play level with all the Things popping up throughout it. One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish is another spinning carnival type ride like Kang & Kodos at Studios, but raising and lowering your ride vehicle here determines whether or not you get squirted with water. The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride is probably the highligt of this area just for the nice views you can get. The ride actually has two different tracks, one of which will go right through Cafe Stupendous like I mentioned before.

Since I put Poseidon's Fury in with the shows, there is no ride in Lost Continent, and the only ride at Skull Island is Reign of Kong. This is a very cool queue, but is another bus screen based ride with other elements such as fire and water at play to enhance the experience and a giant animatronic at the end. It is hands down better than Fast & Furious at Studios though, and offers much better re-ride value because 5 different "drivers" give it a slightly different experience, we've ridden this three times but only got two different drivers.

Marvel Superhero Island houses another carnival spinning teacup type ride in Storm Force Accatron, as well as Dr. Doom's Fearfall and The Incredible Hulk Coaster. To be fair my family didn't ride Dr. Doom as the first time I didn't fit the restraint and this time they all boycotted it due to all the news of the kid that died on a similar type ride at Icon Park not long before this, but Danielle and Max Walker said it was not even as bad as the Power Tower at Cedar Point which I've ridden and have a love/hate relationship with. The top ride here is Hulk, with a great opening launch, smoke, mist, loops and high speeds. The one drawback is every time I've ridden it I've come away with a slight headache as the ride restraint comes from over top and it bounces my head off either side of it. In talking with several others this seems to be a bit of a 50/50 situation on whether you never or always experience this (cut to many that mock my giant dome throwing out a fat-head comment to themselves).

Toon Lagoon offers two water rides, and 90 minute lockers for a fee that if you have express passes you could probably ride both and get to the water ride at Jurassic Park and back before it expires. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls is a decent log flume ride where you sit single file with several mild drops before a giant drop at the end, some people can get off this looking totally dry (I'm not sure how) but most will have their bottom half soaked. The only draw back is one of the spots where your ride vehicle climbs up it jerks rather agressively and has hurt my back a little each time. Popeye and Bluto's Bilge-rat Barges was an unexpectedly super highly ranked ride for my family, the only one not giving it high numbers was the wife, but we've ridden this multiple times in a row each time we've gone. The ride vehicle is a giant round raft that seats 10, there are rapids, scenery throwing water at you, waterfalls, and drops. The raft rotates so not everyone gets wet at each stage, but as the warning says YOU WILL GET WET! At a minimum your bottom half will get soaked, if you are one of the unlucky ones that got hit with the shooting water spots, waterfalls, or the onlookers using water cannons on you, then much worse. Totally fun though! There are paid dryers here but they are said to suck.

Jurassic Park offers the other water ride, Jurassic Park River Adventure, but it is the mildest of the three in terms of getting wet if you plan it right. The ride is a scenic raft ride through Jurassic Park with animatronics until get this, things go bad and the carnivores escape! It culminates in a big drop into the water that can easily soak onlookers if they are paying attention. If you don't want to get that wet, sit in the middle. On top of River Adventure Jurassic Park offers two other rides. Pteranodon Flyers is kind of different in that you can't ride it without a kid. The ride vehicle holds two and one has to be under a certain height, as our oldest can't even be considered the kid she has to be the adult while our youngest was the kid (same with the Walker boys). Because our middle child wouldn't ride it I personally didn't get to experience it, but the kids said it was a pretty tame glider type ride, but it was short. The ride is really for the view only in my opinion. Also this ride is one of three that doesn't accept the express passes so we were waiting on them forever. VelociCoaster also does not accept express passes yet as it is one of the two newest rides, but if you stay onsite to get Early Park Admission you can target this and not have a long wait. This ride is insane, several launches at very high speeds, drops, a "mosasaurus roll", and more that takes you over water and through the Raptor paddock. The airtime in this ride (time your but actually lifts off the seat) is borderline obscene especially in the ride vehicles at the back. Many verbal "holy $ #*!s" on this ride! The wife claims this recent trip was her one and only time riding it, but I will work my butt off trying to get her back on.

Hogsmeade just like Diagon Alley offers the Hogwarts Express Train Ride, this one being an experience that is a little darker than the one going the other direction. As I mentioned in the Studios Musings, you need a park-to-park ticket (two park pass) to ride this as it takes you from one park to the other. On top of that there are three other rides in Hogsmeade. Flight of the Hippogriff is another kiddie coaster but unlike Woody Woodpecker this one is actually worth riding. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is my wife's favorite ride at Universal. The ride vehicle is attached to an arm that moves you around to different areas that use screens and animatronics, and you spend time feeling like you are riding a broomstick, even going through a quidditch game and escaping dementors. This is also the number one don't skip ride queue in the parks as it goes through the Hogwarts School, unfortunately if you do this at Early Park Admission you will miss that. The newest and best ride in Hogsmeade (Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure) also requires Early Park Admission if you don't want an excruciatingly long wait as it does not accept express passes yet. The ride vehicle is a motocycle and side car. The ride feels extremely fast with several launches and each time you don't know exactly when its going to happen again so I was really white knuckling the handlebars (I think the impressions of it were on my hands still twenty minutes later), at one point it goes straight up but comes back down fast (a look at my sidecar at the one kid that was extremely excited to ride this, signaled to me she might have changed her mind). As you ride backwards into a dark tunnel, you are absolutely sure you will launch again, but instead the track drops from under you to another track below (the kid actually said "I'm ready for this ride to end now!") and launches again. Another audible "oh $ #*!" ride.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I will once again put off the final thoughts here as I've decided to do one more Universal Studios Musings comparing the two parks and looking at the future with what is rumored to come in their new larger park that will be called Epic Universe, expected to open summer 2025.

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