Top 10 for Universal’s Islands of Adventure

Grey rollercoaster on grey track with twisting track around trees and grey rocks. The coaster is empty.

By AttractionTickets.com’s Florida Experts, Susan and Simon Veness

When you need to know the essential must-do’s for this action-packed theme park, here’s our guide to the ones you should focus on.

It’s the eternal question faced by all newcomers through a theme park’s gates: Where do I go first? And it’s not an easy one to answer, especially if you’re trying to look at the park map and decipher a welter of exciting but strange symbols.

But we are ready to set you straight and make sure you don’t waste any of you precious holiday time in trying to figure it out. We’ve already supplied our Top 10 for each of the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT and Universal Studios Florida, so now let’s head over to Islands of Adventure and get you going for a full day of rides and attractions.

And you WILL need a full day here (unless you can take advantage of the Universal Express Pass) as Universal Orlando’s second park is positively packed with excitement and entertainment, set out in six main ‘Lands’ – not counting The Lost Continent, which no longer has any attractions with the closure last year of Poseidon’s Fury.

The park itself opened in May 1999 and brought with it some impressive new technology that still seems fresh today. It was boosted considerably in 2010 by the opening of the first Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and more recent additions like Reign of Kong (2016), Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (2019) and the Jurassic World VelociCoaster (2022).

That all means it is a popular park, and you need to be laser-focused to ensure you get the most of your time here. And you can do that by tuning into our Top 10 of the best attractions:

10. The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride

When you need the best children’s ride in the park, head straight for the Seuss Landing section and get in line for this fun above-ground trundle over the rooftops of the colourful land. This gentle trolley-train runs along two tracks 15ft high, and even goes inside the Café Stupendous at one point, highlighting some typical Seussian stories and characters.

9. Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges

12 people sat in circular raft with wooden seats, going along river rapids surrounded by stone walls and getting splashed from fountains.

Water rides don’t come a whole lot wetter than this one, a rollicking raft adventure in the middle of a battle between Popeye and arch-enemy Bluto. Riders are warned to expect quite a dousing, and it comes from all directions – including the OctoPlus Grotto – as the rafts bounce and twirl through some serious white water. There are no big drops, though, so it’s not a scary ride from that point of view.

8. The Cat In The Hat Ride

A true classic, this journey into the world of the crazy Dr Seuss character takes place on mock sofas that take riders through the story of the Cat and his friends Thing 1 and Thing 2. It’s all indoors and involves a few sudden, sharp movements to avoid sudden “obstacles,” but, again, there’s nothing to upset young children.

7. Skull Island: Reign of Kong

Giant grey rock shaped like gorilla face roaring. The mouth is a cave opening and either side of the entrance there are fire torches.

Take a foreboding journey into the cinematic world of Skull Island and its mysterious creatures, on board an over-sized truck – and be ready for things to go badly wrong! Yes, the primal landscape is full of ancient predators and lurking monsters, leading to a fully-fledged battle between King Kong and a bunch of dangerous dinosaurs. It’s touch and go whether you survive, and there’s also a (very) close encounter with Kong before you exit!

6. Jurassic Park River Adventure

Big yellow boat splashing into a large body of water after plummeting down tall drop.

While the main part of this raft ride is seemingly the big drop into a major splashdown at the end, there is a lot more to see and admire as a gentle journey into Jurassic Park suddenly turns into a quest to escape the lurking T-Rex menace. This is another ride that will get you fairly wet, but that’s quite a bonus during the summer months

5. The Incredible Hulk Coaster

Green rollercoaster with large pretzel loop and a green tunnel which launches the coaster up in the air. There is a large lake beside this roller coaster.

Get set for a major thrill as you encounter the perilous research facility of General Thaddeus Ross, based on the work of Dr Bruce Banner, aka The Incredible Hulk. Riders enter a gamma radiation tube to try to salvage his experiments, so you know something is going to go amiss. This is just the launch point for a wild thrill ride at up to 67mph, with three inversions along 3,700ft of steel track that provides an ultra-smooth – but fast-turning – ride.

4. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man

4 people sat on ride vehicle. They are wearing black 4D glasses and it looks like a man stood on the front of the vehicle in spiderman suit. The suit is red with black spider webs on and blue legs.

When Islands of Adventure first opened, this was the attraction that had most people open-mouthed in awe. And it’s still pretty impressive today as riders are taken on a crazy night of tracking down various super-villains who are intent on stealing New York landmarks. You can count on Spider-Man to save the day, and he does – multiple times – in high style, leading to an amusing finale featuring Peter Parker’s accident-prone editor.

3. Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure

Rollercoaster heading along track, the vehicle looks like many white motorbikes with sidecars attached. The track is heading up into a run down, desolate building.

This is simply the smoothest and most feature-packed coaster in the Universal catalogue, a “story-telling” ride with Hagrid – and his magical creatures – through a forgotten part of Hogwarts. It provides several fast launch sequences, a sudden vertical drop, and a backwards section into a vertical spike, and offers contrasting ride experiences from either the sidecar or motorbike seats.

2. Jurassic World VelociCoaster

A pristine blue lake with a tall rollercoaster towering in the background. It is grey and features a huge drop and many twists and turns.

Universal currently has four out-and-out coasters, but the VelociCoaster tops them all for speed and drama, starting with a 70mph fast-launch as riders are invited to “feel the rush” of hunting with a bunch of velociraptors. There is a 155ft top hat feature, four inversions and a whizz over the central lagoon, and it all comes with plenty of neat theming and a super-smooth track.

1. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

A dark room with floating candles over head. There are attendants holding torches as they strap guests into the ride vehicle safely. There are four chairs in a row.

Hogwarts fans are richly served by this epic journey into the hallowed halls of the wizarding school. The queue area alone is immense and absolutely packed with Potter features and characters, and then visitors are invited to join an unscheduled trip to the Quidditch match, where things take a sharp turn for the worse and there are giant spiders, Death Eaters and the Whomping Willow to contend with. It’s all accomplished on “flying benches” through a mixture of real scenes and clever film screens and it genuinely has the feel of a magical experience.

That’s the full lowdown on Islands of Adventure and its key attractions. If you manage all 10 in a day, you’ll have had a great day out. Just remember to have some Butterbeer during your time in the Wizarding World!

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