Islands of Adventure: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Build-Out of Universal Orlando’s Storied Second Gate

Toon Lagoon is definitely one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to reimagining Islands of Adventure. On one hand, as someone who’s railed on the importance of the park’s “literary” ethos and its focus on timeless, intergenerational characters, I should staunchly defend Toon Lagoon as a very clever embodiment of the Sunday funnies and Jay Ward’s comic strip characters as evergreen pop culture figures.

On the other hand, I think it’s fair to say that Dudley Do-Right, Popeye the Sailor, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Betty Boop weren’t top-of-bill even back in 1999, and despite valiant efforts, I don’t think Toon Lagoon’s two rides (Ripsaw Falls and Bilge Rat Barges) have necessarily endeared them to the public or engrained them as necessities in the park’s lineup. Especially given that Toon Lagoon is one of the largest areas of the park by available space, I decided that a smart armchair designer would think of a new use for the real estate, bringing us to the final land of my “reimagined” Islands of Adventure…

The Pokémon World: Dominio Region

Background

I really can’t tell you how excited I am about this island. I think we have all always vaguely imagined that Pokémon would make a nice theme park land, and I’ve always specifically felt like it was kind of a logical replacement for Toon Lagoon. After all, it has the same animated quality, and the same colorful, all-ages appeal; a sort of Saturday morning cartoon versus a Sunday morning paper, but still…

Let’s also make no mistake: while Disney may control five of the top ten highest grossing media franchises of all time, good ole’ number one is Pokémon, with nearly $75 billion in revenue in its relatively short life. (The franchise began in 1996. In comparison, Mickey Mouse has made about $66 billion since 1928.)

In the same way that Zelda can transcend its media and become something big and evergreen and legendary that belongs in Islands of Adventure, I think Pokémon hits the same standards. It’s an ever-present piece of our pop culture; it’s about a journey; it’s wish fulfillment of being in a world where you can leave home at 10 years old and become an expert.

I don’t think you could’ve had a Pokémon land in 1999, because it would be like Toon Lagoon – big cut-outs and a vague “place.” What it really needs is this kind of treatment: a “Living Land” following the Wizarding World mantra.

In practice, staring at the park map with a big empty chunk here, I really couldn’t even think of where to begin. A Pokémon land wouldn’t be anchored by a ride, because sitting down and bopping around in front of screens isn’t the point. It would be an expansive world of various environments; a city to stock up on Pokéballs, heal your team, and battle… then wild areas to catch new Pokémon, train them, evolve them…

Pokémon’s current nine generations of mainline games direct the series’ geography, with each game set in a new “region” of a wider Pokémon world. Those regions always bear a striking resemblance to a real-world country in layout, architecture, culture, and creatures. (For example, the current ninth generation – embodied in the Scarlet and Violet video games – is Paldea, clearly based on the Iberian peninsula with heavy Spanish influence in its climate, language, cities, and Pokémon.) Slowly but surely, the Pokémon World’s map is filling up, and looking quite a lot like ours.

What there has not yet been is a region based on Italy. So with that in mind, I just started assembling. Even though I intended to basically level Toon Lagoon and start from scratch, I ended up surprising myself with how much of it I didn’t need to change at all. Instead, re-wrapping much of it – and even re-using one of its rides – my World of Pokémon came together as a whole new region – Dominio – based on our real-world Italy. And folks, I am telling you, I fell in love with this concept…

Build-Out

First Steps & Starters

You have to imagine that each “region” we visit in the Pokémon world is meant to be as expansive as a country, with dozens of cities (each with their own Pokémon Gyms) connected by wild areas and routes traveled by many trainers seeking to “catch ’em all.” With that in mind, though the Italian-influenced Dominio Region I picture is vast, we see just a small part of it – Cipresso City and the outlying wild areas: Costa di Spruzzi and the Ruins of D’aquavallo.

Obviously, I wanted this little slice of Dominio to feel real and immersive and alive, and what makes the Pokémon World feel alive is… Pokémon. They would be present in this land in many, many forms… but obviously, a central focus of this interactive environment would be catching, battling, training, and evolving them. So let’s talk about how that’s done.

As anyone who’s stepped foot on Route 1 in a Pokémon game will tell you, it’s not wise to head into the unknown without a Pokémon companion at your site. Every Pokémon game begins with a Pokémon professor briefing you on the world and inviting you to begin to your journey by selecting one of three “Starter Pokémon,” unique to the region you’re exploring. (The first generation’s – Squirtle, Charmander, and Bulbasaur – probably remain the most iconic Starter trio, but every Pokémon fan has their favorites.)

So just as in the games, if you want to really dive into the Pokémon World, your first stop should be the Pokémon Lab, right in the heart of Cipresso City (and just to your right when you enter the town from Marvel Harbor). Here, I’ve tried to create an all-in-one experience. It’s a tutorial for how to find, catch, battle, heal, and evolve Pokémon; it’s a mini-show akin to Ollivander’s in the Wizarding World; and it’s the way you get to choose the Starter Pokémon that will accompany you in Dominio.

Basically, the POKÉMON LAB experience would be in the form of two continuously-presented mini-shows, where a few dozen guests are invited into what we might call a “preshow” space. There, a Pokémon Professor would lead a slideshow, introducing the basics of Dominio: how to access the Pokédex app with which to find, battle, and catch wild Pokémon and the spaces in Dominio to do it.

But surely, the Professor’s main job would be to use their slideshow to introduce the three Starter Pokémon of this Italian-inspired region. And yes, I am absolutely lost my mind and designed three brand new Starter Pokémon for this made-up, Blue Sky, Italian-inspired Pokémon theme park land that will never exist! As is tradition, there’s a fire, water, and grass-type starter (though I added a secondary type to each just to keep things interesting since theoretically everyone would start with one of the same three). Thank you for so kindly humoring me by letting me introduce them!

Pompeiiano (pom-pay-AH-no), the fire-type, is a volcanic goat Pokémon drawn from the Campania region of the real Italy. Inspired by real life mosaics of goats found in Pompeii and based on an Italian breed with spiral horns, Pompeiiano is a sturdy, dual fire- and rock-type who wears the mosaic tiles and tapestries of a town destroyed by volcanic activity.

Lontralier (lahn-tra-LEER) is Dominio’s water-type Starter, with dual fighting-type. Inspired by Venice in northern Italy, it’s inspired by real Eurasian otters that populate the town’s waterways. Its name is derived from lontra (otter) and gondolier – the profession that steers gondola boats down Venice’s iconic waterways. The red sash around its neck mimics those gondoliers wear on their hats, and as it evolves, the sash moves to its waist recalling not just gondoliers’ traditional outfights, but Karate belts as it gains fighting-type moves.

Finally, Aquilonico (ah-kwee-LO-nee-co) is Dominio’s grass-type starter, with secondary flying-type. A young eaglet, this Pokemon is adorned with ivy plumage that’s still growing in. In the meantime, its exposed gray skin is an advantage since it can roost at the top of Roman temple columns without being seen. The stone adornment it wears on its chest is actually pecked off of an ionic column to increase its camouflage. Its name is taken from the Italian word for eaglet (aquilotto) and ionic columns.

Having been introduced to these adorable little Starters on-screen, the Pokémon Professor would then explain your next steps: in the lab beyond, you’ll find all three Starters (in animatronic form!), with a circular array of pedestals around them. All you need to do is select which of the three Starters you want. Then, you can either place your phone on a corresponding pedestal around that Pokémon, or grab a Pokéball off the wall, link it to your app with a quick QR code scan, then use it on the pedestal to load your Starter.

Just like that, you’ll have your first Pokémon – either Pompeiiano, Lontralier, or Aquilonico – and conveniently pass into the Pokémart. There, you can purchase a Pokéball if you decided to use one for your Starter, as well as buy extra supplies – like leather Pokéball Straps to wear across your chest, Pokéball Slings to clip onto your bag, or shells to magnetically snap onto your Pokéball to create collectible and regional variants.

Just like that, you’ll have your first Pokémon loaded to your party! Which means it’s time to head out into Dominio to strengthen your Starter, build your party, and take on the Pokémon World!

Catching, Battling, and Healing

Hold your tomatoes, but let’s talk about the phone thing. Yes, if Universal Orlando is going to offer a land where you can battle and catch Pokémon, it’s pretty much certain it’ll involve smartphones. Niantec’s Pokémon Go app provides the perfect model for this, allowing users to “see” Pokémon in the real, built environment through their smartphone’s camera using augmented reality (AR).

So for this dreamy build-out of mine, instead of resisting that clear good fit, we’ll embrace it, imagining that Niantec were brought on to develop either a “Dominio Pokédex” functionality within the Universal Orlando app, or a standalone app able to connect to guests’ Universal Orlando account. I think the focused aspect of such an app to a relatively small physical space with built-in environmental props and hidden proximity markers would make this a really compelling combination. Imagine water Pokémon realistically swimming in the park’s lagoon; “ground” Pokémon leaning out from behind stalagmites in caves; “flying” Pokémon appearing to roost in physical trees, all seamlessly and accurately.

To that end, there are four specific spaces within the land dedicated solely to tracking down wild Pokémon: the Wild Zone (a forest of grass, poison, normal, and bug-type Pokémon), Costa Trails (with water, flying, and steel-type), Cavern Trails (with rock, dark, and fire type), and the Temple Trails (with ghost, grass, ground, and dark type), highlighted above. Ideally, I’d love to see these four areas filled with people finding Pokémon.

Once you’ve caught Pokémon, they all appear in your Pokédex, linked to your Universal Orlando account. The result is that when you go to battle other wild Pokémon, you’ll actually draw from your assembled party, using your smartphone to engage in battles just like on the beloved Pokémon games! You can defeat wild Pokémon to gain experience for your party working toward leveling up and evolving your creatures.

As anyone who’s played a Pokémon game will you, though, battling wild Pokémon is just the start. A major component of Pokémon is pitting your creatures against other trainers. And here in the Pokémon World at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, it’s possible thanks to a brand new invention: BATTLE PODS. There are 10 Battle Pods positioned around the land (six in the plaza leading to the Cipresso Pokémon Gym and four out near the Ruins).

Armed with either your smartphone or your Pokéball and a team, you’re ready for battle to test and strengthen your Pokémon. Here, you can really-for-real face off against a family member, friend, or virtual trainer with the Pokémon on your team in real-time battles.

Parties would queue for this experience, then be directed by a Team Member to gather outside of a numbered pod. (There are 10 throughout the land; 6 in Cipresso City outside the Gym, and four in a wild area near the Temple.) Once the doors to the Battle Pod open, a trainer would head to either side of the Battle Pod with any “spectators” (friends and family) in small seating areas behind them. Then, each trainer would place their phone or Pokéball on a Battle Podium to initiate the battle and send out their first creature.

Augmented reality screens between the pair would display full, real-time animations of the Pokémon as they battle, with touch screens for language selection, move selections, swapping Pokémon, and the use of healing items like berries and potions.

And just like in the games, after battles (wild or Trainer), your weakened party will need healed by visiting one of three Pokémon Centers around the region! There (and we’re talking some serious wish fulfillment), you can place your Pokéball in a perfectly-shaped recess, press a button, and hear that iconic “healing jingle” as your ball vibrates and flashes, healing up your Pokémon to head out into the wild again! (Alternatively, you can scan or insert your smartphone into a recess to heal your team, but I mean, who can resist a Pokéball?!)

Plus, if you’ve got a Pokéball, when you feel it vibrate and light up white, it means a member of your party is ready to evolve… Simply head to a Pokémon Center and place your Pokéball (or phone) in the recess of an Evolution Chamber to watch as your beloved creature grows right before your eyes, in real time and to-scale! With a puff of digital confetti, your newly-evolved creature would be loaded back on your Pokéball.

Wild zones to battle; Pokémarts to buy Pokéballs; Pokémon Centers to heal… I kind of love that this is a land you could spend all day in, just building a team, watching them grow, and becoming more and more advanced. As in every Pokémon region, though, the city’s activity centers on the looming Pokémon gym, where trainers face off against Cipresso’s Gym Leader…

The Pokémon Gym

Across from the Lab is the POKÉMON GYM. Nearly every city or town in a region has a gym, overseen by a Gym Leader who typically specializes in a given Pokémon type. Here, this experience will have replaced the unused Toon Lagoon Amphitheater.

I thought a lot about how to create a Pokémon Gym for a theme park. On one hand, it needs to be a “capstone” experience to the land, providing a sense of participation and victory, satisfying the land’s narrative arc of learning about, receiving, catching, training, and battling Pokémon. On the other, it needs to be high capacity (as all things in a theme park do), and to involve every member of the family at once.

Those needs leave some holes in the most obvious concepts – like filling a facility with Battle Pods just like the ones outside, but where you battle against a digital AI Gym Leader. Not only does that lack the sort of scale, finality, showmanship, and importance a Gym Battle should have – it also means families would need to queue again for each participating member to have their battle.

For that reason, I settled on a concept that would be much grander in scale, with the trade-off being that you, personally, don’t get to battle the Gym Leader. But you do participate by way of a fast-paced, action-packed special effects show!

Basically, entering into the Cipresso City Pokémon Gym (a modern glass and steel facility built into the historic marble columns of Dominio’s past), you’d enter a grand, column-supported lobby built around a statue of the city’s Gym Leader. At the opposite end of the lobby, the path into the stadium would split, giving you the choice to support either the Gym Leader or a Trainer challenging the Leader for a Gym Badge.

With the queue having split, guests would be routed into pre-show spaces where they’d get the pre-battle rundown on their chosen participant – either the Gym Leader (a constant) or one of three Trainers cycled throughout the day, each with their own Pokémon lineup. This pre-show would give you the chance to learn your contestant’s Pokémon. From there, guests would routed into a Grouping Room, with their entire party assigned a space to stand (for example, in the diagram above, smaller parties would be assigned “Green A” while groups of 4 or more would be assigned “Green F,”) each corresponding to a seating area in the stadium.

With all guests grouped, the doors to the arena would open with Team Members ushering each party to their own assigned viewing pod. Larger parties would end up at semi-circular “conversation pits.” Smaller groups would be assigned curved bench areas located a level down on the arena’s floor. Regardless, all party’s seating would be oriented toward the Battle Arena in the center, with a digital touchscreen monitor in front of them.

With everyone seated, the Gym Battle would begin! Both the Gym Leader and the trainer would be live, costumed actors, with Pokémon appearing on stage via Audio-Animatronics, rising from a hidden conveyer system under the stage. In-theater effects (like fog, fire, lighting, surround sound, and projection) would bring the battle to life. But guests would direct its course, using the monitors at their seat to select moves for either the Gym Leader or trainer, watching both creatures’ battle in real time!

The result, I think, is that guests would feel that this was a sort of participatory experience, and that their selections impact the battle. I think being invested in either the Gym Leader or the Trainer would also add such life to the experience, with cheering and excitement and investment that would be really, really cool to see.

And if you imagine an average of 4 people in each of the 64 seating pods, each continuous show could accommodate 256 guests, or about 800 people per hour (with 3 shows). That’s not very good versus a pack-’em-in arena show, but in a Blue Sky project, it’s easy for me to sacrifice that capacity and add significant complexity to operations in order to focus on interactivity and personalization. And in any case, it’s a not-insignificant capacity add versus the empty Toontown Amphitheater.

Oh yeah, and rides

Basically, I wanted the Pokémon World to be a part of the park you could literally spend the whole day in. If you just wanted to dedicate yourself to catching Pokémon, battling them (either with friends via Battle Pods, or out in the wild on your phone), and evolving them, you could. I just think that’s such a powerful level of immersion, that this literally becomes a land so interactive and so wish-fulfilling, we haven’t even needed to mention a ride yet.

Speaking of which, this land does have rides. I actually salvaged Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges – the white water rafting ride. Orlando parks need a water ride, even if I might remove some of the turbulence-causing planks from the waterway to create more of a lightly-spinning, floating water ride where you’re sprayed by effects, not torrents of water.

I called the refreshed ride POKÉMON SNAP: SPLASH SAFARI, as I think the ride winding through various environments would be perfect for lightly-animated and static Pokémon figures to peek out from behind trees, pop up from the water, etc. as riders try to use on-board Snap Cameras to catch photos of them while floating past.

Something about the winding river, the spinning, the splashing, and trying so hard to snap these Pokémon as they move… it just sounds like good, chaotic fun that’s 100% optional for those who don’t like water rides. I can see a lot of laughing families on the ride, which is cool. Plus, you could maybe see the photos you took either via linking to your Pokédex app, or in a sort of post-show showcase wall of the best (and worst) photos of the day.

I also kept the current “Me Ship, The Olive” as the S.S. SQUIRTLE since you can’t have too many family play areas (and especially splashy ones) in an Orlando park.

The land’s major attraction is JOURNEY TO HIPONEA: A POKÉMON ADVENTURE. In keeping with the Italian setting, I created a temple of the outskirts of town (the ancient columns of which still sprawl throughout the otherwise-modern Cipresso City). This Tempio del Mare – Temple of the Sea – is a flooded ruin, with water pouring down its steps and from a nearby waterfall, collecting into a rocky basin below (which also finally separates this island and Jurassic Park with a bridge, which the transition today lacks. To accommodate this, I had to shift backstage access to VelociCoaster, but it all still works.)

Journey to Hiponea would be an indoor, boat-based dark ride – again, filling the niche of a “Pirates of the Caribbean” style attraction, which Universal lacks altogether. This ride would send us in a search for Dominio’s legendary Pokémon, Hiponea the seahorse, whose ability to control the oceans is all that stands between Dominio and tidal ruin. Though it’s been centuries since Hiponea has been seen, legend has it that he waits deep in the Temple, to be awakened by those brave enough to find him.

Otherwise, retail opportunities abound (including the POKÉ NURSERY, where you can “adopt” plush creatures from across the Pokémon World, which also get added to your Pokédex and become available for battle). And altogether, I think that makes the Pokémon World a really compelling, built-out land that just feels so filled with life, energy, and activity. This is a land you could spend a full day in, “gaming” and advancing and growing, like Super Nintendo World on steroids. I really, really like that.

Islands, Reimagined

So there you have it. My complete, armchair-Imagineered, Blue Sky build-out of Universal’s Islands of Adventure. I think this might’ve been my favorite redesign I’ve undertaken yet, because I already love this park, and it’s got such a strong foundation. I found it a whole lot of fun to really be able to focus on the “build-out” part of a build-out in Seuss Landing, Jurassic Park, and Marvel Harbor while plugging in two lands that I honestly think fit the park’s spirit so well despite both being video games.

This is now a park that’s jam-packed with 27 rides , including 10 dark rides, 6 flat rides, 3 family coasters, 3 thrill coasters, and some incredible “in-universe,” interactive worlds. I, personally, would leave this park with a Wand, an Ocarina, and a Pokéball; as a member of the Navigators Club; having restored the Moon Dial of Hyrule; having saved the Wholidays… or ruined them; and having survived a day at Jurassic Park. For me, I think that’s a pretty good checklist for one day.

But more to the point, this Islands of Adventure feels to me like such a bold, cohesive, and thoughtful park; one that would truly meet and exceed Disney’s standards, filling in those last underutilized spaces, raising the calibre of attraction and IP, and smoothing some of the rough edges left from its early days when it wasn’t 100% sure what kind of park it should be.

I must tell you that I felt literal relief with a few of these. I was legitimately so overjoyed about the Jurassic Jungle Expedition until I remembered this is fake and we’ve got Reign of Kong for the long haul. I would pay big bucks to step into the Dominio Region today. (I think I’d start with Pompeiiano.) So look, my ideas won’t ever specifically become the real story of Islands of Adventure… but leaving this build-out behind, I’m feeling very proud of it, and very excited to see what really does happen next…

Until then, if you haven’t, be sure to make the jump to my similarly-in-depth Build-Outs of Disney California Adventure, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or my from-scratch concept park and magnum opus, Disney’s Fantastic Worlds. Just maybe go get some fresh air first, okay?