10 “Off-The-Beaten-Path,” World-Building Secret Spots and Design Details at Islands of Adventure

There was a time when Disney was Disney, and Universal was Universal.

Then, Islands of Adventure changed everything. Opening in 1999, the much-heralded second gate at the redesignated Universal Orlando Resort at last dispensed with “beige backlots” and “boxy soundstages” in favor of a park built using Disney’s own formula… with a dash of something twenty-first century.

Simultaneously the most and least “Disney” park since Disneyland itself, Islands of Adventure was a mould-breaker. Eschewing blockbuster movies to instead bring to life timeless, intergenerational stories; building unheard-of, IP-centered lands; co-mixing immersive environments with bare steel coasters; brandishing technology as a weapon in the theme park wars, and embedding it in next-century dark rides and shows…. This park was often big, loud, fast, vibrant, and in-your-face.

Image: Universal

Except when it wasn’t… After all, Islands of Adventure opened with Universal’s first seeming intentional investment in the unsung heroes of theme park lineups: hidden gems. In our recent look at the kinds of rides Universal should pluck from Disney’s playbook, we highlighted hidden gems as a particularly important element of parks – the kinds of experiences that reward exploration and build-out both a park’s capacity and its mythologies.

So today, we’ll take a tour around the exceptional stories of Islands of Adventure to highlight some of those “secret spots” or thoughtful design details; the kinds of attractions, nooks and crannies, and unexpected surprises you can only find between E-Tickets. We hope you’ll have at least one item to add to your Islands of Adventure “scavenger hunt” after reading about these off-the-beaten-path extras…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



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