Top rides at the Florida Theme Parks

With just a few weeks to go until we land in Florida we have been planning our days and choosing which rides we want to go on at each of the theme parks. Both of my girls are between 120cm and 140cm which means that whilst they can go on quite a few big rides they can’t go on them all so we need to plan accordingly. We only have one day to visit each of the parks so we have fast access passes for Universal, Seaworld and Busch Gardens. We are also utilising the fast pass plus system at Walt Disney World. Check out the list of our top rides at each theme park below.

Universal Studios and Islands of adventure

We are huge Harry Potter fans so our first port of call when we visit Orlando will be the Universal parks. Unfortunately the Express passes do not work at Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts or Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey but the queues for these rides are worth seeing so as long as we visit these rides at the right times then we won’t mind standing in a queue. We will be utilising our Express passes in Universal Studios to ride The Simpsons Ride, E.T. Adventure and Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. They will also be coming in handy at Universal Islands of Adventure The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-rat Barges and Jurassic Park River Adventures. There are lots of other awesome rides but these are the ones we are looking forward to the most.

Disney Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom

With just one day to visit the Disney parks it was a tough choice when we were deciding which parks to visit. We opted to start the day at Hollywood studios were our top rides were the first choices for our Fastpass Plus options. We decided on Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ roller coaster and my all time favourite Star Tours. After exploring the Star Wars area a bit more we will head over to Animal Kingdom were we are planning on riding Expedition Everest and the new Avatar rides: Avatar flights of Passage and Na’vi River Journey. We might jump on a few more if the queues are not too long but these are definitely the ones we want to go on the most.

Seaworld

When we visited Seaworld last time we didn’t go on many rides as the girls were more interested in the animals but with Quick Queue passes we will have time to go on the rides and get a chance to look around. We are excited to go back on Antartica: empire of the penguin which the girls still remember as one of their favourites. The older ones are also looking forward to Manta, Mako and Kraken unleashed.

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

We have never visited Busch Gardens so to make the most of our time there we purchased Quick Queue passes. The great thing about these is you can buy Junior passes for those who don’t want to ride the big rides or who are too small. This is perfect for me and the kids so we can then go and explore the zoo part whilst the other adults enjoy the big rides. We will be going on Cobra’s Curse, Congo River Rapids and the wild surge whilst the bigger ones will be SheiKra, Cheetah hunt and Montu.

 

We can’t wait to feel the wind in our faces and experience all of the top rides that Florida has to offer.