Word: disneyisms
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I.O.A. blends the best of both strategies. In design it virtually out-Disneys Disney, and, on the 360[degree] thrill rides, certainly outdizzies it. I.O.A. is stocked with familiar characters from Zeus to Seuss; with its imaginative attention to detail, the park is jazzy fun just to walk through. Toddlers could spend the day in Seuss Landing, a genial riot of DayGlo colors, where you can drink Moose Juice (turbo tangerine) or Goose Juice (sour green apple). In the Lost Continent area, you pass Magic Rock, which squirts water and speaks, with the droll sarcasm of a bachelor uncle roped...
...playground, a Discovery Center where you can see a raptor egg hatch, a Pteranodon Flyers ride that lets you soar above the park and a mechanical triceratops that pees and farts on cue. The beast, nicknamed Cera, allows a child to pet her--"unless the kid is wearing a Disney T shirt," jokes Mark Woodbury, who oversees the park's design. "Then she rips it to shreds...
...hear that kind of bantering trash talk from the Universal and Disney camps. A Walt Disney World executive, alluding to the high-speed roller coasters at the center of I.O.A.'s promotion, calls them "theme rides without the theme." True enough for some rides. The Incredible Hulk Coaster is similar to slinky steel screamers in nearby Busch Gardens, though it has some jet-propulsive refinements. Another thrill ride, Dr. Doom's Fear Fall, is supposed to extract "raw human fear" from the brains of its strapped-in victims, but it's just a fresh version of the Big Shot...
...compete with local water parks like Wet 'n Wild and Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, the Universal designers built a virtual water park into I.O.A.; half the rides take you to the edge of wetness and over. The Jurassic Park River Adventure plummets your boat past a snarly T rex and down a steep sluice to land with a cascading plop 80 ft. below. Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges take visitors on a whirling whitewater ride where you will get soaked. (The ride guides will tell you it's practically illegal to remove your footwear. Do it anyway and save...
...coaster, the stunt show, the 3-D effects extravaganza, the bumpy-ride-plus-film that began with George Lucas' Star Tours), grownup kids are always looking for inventive story lines to harness to new techniques. As Woodbury says, I.O.A. is "a lot of evolution and a lot of revolution." Disney, with the Tower of Terror ride and its own 3-D smash It's Tough to Be a Bug, will surely be part of that revolution. But for now, I.O.A. is the glorious trendsetter in the huge theme resort that is Florida. The state of the park has reached state...