Islands of Adventure
Orlando, FL
NBC Universal / Comcast
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(9/13/2025) The End of the Lost Continent Is Now Confirmed
(9/10/2025) Is Universal Ready To Demolish The Remains of The Lost Continent?
(6/1/2025) Universal Express Confirmed To Be Coming to Hagrid's
(3/29/2025) An Interesting New Jurassic Park Rumor
(2/22/2025) Hagrid May Have Retired The Single Rider Queue
Ride Rehabs - These dates subject to change:
Dudley Do-Right’s RipSaw Falls - Oct. 6 through Oct. 31
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey - Nov. 10 through Nov. 20
Hogwarts Express - Sept. 15 through Sept. 19
Wizarding World of Harry Potter - DIAGON ALLEY Review
Screamscape Previews Diagon Alley!! We’ve Got All The Details!
Screamscape Review Part II: Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
Screamscape Review Part III: The Hogwarts Express!
Other Features & Reviews
Skull Island: Reign of Kong (2016)
Volcano Bay (2017)
Christmas in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (2017)
Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (2019)
Jurassic World VELOCICOASTER (2021)
 General Park News - (6/1/2025) As rumored, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure has now added signage for Universal Express access. I don’t believe it has officially opened this entrance yet, but it should only be a matter of time.
(2/22/2025) According to what I’m hearing, the single rider queue for Hagrid at Islands of Adventure may have been closed for good a couple of days ago. Crew members have gone back to just sorting rider groups into “odd” and “even” numbered groups rather than trying to be concerned about single riders. As I recall, the single rider line experience was a bit of a mixed bag… and often could result in a longer wait than if you just waited in the regular queue with everyone else, so this makes sense.
Of course, there is also another big reason to do this… something Universal fans have been requesting for a very long time. This could be the first step in adding Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure to the Universal Express system, allowing them to repurpose the single rider queue space for Express riders if they do add it. However… if Hagrid does get added to the Universal Express system, I wouldn't expect to see it happen until around the time Epic Universe opens in late May.
2026 - Jurassic Park River Adventure Refurbishment - Rumor - (3/29/2025) Rumor has it that we can expect to see the Jurassic Park River Adventure at Islands of Adventure go down for what may be a longer than normal winter refurbishment towards the end of 2025. Now before the rumor mill kicks into gear thinking that this could be a conversion to add a Jurassic World themed makeover like what happened with the Hollywood version of the ride, I’m told that this is not the case at all. There are still said to be no plans to make the Orlando ride anything like the Hollywood version.
???? - The Legend of Zelda - Rumor - (9/13/2025) In a quick update, Universal Orlando has apparently confirmed their plans to begin demolition of what’s left of much of the Lost Continent section of Islands of Adventure in preparation of whatever new plans they have in place for the site. Mythos will be staying of course, but it seems they have confirmed that the building structures for the former Eighth Voyage of Sindbad show and the Poseidon’s Fury attraction will be coming down.
While theme parks are always subject to change over the years as new attractions replace the old, and new themed are painted over faded ones, this could mark the first time that one of the actual “lands”, or in this case an entire themed “island” at the park would be entirely wiped out, and replaced with something brand new.
Look for demolition work to begin sometime in the next month or two, though it technically could start in backstage areas unseen before it gets noticed within the park itself. So what will replace Lost Continent? Well… there hasn’t been anything NEW rumored in awhile, but I can confirm that I’ve heard of at least two different Legend of Zelda concepts over the years. One of which was going to keep the Poseidon’s Fury concept of being a walk-through attraction / live show concept, while the other involved a new ride concept that would start out as a flume ride and end up transforming your vehicle into a flying craft held aloft by hidden tracks in the roof as you flew across the world of Hyrule to battle Ganon in an epic showdown before being placed back into the water.
Now we’ll have to wait and see if this will be a new Nintendo concept, or something perhaps entirely new. I do have to mention one small technicality with any new Nintendo concept that could block this from coming to IOA so soon. I can’t verify exactly how true this is, but someone once told me that Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto commented once to Japanese media that as part of the deal with Universal that the new Nintendo themed attractions had to open in the Japanese theme park first. So obviously, in terms of Super Nintendo World, this has held true, with even the Donkey Kong coaster opening in Japan a few months ahead of the preview rides starting on the Orlando version. I’ve been unable to find any record of this comment myself just yet, and things are always subject to translation errors, but it is possible that this comment was simply meant for the first wave of announced Super Nintendo World attractions and not future projects, or in relations to non-core (Mario-verse) Nintendo character projects like Metroid or Zelda. If anyone has been able to find that quote from Miyamoto-san, please do forward me a link.
(9/10/2025) Behind the Thrills made a great discovery this week, a new demolition permit filed by Universal Orlando for a “Project 555”, that calls for the demolition of 4.9 acres of “theme park site including retail/show/attraction buildings and associated utilities…” and so on. While they don’t give the exactly locations, they did a “quick and dirty” measurement of the remaining portion of Lost Continent in Islands of Adventure, while keeping the First Aid and Mythos buildings, and it happened to come up as 4.9 acres. Coincidence? Hmmmmm….
With Poseidon’s Fury and the Sinbad attractions have been closed for good for several years ago… it’s long past time for Universal to repurpose this giant piece of property for sure. I know the site was previously rumored to be up for development for a potential Legend of Zelda themed new attraction space as the first extension of the Nintendo deal beyond building another “Super Nintendo World” land.
(11/11/2023) Screamscape sources tell us that Universal Creative is indeed working on concepts to bring an attraction themed to The Legend of Zelda to Islands of Adventure. Nothing has been locked down yet apparently, not the attraction style, size, or scope of the location, but we’ve got some ideas. With the Poseidon’s Fury just sitting there closed and theater for the former Eighth Voyage of Sindbad Stunt Show also sitting closed right next door for the past few years, what is left of the original “Lost Continent” section of the park would allow for an entire “Zelda” themed land. Just don’t look for anything to happen until they finish with Epic Universe in 2025.
(4/12/2023) After being closed for a long period of time during COVID, only to reopen after a lengthy rehab as well… Universal Orlando shocked many today when they announced via an internal employee email that the Poseidon’s Fury attraction would be closing for good at the end of May 9th, 2023 to make room for something new at Islands of Adventure.
So what is on the horizon? No one knows for sure, but when The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad stunt show closed in 2018, I figured that Poseidon’s Fury was likely to be living on borrowed time. It’s also fair to assume that The Lost Contient island in general will also be lost to the sands of time, as after May 10th, both of the remaining attractions that made up the themed zone will be no more, leaving just a random assortment of gift shops, food stands and a foul tempered fountain. Oh, and Mythos… the park’s premier dining restaurant.
It would be interesting if Mythos was also shut down, but so far nothing has been said about that. Even if Mythos stays, the combined land used by the closed Sindbad and Poseideon attractions, along with the connecting shops is almost comparable in size to the land used for the Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure attraction. I’m not saying this will happen yet, but if Universal was willing to do so, they could level this entire space to the ground and be able to repurpose it for just about anything… a new major attraction to a whole land with several smaller attractions.
Universal seems to have something in mind however, as the email mentioned sharing more details about what might replace Poseidon’s Fury in the future. So it is also entirely possible that they could just reskin the existing Poseidon’s Fury attraction to create another similar walk-through adventure. I know at one point, many years ago, a concept was pitched to turn Posideon into a Legend of Zelda attraction, but those plans were never approved. Plus, from what I understand, the basic layout and effects gags from Poseidon would have remained intact, including the water vortex, the only change would be the story and theme of everything, so it makes sense why Universal never went through with it.
Screamscape Reviews the VELOCICOASTER!
(6/14/21) I’ve just posted the official Screamscape review of the Jurassic World VelociCoaster, which just may be one of the best coasters on the planet, and most certainly to be considered the best in all North America. A few days ahead of the grand opening, I journeyed down to Orlando on my own with the family and took on this insane beast of a ride. But I’m not just going to tell you about it, I’m going to show it to you as well in an all new Screamscape video all about the VelociCoaster and and one other epic new attraction at Universal Orlando.
(5/28/21) Universal has released the official POV video for the new Jurassic World VelociCoaster. While watching all the insanity take place, keep in mind that the entire runtime of the video is just 90 seconds, with the first launch kicking off around the 7 second mark and the train doesn’t stop until it hits the second set of brakes around 80 seconds later. I’ll say that again… 80 seconds!
80 seconds of non-stop, pedal to the metal, high speed, velociraptor screaching in your face utter chaos! It’s a beautiful thing! Check it out!
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