Universal Orlando Resort

Universal Studios first came to Florida in 1990 with the opening of the Universal Studios Florida theme park to rival Disney's Hollywood Studios (originally called Disney-MGM Studios) which opened a year earlier.

Like Disney's Hollywood Studios it was themed on television and the movies with attractions like King Kong, E.T., Shrek, Terminator, Jaws and Revenge of the Mummy and carried the tag line "Ride the Movies".

The second park, Universal's Islands of Adventure, opened next door in 1999 with a range of thrill-based rides and attractions such as the Incredible Hulk Coaster, Dueling Dragons and the recently opened High In The Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. It is built around five themed islands, based on Marvel Super Hero, Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, The Lost Continent and Seuss Landing. A sixth land, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will open in 2010.

Find it on the map

Click here to find Universal Studios on the Florida map.

Universal Orlando Resort

Today, the Universal Orlando® Resort consists of:

Universal Theme Park Rankings

Whilst Disney continues to hold the top five spots for most visited theme parks in the whole of the USA, the Universal Orlando resort comes in at number 6 for Universal Studios Florida (6.2 million visitors) and number 9 for Universal's Islands of Adventure (5.3 million), according to the TEA/ERA survey for 2008 though they have lost ground in the last couple of years.

In an attempt to reverse this trend, Universal have been looking for new ideas and have built several new attractions over the last couple of years.

In June 2007, the renowned Blue Man Group opened at the Universal Orlando® Resort, in May 2008 a new Simpsons ride opened in the then closed "Back to the Future: The Ride" building and in 2009 a new music and video themed roller coaster, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit opened.

The most exciting news though is the opening in 2010 of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a 20 acre theme park within a theme park, inside Islands of Adventure.

Universal Studios is renowned for some of its special events including one of the most intense Halloween celebrations with over 1,000 cast member recruited to terrify the guests.

Unlike the other main Florida theme parks, Universal Orlando® has a novel parking arrangement with two enclosed multi-storey parking garages serving all the attractions via moving sidewalks, escalators and elevators. It is about a 10 minute walk to the gates. There is also on-site wheelchair rental and an on-site kennel.

History of Universal Studios Theme Parks

The very first Universal Studios park, Universal Studios Hollywood offered tours of the Universal Studios sound stages and sets in Hollywood before being developed into a full-blown theme park.

Universal currently have two resorts worldwide - Universal Studios Hollywood and the much larger Universal Studios Orlando. A third park, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is licenced to use the Universal name. A fourth park, the Universal Mediterranean resort in Spain was sold in 2004.

In 2006, Universal Studios announced a licencing deal which will see a licenced theme park, Universal Studios Singapore opening in 2010 which will be larger than the parks in Japan and California but not as big as Orlando.

Then in May 2007, further announcements were made regarding two more licenced Universal theme parks; Universal Studios Dubailand and Universal City Dubailand due to open in 2010 and another park in South Korea due to open in 2012. The developments in Dubai were subsequently put on ice following the global recession and the plans to be open in South Korea have been delayed until 2014.