19th June 2023 (Universal’s Volcano Bay)

Today, we decided to break up the theme parking with another waterpark visit; we returned to Universal’s Volcano Bay! Today was an interesting one, because until very little time before our arrival, we had no idea that the Juneteenth federal holiday fell during our trip, and as that day was today, we thought that a waterpark might be a better, more relaxing place to go than any of the theme parks. Federal holidays notwithstanding, we also really enjoyed our first visit to Volcano Bay last week, and there were some bits that we didn’t get to see, so we were keen to redo it at some point in our trip!

As with last week’s report, I apologise for the fact that the intrinsic nature of Volcano Bay (a waterpark) means that there are no photos from today.

Due to Volcano Bay suiting an earlier visit based on our experience last week, we left the house at just before 8am to arrive at Universal’s parking structures at around 9:15am. As with last week, we took a bus over to Volcano Bay itself, entered the park and got given our TapuTapus before finding sun loungers and getting changed.

After getting everything sorted, me, my dad and my sister went over to Krakatau Aqua Coaster to book timeslots, as this virtual queue seemingly does nothing but get bigger as the day goes on. Similarly to last week, the virtual queue was already on 130 minutes, so we tapped in using our TapuTapus and were once again unable to join any other virtual queues for the first two hours of our visit. However, this didn’t stop us from riding attractions with no virtual queue, so we headed to a slide we didn’t do last week that was listed as “Ride Now”…

Puihi

The green Puihi slide on the Maku Puihi raft slide tower was showing as “Ride Now”, so as we hadn’t done it last week, we decided to have a go on it. I was interested to ride Puihi, as while I enjoyed Maku last week, it definitely looked like the less intense of the two slides, with Puihi having some interesting looking tricks up its sleeves. But how was the slide? Well, I have to say that it was great fun, and I do feel that I preferred it to Maku the other day; I liked the funnel-type features, and I thought that it generally seemed a bit faster!

After Puihi, we had a reride on a favourite from the other day…

Taniwha Tubes (Blue)

The blue side of Taniwha Tubes was showing as “Ride Now”, so we decided to take a ride on it. Even though the slide was listed as “Ride Now”, there was a fair standby queue, so we did wait for a fair few minutes in the physical queue line. So, how was the slide? Well, as with the other day, it was excellent; it may not have any fancy tricks up its sleeves, but it doesn’t need them, with the twists, turns and speed providing more than enough fun in themselves, in my view!

After this, we took a walk through the volcano and took a brief dip in the wave pool before heading back to our sun loungers for a bit. We then headed over to a non-slide favourite from the other day…

TeAwa: The Fearless River

TeAwa: The Fearless River was an attraction we all enjoyed the other day, so we decided to take a ride on it. Once again, we found it great fun, with a nice, speedy current providing a good thrill, and the mid-course waves providing an interesting touch! It’s also a very moreish attraction; whenever you reach the end of the circuit, you think “go on, let’s go one more time!”. As such, we ended up having 3 consecutive laps around the river!

After our circuits around TeAwa, we headed for another quick dip in the wave pool and another quick sit on our loungers before our previously booked slot arrived…

Krakatau Aqua Coaster

Our timeslot on Krakatau Aqua Coaster had arrived, so we headed over there and gave it a ride. The virtual queue was shorter than it had been the other day, so we got on the ride very quickly. But how was the slide? Well, it was excellent, just as it had been the other day; if anything, it was even better, with the launches feeling more pronounced, the airtime being more discernible, and the slide overall feeling faster and more fun!

After our ride on Krakatau Aqua Coaster, we met back up with the rest of our group and headed for a dip in the Reef Pool (a pool that goes up to 6ft in depth and looks over the Ko’okiri Body Plunge). There were some fun water features that could be activated by the TapuTapu, and it was interesting to look at the Ko’okiri Body Plunge riders as they shot by! After that, we took a group lap on…

Kopiko Wai

No one other than my mum and nan had yet done the gentler of the park’s two lazy river-style attractions, so we decided to take a spin on it. It was nice and relaxing, although I should add that my lap entailed many failed attempts at getting into a rubber ring; I tried to jump backwards into it so that my legs could stick out four times, but every time ended with the ring flipping over and me ending up flat on my face in the water, much to the amusement of my family! I eventually gave up and just floated along with no ring… when you combine that with getting in and out of rafts on the various slides and desperately trying not to hit anyone in the Fearless River, I think my dad may have been right when he said that “nothing about waterparks is vaguely dignified”…

After our circuit around Kopiko Wai, we headed for two further laps of TeAwa: The Fearless River before me, my dad and my sister booked into a 30 minute virtual queue for Honu. When we sat down on our sun loungers for a bit, 30 minutes quickly flew by, and before too long, we were heading to…

Honu

Our time slots had arrived on Honu, so we headed over to take a ride on there. The standby queue for this was far shorter than it had been the other day, so we were on the slide itself in no time! So, how was the slide? Well, as with the other day, it was excellent, with the two walls being great fun and the slide packing awesome speed!

After Honu, we headed back to our sun loungers to meet my mum and nan. As it was almost 2pm, and getting towards the time of day where the sand and paths were getting uncomfortably hot to walk on in bare feet, we decided to head home.

So, that concludes our day at Volcano Bay! I’m sorry that the report probably wasn’t very interesting today, as I know it’s not a theme park, but I have to say that today was an excellent day at Volcano Bay; I dare say that I enjoyed it more than our first day, and my family seemed to agree! Volcano Bay has been great fun, and I easily like it as much as the other Florida water parks I’ve been to over the years, if not more so!

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed today’s report! I’m not actually sure what we’re doing tomorrow, but if we do visit a park, I’ll be sure to write about it!