I forgot to mention it here but, recently I went to Nintendo World. Was my first time going out of state and flying (flying for 5 hours straight is hell) so I was nervous about that whole ordeal. I spent too much money on everything that just has Bowser's face on it. So if you were there recently and seen some hairy dude that was wearing nothing but Bowser merch, that was probably me. If you want an example of how overboard I went https://twitter.com/moonwulf128/status/1710889483804225654 all of this was just from the first day (I bought more the second day). I'm surprised I even got everything home without having to pay extra for it.
While I'm not really gonna write a whole review on how Universal Studios was as a whole, mainly because I really didn't get to try everything due to the park closing like 4 hours earlier due to the Halloween events taking place there (we really went in a bad month) I guess I'll mainly focus on Nintendo world since...that's in the title and was the main reason why I wanted to go in the first place. Nintendo world so far works better as just a tour as it currently is. Bowser's castle and Jr's mini castle was the best part but they are both attractions so you don't really get time to enjoy how nicely detailed their castles are (and the parts leading up to them) due to the massive line of people since they both lead to games. Jr's works better since the line is shorter and blocked off since it's basically locked behind a paywall as you need those $40 watches. Guests that are with you can still go in without a watch but someone has to own the watch and 3 keys to enter it.
Bowser's castle was again, the best part...visually. But it's hard to enjoy it since it's a line to a ride. A ride which honestly, isn't very good (it was the least enjoyable ride while I was there). You wait in line for over an hour, if not longer (some people wait up to 2 hours) for a ride that lasts what feels like 6 minutes and you don't really get to enjoy the visuals on the attraction itself because the ride is also a VR game that you have to pay attention to. I honestly couldn't even tell you what all I went through in the ride since I can only remember going through a section in a Boo Mansion which is the only part that stood out to me (the ride for some reason also seems to have long pauses in between certain areas)
The line walking through Bowser's castle and seeing all the fun details/mini world building was better than the main attraction lol. If the ride is your main reason for going, it really shouldn't be. But I would still say to try it at least once. Anymore than that really depends on how much you liked very slowly going through the castle vs the really short game itself. The fun/detail of Nintendo land as a whole really makes up for that which is why I say the place so far just works better as a tour than anything. Probably because it's one of the few worlds in universal studios that even gets people involved in things due to the blocks/keys you can go for, which brings up another point as if you don't get the watch which is basically another added paywall, you are kinda locked out of pretty much everything but the Bowser Challenge ride as you won't have much to do aside from sight seeing. I know Nintendo World still has a lot of growing to do (it's still recently new in the states after all) so I'm not really gonna knock it too hard and I know it's gonna expand with a DK section soon. It has a lot of growing to do but really needs that ride that screams "you really need to go here" like that Harry Potter ride...that was the best and had a really good/detailed world that added to the experience.
Now that I'm back home and settled, I'm in a pretty big Nintendo mood due to my trip to Nintendo World so i honestly just feel like doing a lot of Bowser and Co related content right now. Hmm? You mean that's already what I primarily do here? Stop asking questions!
I had a feeling it was gonna be bad but not that bad. Despite going for 2 days I think I only got on 6 rides total. A lot of that is due to the fact that the park closes early due to the on going Halloween Nights they are doing (a crazy amount of people showed up to these. Like, 3x the amount. It's hard to walk anywhere).
But if the lines are that bad on a nonsummer month like this, I shudder to think how ungodly long the lines must be during the summer months when kids are out of school.
I had a feeling it was gonna be bad but not that bad. Despite going for 2 days I think I only got on
