Why Is This Here?

 Curious about Universal Studios Orlando with the Cinci Brocat

Port of Entry at Islands of Adventure

In this edition of “Why is this Here?” We look at the front door into Islands of Adventure. Let’s open that sucker!

Every journey needs a place to begin. So let us begin at the beginning. When Islands of adventure was starting to take shape there would be music and a lighthouse, The Pharos Lighthouse (which is supposedly based off of the original Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria) and well exoticness. I don’t know if that is a word but yes there needed to be an exoticness about the whole way a guest came in the front door.

Port of Entry comes alive as you walk under the first bridge because a traveler hears mood music! I would love “The Call to Adventure” played loudly as I enter every room in my life. I would perform better on every level. 

Play this link while reading: https://youtu.be/NPz37Uo849w

These are the outstanding features that mesmerize me every time I start adventuring: 

The Entry Bridge: There is something about walking under the first bridge between the crumbling buildings inscribed with “The Adventure Begins”. I get this tingle in my stomach that something bazaar is about to happen to me. Look up while you walk under and see all the vines and leaves of a third world jungle about to take over.

Rocket Mailbox: Give yourself some time just after your fingerprint is scanned and look to your left. Go closer and see the complex theming of this express mail contraption. Send your postcard back to the States by rocket! If you buy your Harry Potter merch at the end of the day you can send it all home. This mailbox is set to blast off and Port of Entry is an unusually quirky place. 

The Motor Taxi: Or take a jaunt to your right after presenting your ticket and find the best sort of transport in a motor taxi equipped with everything(including a life preserver). Climb on for a great photo and pretend a hectic drive the villages of Peru at the base of the Amazon. My favorite feature on back are the snowshoes for travel in the snowy mountains of, well, I guess the rooftops of Hogsmeade. 

The Wind Works: The wind works are at stage center in Port of Entry. I hear the noise of water rushing and see the green leafy trees. Stand and trace the water down a series giant Clam shell basins and bamboo gutters with a windmill at the top. This must be a place where I can get fresh water before I return to my grass hut(with a Cinnabon).

Lost Explorers Sign: The Lost Explorers even have a meeting schedule posted! Of course if you look closer the meeting has been cancelled many times. I imagine because many novice explorers never made it back from the Lost Continent. Though standing here for hours one day, I never saw another like me. Leave a message!

Exit Bridge: My favorite (with park permission) is a walk on the bridge to nowhere. The best things are not easy to find. Look for a gate beside Confisco Grille with a Navigators Club emblem. Inside is an inconspicuous elevator and staircase. Say the magic password to a park attendant. Either takes an explorer to one of the best views of Port of Entry you can get. The Adventure lives on……… 

Other Stuff: The Christmas Shoppe and The Trading Company are of course within reach. The best place to buy cool clothes though? Find Ocean Traders, on the left at Port of Entry.

Every person needs an escape from reality at times. All of us need to open the door to adventure. Loose the chains of the everyday, average, boring, ho hum life and imagine for a moment, a buried treasure is under our feet somewhere.

And that’s why it’s here…………

Reporting from the land of FC Cincinnati soccer, the Bengals and Proctor and Gamble, this is the Cincinnati Brocat. Catch me at www.photodelux.org and follow me on instagram at www.instagram.com/todeltz for more content on who I am and what I do.