Toon Lagoon at Islands of Adventure

Toon Lagoon is built from American newspaper comics - Popeye, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Dudley Do-Right, Betty Boop - which means the intellectual property on display peaked around 1955 and most guests under forty recognize none of it. It does not matter much. The island reads as bright, chaotic and funny on its own terms, and Comic Strip Lane is one of the better-designed walkways in Orlando even if you cannot name a single character on it.

The two rides are the reason to come and they are wetter than any water ride at Walt Disney World. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls is a log flume with a 75-foot final drop that goes below the waterline, and the wave it throws comes over the front of the boat and lands on the people in it. Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges is a spinning raft ride where the water arrives from waterfalls, from cannons, from a boat wash and from the guests operating water jets on the bridge above you. Neither of these is a splash. Both are a soaking.

Plan around it rather than being surprised by it. Lockers sit at both entrances. Ponchos help with Ripsaw Falls and are close to useless on the Barges, where water comes up from the floor of the raft. The right move is to do both back to back in the early afternoon, in clothes that dry, with everything electronic locked up, and then walk into Jurassic Park to dry off.

Me Ship, The Olive is the third attraction and the one parents overlook: a three-deck walk-through boat with slides, interactive gadgets and water cannons aimed directly at the Bilge-Rat rafts passing below. It has no height requirement, no queue and a good half hour of play in it.

Do not miss

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls and its below-waterline final drop
Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges, the wettest ride in Orlando
Me Ship, The Olive's water cannons, aimed at the rafts below
Comic Strip Lane's three-dimensional cartoon storefronts and photo boards

Toon Lagoon tips

Do both water rides consecutively in the early afternoon. Getting soaked at 10 AM means eight hours in wet shoes; getting soaked at 2 PM in July is a service.
Use the lockers. Both rides take water over the sides and both have a loose-article problem - a phone in a shorts pocket on the Barges is a phone in the water.
Send a non-rider to Me Ship, The Olive with quarters for the water cannons while you queue for the Barges. Being shot at from the boat is the best part of the ride.
Bring a spare pair of socks in the locker. It is a trivial thing that changes the entire back half of the day.

Attractions in Toon Lagoon

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls

44"112cm

Water ride · 5 min · Express

A log flume with a 75-foot final drop that finishes below the waterline, and one of the two rides here that will genuinely soak you.

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls is a log flume built around the Canadian Mountie sketches from Rocky and Bullwinkle, which means the story involves a moose, a villain with a moustache and a sawmill, and essentially nobody under fifty recognizes any of it. It does not matter. The ride works on its own terms as one of the better-engineered flumes anywhere.

Tips for Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls

Put everything in the lockers at the entrance. Ponchos help here in a way they do not on the Bilge-Rat Barges, but they will not keep your shoes dry.
Ride this in the early afternoon, back to back with Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges, and get the soaking over with in one block.
Do not bother angling for a drier seat. There is not one. The difference between front and back is a matter of degree.
There are guest-operated water jets along the exit walkway aimed at the logs. They cost small change and using them on the next boat is half the fun of the island.
Repeat-visitor note: the indoor middle section has some of the best cartoon set dressing in the park and everyone ignores it while bracing for the drop. Look left.

Full guide to Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls →

Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges

42"107cm

Water ride · 5 min · Express

A spinning river rapids ride that is the wettest attraction in Orlando, with water arriving from waterfalls, cannons and other guests.

Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges is a river rapids ride themed to Popeye rescuing Olive Oyl from Bluto, and it holds the distinction of being the wettest ride in Orlando by a comfortable margin. Twelve riders sit in a circular raft with a central console, the raft spins freely as it goes, and water is delivered from every conceivable angle across a five-minute circuit.

Tips for Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges

Lockers, without exception. A poncho is close to useless here because water comes up from the floor of the raft as well as down from above.
Take your shoes off and put them in the locker with your bag if you can bear walking to the platform barefoot. Wet shoes are the thing that ruins the rest of the day, not wet clothes.
Ride it immediately after Ripsaw Falls in the early afternoon. Getting wet twice in twenty minutes is far better than getting wet twice five hours apart.
Watch a few rafts go past from the bridge before you commit if you have a nervous child. The water cannons make the ride look worse than it is, which is useful information either way.
Repeat-visitor note: this is the best ride in the park in August at 3 PM and one of the worst in January at 10 AM. Its quality is a function of the thermometer.

Full guide to Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges →

Me Ship, The Olive

Any height

Play area · 25 min

A three-deck walk-through boat with slides, gadgets and water cannons aimed at the Bilge-Rat rafts passing underneath.

Me Ship, The Olive is Popeye's boat rendered as a climbable three-deck play structure, and it is the most consistently overlooked free thing at Islands of Adventure. It has slides, ladders, bells, whistles, organ pipes that play, and a set of interactive gadgets on every level that reward pulling and pushing everything you see.

Tips for Me Ship, The Olive

Split the group. Put one adult and any non-riders on the boat with the cannons while the rest queue for the Bilge-Rat Barges, and time it so they are firing when your raft comes past.
The cannons are on the upper deck, reached by stairs. Ground level has plenty for smaller children but not the good part.
There is real shade on the lower deck, which makes this one of the few places in Toon Lagoon to stand still in July.
Budget twenty-five minutes if you have a child under eight. They will not leave in ten.

Comic Strip Lane

Any height

Walkthrough · 15 min

The main street of Toon Lagoon, built as a three-dimensional newspaper comics page with speech bubbles, props and hidden water jets.

Comic Strip Lane is the walkway that carries you through Toon Lagoon, and it is a designed attraction rather than a corridor. The buildings are constructed as comic panels, complete with speech bubbles you can stand inside, sound effects rendered as physical objects, and character statues at the right scale for photographs. The source material is mid-century American newspaper strips, so most guests will not recognize the characters and it still works.

Tips for Comic Strip Lane

Walk it slowly on the way in and take the photographs then. On the way out you will be wet and in no mood.
The water jets in the paving are not decorative and they are not on a schedule you can predict. Keep phones away if you are crossing at speed.
The speech-bubble props are the best free photo opportunities in the park and there is almost never a queue for them.
This is the loudest walkway in Islands of Adventure. If someone in your group is noise-sensitive, cut through quickly and regroup in Jurassic Park.

Eating in Toon Lagoon

Quick service · Toon Lagoon

Blondie's

A deli counter in Toon Lagoon built around the Dagwood, a stacked sandwich named after the comic strip that invented the genre.

$$Mobile order

CuisineDeli sandwiches
ReservationsNo reservations

Quick service · Toon Lagoon

Comic Strip Cafe

A food-court counter in Toon Lagoon with several separate stations, and the only indoor seating on the island.

$$Mobile order

CuisineMixed - Chinese, Italian, fish and chips, burgers
ReservationsNo reservations

Snacks worth stopping for

The Dagwood

Blondie's

$16.99

A very tall stacked deli sandwich of layered meats, cheese and salad on rye, named for the character in the Blondie comic strip who gave the sandwich style its name.

Our take: Made to order rather than pulled from a warmer, which puts it ahead of most counters here. It feeds two people comfortably, and there is nowhere shaded to sit and eat it.

Savory Walkable

Fish and Chips

Comic Strip Cafe

$14.99

Battered fish and fries from the fish and chips station in the Comic Strip Cafe food court.

Our take: The most reliable of the four stations in a food court where none of them are good. The air-conditioned room is the reason to be here, not this.

Savory

Nearby

Universal's Islands of Adventure map See where this land sits All attractions Every ride in Universal's Islands of Adventure Port of Entry The entry bazaar and the park's only crossroads - no attractions at all, and most of the useful services. Marvel Super Hero Island Primary-colored comic architecture wrapped around the park's two most physically aggressive rides and its best dark ride.