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Overview[]

Islands of Adventure Preview Center is a former preview center at Universal Studios Florida that operated during the construction of Universal's Islands of Adventure from 1997 to 1999. It replaced The Screen Test Home Video Adventure, then it permanently closed shortly after the grand opening of Universal's Islands of Adventure. After entering the building the guest would be given a passport, where you would get a stamp in each room.

Plot[]

The Preview Center was designed to give guests a sneak peek at some of the themes and attractions for Islands of Adventure. In the attraction, guests would walk through various rooms themed to the various "Islands" in the new park, getting a stamp for each room. The final room stated when the Islands of Adventure park would open, and showed guests Universal's future plans for the Universal Orlando Resort. The entrance room featured a wall of 36 TV screens featuring a hype reel of various new attractions under construction, including B-Reel footage of the Jurassic Park River Adventure from the Hollywood park. Hanging over the door to the next room was a giant hand-drawn stylized map of Islands of Adventure, with '1999" over the compass rose in the corner.

Citywalk and Port of Entry Preview[]

A stylized display of Citywalk dominates one wall, composed of layered building cutouts and billboards to give a three-dimentional impression, with cutout human silhouettes in the foreground; the bilboards advertise various upcoming Citywalk restauarants and nightclubs such as Moetown and the Hard Rock Cafe.

The hallway leading towards the next room features concept art of the Port of Entry, and it's signature lighthouse.

Guests can pick up their Passports in an opened travel box.

Seuss Landing preview[]

This room, which is also the first room showed concept art for Seuss Landing, also showing a video of an animated Cat in The Hat riding a machine featured in the Cat in The Hat ride, describing the land and attractions in classical Seuss rhyming style. This room also featured concept art and big cutout displays for the other attractions in this land, such as If I Ran The Zoo, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and The Caro-Seuss-el, which also features display cases with models of the ride's fanciful and colorful creatures, as well as one life-sized model.

This is a very kinetic room, with rotating mobiles and spinning Tuffla trees.

The Passport Stamp has a mechanical gloved hand holding a wooden stamp that moves up and down.

The Lost Continent preview[]

This dark and forbidding room opens with castle gates flanked by large custout dragons and cauldrons filled with a glowing and bubbling green potion, with the ceiling covered in stars. The room featured concept art and models of different parts and concept art of rides of the Lost Continent, such as Merlinwood, Merlinwood’s attractions, which were Dueling Dragons and the Flying Unicorn, and the show Poseidon’s Fury. The center of the room features a pool of water where the wizard Merlin appears and narrates about the attractions, which appear on the walls as he speaks via projection.

A giand scroll upon one wall reads thus:

"Once upon a wonderous time, Dragons breathed fire while Heroes and Magicians battled evil supernatural forces all across the Earth.

These epic and tumultuous timeswitnessed the extraodinary lives of such legendary names as Merlin, Sinbad, Scheherezade and Robin Hood.

But over time, 'Humanity' discarded wonder and magic in favor of 'Civilization.' So the creatures of enchantment and adventurous times retreated away from the 'Known World', gathering together on a secret, remarkable isle known as...

The Lost Continent

Join us there; Your 'ticket in' is but an adventurous spirit and a rekindled sense of awe and wonder!"


The Passport Stamp for this room is in the shape of a fanged, demon skull bas-releif in the wall, with a warning that it "may take more than your passport!"

Toon Lagoon preview[]

This room showed concept art for the area, and previews of Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges and Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. It is filled with giand comic pages and cutouts of comic book and cartoon characters like Haggar the Horrible, Blondie and Dagwood, Woody Wookpecker, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Betty Boop, and Beetle Bailey. There is a recreation of "Me Ship, the Olive"; below a hole in the bow, Sweet Pea sits on a rock while shark fins circle on a motorized track around him. A video in one of the ship's portholes details Toon Lagoon and it's attractions in the style of a 1900s-era film (footage interspersed with exposition cards).

The Passport Stamp is in the shape of a cartoon buoy.

Marvel Superhero Island preview[]

The entranct to this room features the lan's name in neon lights. This blacklight-heavy room featured Marvel Comics character insignia and previews of the attractions in this area, such as Doctor Doom’s Fear Fall, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk Roller Coaster. Everythin glows under UV blacklight. This room also featured a scale model of the The Incredible Hulk Coaster itself. A stylized cityscape dominates one wall, in which supervillains and superheroes will occasionally pop up; guests can take turns shooting at the villains with affixed blaster guns. Spider-Man features in the preview video, narratine about the attractions while web-swinging across the New York skyline. There are also two payphones with which you can call various Marvel superheroes.

The Passport Stamp resembles a menacing robot head built by Doctor Doom.

Jurassic Park preview[]

One enters this room through a tropical jungle, then through the iconic Jurassic Park gates into a lab. This room featured a mock hatchery, a Triceratops skull, a hanging seat of a Petranadon coaster seat, a glowing map of Isla Nublar, and a large a metal grate labled "Raptor" which bangs and and makes growling noises, as if a live velociraptor is behind it. A jungle-themed hallway leading out of the room showed further concept art of the attractions in the land, such as Jurassic Park: River Adventure; periotically, a snarling Tyrannosaur statue hidden behind a black scrim above guests' heads would light up and roar, providing a scare.

The Passport Stamp is made up to look like a DNA handprint scanner.

Final Room[]

This room states when the islands would open, a giant modle map of the finished resort property, and showed guests further plans of the park and expansion of Universal Orlando Resort.

Trivia[]

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