Florida October 2010 Trip Report

[Paj!]

How do you know Little Mermaid is going to be exactly like Nemo? Does seem a bit pointless.

 

I wouldn't even call Nemo a "dark ride" really, that reminds you of something that might get you excited. It's just...like. Here's your shell. Sit. Fish. Get out.

 

I have a feeling they hate the idea of changing too much/adding too much to their parks at any one time. Esp. Magique.

[ReZourceman]

How do you know Little Mermaid is going to be exactly like Nemo? Does seem a bit pointless.

 

I wouldn't even call Nemo a "dark ride" really, that reminds you of something that might get you excited. It's just...like. Here's your shell. Sit. Fish. Get out.

 

I have a feeling they hate the idea of changing too much/adding too much to their parks at any one time. Esp. Magique.

 

The attraction will be a dark ride, similar to Peter Pan's Flight and Snow White's Scary Adventures, but it will have an Omnimover ride system like the one currently in use at the Haunted Mansion. The ride will transport guests under the sea and will focus on many of the major scenes and musical numbers from the movie. Guests will ride in cars themed to resemble large seashells.

 

Literally sounds identical.

 

And "dark ride" is the technical term.

 

And yeah Paris don't seem to have that problem with their many many additions recently. Like Toy Story Land and such.

[Paj!]

Oh right, lol. So pointless.

[Paj!]

CUM ON.

 

I'm so ready for more.

[ReZourceman]

CUM ON.

 

I'm so ready for more.

 

I'm gonna do them in a second. Can you post to prevent automerge PLZs.

[Paj!]

AUTO MERGE PREVENTION SERVICES

[ReZourceman]

Saturday 9th October - Magic Kingdom at night.

On Saturday we got up and had a little bit of a chill out time, as we planned to return to Magic Kingdom in the evening. We set sail for the wonderful world of Super Target, the greatest supermarket known to man. This one had a Starbucks (amongst other things) built into it, so the chicks had some nibbleage from there. I decided to not have anything. Was something wrong? No, for I had a Wicked Cherry flavour Slurpee. I also added to my (already large) collection of gum.

 

 

 

It was a nice day, as per usual, indicated by this photo of my face.

 

 

So we hit the pool, and just generally chilled about until dinner time. We did dinner "on the way" to the Magic Kingdom. We decided to eat in at Wendy's, the best fast food burger joint on the planet. This time I went for the amazing combo of Chicken Nuggets and Chilli. It was the WIN.

 

 

After the amazing DINNER, we left for the park. Getting in was a breeze and we were greeted by men. Men on SEGWAYS. Segmen, if you like.

 

 

This time we took the monorail into the park and we went through a hotel. Strange/cool.

 

 

We got into the park and I was delighted to see people selling light up stuff. There are certain things in life that I love. These include;

- Light up stuff

- Glow in the dark stuff

- Fluorescent stuff

And I was even more delighted to see some flashing light up Mickey ears. Both the girls had theirs and finally I had mine!

 

 

Soon after we discovered the ears we were approached by a woman. Strange. What did she want? She got out of her purse three ticket type things, and she started asking us questions/explaining things to us. She explained that she had these three fastpass tickets that could be used once for any ride at the park. We nodded, and she was still explaining the tickets in full.....I (and the girls) were waiting for her to say how much she wanted for them, or whatever the catch was (we/I would have refused whatever the price...never can tell the validity of things mentality) anyway, she then finished explaining and handed them to us.....

 

...I was like....OH! WOW! Thanks! Thank you so much, really appreciate that etc, I was practically bombarding her with gratitude she must have been happy to leave, me still yelling as she jauntily strode out of the park. COOL! Lets see how handy this would come...in...handy...ness.

 

 

So two great things had happened and we had barely been there fifteen minutes. We started wandering around and we made our way through the castle intending to ride Peter Pans Magical/Wonderful/Aweinspiring Flight.

 

I recall the queue being 60 minutes I think. Wow. We were sure glad to have those fastpass' now. So we joined the fastpass queue and boooooyaaahhhh we were on within 3 minutes. Brilliant. Utterly awesome of that woman.

 

The ride itself was okay I guess. Wasn't a huge fan of it. It was similar to E.T. but just lacked....I don't know. The magicalness? It was just a shell really. Like nothing on the ride really moved, there wasn't much sound. So it was okay.

 

 

After Peter Pan we went to Tomorrowland and just walked around. We then went next to the Castle, and we sat down waiting for the parade (which was 90 minutes away). About 30 seconds later a woman (employee) came along and told us that where we were sitting the parade did not come. So we upped and moved over a little bit. It was a stroke of luck....as we walked to the new bit a woman was pulling the cable across as the cut off point for the piece of road. She pulled it across in front of us and we found ourselves standing at the front row. We smiled and sat down! Front row of the parade. Brill. Although we had 90 minutes to wait.

 

Within literally a minute there was already several rows behind us and it was basically packed all around.

 

Now....I'm a bit of a health and safety nut. Or rather "Chicken-bitch" as some people call me. I am a strong believe that if people took more care with things then there would be less stupid accidents. Like....don't joke around with knives or whatever. So....what I saw next....well it kind of struck me for 6. I couldn't really....believe the ignorance that I was witnessing. Several Disney employees came along and gathered up some kiddy-binks from the crowd and started to (And this is why I detest Disney with a passion) arrange a game of "Duck Duck Donald" which is actually Duck Duck Goose. So they had to ruin the name of the game, and also make it ridiculous...just....ugh. No. I hated the name. They even corrected a child once! When the child said "Goose" they literally said along the lines of "Uh uh uh,....its Donald!" I was like "No."

 

Anyway, what was the health and safety problem in this? Well I probably would have raised an eyebrow (as opposed to the two eyebrows I raised and my arms....Ie up in arms) if it was as simple as - them just playing it on concrete. However.....the ground had tram/train/track running through it. Ie a groove, a trench in the ground that was directly where they were playing this game. I expressed my worries to Claire and Emma, and they agreed to an extent, but were not as agitated as I was.

 

OH! It should be noted that I usually find it absolutely HILARIOUS when children fall over. The actual thing is funny as hell, the way that their careless and reckless running turns into an almighty PLONK as they hit the floor, and then the "calm before the storm" of their smile slooowwwlllyyy turning into a frown before they burst into tears.....something about it just tugs at my funny bone (I'm aware I'm going to hell BTW) BUT...not today.

 

The game went on for a fair while, and eventually a very cute/endearing and extremely shy girl came out from the crowd and asked if she could play. She sat next to one of the Disney adults who were playing and you could tell how timid she was and how eagerly she wanted to be tapped on the head and called "Donald", with her face sinking everytime she wasn't picked and was merely referred to as "Duck". Well she finally was chosen and off she ran around the group...and inevitably she was the one who became caught up in the tracks. She hit the floor but laughter did not appear on my face. I felt terrible for this poor girl and angry that something so obvious to happen was let to happen. But whatever.

 

Also there was a group of Spanish people next to me, and the mother needed a god damn slap. She was letting her spoilt disgusting child run around nearly hitting every stranger/child in the face with his flashing sword. Now...admitidly it appeared he was a special needs boy, and of course boys will be boys, so I'm not blaming him at all, but the woman was an oblivious moron. Heck the boy nearly whacked the girl around the face like three times/her cowering away.

 

Anyway this whole saga was like some strange feature length real time childrens soap opera. The parade finally came around! It was really something else. The electric parade it is called. All light up stuff. Very awesome. Loads of pictures on my facebook.

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=551497&id=509970580

 

 

 

Claires face says it all;

 

 

After this we had another wait of around 30 minutes until the fireworks, so we rested our weary buttocks, by standing up and waited. They eventually began and were certainly magical. I cannot express what happened in them better than actually showing you, so here is a YouTube video of them, filmed by moi, as will become apparent at the end.

 

 

 

 

Absolutely breathtaking, they really were. By far the best fireworks I had ever seen and completely worth the wait! And they were also worth the post-queue that I was about to experience! We had to get from the castle to the exit of the park. Standing in our way?

 

 

Several thousand people.

 

It only took about......15 minutes I guess, to actually get to the exit. Worse was the wait for the monorail....the mandatory monorail, as you're on an island. That wait was approximately 45 minutes. I timed it and in the end it actually took about an hour to get from the exit gates themselves, to our car. Pretty exhausting end to a magical evening - not really a criticism...well...yeah obviously thats bad, but I mean it was fine really, we were all so high on magicness anyway, we didn't care tooooo much. Queue for the monorail;

 

 

 

Magic Kingdom in the dark = the win.

 

Edited November 9, 2010 by ReZourceman

[Paj!]

Oh m'lord.

 

I've never left the park as it closed though (since I saw the fireworks/parade loads of times). I use late night trips to go on all the rides I want to with 0 queue [tip] [though obviously you wanted to see the parade and fireworks] [but the fireworks are AWESOMEJIZZDIELOVE when you see them from the top of the drop on Splash Mountain ]

[jayseven]

I get what you mean about being like that with safety - but really for kids it's not a big deal. Lower centre of gravity means the fall wouldn't be that bad and they're far more agile then us fat blobs of adults are.

[ReZourceman]

Video is working now. 720p FTW.

 

Watching it breaks my heart a little bit.

 

[ReZourceman]

Sunday 10th October - Epcot

 

Sunday morning came and we ventured out to experience Ponderosa breakfast for the second time. Crispy bacon is mega win. I cannot really expand on this, as I've touched upon Ponderosa once already.

 

We then set out for Epcot! My least looking-forward-to-park-of-the-holiday, because I knew that there was next to no rides there, thus queues likely large/boring/etc.

 

 

The spaceship is of course an iconic and impressive sight.

 

 

 

We went in and things like the Spaceship itself had about 40 minute queue - meh, so we headed straight for Test Track! And we got a fast pass for this. Then we went to Space Test thing I think, and the girls chickened out and the queue was a bit long for me to want to stand in alone, so we just opted out (I did want to do it quite badly) but meh. (Women are silly)

 

So we started the walk around the lake/world showcase or whatever it is called. Really cool with all the scenery and different foods available and stuff, nice to take photos etc, generally felt......educated having experienced it. We stumbled upon "Maelstrom" I was like "WTF is this" never heard of it.

 

After riding I realised why I had never heard of it. Anyone who has ever gone to the park before will have forgotten the ride due to the fact that it is so unbelievably dull. Lulz. Nah but it was pretty poor. Well I mean I kind of liked it but thats only because I like gentle stupid dark water rides.

 

Anyway yeah it was so bland. Valhalla at Blackpool Pleasure Beach is a viking longboat water ride, they are both VERY VERY similar except that Valhalla is absolutely amazing, exciting, great effects and great theming. Maelstrom is not a thrill ride, so take away basically everything from Valhalla and replace it with things that are boring.

 

 

 

 

Luckily/understandably it was walk on.

 

OH! HAAHAH, and at the end of the ride theres this silly/strange little film about Norway. Its just like "......."

 

Anyway so yeah it was good to at least get on a ride. We continued round and I bought a like...upper class slush drink from the Italy area. It was like...Peach and Strawberry and stuff, reallllyyyy niiiiceee and refreshing.

 

 

We then went around the rest of World Showcase and enjoyed it as much as possible considering what it is. We then went on The Seas with Nemo.

 

 

 

Yeesh that was a dull dark ride. You sit in clam shells and go around fish tanks and scenes from the film with...holograms of the characters or something. Holograms are also projected into the tanks, which doesn't look good/right anyway. Just generally pretty boring. Again barely any queue though (but only because capacity was so astronomically high)

 

 

 

Soarin' had a queue of like an hour or something, so again something that I quite wanted to do and we just couldn't be bothered with it.

 

Lol @ Colonel Sanders.

 

 

We then went on Test Track, using our fast pass and queued about 15 minutes or so including the pre-movie.

 

I was looking forward to Test Track, it seemed like a great concept and having done it on YouTube a while ago I knew it contained some cool elements.

 

I was a little dissappointed by it. It was enjoyable, but its just all quite normal/bland. The "extreme" temperature rooms were hilariously unfelt. Like the cold one we could barely feel any change in temperature, Claire and I looked at each other and chortled. The boost at the end is reasonably enjoyable, but not quite as forceful as I had hoped.

 

So overall it was okay.

 

There weren't really any other rides left to do/we couldn't be bothered so we left, all thinking it was pretty shit, really. :p

 

I photo'd someone "grabbing the Epcot" spaceship thing from the other angle, Looool. Basically couldn't look camper.

 

 

We then went to Downtown Disney.

 

 

We sat down and had a drink first, we were very tired and thirsty. This chocolate shop called "Ghiardellis" did like amazing ice cream sundaes, upto the price of like $30 or something silly. We didn't have any. Claire and I then walked around the various shops, my sister too tired to join us.

 

 

I wanted to go to the cinema but the others did not.

 

 

We then went back to the hotel and crashed out for a little bit. For dinner we had something that I had always wanted to try from America....

 

Dominos Pizza! Ahhhhhhhhh. It was awesome. I don't know if I'd say it was as good as Flippers.....but it was different. Still TOTALLY good, we had a special Pepperoni one with different kinds of cheeses, herbs and a slightly garlic'd seasoned crust, along with "Cinnastix" which was fucking delicious, it was like thick bread with melted butter and cinnamon on (so it had a little bit of that sweet n' salty amazing) with an icing dip. Jeez it was immense. Great dinner.

 

We then watched T.V. and bedded. Chilean miners were.....getting rescued/pipe being setup I think.

 

Sweeeeeeeet.

Edited November 9, 2010 by ReZourceman

[Llama Juice]

Dominos... gah I want dominos now.

 

Not even their pizza, but they have pasta bread bowls that are absolutely terrible for you but OH SO GOOD.

 

I used to live in Florida, ended up actually going to Universal Studios to graduate from college (seriously, my graduation was at the Hard Rock Live there XD)

 

I haven't been to most of the other parks you listed in YEARS though, so it's just kinda nostalgic to see all these pictures and stuff.

 

Glad to see you had an epic trip :P

 

Now my stomach is grumbling.

[Paj!]

ReZ!!!

 

I hate. Soarin' is the thing you need to do. And Spaceship Earth. The only rides in Epcot that don't somewhat disappoint you. (Maybe Mission Space, but people like die on that. I could feel my brain had been pushed to the back of my head after doing that)

 

Your women-folk clearly have no understanding of life and worthwhile things. Considering you'd waited so long to go to Florida. Your dedication to fun is bad.

 

There's lots of secret interesting things in Epcot, but loads does needs updating. The best bit is the Coca Cola place where you try all the different variants of Coke from around the world. Did you do that?

 

Maelstrom is "...", as you said. Especially the bit at the end.

[ReZourceman]

Didn't see a Coca Cola bit, but sounds brilliant. I honestly think I would have heard about it, are you sure it wasn't a temporary thing?

[Ramar]

Wait a minute you didn't get drunk on the expensive beer going round the World Showcase? I am disappoint.

[ReZourceman]

I don't like beer.

[Ramar]

I don't like beer.

 

I'll let you off, but it increases Epcot's winfactor by 25%.

[Paj!]

It wasn't temporary, but it may have been removed. I've been there many times. But IIRC, not last time I went (2007).

[ReZourceman]

Video of Halloween Horror Nights.

 

This is an absolute must watch all the way through, if not least for the burn my sister bestows upon me before the opening credits.

 

 

 

 

Can someone please post ASAP to prevent automerge....my Busch Gardens report is nearly finished.

[Paj!]

AUTOMERGEEEEE

[ReZourceman]

Day 11 - Busch Gardens AKA Awesome Amazing Gardens

 

We awoke on Monday and had decided to skip breakfast. After over a week of big rich, fulfilling morning meals we thought that we wouldn't really need it (again) and so we set off bright and early (well about 9AM ish I guess) for Busch Gardens. Busch Gardens is about 1 hour away from where we were slash all the other theme parks. (1 hour by car). Anyway, the drive was very easy, I was navigating using some Google Maps print outs and it was a doddle.

 

We arrived! Signs! WIN! Really good "preferred parking" at this park, it literally dropped you off a few rows (disabled) away from the entrance! Score! Exclamation mark!

 

 

On the way there I liked this sign;

 

 

"Over 21,000 vasectomies....thats over 42,000 testicles!"

 

 

 

Montu was visible from the car park (very visible) and looked great. Nice paint job, clearly a well looked after ride, and I was hopeful that I could say the same for inside the park. I could! Everything looked great, very clean, all looked new. We went inside and immediately headed for Montu. We had to walk around the big *area* where *Cheetah Chase* or whatever its called *is being built* *asterix*

 

We got underneath the mammoth roller coaster and I gazed up in excitement, barely being able to keep my sexual arousal under control, I grabbed my camera hoping to capture the moment forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I actually cannot remember how long the queue said it was. I think it said like 20 minutes. It ended up being slightly more than that, simply because they PUT A SECOND TRAIN ON! Whooohooo. Already better than Duelling Dragons and we were only in the queue (both chicks joined me on this ride). So the queue then started moving very quickly and we were on the ride.

 

A B&M Inverted, and this ride boasts a large 7 inversions. That might be a record for a B&M Inverted...not sure. Anyway, so its pretty high, then the first drop is just awesome, loop is awesome, YADDA YADDA YADDA. ABSOLUTELY freaking awesome ride. My favourite ride up until that point. It is sheer brilliance. Seems really long, and with large straight bits, this makes it kind of-totally different to every single other B&M I've ridden, in the sense that it is not very disorientating at all. Not to say it isn't forceful though, its got some great kickin' inversions. Just brilliant. The best coaster I had been on. Lovvvveeddd ittttt.

 

We then got off, I talked for about 10 minutes about why I liked it, whilst Claire and Emma pretended to be listening and knowing what I was talking about. We saw some animals.

 

Now this was a proper god damn zoo/animal park. Unlike Disney's Animal Craptacular. Actual interesting animals were all over the park. Animal highlights in photographic form;

 

 

Woops, how did that get in there....

 

 

 

 

 

We then discovered the safari type ride "Rhino Rally". As I gather the ride has been extensively altered/shortened to cater for the building of *Cheetah Chase*, and was a lot better before, however this was still fun, and the tour guide was REALLY funny, with his funny voice and jokes. It was cool. Got some pictures of the animals and the tour driver person. I'll upload a video soon, his voice is cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked towards the back of the park and we found Kumba. I went on it with my sister. We queued up for about 30 minutes, unfortunately they were only running one train (boo), but Kumba was to be my second B&M steel coaster. The first being the Hulk, it had a lot to live up to!

 

Holy crap! This ride was god damn awesome too. Really awesome first drop. I'd say one of my favourite first drops of (most) coasters. Really sweet, large inversions too. Great setting and scenery, it seems to dip in and out of all the trees and concrete and paths all around it. It was awesome. Every thing about it was just large and loud. Here's an on ride photo!

 

 

 

 

 

So that was insanely good. Then Claire and I opted for the river rapids! It was a hot and a little dampness wouldn't go unwanted! The wait for this was ages however. Must have been about 30 minutes ish. Annoyingly they were only running one side of the dual-loading station, (which seemed like a stupid idea....it wasn't a conventional river rapids station on a circular turn table....boggles the mind why they only had one side running) anyway, we finally got on and the ride itself was pretty cool. Not mind blowing but pretty cool. LUCKILY I LASTED THE WHOLE RIDE WITHOUT GETTING SOAKED! FINALLY A RIVER RAPIDS THAT I DIDN'T.....WAIT....WHAT IS THAT SIDEWAYS WATER CANNON DIRECTLY NEXT TO THE END OF THE RIDE? WHY IS THE BOAT SPINNING AT THE EXACT SPEED THAT WILL MAKE IT SO I LINE UP DIRECTLY WITH WHERE IT HITS. The inevitable happened, and I got absolutely pumped with water. I sighed. All the Spanish people laughed. Then they started chanting something. Claire and I smiled, confused and scared.

 

We then got off the River Rapids and I wrung my socks out. :p

 

We walked over to the next area which was near Sesame Street. We saw a log flume, but it looked fairly bland and we didn't want to get wet, so gave it a miss. Next up was Sheikra, their 200FT dive machine (Florida's tallest coaster) Wooohhhooooo. Both other chicks chickened out of the ride, so I walked up to the attendant and asked if there was a single rider queue. He informed me there wasn't.

 

 

But then he informed me it was okay because there was virtually no queue!

 

I went up, and indeed was at the loading bay already, so only waited a minute or two. They were running two trains. The trains were effectively floorless, as opposed to the other DM I have ridden - Oblivion. It has a very cool feature of the floor going down, and then folding away to the side. I was on the ride, at the back row and very excited. We exited the station and began the journey to the top. WOW! What a view. Absolutely magnificent. The train stalled on the top of the drop ala Oblivion, however I couldn't see the drop unfortunately. Being on the back row, the two rows in front obscure the view. Worry not, it just gave me more time to look at the glorious Tampa. And vwoooossshhh we were off. The giant Immelmann was amaaazzzinnngggg. It felt cool to do an inversion in a DM. The ride was huge and smooth, just what I expected, and the finale with the other drop and the water breaks was glorious, a graceful end to a brilliant ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet bled. We then found an awesome shop next to Sesame Street Area Land Place, that sold slushee type drinks and such. We bought a couple of small beaker cups with straws, and purchased some slushee drink.

 

 

 

We then met some of the Sesame Street characters.

 

 

 

Big Bird tried picking Claires nose (?)

 

We then walked a little further and found ourselves in the shadow of Gwazi, a large wooden rollercoaster. Its usually duelling, but only one side was open on this day.

 

HANG ON. I forgot to post some cool photos of some tigers.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, yeah Gwazi. Claire and I opted for this one.

 

 

 

As with Kumba it is a fairly difficult ride to get pictures of. Anyway, I had experience earlier this year with both several wooden rollercoasters in Blackpool Pleasure Beach (including the wooden wild mouse ride, I genuienly feared for my safety on) and also Great Yarmouths wooden ride.

 

This was in a different category. Extremely fast...like....pant wettingly fast, very rickety....not TOO jerky, but obviously a little jerky. Wow. It just absolutely packed a punch. It was....JUST SO GOD DAMN QUICK. It was a brilliant wooden roller coaster, definitely the best I've been on. After the ride I asked Claire if she'd rather go on that again or Sheikra, and she said Sheikra, heh heh heh.

 

I think that was pretty much the end of it really. The park was beautiful. In a similar way to Alton Towers it was very big, and you can't really see any other part of the park, when you're in one part....if that...makes...sense. So it kind-of feels like an adventure. Anyway the coasters were excellent. Kumba and Montu ranking among the best I've ever ridden, so I was utterly satisfied, we all had a really great day. We drove home and arrived in Kisssimmmeeiisssmmeee.

 

We chose to have McDonalds drive thru for dinner on this day. I had (I think) Chicken McNuggets and a milkshake. I think they've recently re-done their milkshakes...it was absolutely awesome. Incredibly nice. Anyway, my sister did something hilarious at the drive thru order section.

 

"How can I help?"

"Okay, can I have a Whopper meal"

"A what?"

"A WHOPPER MEAL"

"Thats Burger King you knob end!!!!"

"Oh! Crap! I mean Big Mac....!!"

 

We loll'd into the night.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

OMGOSH! White tigers! *loves*

 

The picture with the Count is rather ... unlucky.

 

Anyway, you make these rides sound so awesome, yet I know I'm a chicken when it comes to it.

[Paj!]

All the Spanish people laughed. Then they started chanting something. Claire and I smiled, confused and scared.

 

Genuine LOL. I love when you ride with the spanish people and just end up nodding along with whatever they're saying to/about you.

 

And yes, I'm disappointed in the lack of joke about that Count picture ReZ - it writes itself.

[ReZourceman]

The picture with the Count is rather ... unlucky.:

 

I hadn't even noticed. Thats brilliant.

 

Anyway, you make these rides sound so awesome, yet I know I'm a chicken when it comes to it.

 

Go "on" Montu! Online! Its sicko. Bled.

 

 

Bonus, Sheikra.

 

[Ramar]

Love the fact you enjoyed Busch Gardens. Did you get a front row ride of Sheikra?