Today celebrates the 25th anniversary of Universal Studios Florida (and in essence the entire Orlando Resort but more on that later). Instead of revising for my exams I've decided to share how the park has fallen, picked itself up hugely and become a real competitor to Disney.
It started nearly 35 years ago with the idea of Universal building a theme park on the East Coast coming into managers minds in 1981. It was a big move, Hollywood was already in place as a working studios with the studio
Welcome to the last instalment of this blog before I venture off to Belgium in June So let's head to somewhere new and prepare myself for something I'll see a few times in Belgium.
Sign lies. Puddle will get my shoes wet, I'll walk into the bin which will hurt. Already looks painful.
KMG=Pain in my stomach
Vecoma
Schwartzkopf know for pain.
Let's get it over and done with.
Sure is difficult to understand. And rough, so PAINWOOD
This is good.
Like really good! So let's fi
Lots of people always go on about wanting to go to the greats of Florida for Disney and Universal. More people are able to visit DLP but there's a little place in this country that makes you feel like you're at Disney or Universal. Thing is, I couldn't quite work out which company clearly secretly owns this park. Of course, it is the one and only Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. So let me show you why I'm not sure if it's Disney or Universal.
From the outskirts it doesn't look great. But hey, U
For a few years now Towers has been subject to a mind marmalising force known as the Ministry of Joy and I think it's only time I reveal some of the hidden secrets after we persuaded a few Smile Assistants we want to help correct others. To do so we had to receive a grand tour of the correctional device. Be warned, what you see and read today is top secret and may correct you just by looking at it. It is your own choice to continue reading this...
Before embarking upon the process we decided
The Castle is full of history. And Merlin.
Welcome to Warwick Castle. Oh, follow these signs for the distances labelled and you can go to Merlin places of magic. Historic.
Don't you just love being ticketed.
Some decent shows. I really like the year round Annual Pass show at the Stables Ticket Office.
So much rich history. First date though... 2015
More NEW stuff! Very historical the year of 2015 is.
Look it's old!
Really old rope fence. 1340 that.
Artsy shot of a thing t
https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=TT (may be useful. Also any apologies to fluent German speakers, Google translate still doesn't do that well but it copies nicely back into Translate)
Willkommen in der letzten Reisebericht des Jahres. Hierfür haben wir nach Deutschland in London reiste.
Sieht aus wie Hyde Park.
Englisch Wolken. (Nicht jetzt lila und blauen Stuhl, zurück zu Erlebnisinsel)
Auch das Zeichen ist in Englisch. Es ist Winterwunder dumm!
Ach, mein Lieblingshotel.
Earlier this year I sarcastically explained why Nemesis is king of coasters. This time round I'm going to explain (in a serious-ish way) why Spiderman is my favourite dark ride of all time. (As always these are my opinions, if you do comment at the bottom explaining why you disagree I will hunt you down and get revenge oh and there might be some spoilers on the ride experience, you've been warned)
Islands of Adventure, the park that made Disney have an E-ticket attraction ready to be deployed
Some people went to Thorpe. Some to Towers to watch some fireworks. Some to Blackpool to ride some things at a time rowdy youths should be in bed but are instead in Blackpool riding things (interpret that how you wish).
Last year my season ended at the last night of FN (we'll ignore Florida as that never closes) and it has been that way for many seasons. This year I decided to do something different, Kempton Park Fireworks!
A lot of other people did too.
Just a sea of heads.
But it had
Welcome to the theatre. Please take your seats, the show is about to begin!
This will definitely be the Big One.
Orchestra ready!
Water effects ready!
It's time to...
Immerse your senses in the biggest spectacular of all time!
The 4D experience with a Blackpool Tower Post Show!
It's a small world from up here. Only the most realistic effects are used within this show.
Quick the bad guys have arrived! (sorry I didn't have time to finish this set off)
Vikings are bad g
Me and Toofpikk thought we'd head down to Paramount Park last Friday. It STILL isn't ready, clearly didn't get ultimate planning fastrack, only standard. So we went on a random adventure through a £2 tunnel to some place. We had no idea where though.
They had delicious milkshakes but that didn't help.
This place was obsessed with pink and yellow.
Like this Fireball thing.
Look at the pink and yellow!
We just couldn't think what theme park was obsessed with pink and yellow.
They
It may not be a theme park, it may only open its doors once a year to friends and family of staff. It is one of the elusive companies within England that few people get to witness. Hidden away in Woking just around the back of Horsell Common it lies, McLaren. (If you're not a fan of rides skip the majority of this report for something at the bottom).
Welcome to McLaren's Motor Show 2014 (although I prefer that name!)
The general gist of the day is for staff to bring in their vehicles and s
Here we are, the park home to Ultimate things like Raptor Attack, Angry Birds and some random stuff.
Here we see the Ultimate wheel that they have. It's so good that even on busy days they only load half the carriages.
Much like the annoying Drayton, LWV opens its gates at 10 but the main rides at 10:30. However, you can't even go down towards them from 10 so this happens. And with Ultimate things behind the man a queue of stampeding people formed!
So we went on the wheel which was open
Oddly placed sign in the trees
Odd water slide effect at the entrance.
"You calling my park odd?" Yes.
The Lynx didn't want to argue
That's a Fishing Cat. Odd that it wasn't fishing.
Odd chimp (because there's one of them ) looks at Appocalypse.
This seems more humpty bumpty
Compared to this. This is just weird.
But a good weird.
How odd.
BEST ENTRANCE EVER!!!
AND QUEUE!
This is odd.
But so much fun!
Rainy Shockwave
With odd straight bits.
Designe
Yesterday we decided to take an important English man to a place of Lego. Mr Lego William Shakespeare. I'll hand him over to you for this report
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. And this hand is suspicious, but I'm not guilty.
Welcome to the very merry land of Lego. Let's not read that rubbish book though, lets read a few of my plays.
This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow.
Certainly a big walking shadow!
Look mum it's
After my weekend at Towers I thought I'd explain why Nemesis is my favourite.
Even before this point you can hear it roaring around its twisted layout which can be quite intimidating. It is the roar of a monster! An untamed alien that wants to escape!
The British weather was brilliant to help set the scene! But you can stand directly under element of Nemesis with no netting ruining your photos.
Unlike Smiler
Without the netting these photos would have been half decent!
Nemesis i
As part of the 2-4-1 deal TPM was given for the new VIP experiences, a group of us went down to go behind the scenes and ascend 127 feet.
We began our day going into Stealth's bunker where the launch system sits. The size of it is ridiculous! There are a few photos of Inatamin accelerator hydraulic systems around the internet but they don't do it justice! It also makes the coolest noise ever when it launches unfortunately, no picture were allowed down here so here's one of everyone's favourite
My aim this year is to visit as many of the British theme parks as possible giving this blog the name "A Year of Britain" in the hope that next year it can expand and so on Anyway, first up is the delightful Paultons Park!
I had only been once before back when Cobra opened in 2006 and it was a really nice day out. So 8 years on it was time to see what had changed.
Upon arrival it was raining But do not fear, it was only the bizarre but cool new raining tree!
Although the new entrance wa
