Day 2
The day started with turning on the TV and watching the Making of Documentary Efteling did for Joris, because it’s never too early to be a goon. After some breakfast it was time to join the queue of people waiting for ERT on the poorly laid-out paving slabs.
You had one job!
Eventually let in, we headed straight to Vogel Rok for some back row times, and since it was completely empty, hopped on again further up the train because we could.
We quickly moved on as it was nearly ope
Day 1
What better way to spend the UK closed season than by visiting a park that doesn’t close? Goodbye depressing Merlin situations and hello Efteling, who certainly are the opposite end of the ownership scale, what with being owned by a non-for-profit organisation who happily throw €42 million on a show.
So a blustery Saturday morning greeted us, with a flight to remember as the winds took hold of our plane throughout, providing an intense experience I never wish to repeat again in my life.
In this final instalment of my Florida adventure we look at 3 parks in the dark, SeaWorld, Universal Studios and Island's of Adventure.
So let's begin!
With SeaWorld's beautiful tree!
Because it's Christmas!
So even the lake was full of trees!
There was an ice rink
Red SkyTower
A Christmas train set
Decorations
Mythical beasts
Penguins
Another tree
And fountains!
So SeaWorld is beautiful at night especially with Kraken and Manta!
And welcome to Universal S
Our penultimate instalment takes us to what has become my favourite theme park...
Welcome to Universal Studios Florida!
What will this chapter of our adventure have in store I wonder?
The Cat in the Hat shall enlighten us!
Let's start back...
To the Future
Now home to Jebediah
Lard Lad
And Clumsy Wigum!
Watch out for Kang and Kudos though! They'll put you in a spin
And make you a bit Tipsy
Or Sirly.
DuffMan doesn't care though
As long as you buy Duff!
This latest instalment even has adventure in the name, welcome to Islands of Adventure!
Let's take it one island at a time!
And let us start in the wacky world of Suess!
Which home to one fish, no two fish, are they red fish or blue fish though?
And an exceedingly unique carousel!
Moving on from Suess we enter the Lost Continent! Which now feels even more lost.
Sinbad, a decent show when you ignore the construction going on behind it.
Now time to enter the place many will
Today we venture to the bright world of Lego, now in Florida!
The entrance area is lovely and open and fresh, much better than Windsor's.
Must be a thing to have dinosaurs at the entrance to LEGOLAND's.
And some Lego tourists.
Once again it was apparently Christmas time, still didn't feel like it.
We begin the journey in their newest land, World of Chima!
It's a heavily themed splash battle which I'm sure to any viewers of Chima would make loads of sense! But even to some
Welcome to part 2 of my Florida adventure at...
Busch Gardens!
What a beautiful day it was
So let's leap into the action!
And begin the day with
Gwazi!
I know many people detest this ride, but I love it! Yes it's a bit rough, but for me it is still a thrilling enjoyable ride! For me it will be a shame if it goes.
]
The death of Gwazi is not yet confirmed but for Timbuktu it sure is.
Glad Scorpion isn't leaving though, it is a good fun ride.
Up on The SkyRide we saw a hipp
Here it is, my blog on my trip to Florida! It will be split up into 5 entries, 1 on each of the parks: SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, LEGOLAND Florida, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios.
Because it is always such a relaxed park and was the start and end to our holiday, first up is SeaWorld!
It's just a lovely place to walk into and as the holidays were approaching, everywhere was all Christmassy! What more could you want?
Of course, a B&M flyer with a water splash right in front of you
Here it is - the 2013 Review of the Thorpe Park season! I'll be sticking to a similar formulaic approach as the 2011 (sorry about the pictures being broken here; I'll be sorting it out asap!) and the 2012 Season Reviews I've done. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the style / format of it all, let me know! Sorry about the length of this; it's hard to a balance between a detailed review and keeping it short. Also, for anyone wondering, I won't be doing any for other parks, simply du
Hey all, my latest article on CoasterGeek; "Scare mazes, theatricality and the death of originality" is now online!
http://coastergeek.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/scare-mazes-theatricality-and-the-death-of-originiality/
Disagree with me? Leave a comment and I'll be happy to respond - Constructive debate is fun
Once upon a time a couple of months ago, TPM ventured to the outer whelms of the Northern Hemisphere to an alien species where people's speak a different accent in a land named Alton Towers. There was much excitement and amazement that these Maniacs were for the first time ever having an official overnight stay. So what adventures and situations will we see unfold in the upcoming 5 part adventure? It's 10th episode you know
On Arrival TPM came across this huge mansion - where it was decided
So I’ve discussed the UK parks, but what about the foreign ones I visited? Well here we goooooo!
Disneyland Paris
Well it snowed, oh BOY did it snow. Not that it ruined the enjoyment of course, there’s nothing more hilarious than riding Tower of Terror, getting to the top and the doors opening to a mini-blizzard. The park did extremely well dealing with the heavy snow and I take my hat off for the way they dealt with our booked restaurant situation.
The parks were their usually selves really,
So we come to the end of what has been a rather disappointing year in the UK (there’s no two ways about that) it was up to the park’s abroad to show us how to do things, and that is something they most certainly did.
United Kingdom
I didn’t actually visit any non-Merlin UK parks this year, I nearly made it to Mingoland but fortunately that didn’t pan out.
The additions to the Merlin parks sounded good (at least if you weren’t Thorpe, who seemingly cannot think of suitably well thought out add
2013 has not been the grandest years for theme parks in the country, more like a cheap table wine that you pick up for cheap at Tescos. From obvious budget cuts and rides standing but not operating for an entire year at Chessington too The Smiler trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink at passers by, it is clear that the Uk industry has stagnated somewhat in 2013.
And yet, shockingly and surprisingly, despite not adding anything substantial, Thorpe Park has come out as the clear winn
In what will probably be an unsurprising development, our 2nd park of the weekend was Plopsaland, because we all love it to bits.
It also has an immense amount of new things at the place this year, from a new MASSIVE theatre, two new rides in a newly themed area, and two rethemed rides (the kiddie cred and onion boats) which is really fantastic to see. Add this to the hotel development which is on-going and it does seem like the park is going places.
They had a good amount of Halloween
So after a month of going to all the Merlin Halloween events the ‘last’ weekend of the month needed to be something different. As such, discussions were had and plans put in place for a quick jaunt over the Channel on a Friday afternoon to enjoy a weekend of Belgian creds and scary things.
The Saturday was at Walibi, which has had an interesting life it must be said, and recently rebranded itself to a rather different park theme of a music band.
They also hold one of Belgium’s premier Ha
Thorpe Park Trip Report 27/10/13
After our short 25min drive from our hotel (following our 4.5 hour drive the day before) we arrived at Thorpe at around 10:15. We then proceeded to the MAP office to pick up our shiny new passes before heading in to the park just after 10:45, I checked the queue times using the app and saw that the majority of the rides were still on 5-10 min queue with the exception of saw and swarm which were both already up to an hour.
We headed toward X as we hadn’t been h
Having noticed the lack of FN trip reports I thought I'd make one for my visit after surviving the storm of 2013!
The park opened late, didn't affect our visit as we arrived at 1. The only things we noticed was they had moved Cabin's queue entrance to the Colossus side due to a huge puddle on the normal side, and a few metal fences had fallen over at the Inferno end of Blair Witch. The park was very quiet with the longest queues we noticed being 45 minutes for Saw and an hour for Asylum. Due to
With the weather looking okay, the only chance I'd get to visit this year, and having heard that the first Saturday is quiet I headed to Chessington today. Had a great day and it was indeed very quiet! Longest we queued was 35 minutes for Vampire with most other rides being 10-20 minutes. Operations also seemed slightly better on some rides (still generally shocking compared to other parks but an improvement none the less). Didn't venture over to the Hotel side of the zoo so I have no idea how w
This is going to be quick (for a change). I have mesed up a lot and just want to say a huge sorrry to those wwho have helped me massively this year. I cannot thank you guys here enough for helping me to overrcome many fears etc. But enough is enough so it is time for me to bugger off. I love this site but I can't stay anymore.
Au revoir
Sorry about being so lazy not to finish this and this won't I guess be the best installment ever but bear with because this is the last part in my trip report to Europa park!
Because the queue had died down, I decided to go on Euro-Mir again, unsuprisingly by myself as none of my family liked it apart from me
Such a good ride tbh!!! Like I said before it is very intense for what it is and by this point only had a 5min queue!
Shiny!
We were almost about to go straight to Silver Star wh
Day 3
And lo, the final day approached as we groggily awoke for one last B&M whorage session. However there was some unfinished business to attend to first, so we checked out the hotel, dumped off our bags and headed in to Baco once more.
It was announcing technical difficulties…
This turned out to be the addition of the second train however, so we waited it out and before long we were winging our way out of the station on the front row. The pre-show began, the brake fins dropped,
It was time for the Stars in their cars parade. Not great to be honest. Part of the problem here is that it's just generic cars and aren't that exciting to look at. It also blocks off the entrance/exit to the park so want to leave, nope you get stuck. Want to get on Tower whilst its quiet, no you have to wait for the Parade to pass. Not the greatest planning.
Not long Remy, Not long...
With the parade over and the two shows not starting for a while, we headed back to Toy Story playland and
