Mark9

See for me, Inferno benefits from the music playing only at certain moments, not all the time. It's like modern day TV, everything is drenched in music trying to tell you what emotion you need to have. Inferno in it's first few years had the balance just right as the theme went and you felt the rumble off the train travelling below you. Now it's just another Thorpe ride with a soundtrack.

Last I heard it was open. To avoid the disappointment if it is closed, Topbuzz 2, an ultimately better run, more thrilling and better looking top-scan is currently in \Epsom this weekend.

Definitly would suit X..

Oh Europa Park, I adore and love and cherish your German charm. Lovely start to the report, isn't Colosseo just amazing. The reception roof is just so gorgeous.

Dragons Fury is a fantastic ride, absolutely brilliant and fun and the best spinning rollercoaster.But I rarely ride it becuase it's queue is ridicuously long because of its throughput. I will ride Everest over and over and over because it has an awesome experience coupled with a throughput that would make most Merlin rides faint. Throughput is important but obviously not the most important thing.Agreeing with what Sheepie said, at one point Nemesis was a gimmick and look how that turned out. Same with Oblivion and Air. Back in those days, Tussauds were so focused on the ride being a complete experience. Should have known once we saw that Air tunnel that things weren't the same anymore. What I would love is for a ride to have a gimmick that the ride doesn't focus all its attention on. Because, for instance with Thirteen, that drop is everything to the park and the rest of the ride is half baked and a bit meh.

Just passed his driving test.

I would love for Inferno to go back to 2003 days when the station was completely silent whilst it loaded and only when the train moves does the dispatch theme play. I feel that having music on in a loop and then having no dispatch music at all kills the atmosphere dead.

Haha. You have a fair point. However, as Thunder Looper hadn't been in the Uk for 9 years and Rita uses a somewhat more technical launching system, I now standy by my last comment

It's for the same reason that people buy Vauxhalls and Fords instead of BMW's and Audis. B&M's are premium range products and what you lose in money, you gain in quality. Colossus has had restraint changes, is considered rough and pops bolts left right and centre.Inferno runs and rarely has technical faults.The example you use of Maverick, that ride was so EXTREME, the inline it originally had was destroying track and train and had to be removed for an S-curve. (Colossus cost 10 million)

First launching rollercoaster in the uk. It was very unique when it opened in 2005.

This. The reason Alton is the the current number one is because the park has a character, a charm of its own that came purely by accident. It's so fondly seen in the public eye because it dared to be different with Corkscrew and continued this success with Thunder Looper, Nemesis, Oblivion, Air, Rita and Thirteen.I would love to see Alton go for a traditional, no gimmicks coaster.. but they never have so why break tradition now?

Oblivion :)I've been having a think about Oblivion, and you know what? It's a darn sight better themed then I ever realised. Alton Towers could have easily just built a dive machine and let the ride do the talking, but no they went for an idea that really works. Oblivion is something special.

The actual quoted cost for Inferno was 12 million.

Wow, that was actually a good episode and a very good cliffhanger there to! I'm amazed, my mind just can't see where this is heading and what's going on. And how does this connect to the regenerating girl in episode 2.... can't wait.

Thanks for the comments people! It truely was a fantastic holiday and the problem is there is just so much that I will remember for the rest of my life. From being picked on in Monsters Inc laugh Floor to the interaction with the various characters. I completely missed out rides and areas in my trip reports actually such as Adventure Land and Dr Doom's freefall. Woops.I haven't completely finished though, I'd like to talk a little about the hotel we stayed in and some of the restraunts we ate in to as they were just as much part of the trip as the theme parks.So we stayed in Port Orleans: French Quarter hotel. It's a beautiful hotel actually and due to its location, you are close to three of the Disney parks and just a boat ride away from Downtown Disney. The street names were all named after coffee, such as cafe au lait. Welcome to the room. The room was small but the thing with Florida is realistically, there is so much to do that you aren't really spending much time in your room; and it has the basic necessities such as shower, bath, fridge and a safe anyway.Our hotel featured the crocodile characters from Fantasia near the swimming pool and much fun was had posing with them.So to the restraunts. We were on the dining plan which meant a snack, quick service meal and sit down for every day of our visit. Food in America is good. I'd heard lots of things about ridiculouly large portions and everything covered with melted cheese. We didn't really experience this as each place had good sized portions and the variety on offer was excellent. I daren't list everywhere we ate because honestly can't remember but some of the higlights was the restraunt at the Animal Kingdom lodge and the food at Chip N Dales woodland feast at Epcot.Some of the snacks, weren't really snacks to be honest. For instance a cake shop at Animal kingdom sold full coure meals as cakes.Just wonderful

5 times on Dragon Falls5 times on Vampire10 times on Dragons Fury3 times on Rattlesnake10 times on Black Bucaneer10 times on Rameses Revenge

Epcot Part two.So... The Universe of Energy. The park map warns you that this is a 37 minute attraction looking at energy and how it is created. Well we had an hour to kill between food and the fireworks so dcided to give it a go. You wait outside another oddly shaped building, let into a big black square waiting room and Ellen DeGeneres (the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo) starts talking to you about.. stuff. She's watching Jeopardy on Televeision before Bill Nye 'the Science guy' lets himself in and they start talking about stuff. Ellen falls asleep and dreams she is in Jeopardy losing against her friend because the subject is energy. So you'll let into a large room consisting of several long rows. You sit and then all the rows start turning around to face the opposite way. You're in Ellens dreams and have been transported back to witness the big bang. Bang. Suddenly without warning the rows start dividing and going off on an adventure through a dinosaur themed area. This was so unexpected for us and made the ride so memorable just because I coulnd't work out how the ride was doing it. I still can't get my head around it. The rest of the ride doesn't really match up to be honest as it doesn't teach you much about energy to be honest, not as much as I think it wanted to. It's also so so so so long. You get your ride time and more here.Right, well the world showcase. Essentially, I am told that most Americans will never see much of the world, so self contained that they are, so Disney built an area representing 12 different countries around the world. Including themselves for some reason. We went round clockwise, buying ourselves an autograph book. The idea is, you find the person in each area and get them to sign it. These are always in shops to encourage you to buy more, bless Disney. So to start off is Mexico which is essentially a Mexican marketplace selling various pieces of jewellery. There is also a dark ride hidden away called the Gran Viesta Tour featuring the three Carbrellas. Very similar to It's a Small world. Next Norway. Like Norway, very expensive area with a big cake shop and another dark ride called Maelstrom, this time spanning the Viking times to the modern day. Following Norway is China which features a small museum of Chinese statues which represent the soldiers whio died/fought in battle. Next and covered in Laidahosans is Germany. Featuring an amazing caramel shop, and a minature railway you do come away from Germany wondering whats historic in Germany. Next and with beautiful architecture is Italy. And you'll never guess what kind of restraunts and shops are in the Italy area. The American Adventure follows on. Not sure it was really necessary in America.. but you know, they are patriotic after all. Next country is Japan, another scenic area and very beautiful with authentic looking buildings, streams and paogodas. The shop features cast members getting pearls from clams, gathered quite an audience to. Morocco was next, featuring lots of silky clothing and Aladdin. Onto France and the top of the Eiffel tower. There's a bakery and a perfumery in the area as well as a shop selling wine. And subtle advertisments of Disneyland Paris, how coy.The United Kingdom follows on from France. At Europa Park, United Kingdom is represented by the public transport system. In America we are all old style buildings, fish and chips, pubs and toy shops. Suppose it's true of Caterham. The final country is Canada whichf eatures a live band all day and log cabins. I really liked the world showcase actually and can understand the inspiration behind it completely. I did like how each cast member in each area was from the right country, for instance in the UK toy shop, some of the staff were from Devon, Hackney and Northampton. And all the staff member in the United Kingdom tea shop were gay. How apt!The finale to most a Disney day out is a big firework show. Illuminations, reflections of earth takes place on the water in the middle of world showcase. It's a great viewing area actually. we always watched from the front of the park but I can imagine the view from all the way round would have been decent. I really enjoyed the music and showmanship of the show. I prefer bangs and colours in my shows so it was right up my street.So that was all the parks we visited on our trip. It was the best holiday of my entire life to be honest. Ten days of pure happiness, joy, immersion and getting on that bus to the airport was the most gaulling moment of the year. I'll definitly be going back because I feel like I've only really scratched the surface of just how wonderful it is out there. If you've been there you know how brilliant it is and if you haven't, well I hope I've given you a taste and have persuaded you to start planning your trip for 2012.

Finally, Epcot. Standing for the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, it stands as the vision of Walt Disneys utopian vision of the future. Well it's certainly not a conventional theme park by any stretch of the imagination. The rides there aren't rides by normal conventions. One thing that struck me immediately about Epcot is the size of everything. The ball is massive, the buildings are massive, the scenery is massive. Everything is large scale. So as we entered, we headed (as with everyone else) over to Soarin'. Whereas the Californian version is about flying over California, the Florida one is going to California. This was another popular attraction and luckily Disney built two. You're split off and assigned loading areas. A cheesy pre-show is shown telling you where to stow loose belongings and to do your seatbelt up (with that most satisfying click). You enter onto a vehicle that actually closely resembles a flying coaster train. Everything is checked, a screen loweres and the whole thing rises up. What follows is two and a half minutes of wonder. Americans adore this ride. Out of any ride at Disney, this is the ride that most encapulates its audience in the experience. Every swooping moment caused rounds of applauses and sheer delight from people around us. It was rather nice actually. The soundtrack is also gorgeous and fit's the attraction beautifully. It was Chris's favourite thing at Epcot. We picked up a fastpass and continued onto Living with the land. I found this bizarre but amazingly interesting actually. You board a large boat and essentially go off through a short dark ride section and then out into Epcot's greenhouses and past it's scientific houses. All around you are vegetables and fruits that the resort grows itself. Very intriguing and an odd ride to recommend.. but I will anyway. So we left the Tardis like building and headed to The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Now I understand why they threw Nemo at the aquarium but it does seem very empty in there with not much attempt to incorporate the ride and characters with the aquarium. Compared to other Disney attractions it seemed to lack an atmopshere. But anywho, loved the dolphins in there who seemed to be having an underwater chat and for a large sea-life (essentially) it does its job well.By this point my camera had finally given up the ghost, so having grabbed a sugar pretzel, we now switch to Chris's camera. off to Mission Space we went. Chose the INTENSE ORANGE SIDE, where we were queued-jumped by a never ending group of Mexicans and into the pre-show. The guy from CSi New York is dressed as a spaceship commander and tells you some bits of the mission. You're all assigned jobs for the flight and you are warned to always look ahead on the attraction and to keep your head against the headrest at all times. Sound advice. So we entered our space shuttle and BANG OFF WE GO. The sensation is.. interesting and I have to admit to feeling that sugar pretzel wanting to re-emerge. I like hyper-sleep, shame it didn't cure my jet-lag. Definitly an experience kind of attraction and I honestly have no idea how I feel about it. Maybe we should have done green side first?NEXT! Testrack. Now I really liked this ride because it attempts something completely different. I'm not sure how percieved wisdom views it but I personally found it very enjoyable. Every 5/10 seconds a car flies past the main building so that gives you an idea of how fast the queue will move. The queue itself is a General Motors showroom showing the different car testing procedures they put their cars through. I really wish I'd been able to queue the whole thing because there's so much to look at and read.You're batched into the briefing room where you are shown what the car is about to go through. I liked this pre-show video, very tounge in cheek, You then go out and see the cars coming in and out. Interesting the cars have three in each row, perfect for the single rider queue. The cars are very comfy, a simple seat belt is the only restraint you need. The tests include a hill, belgium and german blocks, a break test, break test with ABS, putting the car through elements, cornering (avoiding a close collision with a lorry) and then the surprise test. Instead of smacking dead into a wall you emerge outside where the car quickly accelerates. What I really found interesting is that even though it isn't as fast as Stealth or Rita, I preferred the build up to 60 miles per hour, rather then the quick launch of the Intamin accelerators. Right, onto Epcot's quirky attractions, of which there are many. First, Journey into your imagination. Blimey, I mean I can take singing on attractions but the song was slightly cheesy and over the top. I'm not even quite sure what the ride was attempting to do actually. Something to do with looking beyond normal conventions maybe? Captain EO, aww bless it. Showing its age slightly but it's always nice to see Micheal jackson before his controversial days. Interesting film to. Loved the little puppets. Into Spaceship Earth which is in the Epcot ball, was one of my favourite Epcot attractions. I like having Judi Dench telling me about how far we've come and where we are heading. It's a very long dark ride but worth seeing. Wish we'd ridden it more actually.Right, so in my final trip report of the parks I'll cover World Showcase and the excellent Universe of Energy. See yas.

The dog goes over the whale

- You're right I'm lying, I just hated revenge of the mummy. Top 10? More like bottom 10 - Studios, yeah I mean I'm sure it's an amazing park but as we only had ten days to juggle with, it was either just Islands of Adventure or both parks for one day. I'm glad we did Universal Studios at all to be honest. We didn't get to Busch Gardens which I really tried to push for.

Universal StudiosOriginally, depending on business we weren't going to do Studios, purely as we wanted to do islands of Adventure justice. When we had done IOA by 1pm, we decided to park hop via Starbucks and try out Studios. Unlike Disney, parkhop is literally true here. The two parks are 5 minutes walking distance seperated by Universal Citywalk, an entertainment area. So in we went and, first ride you really come across is Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. When it comes to a Maurer, you always know to brace yourself accordingly for the best ride experience ever or the worst thing since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Luckily HRRR is good! So.. we queued 5 minutes, clearly Studios is suffering the effect of Harry Potter as everything at Studios was walk on or less then 5 minute wait. So into the queue we go, kind of a weird queue, a lot is cattle pen with various music posters around on the walls. A staff member tells of some guests for going under the fences insteading of walking round. He then makes them go back and do it again. Interesting...Getting onto the ride is quite akin to Dragons Fury actually. The trains continually move through the station and the two sides of the platform are both treadmills so the ride really encourages you to get on with haste. We got front row (woo), pulled down the restraint and both decided to go for Gloria Haynor's, 'I will Survive'. Always seems rather apt on a Maurer. Up you go, dropping and then into that crazily weird inversion thing. According to RCDB it isn't an inversion. What I like about most Maurer's is that they always open their rides with some kind of element that takes your breathe away. Fury does it with that drop into immelman, Winjas do it with there lift sections and HRRR does it with style. The rest of the ride is actually the same thing pretty much, helixes and drops but theres an amazing amount of air time everytime you fly upwards into a MCBR. I'm not sure how Maurer have managed such manic, impossible turns but they've done it in style. Chris found these bits slightly lacking but I liked them. Off we popped into Twister Aftermath. The queue shows you some of the devastating effects of a Tornado. Seemed rather apt and sad considering at the time of our visit, a series of tornados had just devastated and killed 300 people in the mid US. The attraction is rather comical to be honest, with Helen Hunt telling you this is the most extreme thing you will ever do and her co-actor forcing tears out through sheer determination. The room in which all the effects occur is really cool actually. The heat from the fire was also appreciated after our soaking on IOA's water rides. And the poor flying cow.Next! Revenge of the Mummy. I think this suffered from dark ride overload actually. Having been on so many dark rides after 6 days (all in varying degrees), Revenge of the Mummy probably didn't impress as much as it should have done. The theming was excellent and some of the effects going on in there such as all the various flames and animatronics were top notch for instance. The coaster part, didn't really enjoy. It was slightly bashy, you'd go round corners or drops and it didn't feel like it flowed. I think this ride would have been better if we'd all got our sandwiches to be honest!Next, off to Amity with the dreaded JAWS RIDE. I don't quite know what was going on to be honest. The actress we got was slightly baffling. One moment she'd be shreiking her face off and a second later she'd turn round and say no photographs please. Why can't we photo the shark. Anyway, again a lot of effects going off such as fire on both sides of the boat, destroyed boats, a shark that just won't bugger off. Slightly better then Jungle Cruise at Magic Kingdom but still just as corny.Time for a proper ride we thought, off to Men in Black ride. I liked this, so did Chris and so did the OVER ENTHUSIASTIC AMERICANS we shared our car with. I've never seen a group of people take a shooting ride so seriously and with so much oomph. They'd constantly shout at us to shoot the aliens eyes or TO PRESS THE BONUS BUTTON. I felt exhausted just listening to them. Turns out they had been riding all day and were addicted. The ride itself is a lot of fun, I particularly liked the spinning out of control parts as you went round. Next, was The Simpsons Ride. Now this was weird but the favourite in the park because it was very tounge and cheek and reminicsent of early Simpsons episodes. You are grouped into several rooms and then into a ride car. Homer talks you through the ride restrictions with real humour such as stopping Maggie and Grampa Simpsons from riding because of their heights/heart conditions and you then sit back. The ride car then rises out of its station along with all the other cars in front of a giant screen. Sideshow Bob wants to kill the Simpsons at Krustyland and what follows is 2 and a half minutes of frantic motions and laughter. Some of the tounge in joke truths realy bought a smile such as "Of course the ride hasn't finished, we haven't been forced through a gift shop yet". So the ride was a bit like a 4D ride except without the glasses. Very like Soarin' except the ride makes it obvious you aren't flying..Next ET! basically a high capacity Peter Pan's Flight, you fly around scenes from ET to his home planet. You're asked to give your name and take a passport to his planet. You board the cars and fly around and above police cars and uniformed people who want to capture ET. Luckily you escape and fly over the city and off to ET's home. Lots of crazy stuff happens (which embarressingly I can't remember) and then ET says goodbye to everyone on the ride. Bye ET. Finally we went to watch Terminator 2 3D. Sometimes words fail me. This was either shockigly amazing or just naff. A long narrative follows where a cheery, skynet woman shows you a video of how good skynet is. This gets hacked by John Connor, cheeseface comes out and says to ignore it. You go into the cinema to watch the presentation. John Connor and his mum(?) come out and ruin the presentation. A liquid terminator comes to kill them and then Arnie's Terminator comes out and goes roar. They then go to the future and blow up Skynet. I'm sure there was more to it then that, but I'm just not sure I can remember it. So to conclude on Universal Studios, it's essentially a park of dark rides and indoor attractions which gets you out of the Floridian sun. If it's fast thrills you want then Islands of Adventures is next door, but if you want immersion in the dark then Universal Studios is your bag.

Thats ok for me, Europe and the US are quite big places compared to our tiny little island.

SamuraiLoggers for 7 hoursDetonatorNemesis Inferno numerous timesVortex 5 times in a rowRumbaQuantumRush 10 times in a row.

Hollywood StudiosTwo visits.Hollywood Studios for us, was a tale of two very different parks. And it all depends on whether Fantasmic is on, but more on that later. Our first visit was very very very very busy. Echoing what Nicky said, Toy Story Mania is easily the busiest ride of the Disney parks. So it's where we headed first on our visit.When we had arrived there were two very long queues. One to go on the ride and the other to collect a fastpass. Fastpass had run out within an hour of park opening. Which says it all really. The queueline for the ride is very impressive and beautifully themed to the Toy Story rides. It gets a Mark thumbs up.A very impressive bit of theming was mr Potato Head. He sings, he dances, he tells the queue to move along when they try and take pictures and he even takes his ear out.So the ride. Well its very impressive and very fast moving. The spinning of the car is disorientating and then as you stop in front of the queues you don't have much time to adjust. It's very well designed though, with a variety of things to do like smashing plates or shooting balloons. I never won though, Chris was just to good at it. But I beat him by about 300,000 on Space Ranger Spin so I don't feel to bad.So leaving the attractrion we decided to head over to Hollywood hotel and Rock 'N' Rollercoaster. With the hotel displaying a 50 minute queue we headed for the 30 minute Rock N Roller. The queue is kind of themed to a hall of fame and with 'Don't Want to miss a thing' Seemingly on repeat I enjoyed the waiting experience.. Chris liked the marble door.For some reason there's a pre-show. You get invited backstage by Aerosmith in a super stretch limit, you go out and theres a Rita-esque limo waiting to drive you off. It made me miss Corkscrew which is my main compliment. Off you go launching for what seems forever into the rides various elements. It's very well themed and DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY is a perfect choice of song for this crazy ride. We didn't get a chance to ride again just because of the parks business that day.We next headed to the immaculate, the beautiful, the stunning, the fantastic Hollywood Hotel: Tower of Terror. MAJOR SPOILERS COMING UP.This thing is an utter joy. My main point of sadness was that day for the majority, it was only running one side of the tower. Thats my only criticism. The theming is just so perfect and beautiful. You really feel like you're in the reception of a hotel and it's the touches such as the calming music played or the staff that play the part of sinister hotel personell that really sell this experience. You are prebatched into my favourite pre-show.Imagine if you will! I adore it and if you look closely, a hidden Mickey!. Having about to enter the Twilight Zone, you depart into the basement of the hotel. Beautiful. The little touches continue such as the arrow that moves above the lift door indicating what floor the lift is on. and then when it comes down and the door opens to let you on. Sublime. It's these little touches that tell you Disney is the best at creating these immersive experiences. You ARE part of the movie. So you sit down and as you only held in by a seatbelt, the adrenaline really starts to kick in. And off you go up to the first floor. The story of the five on the lift is shown on a screen and it is here you have entered.... the twilight zone. the doors close, you go up another floor and with the ding of the lift you stop and leave the lift shaft. Several symbols appear, an eye, a glass frame that shatters, an equation. And without a second thought the lift does different things. it will either drop you shortly before throwing you upwards to the top of the tower. It may throw you straight upwards, drop a bit then whoosh back to the top. It's this variety, it's the unknowing that make the ride such an addictive, enriching experience. And then you leave, warned that next time you check into a deserted hotel onto the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know what kind of vacany you're filling.Or you could make yourself a permanent resident of.. the twilight zone.After the three main rides we had lunch, it started to rain and we started to venture onto other attractions. We tried out the world of Walt disney. Wonderful little attraction about Walt's life. We watched the stunt show which puts similar shows to shame. We love fire.We watched Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid attration which both suffer from the problem that you can't fit a 72 minute film into a 10/15 minute show. Little Mermaid missed out 'Kiss the Girl', pretty much the whole point of the film!The Hollywood Tour was a big hit for me, really liked the pre-show.Now you see herNow you don'tAnd of course the effects driven bit where a tidal wave kind of thing hits a big tanker. This got kids screaming and crying, adults panicking. Loved it though.Disney plane!And now... Fantasmic. Now this is a show that isn't on every day at the resort, so days it is on are incredibly busy for the park. Due to the 5000 capacity, people start waiting for it 90 minutes before it starts. Luckily we had reserved seating but yeah, incredibly packed attraction. And 100% wonderful. The use of water effects, fire, actors, props, vehicles, fireworks is so impressive, so wonderful that it was instantly the best show at Disney. Disney have such a rich tapestry of characters and villains in the film and to use them in this way is fantastic, especially when it's the older films such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. The story of the show is about dreams and how the villains try and use dreams against Mickey.And the finale, with Steamboat mickey driving hos boat round the lake, all the Disney characters dancing and waving and singing from it.My first word after the show... orgasmic. Now the emptier day... well we queued 5 minutes for most attractions. Because there was no fantasmic. And it shows that the performances of Fantasmic, Wishes and Illuminations are just as important as Space Mountain, Expedition Everest and Soarin' when it comes to guests visiting Disney. At first, Hollywood Studios wasn't my favourite park. But after Hollywood Tower of Terror and Fantasmic... it easily came up in my estimations.Thanks for reading.

I really enjoyed your trip report so thanks for that Cat. Sounds like you had a good day in spite of pricing for food and drinks. retro family.. sounds like the kind of people who hang around in Hackney to me. Thanks for the entertaining read though, definitly do one each time you visit a park.