Mark9

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.

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.

My first ever trip report…. A Bit lot heavy on text and light on pics as I forgot to charge my camera (idiot), but I’ll give it a go.Decided to go to Chessington for the first time in 6 years. I hadn’t realised it had been that long but they’ve given me no reason to go in that time, what with it being aimed at young families (I don’t have one) and there being a grand total of one ride introduced in that time (which I’ve been on elsewhere anyway), but me and wife thought we’d give it a go anyway.Arrived bang on opening and joined the first and only queue of the day. As it was quiet the little huts with a sensible queue line were not in use so instead it was a bundle at what I presume are usually the pre book windows. The hard of understanding kept trying to queue at the sides for the edge windows, what they thought the rest of us were doing queuing in the middle I don’t know, so they had to be re-educated. Only took 15 mins or so, but they should have separate windows for coach load ticket pickups as it kept grinding to a halt.The place was basically empty. The only other people that seemed to be there were every single 10 year old with a skull cap from the south of England, with about 1 adult per 50 children. More on them later. Every ride was walk on, even Vampire front row.Into the park it immediately felt so green, clean, well-kept and just a nice place to be compared to the grey and run down feeling of Thorpe. Straight to Transylvania of course, to relive my childhood on what is one of my fondest memories, and Vampire when it was in its original state. I had forgotten just how beautifully themed the area is, it looks and feels the same as it did all those years ago. Loved the little touches added, like the headstones of past characters and the ghost of Rodeo (shame he is hidden behind caricature man). But then the ride itself just seemed to hit me with waves of disappointment. The horrible bright purple metal queue line, the over lit tunnel into the station (I used to have to feel my way along the walls, now I could safely navigate it in sunglasses), the lifeless organist, the wonderful theme being played too quietly peppered with a shouting ride op so loud it actually hurt and I had to cover my ears, the shiny metal barrier splitting the exit line and worst of all the crazy amount of light coming into the building washing out any possibility of atmosphere. How hard can it be to hang up some light blocking sheeting or something? We took a seat in the middle of the train for what was an uncomfortable jerky flight, it felt like we were constantly shunting back and forth into the surrounding carriages, nothing like the smooth and exciting rides I remember. I got off thinking the trip was a bad idea where I would slowly spoil all my fond memories. Oh my gosh, I've only covered the first 10 minutes in the park and just realised how much I’ve written. It feels like some sort of therapy. Keeping it brief from now. Promise. Then on to bubbleworks. I don’t need to go through all the problems that make this a travesty of its former self, just a soulless, humourless mainly statically themed bore but if they could do one thing just sort out the ‘finale’. The new lights are so bright and constant, and just make the whole thing look cheap and dull. How much did they cost compared to a couple of strobe lights? Without strobes this ride is nothing.To break this up here is an unflattering picture of me taking more pleasure from the bubbleworks than it was ever trying to give me.From then on, though, I pretty much loved everything else. Fury is amazing, so much better than Spinball. Dragon river, with the exception of the horrible cheap great wall thing, was very pleasant and as I remember it. New sponsorship not too bad or intrusive, we’ll never get the full rocks back and the ones that are there have worn down to show the wire mesh underneath. It does need a bit of TLC and was probably the most run down looking of the attractions.Theming in wild Asia is stunning. Kobra is not the best example I’ve ridden by a long way, it’s so jerky and feels like it has some weird vibration issues but a bit of fun none the less.Mine train is what it is, I still like it. Had forgotten how nice the theming on Rattlesnake is, and it’s a whole bunch of fun to ride. Ramesis feels like it is trying to shake itself to bits and I can’t believe it has much life left in it.Big surprise of the day was Tomb Blaster, so much better than I remember it. All the theming seemed fresh and interesting (still strikes me that with the laser guns the fifth dimension would fit a whole lot better), the only thing missing was dry ice which I think would give it a lot more atmosphere.Loved the zoo, seems a lot of effort has been put in to these areas and it shows. Impressed with sealife too, which does not feel temporary on the inside like it looks on the outside.Rode Vampire again later at the front and back which proved much smoother and more enjoyable rides, but it is still a long way from where it should be.So, the kids. It was empty but still the new restrictions on buccaneer and Dragon River were causing chaos, I dread to think what it’ll be like when it’s busy. A lot more effort needs to be put into communicating the adult to child ratios required at the queue line entrance. We even took two boatloads of children round to try and help out. Probably need to increase the adult to child ratios on the school coach trips too.Overall the place is looks stunning in most places, all the staff were great and we loved it. But at some point they need to invest in something new and substantial to make it worth our while to revisit.Sorry for the rambling and length, I’ll get better at this at some point!!EDIT - can one of you clever people tell me how I get pics to show in the text, instead of as a link? Thanks.

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.

And after today... Nemesis Nemesis Nemesis Nemesis Nemesis!After all these years it keeps offering intense, fast rides with great, terrain hugs. Awesome coaster!

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.

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.

Oh electricbill, your cynicism really depresses me. Especially as you hate online communities anyway, and now you piss on people getting excited over something. So what if it's fake, the fact people are excited is good. And if it turns out to be real then woah, well done Thorpe. Good effort in using technology to build your new attraction up.

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.

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.

Oh electricbill, your cynicism really depresses me. Especially as you hate online communities anyway, and now you piss on people getting excited over something. So what if it's fake, the fact people are excited is good. And if it turns out to be real then woah, well done Thorpe. Good effort in using technology to build your new attraction up.

Oh electricbill, your cynicism really depresses me. Especially as you hate online communities anyway, and now you piss on people getting excited over something. So what if it's fake, the fact people are excited is good. And if it turns out to be real then woah, well done Thorpe. Good effort in using technology to build your new attraction up.

Oh electricbill, your cynicism really depresses me. Especially as you hate online communities anyway, and now you piss on people getting excited over something. So what if it's fake, the fact people are excited is good. And if it turns out to be real then woah, well done Thorpe. Good effort in using technology to build your new attraction up.

One wonders why any park bothers to hide their dark rides then. Just have the sheds out in the open, call it suspension of disbelief and all is fine.

Part two of Islands of Adventure.So a little known ride called Spidermen is quite unlike anything I'd ever ridden, Fantasticly themed queueline, good story. Apparently Dr Octopus has invented a levitation gun and has stolen the statue of liberty. He then proceeds to drop a train load of people into water, killing them all I assume. Our job is to follow Spiderman and defeat all the evil people. Avoid the rest if you don't want it ruined. You board big blue cars that take you through the ride, you wear 4D specs and various things are sprayed at you and fire effects dry you off from the water rides and every character bounces on your car and threatens you with various methods of death. I make it sound tedious, but it's actually really good fun. It almost seems strange that they have Spiderman and Harry Potter in the same park as both are very similar rides in terms of what they are trying to do. I like that Islands of Adventure not only have the scary rides such as Hulk and the Dragons, but they have experience rides to.Now, the water rides. Ridiculously wet, we're talking soaked to the bone. I'm not even sure where the waves came from sometimes as we seemed to be just mingling on and then a giant wave topples us. No wonder it has seatbelts frankly. Dr Do's Ripsaw Falls wasn't a favourite. After Splash Mountain it just felt very empty and lacking. The drop is very effective sending you through mist and tings, but not a favourite unfortunately.Now, Jurassic Park, I was so excited to ride it, couldn't wait, the music echoing over that area of the park. Oh it's closed. Thanks for the warning guys. This happened just after we were told Dragons were closed because of technical difficulties so maybe some will understand why I compared with Thorpe earlier. Now, Hogsmeade which is the main part of the Harry Potter area. It is absolutely stunning and it is clear that is where most of the money seemed to go. I have never seen an area so busy, and so happy and its testament to the franchise that it can attract so many people in Florida's quiet time. Unfortunately what Harry Potter does is overbalance the park. That area of the park was heaving, you had to queue just to enter the tiny shops and Hippogriff which looked like Pegasus from Europa Park had a 60 minute queue all day. When you have three B&M's going round with 5 minute queues, it's obviously going to be missed out on. Other rides all had 5 minutes, but the Harry Potter area, packed. Really nice area though, the view when entering is so picture-esque and its no wonder people would enter Dragon's queueline just to take pictures in front of the castle.I did have some butterbeer. It's amazing just how much it tastes like Vanilla Coke Finally onto one of the most shocking and over the top attractions, Poseidons Fury. Wow, if you've never done it you'd have no idea any of that was coming.

Magic Kingdom part 3.Philarmagic. Amazing. I don't like 4D cinemas but then again my only experience of one was Pirates 4D. So Philarmagic was a breathe of fresh air. The story is Donald tries on Micky's Fantasia hat and gets sucked into a new dimension, the dimension of Disney films. So so so so good. It was Chris's favourite attraction at Disney fullstop which is testament to the attractions quality.And onto Tommorowland. I really liked the area actually such as the metal palm trees, the odd people-mover and all the interestingly shaped buildings.So I'll start with Space Mountain, a ride built in 1975 and has recently gone under an extensive, 12 million dollar refurb. It looks absolutely wonderful. The park have attempted to make the queueline trek (and it is a trek) mroe interactive by adding a computer game. A robot challenges to get the carge from the bottom to the top of the screen. Its a worthy alternative to looking at the floor. The ride itself is pure class. I can imagine Disney management in 1972 discussing Space Mountain now."We don't think this ride will have a decent throughput""Well just build two then"The ride itself is excellent, which seems to be a recurring Disney theme. The ride runs cars similar to Black Hole and is very fast and full of air-time; I could feel my bag attempting to fly off each time. On our last visits, the lights were on from the people mover and unfortunately you can see everything in the building. Really takes the edge away from the ride as in the dark you hold on tight, it's that jerky and fast. Reminded me a lot of Euro-Sat.So further on into Tomorrowland, next ride is The Carousel of progress. A lot of history behind this attraction, originally appearing in the world fair and eventually ending up at Disney World. It was another one of those rides that only Disney would come up with. It's essentially a room that revolves around scenes starting from the early 1900's and going on into the noughties. It;s about half an hour long and gets you out of the Floridian sun nicely. It was a nice novelty but wouldn't be something you'd want to go on all the time. The same could be said for Stitch's Great Escape. For me it was the epitome of niche. You go from pre-show to pre-show and even the main show feels like a pre-show to something that doesn't appear. The Stitch animatronic is very very impressive, but the attraction just isn't. Monsters Inc: laugh floor was a lot of fun and did get a lot of laughs for its sheer tounge in cheek jokes. Buzz Lightyears space ranger spin wasn't to good to be honest, was hard to tell if you'd actually hit a target or not and I didn't understand the scoring system. After 5 seconds of playing I'd somehow scored 300,000 points but failed to go much higher in the next 90 seconds. The animatronicin the queue was okay although not up to Mr Potato Head at Hollywood Studios. A bit odd that Toy Story has two rides themed around shooting things..Tomorrowland also features Astro Orbiter, essentially Jumbos but on the roof and the only way to get to it is via an elevator. I disliked this a bit as out in the baking Florida sun it felt like I was in an oven. The ride looks very impressive though, again themed to the max. The ride was just rubbish though. The People-mover is just bizarre travelling around the whole of Tomorrowland, through buildings. Think of Safari Skyway but without much interesting. It's best aspect is going through the centre of Space Mountain's lift hills. I liked that. And finally Indy Speedway, apart from being a Disney World original, I don't understand how it is still at the park.So with the rides done, it's onto the parades. Parades, simply are Disney and are incredibly popular. Magic Kingdom also hosts the Electrical Parade on late closing. The pics aren't up to much because we'd broken two cameras at this point. I tried. It's so beautiful.And finally, Wishes is the Magic Kingdom's night-time firework parade. For me it was the lesser of the three firework shows at Disney World. Based on wishing upon a star from Pinocchio it features Tinkerbell flying through the sky and a few fireworks. Fun fun fun..I really liked Magic Kingdom. With so many iconic rides, attractions, fireworks and parades it really does take all day to get round it and experience everything. It is the more traditional theme park of Disney's offering and as an outcome was the park with the highest ride counts of the trip.

Part two.Splash Mountain. Essentially a log flume but the key difference between this and say Loggers Leap is the large amount of dark ride sections in Mountain. The ride takes a large amount of inspiration from Songs of the South (This short clip) and stars Brer Rabbit as he moves out of his house and tries to find his laughing place. I loved this ride a lot because the musical sections are so cheery and joyous. All the animatronics and effects work within and the characters actually have personalities. The ride has no less then 5 drops of various sizes and gradients. The final drop fools onlookers that the boat drops into thorny bushes but actually splashes under the pathways. I understand it that the ride has recently had lapbars added.. hardly effects the ride or its throughput. The ride can load three boats at a time, again a big people eater. My only real criticism is the ride runs too many boats. This is a good idea in theory but a big problem is that when the inevitable stacking starts you can be stuck at the bottom of each lift hill quite often. And then hearing Brer Rabbits final song over and over and over again can be quite tedious. Nonetheless, a real classic ride. The Haunted Mansion I don't really like dark rides that much really however... I really liked Haunted Mansion. Instead of just being another scary attraction that isn't scary, HM instead has a story that a ghost is showing you round, giving you the sights and sounds of the house. Really fun actually and also has a song section. Disney sure love music. Now onto Fantasyland. The busiest theme park area I have ever seen. Makes sense, the area has the most attractions and things to do in the park. There are 4 dark rides and of course Dumbo. I will never again look at Flying Jumbos at Chessington and think thats a long queue, Dumbos was consistently busy, so much in fact that we never got round to riding it. As part of the areas expansion, Dumbo is being moved to the back of the area and Disney are building a second Dumbo to try and solve the queue problem. I personally don't think it will work but meh. What surprised me is how new that ride looks and yet it was built in 1971. It looks immaculate and is a major Disney icon. So onto the next busiest ride, Peter Pans Flight. Each time we visited the queue for this dark ride was 45 minutes. Staggering really. We used fastpass to ride and well.. it was nice but the problem when you try and fit a 74 minute movie into a 2 minute ride is that the story jumps suddenly and major parts of the film are missed. Maybe the park knows that most people have seen Peter Pan and don't need the ride to explain anything.Opposite Peter Pan is the notorious It's a small World. Everyone knows this ride, whether you've been on it or whether youve heard the theme tune and it's got stuck in your head . I really liked it actually. It suffers from to many boats syndrome as well but the scenes are so jolly and there is so much going on all around you in terms of characters and animatronics that its staggering to think this ride is also 40 years old. Onto Snow White's Scary Adventure, suffers from the same problem as Peter Pan and is probably worse because the ride doesn't even follow the film in the correct order. It was quite scary though (not as bad as Dinosaur though )and it was kind of showing its age. Maybe that's why it's going soon.. or maybe having two snow white rides in the same area causes the world to explode. Now.. one of my favourite rides of the trip ( ) The Many adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I adored this ride completely, it's so beautiful and fun and so Disney that we rode it on each trip. The queue has two areas, one for the adults to wait, the other for the kids to play in. It works so well and keeps the kids distracted. And the ride, it's just so fun, really brings out the inner child.I'll cover Tomorrowland, Adventureland and the parades/firework displays in the next installment.

Part two.Splash Mountain. Essentially a log flume but the key difference between this and say Loggers Leap is the large amount of dark ride sections in Mountain. The ride takes a large amount of inspiration from Songs of the South (This short clip) and stars Brer Rabbit as he moves out of his house and tries to find his laughing place. I loved this ride a lot because the musical sections are so cheery and joyous. All the animatronics and effects work within and the characters actually have personalities. The ride has no less then 5 drops of various sizes and gradients. The final drop fools onlookers that the boat drops into thorny bushes but actually splashes under the pathways. I understand it that the ride has recently had lapbars added.. hardly effects the ride or its throughput. The ride can load three boats at a time, again a big people eater. My only real criticism is the ride runs too many boats. This is a good idea in theory but a big problem is that when the inevitable stacking starts you can be stuck at the bottom of each lift hill quite often. And then hearing Brer Rabbits final song over and over and over again can be quite tedious. Nonetheless, a real classic ride. The Haunted Mansion I don't really like dark rides that much really however... I really liked Haunted Mansion. Instead of just being another scary attraction that isn't scary, HM instead has a story that a ghost is showing you round, giving you the sights and sounds of the house. Really fun actually and also has a song section. Disney sure love music. Now onto Fantasyland. The busiest theme park area I have ever seen. Makes sense, the area has the most attractions and things to do in the park. There are 4 dark rides and of course Dumbo. I will never again look at Flying Jumbos at Chessington and think thats a long queue, Dumbos was consistently busy, so much in fact that we never got round to riding it. As part of the areas expansion, Dumbo is being moved to the back of the area and Disney are building a second Dumbo to try and solve the queue problem. I personally don't think it will work but meh. What surprised me is how new that ride looks and yet it was built in 1971. It looks immaculate and is a major Disney icon. So onto the next busiest ride, Peter Pans Flight. Each time we visited the queue for this dark ride was 45 minutes. Staggering really. We used fastpass to ride and well.. it was nice but the problem when you try and fit a 74 minute movie into a 2 minute ride is that the story jumps suddenly and major parts of the film are missed. Maybe the park knows that most people have seen Peter Pan and don't need the ride to explain anything.Opposite Peter Pan is the notorious It's a small World. Everyone knows this ride, whether you've been on it or whether youve heard the theme tune and it's got stuck in your head . I really liked it actually. It suffers from to many boats syndrome as well but the scenes are so jolly and there is so much going on all around you in terms of characters and animatronics that its staggering to think this ride is also 40 years old. Onto Snow White's Scary Adventure, suffers from the same problem as Peter Pan and is probably worse because the ride doesn't even follow the film in the correct order. It was quite scary though (not as bad as Dinosaur though )and it was kind of showing its age. Maybe that's why it's going soon.. or maybe having two snow white rides in the same area causes the world to explode. Now.. one of my favourite rides of the trip ( ) The Many adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I adored this ride completely, it's so beautiful and fun and so Disney that we rode it on each trip. The queue has two areas, one for the adults to wait, the other for the kids to play in. It works so well and keeps the kids distracted. And the ride, it's just so fun, really brings out the inner child.I'll cover Tomorrowland, Adventureland and the parades/firework displays in the next installment.

If you can't be helpful please don't post sarcastic responses.

This.It's after my trip to Florida that I've reaslied that family rides and immersion is so much more important then being scared silly all the time. B&M inverters are everywhere, Everest is one special ride that I enjoyed everytime. The day Chessington decides to grow some balls and build their own 'Everest' so to speak is the day that Chessington wins. Everything.

I miss the days where women couldn't vote*.. times change.*Obviously a complete joke..

You enter their property, then you abide by their rules.