Mark9

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.

Magic Kingdom.Three seperate visits.Right, this park will probably take two or three posts as there is just so much within the park and so much that is iconic that it would be rude to try and fit it into one post.The first thing that strikes you about Disney World is the sheer scale of the resort. Before my closest idea of a resort was Alton Towers and Europa Park. Walt Disney World sends this conception out very quickly. For instance you enter through the gatesand it can be a good ten minutes of solid driving before you even see the ball at Epcot or some of the hotels. The only way to really get around the resort is via their bus transportation system. Not the most reliable system to be honest, you can see three Epcot buses in the space of ten minutes before your bus decides to turn up.Eventually, it did, everyone piles on and of you go. You notice very quickly that everyone at Disney wheres some kind of Disney merchandise. From pin badges to hats, to bags and to little girls dressed as Cinderalla.What is the most striking thing about Magic Kingdom is the sheer genius behind the park entrance. It's a shallow hill towards the entrance and before the turnstiles you cannot see the Castle at all. The actors come out and perform a little dance before an announcer declares that Mickey and the gang are on their way via the train. You see steam through the trees and in comes the train. It's at this point that I decided Magic Kingdom is pure magic and I couldn't help be reminded of 8 year old Mark looking up at the Vampire train swooping through Transylvania. You don't see the actors or the scheduling or behind the scenes stuff. It's pure and utter magic and built to increase guest anticipation. Eventually the actors count down to 9 o clock, they reach one and fireworks are launched.So you walk through the gates battling strollers and disabled people. And that view. There are moments that wil be with you forever. September 11th, the birth of your first child, seeing your first Disney castle. Pure, unadultered bliss.So far, Disney sounds like one big drug trip but it's because everyone has known and loved Disney. It appeals to that childish nature and it helps that everything at Disney is spotless. There is no chipped paint, no litter, rides from the 70's look like they were built yesterday because they looked painted, modern, themed and beautiful. It all builds to this complete and utter utopia.So to start off on the ride side, I'm going to begin with Big Thunder Mountain. As for me it's only competition comes from Colorado Adventure in Phantasialand and a few Mack powered rollercoasters, it didn't have to do much to impress. The theming is genuinely second to probably its thunder mountain brothers as it's entensive, fun, well through out and interactive. I didn't get many photos to be honest as most of the ride is hidden behind the rocks but what I did get was a general sense of its area.What impresed most was the little touches such as the train making little whistle sounds as it would come off a lift off the chugging sounds that accompany the train through the rocks. The throughput on this is impeccable. We went on a very busy 9am-2am close day and the queue board said half an hour. Wow. Because of fastpass, one side of the loading station is for fastpass and the other for main queue. Even with this hinderance we only queued 15 mintues and we never stopped moving in that queue. Disney can run this beautiful thing so efficiently becuase it has 5 trains and they seem to literally chuck staff member after staff member at a ride to allow it to get bums on seats with as little interference as possible. I will never be able to queue a 10 minute Colossus or Saw queue again without wanting to cry a little inside.Wow, I already feel tired and over excited after reviewing entering the park and one ride. Part two coming up when I've calmed down.

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

Magic Kingdom.Three seperate visits.Right, this park will probably take two or three posts as there is just so much within the park and so much that is iconic that it would be rude to try and fit it into one post.The first thing that strikes you about Disney World is the sheer scale of the resort. Before my closest idea of a resort was Alton Towers and Europa Park. Walt Disney World sends this conception out very quickly. For instance you enter through the gatesand it can be a good ten minutes of solid driving before you even see the ball at Epcot or some of the hotels. The only way to really get around the resort is via their bus transportation system. Not the most reliable system to be honest, you can see three Epcot buses in the space of ten minutes before your bus decides to turn up.Eventually, it did, everyone piles on and of you go. You notice very quickly that everyone at Disney wheres some kind of Disney merchandise. From pin badges to hats, to bags and to little girls dressed as Cinderalla.What is the most striking thing about Magic Kingdom is the sheer genius behind the park entrance. It's a shallow hill towards the entrance and before the turnstiles you cannot see the Castle at all. The actors come out and perform a little dance before an announcer declares that Mickey and the gang are on their way via the train. You see steam through the trees and in comes the train. It's at this point that I decided Magic Kingdom is pure magic and I couldn't help be reminded of 8 year old Mark looking up at the Vampire train swooping through Transylvania. You don't see the actors or the scheduling or behind the scenes stuff. It's pure and utter magic and built to increase guest anticipation. Eventually the actors count down to 9 o clock, they reach one and fireworks are launched.So you walk through the gates battling strollers and disabled people. And that view. There are moments that wil be with you forever. September 11th, the birth of your first child, seeing your first Disney castle. Pure, unadultered bliss.So far, Disney sounds like one big drug trip but it's because everyone has known and loved Disney. It appeals to that childish nature and it helps that everything at Disney is spotless. There is no chipped paint, no litter, rides from the 70's look like they were built yesterday because they looked painted, modern, themed and beautiful. It all builds to this complete and utter utopia.So to start off on the ride side, I'm going to begin with Big Thunder Mountain. As for me it's only competition comes from Colorado Adventure in Phantasialand and a few Mack powered rollercoasters, it didn't have to do much to impress. The theming is genuinely second to probably its thunder mountain brothers as it's entensive, fun, well through out and interactive. I didn't get many photos to be honest as most of the ride is hidden behind the rocks but what I did get was a general sense of its area.What impresed most was the little touches such as the train making little whistle sounds as it would come off a lift off the chugging sounds that accompany the train through the rocks. The throughput on this is impeccable. We went on a very busy 9am-2am close day and the queue board said half an hour. Wow. Because of fastpass, one side of the loading station is for fastpass and the other for main queue. Even with this hinderance we only queued 15 mintues and we never stopped moving in that queue. Disney can run this beautiful thing so efficiently becuase it has 5 trains and they seem to literally chuck staff member after staff member at a ride to allow it to get bums on seats with as little interference as possible. I will never be able to queue a 10 minute Colossus or Saw queue again without wanting to cry a little inside.Wow, I already feel tired and over excited after reviewing entering the park and one ride. Part two coming up when I've calmed down.

It could go as slow as Chessington Carousel and would still be TPR's number one ride. I for one thank Intamin for trying not to kill anyone with force and speed on Cheetah Hunt.

It could go as slow as Chessington Carousel and would still be TPR's number one ride. I for one thank Intamin for trying not to kill anyone with force and speed on Cheetah Hunt.

It could go as slow as Chessington Carousel and would still be TPR's number one ride. I for one thank Intamin for trying not to kill anyone with force and speed on Cheetah Hunt.

It could go as slow as Chessington Carousel and would still be TPR's number one ride. I for one thank Intamin for trying not to kill anyone with force and speed on Cheetah Hunt.

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

So to speed forward, the next park I'm going to cover is Islands of Adventure.And I'm going to be controversial at the same time. Islands of Adventure is essentially what Thorpe Park is but slightly better themed. When I mean slightly, I mean when Islands of Adventure have bothered the theming is second to none. But areas they think of unessential have been left. Good example is any ground under the Dueling Dragons. It's just concrete troughs.So to start with rides, Harry Potter and the Hogwarts area.Mm, gorgeous ain't it. Everyone photoing a castle and by far the most popular ride on the trip. but whats this I see...Slightly takes the sheen of an amazing looking front when you see a giant shed behind it. They've tried to hide it in the queue with greenhouse roofing but its so easy to see. Regular guests probably don't notice... but I'm a geek and I'm afraid after a week of well hidden Disney dark rides, Harry Potter dissapointed. The ride itself is good, very good in fact and certainly throws your balance of guard. The idea of trying to fit 7 books into one ride is quite commendable, the fact they've done any justice at all is credible. So next is the Dueling Dragons, two rides I highly anticipated. They're fun but neither really have anything on Nemesis and Black Mamba. I think one of the main issues is that because of the dueling elements there's a lot of dry bits during the ride where it's just waiting to lead up to the leg chopper moments. They are memorable moments but they only last for about 2 seconds each so I'm not quite sure if it's worth the duelling ness of the ride. The Ice dragon was by far my favourite thanks to its cobra roll and jerkier moments during the ride. Despite Fire having more inversions and faster moments it didn't quite flow as well as Ice. I do realise I'm calling them by the rides old names.. but bothered. I liked the queueline. I understand it was better when it was the Dueling Dragons, but as far as I could see the new one is just as impressive. very windy, very long and almost an adventure in itself. One of the more unique things I picked up on was this is the only B&M I've seen so far that has separate loading and unloading areas. This really didn't help the throughput of the thing as having to wait for floors to go up and down and the front/back rows having to have their bars down before the train moved.. felt very laborious. And thanks to the duelling element of the ride if your train is dispatched first, you'll be waiting a good while for the other train to catch up. And because one ride seems to be longer then the other, chances are you'll be waiting a long time. So I'd rate Ice Dragon 8/10 and Fire Dragon 7/10.Onto The Incredible Hulk, certainly a very impressive ride. Located right next to the entrance watching the ride splurt out trains every minute certainly makes you take note. Neither Hulk or Dragons had longer then 10 minute queues when we visited which made re-riding Hulk very easy. I got a good indication of the rides quality. There's a certain train that can rock you to hell, very rough and very teeth chattering. The other two trains gave much nicer rides. Hulk is a ride of two halves. It starts off incredibly fitting in a launch and five inversions into it's first 30 seconds. And then the ride seems to lose it a bit with very tame helixes and banked turns. The corkscrews and zero g roll are very very good and the ride is very striking with its neon green and white supports. Universal like you to clap, whenever a train returns from its journey all staff members act like they've seen a play and clap crazily. Hulk gets an 8/10 from me.Stay tuned for part two

Afternoon all, I didn't want to clog up Nicky's Florida trip report topic so here's mine! For our second anniversary Chris and I went off to Walt Disney World Florida for ten nights in what has ended up to be the hottest May in Florida since 1916. The parks were busy, the rides packed out, you'd be lucky to get near the parades and yet it was the best ten days off my life. To try something different I'm doing my trip report in the wrong order. So here we go..I'm going to start with Animal Kingdom which we spent two of our days at, the reason for this will become apparent as you read. Animal kingdom is the park I'd heard the least about and for me was the park I was least looking forward to. It ended up being the surprise hit of the trip and is far more then just three rides and a safari. The Disney parks don't just open, they roll out the characters on trains, jeeps, buses, monorail trains and have a big countdown to let guests in. I'm not going to lie when I say this is magical. It diverts interest away from the tedium of waiting. The only other park I've seen do that is Warner in Madrid. Other parks take note.So when you go to Animal Kingdom, what ride do you start with?Yeah, of course, Expedition Everest. A ride that with hindsight is what Th13teen was trying to be and utterly failed to be. Expedition Everest is stunning. I'm sure you all know about it's little trick but its not this that impressed me, it's the stunning attention to detail all around the ride. From the beautiful queueline that talks about the legend of the Yeti to the small gift-shop that sells yeti t-shirts. I actually got a bit annoyed about the queue actually; it moves to fast. I wanted to read about the yeti but because the ride eats people by the bucket loads, I never got the chance. With 5 trains seating 34 people each, it was crazy. The ride itself is sublime, the drop out the mountain is full of speed, air time and beautifully smooth, and the lift hill is a superb touch; it slows down slightly and the train lets out a honking speed as if its stepping up a gear to get you up the mountain. The other stand out attraction for us was Dinosaur. No one speaks about it. Good, the ride is excellent and far scarier then its's queue and surrounding area. The photo point is also.. perfect. Kali Kali Rapids was.... okay. After its drop it kind of died a quick death and just meandered back to the station. It's theme is deforestation. Loads of burnt out trees decorate the top of the ride. It's quite wet and American reactions to rides have to be seen to be understood. It just lacked length for me.So onto the other major attraction at Animal Kingdom, Kilamanjaro Safari, basically a trek through a reserve where you can see Hippos, Lions, Ostriches, Elephants, Zebras and Alligators. Very popular but very interesting at the same time. They try to intersperse the ride with a story of poachers stealing a baby elephant. It's slightly bad taste really but on the other hand gives the ride a certain finale.So why did we spend two days at Animal Kingdom. Well we were at the meet and greet area hugging Goofy and Pluto when a guy came to us and said he wanted out help in a little project. What we didn't know is that the project was to be part of the park parade. If you know Disney, you know the parades are massive and a huge majority of the park will state their turf, refusing to move so they could get a chance to see the gang on themed cars. We were on the Mickey float to!The most magical moment of the trip without a doubt. Buh Bye Animal kingdom