Mark and Chris's Satisfactual Florida trip

[James6]

Awesome TR! Thanks Mark!Can I ask how you got reserved seating for Fantasmic? I'm desperate to see it in the summer! haha

[Nicky]

Reserved seating is when you pay for the meal package if I remember correctly. The only slight downside is that the seating is to one side. Me and my Dad were there 90 min early and got dead centre. Good time to get some food and eat your tea while you are waiting for it. You can leave it later than 90 min for the first show but it is definitely getting filled up with less than an hour to go. You have to queue up less for the second show of the evening.

[Tom]

Funny how Fantasmic makes this park so busy, whereas in Disneyland Resort California it's on at certain nights but would in no way influence the park business considering it's put on in the 'rivers of america' river. Nice read though, and I would beat you epicly in Toy Story Mania.

[Mark9]

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.

[Benin]

Poor excuse of being dark rided out... Revenge of the Mummy is fantastic and worthy of everyone's top 10...In regards to Terminator 2, oh god the CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE... Just wow... It's something that can only work in America since us Brits are so serious but it's bloody hilarious...Shame people seem to be ignoring the Studios... It's a good park really and deserves more than half a day there, you didn't even do any of the shows (Beetlejuice, Horror Make-Up) plus Shrek 4-D or Disaster...

[Ryan]

Poor excuse of being dark rided out... Revenge of the Mummy is fantastic and worthy of everyone's top 10...In regards to Terminator 2, oh god the CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE... Just wow... It's something that can only work in America since us Brits are so serious but it's bloody hilarious...Shame people seem to be ignoring the Studios... It's a good park really and deserves more than half a day there, you didn't even do any of the shows (Beetlejuice, Horror Make-Up) plus Shrek 4-D or Disaster...

The Horror Make-Up show was absolutely hilarious! Love Disaster too. Definitely two great shows there.

[Mark9]

Poor excuse of being dark rided out... Revenge of the Mummy is fantastic and worthy of everyone's top 10...In regards to Terminator 2, oh god the CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE... Just wow... It's something that can only work in America since us Brits are so serious but it's bloody hilarious...Shame people seem to be ignoring the Studios... It's a good park really and deserves more than half a day there, you didn't even do any of the shows (Beetlejuice, Horror Make-Up) plus Shrek 4-D or Disaster...

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

[AdamY]

Beetlejuice's Rock 'n Roll Graveyard Revue is a brilliant show, and Shrek is wonderful too. I find both of these, Terminator and Jaws are really made or broken by the TMs running them though. Last year I had an amazing run of hosts on all four, the Universal staff really are great.

[Nicky]

Studios is struggling now because of Harry Potter at IOA. The one downside is that if you don't go on a weekend or a "peak" weekday you missed out on a few things. We had to go again to do Jimmy Neutron and catch Fear Factor Live.

[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.

[Benin]

Mark, you look so BORED on Test Track

[Tom]

Oh Soarin' Same film in both DCA and Epcot, only one is Soarin' over California and the other is Soarin' over USA (But really just Soarin') - Weird. And the cheesy pre-show is voiced by Joe Swanson from family guy! Woop. :PSoarin' to tower, we are clear for takeoff.

[Benin]

And the cheesy pre-show is voiced by Joe Swanson from family guy! Woop.

He does a lot of voicework for Disney, he was Kronk in Emperor's New Groove, Kim Possible, Chicken Little and did the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the animated version...Legend...

[pluk]

Nice report, oh it takes me back. A very weird and wonderful place. And I spy a hidden Mickey in your photos! Yay!!

[Mark9]

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

[Sheepie]

Aww Mark. Well done for finishing your TR mate, they were great. What an emotional journey. You've made me so excited about my trip but also dreading the trip home already.What I love about World Showcase is that you can see a very familiar attraction....Credit to allears.net.Yep, Tower of Terror. They designed the tower to visually fit in with the Morocco area of World Showcase. It's details like that which set Disney apart from the rest. I'd highly recommend taking a look around Allears.net, particularly the blogs, they're a great read, especially if you're a theme park geek like me.I've decided I'm going to use Wordpress for my Trip Reports. I want to try something different. ;)Don't worry Mark, you'll be back in Orlando before you know it!

[thorpeparkjack]

Fantastic read Mark, thanks very much for a detailed account of what sounded like a brilliant holiday!

[Luke_A]

Thanks for doing all of these fantastic TR's Mark, they have been brilliant! Can't wait until I get a chance to go to Orlando some time in the future.

[Mark9]

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

[Phill Pritchard]

Thanks Mark for a great series of Trip Reports. We went to Orlando for our Honeymoon last year and it was amazing. Reading your stories and seeing your photos have brought back some great memories. It looks like you had a great time.

What I love about World Showcase is that you can see a very familiar attraction....Credit to allears.net.Yep, Tower of Terror. They designed the tower to visually fit in with the Morocco area of World Showcase. It's details like that which set Disney apart from the rest. I'd highly recommend taking a look around Allears.net, particularly the blogs, they're a great read, especially if you're a theme park geek like me.

I have never seen that shot before, it is amazing to think they went to all that trouble with the design of the tower and yes imo it is a perfect example of how Disney really do it best!

[TraX]

Not long back from Florida myself now. Won't go into great detail of the parks with my own trip report, as Number 9 did a very good job of that himself, I will hit a few notes though, without starting yet another Florida topic!OK... For those of you who already follow me and my geeky tales on TWITTER, will already know that I had not such a good couple of trips to Sea World. I usually really enjoy this park, but found their operations shocking for their peak season. Far too much ride downtime; every single ride bar the sky tower at one point, and Manta with a filled queue line, duel loading and a decent block system, running one train is not something I'd like to remember or find acceptable either.Universal, as ever run two splendid theme parks and Islands of Adventure's Ripsaw Falls, Bilge Rat.., and in the Studios Revenge of the Mummy are the big stand outs.Spider-Man is still the best use of story and technology that I've seen and look forward to it's big upgrade next year.Harry Potter as well themed as it is, and by far the most technologically advanced ride in the world, just doesn't quite hit the spot, probably due to lack of story and a little too quick projection sequences. The Dementors however are still very scary and all in all, I can't fault such a bold ride experience.Disney, was rammed, although for so many reasons still does what it does the best. All the usual stand outs were there Splash Mountain, Philiarmagic and the Tower of Terror. Although, it must be said, I still find the magic kingdom a little rough around the edges, compared to the Disneyland Park in Paris (exceptions of course to the weather and the huge difference the Americans have Vs the French).I was stunned by the upgrades to the Haunted Mansion. For a ride that didn't really need any more upgrades, I find it outstanding that Disney feel the need to constantly upgrade and improve their attractions so much. The interactive queue line is fantastic in every way, not only because of it's interactivity, but also due to it's nods to the original creators and created fan legends. It was a real plus and not happy to even stop there, once on board the ride, the hitch hiking ghost mirror scene with it's massive upgrade is just stunning and very well done too.Next up was Star Tours: the Adventures Continue, yet another huge attraction upgrade that was again a very high standard. Star Tours was never a ride that I bothered to ride on every visit, but this time I did it 4 times, and every one of those rides were completely different. The ride has over 50 different combos, so you'll never know what to expect and again, with rider interactivity, the best digital 3D ride film that I've ever seen AND a decent story line it makes it very re-ridable. I can only hope that Paris pull their socks up and upgrade theirs too.Next big news was Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens. With an already fantastic ride line up.. (Kumba for example-certainly Nemesis intense on a much bigger scale), I was looking forward to this one, following it's construction I already knew it wasn't as fast as we'd all hoped for, but what made it really good was that it never stops before any of it's three launch sections. The rides already at a speedy pace before you're launched off again. It has some great air time, the theming is fantastic, a great section over the water and it's very pretty to look at. A thrill machine? Certainly not, but for Intamin it rode as smooth as a B&M :-oAll in all great trip, the weather was SO stormy here and there and I was pleased to get a peak back stage of Beauty and the Beast and Mermaid construction via the railroad! Both reasons to get over there again next year!

[pluk]

Amazing how quickly everything changes out there. It's 6 years since I went and a lot of it sounds like a completely different place. Must go and get myself a virgin brochure...