disneyfan1313

I've always heard (and could be totally wrong) that a lot of the regional parks in Japan are run (or atleast heavily subsidized) by the local prefecture or government. They view it as a way to get people to travel and see their area. Makes me miss Japan sooooooo much.. Stacey and I are considering blowing all our FF miles and going back in January for a fix.... We ate at Mitsukoshi last nite and got all sad..

Woo-Hoo! AC:WW is fun! I got stacey a DS and the game for X-mas and it is even more addictive than the game cube version. My only wish would be for it to use the Wi-Fi more and pull info from the web (i.e. the weather in your zip code is rain so it will rain in the game, etc.) but perhaps that will be for the revolution version..

Yae! Great photo TR - it really captured the spirit of the event! It was wonderful meeting all of you who I have not had the pleasure of meeting before and it was great to see everyone else again!

What an interesting night with the DVD... OMG! As a reward Volume 6 gets to have a three-some with the Katamari games... lucky! After a long and bloody flight (yeah.. DVD blood looks like red paper!) it looks like Volume 6 has won! Oh no! It looks like Volume 5 has seen Volume 6 - It seems they are ready for battle! It looks like my cat has sensed that a non-cat lover has sent this package.. Cats are evil like that ya know..

Small blurb in this article from the Orlando Sentinel that mentions a new kiddie coaster themed to shamu in addition to a new shamu show and a few other small rides. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-bk-biz-seaworld101205,0,5613383.story?coll=orl-home-headlines&track=rss "Three thrill rides geared toward children are also scheduled to open at the same time as the new show. The rides will include a Shamu-themed roller coaster, a jelly-fish shaped samba tower ride and oversized beach buckets that spin and whirl." Eh. Another credit in Orlando is not a bad thing..

The parade is actually about 90% new this year and IMHO quite a bit better than in the past.. Plus they are handing out candy during it... woo-hoo! Candy Overload!!!

Finally got around to watching it..... Sigh.. Did it jump the shark this season? I hope not but it is starting to feel like it. I kept getting the "We are going to make it educational and easy because families are involved" vibe and that just sucks - IMHO this was probably a format change that sounded good when they proposed it but in reality goes against what made the show popular. Perhaps it will get better but for now I will just hold my season 1 dvd close and remember the good times..

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!! This year HHN is only in IOA and boy am I glad! For the first time they radically changed the theming of all the different areas. Marvel Super Hero Island was a crazy undead biker area, Jurrasic Park was a weird non-dino feel with crazy creatures that I call "BugDogs" all over the place and the port of entry was a sacrificial area for the Queen of the Dammed creature that rules this years event. I only ended up making it to 3 houses and bill and ted's due to lines and an early start time for work tomorrow (6 am...ugh!) but all 3 were great along with awesome island outside theming. Houses - Demon Cantina - This is where disorintorium was last year (behind Dr. Doom) and this year they added AC!!! Yae!!! Themed as a biker bar if run by devils it had plenty of good scares and decent theming with a horribly bad ending (it looked like the devil from South Park!). This building needs to be about 2 times the size to get a decent house - too short but well done! Where Evil Hides - This has the grandma that it on all the ads at the beginning but it is really a well done "Best of" house. It has Freddy, Jason, the vampires on bungies from last year and a really cool door hallway that was a good scare. Nice and long and in the soundstages this was the best that I saw for the night. Blood Ruins - Medieval themed and not to scary this had beautiful sets as you walked through a plague ravaged village. Worth it for the hot renaissance women.. Bill and Ted's - Best show in QUITE a few years. They stayed away from the current events and focused on the entertainment with lots of T&A and some great musical numbers. Not going to give away all the characters but imagine if Charlie and the Chocolate factory meet the Dukes of Hazzard - weird but it worked! I got the frequent fear pass so hopefully next time I can catch a few more of the houses - but overall it seems like a win for the 15th anniversary of the event!

I *heart* peeps. I even have a peeps tshirt, lights and pillow.. They rock when they are stale!

You will have a great time - this tour rocks. I've seen them a few times going back to the Dookie years. They have become a bit more theatrical recently (the american idiot tour has a lot of the same gags as when they toured with Blink182) but it is still TONS of fun.

Loved reading this BTW - That is the weirdest looking water slide EVER. I so hope you have video of it!

Sure! Here is a pic of Big Thunder Mountain at DLP in the snow at dusk.

I have a map from HKDL in my hand right now (if anyone is curious I can take some pics of it - it's actually pretty cool!) The only attraction with a height requirement is Space which is 102 CM. As far as I know the concept of posted hight requirements did not exist in 1955 when DL opened - If it did the Autopia would have had one to drive the cars just as they do here.

I've ridden Big Thunder Mountain at DLP in blinding snow. To the point where when we got out we had almost an inch caked onto our jackets. That was hard core for a Floridian!

Gas in Orlando seems to be $2.89-$3.15 - No problems with lines or shortages.

http://www.fark.com - Does this count? http://slashdot.org/ - Yeah.. I'm a geek.. http://www.flyertalk.com - I *love* to fly and this site posts great fares and info about airlines. http://www.egullet.com - A website for people who are insane foodies...like me http://www.hsx.com - Hollywood Stock Exchange - It's like fantasy football...for movies! http://www.toontowncentral.com - Toontown is a great MMORPG that I play.. I'm Aurora on there.. Say Hi! http://vmkfansite.net/ - Great site for the latest happenings on Virtual Magic Kingdom

My opinion - Something like this was needed for the area and brightens it up quite a bit. Heck - anything looks better than a rusty lagoon! (you might see these same pics btw on wdwmagic.. I had sent them to steve over there also)

Argh. Once again.. They did *not* remove 20000 leagues for this! They are using a *very* small portion of the land where it was - about the space that the que for 20000 leagues took up. There is *more* than enough room behind it for a large attraction or other further expansion.

Today was the first official operating day of the Poohs Playful Spot playground at WDW. This is located directly across from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and takes up the space where the que for 20k under the sea was. It is a very well themed area with water effects in addition to things to play on.. onto the pics! Here is the entrance - as you can see i'm too old to play.. There are lots of things for kids to climb on and under - even with the rainy weather people were enjoying it! Oh No! The honey is spilled! This is the water play area with the jets and jumping water surprising kids. For those of you who were worried there is TONS of space for a future attraction behind the playground! This is an overall look at the playground.. You can go in the tree! I would probably hurt myself going in there!

I don't hate six flags but it is not my fave chain of parks either. It's kinda the Wal-Mart of theme parks. There are a lot of them, they have poor service, they are not very themed, they all cary similar products (er rides..), they have long lines because they purposely lower capacity to save money (one train operation, 5 registers at wall-mart with huge lines at 5 pm) - but in a pinch they will get you your coaster fix and can sometimes be amusing.

For those of you who are cruise addicts - Royal Carribian announced today that their new mega-voyager class ship coming out next year "Freedom of the Seas" will have a surfing lagoon thingie on the back of the ship. It looks pretty cool and will be free! I think it might be a bit much with the motion of the ship already but it does look fun! There are pictures at http://www.freedomoftheseas.com.

For those of you that are thinking about going to Mickey's Not-So-Scary on the 21st of October - I would recommend you get your tickets in the next few weeks.. the Friday night events almost always sell out!

Get those tivos ready - The Amazing Race #8 is set to start on September 27th. This time its the family version (not sure how I feel about that!) and the profiles are already up on the cbs website. http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race8/ The site also mentions an "Amazing Race Fantasy Game" coming soon... yae!

I wish you could combine the two! I loved the lights but I also would like some of the flats and other things to look at. I actually prefer the pre-show at FL - it sets up the story a bit better than DLP. I also prefer the detail of the building in FL more but it fits more in with its setting in Paris. Perhaps the next time they build it it will have the best of both worlds!

Right, well - - - several major national respected news papers are good enough for me thanks. Barring catastrophic failure in Hong Kong, the project is going ahead (WDI is already involved). Competition like Universal in the area also is a major factor. Universal decided in July not to build a park there. http://www.amusementbusiness.com/amusementbusiness/industrynews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000988254