Rastuso

I'm afraid this is probably only the first step. The park just can't survive. i'm sure it's losing money. I was there on their Friday night and Saturday. It was vacant both times. There were like 2 other people waiting at the gates when the place opened. There are some decent rides there. FR's launch is in-freakin-credible. Speed of Magic is different, and fun for a go. The other two racing coasters are very unique. The log ride sure looks unique too, although it was down. Sad thing is, that's it! There is the space shot that I skipped. But the rest of the stuff was very boring. The place had an inexplicable number or restaurants at it. But, who's paying $60 to get in to just go and eat? The fatal flaw is that Abu Dhabi simply isn't a destination like Dubai. And FR is just too hard to get to from Dubai. It's either a car rental, which is totally unnecessary otherwise in Dubai, or a 1.25 hour taxi ride BOTH WAYS. I lucked out and got there for essentially free, but only because I was business class on Emirates. There are grandiose plans for Yas Island, they just aren't there yet, and may never be. But, Ferrari World is already there, waiting for the guests. Yeah, and charging almost one hundred dollars for a t-shirt, sorta limits your merch sales. -RO

My son did a Christmas band concert at Kemah on Friday. It seemed to be pretty much a way for Kemah to lure people down on Friday night to spend money. The place was deader than a doornail, and it wasn't that cold out. They had a few Christmas lights up, but not much. I rode the Bullet, once, in the front row. It was pretty good, actually. Although, I'm sure it was running sluggishly. The time to make it through the brakes at the end was about a minute. WTF! Adjust the damn things. My son took two rides, near the back, and said it was pretty crappy, and rough enough he hit the girl next to him from the thrashing. Operations wise, they were dispatching maybe every 6 or 7 minutes, since it was one train, the stupid final brake, and one man operations. With such a small crowd, it didn't matter. T-Bone Tom's was once again excellent. Can't see me ever eating at the Boardwalk again, except maybe the Pizza Oven. -RO

Youre throwing a lot of big accusations with no actual info or proof to any of it. You don't know Universals attendance numbers, their vacationer to local ratio, what they plan to build here, the draw of the park in the first place, nor do you understand how marketing works with things like Kong. The point your trying to prove cant be proven for a few years, and even then I think your expectations for this are all off. We will have to wait and see. Well, yeah, nobody on this thread can prove ANY of their opinions. The only for real facts are those accompanying the pictures from the media event. Which are basically: A Harry Potter expansion is going into Universal Hollywood, and it most likely will sell Butterbeer. -RO

I think Kong, and anything new to LA has two possible sources of crowd increases. Vacationers, like myself, who pay full prices, and buy lots of merch. And, locals who go with a discount ticket and buy zero merch. Universal Hollywood hadn't opened anything new at all for over 3 years. I would say locals traffic had dried up pretty much to it's minimum. Hell, even the Simpsons simulator probably didn't attract a lot of locals, who had already sworn off BttF after one ride. So you have to go back almost 8 years to Mummy's opening for the last thrill ride attraction with real drawing power. I'd say they could have added damn near anything to get the locals interested again. Kong didn't attract by name or quality, it attracted by simply being in existence. It sounds like it's quite good, and can be enjoyed by all guests. Something Forbidden Journey absolutley can not be. I see the same for Potter, although it will be only 2-3 years after Transformers, which should be huge in it's own right, finally bringing a Spidey-level ride to LA. So even then, locals won't be starving for a reason to return. And the tram attracts older folks, who won't like being tossed around by a robot for 5 minutes, or wait an hour for a wand. I think this will help, hell yeah. But it won't do anything even remotely like the 30-50% increase Orlando has seen at IOA. Maybe for the first Summer, but it won't be sustained. I foresee IOA having bigger numbers for quite a few years. And the Uni addition keeping it going for qiute sometime. LA's Potter will be the lesser Potter the day it opens, most likely. If it was totally new adventure, and different shops, it very well could be a 50% increase from vacationers. As it stands, a vacationer like myself, will make their Orlando vs LA decision based on everything EXCEPT the new Potter land in LA. -R

Huh? The tram upgrade? The attendance went up that much, but I doubt people were clammoring for that 2 minute addition to an otherwise boring ride. It was clear that Potter was the sole reason for the increase at Orlando. Hell, they sold out of Butterbeer mugs in a few weeks. If a 2 minute change to an attraction that takes you 2 hours total to experience, and feature spinning cars and empty street facades, increases attendance by 20%, Potter will quadruple their attendance. -RO

^^^ You are right, it won't be a big deal. The Hollywood Potter will not draw anyone that went to Orlando. So, the increase will be very modest, nowhere near what Orlando saw. I recall Indy giving Disneyland a huge shot in the arm. But, beyond that, not many single attractions do much more than 5% increase, and Potter is damn near an order of magnitude larger. I think Uni and Disney are smoking somthing. This clone will not do much more than any new attraction. And Disney comparing Carsland to Potterland is simply mindblowing. A short Pixarfied Test Track and an insanely slow loading flying saucers remake in a half park won't come close to what Potter did. Nothing will, except for another ORIGINAL Potter land, which needs to be designed quick, before the actors get too old for new footage (Or a Middle Earth land, of course). Hopefully, that is what Orlando is doing. But, that adds another wrinkle. In three years, who will visit Hollywood Potter, if Gringots bank opens for business in Orlando at the same time? Locals, and that's it. -RO

As for those saying I'm wrong about the two parks, the issue is this: Universal Orlando has seen ENORMOUS increases in attendance, beyond anything they could have expected. Now, it will die down in the next three years, but let's say it's still 20% extra from Potter alone. Putting in the exact same thing in Hollywood will simply spread that 20% Potter increase between two places. And to do that, they have to spend another $1-200 million dollars. Doesn't seem to be worth it to me. However, investing some extra capital to make it another unique Potter location would make a second MUST DO for Potter heads, and give the Hollywood park a huge increase, in the 30% range, instead of just a cannibalization of the Orlando increase. You can't say that fanboys are only a small portion of this. Do you really think that 30% increase for Orlando was locals wanting to see Harry Potter? People form around the world are going there. I mean really, if in 3 years, a duplicate of the Orlando Potter area opens in Hollywood, will that really be much bigger of a deal than any new ride opening there? Let's remember, the Potter bump was simply ginormous. -RO

Quite a disappointment if it's a carbon copy. And dumb too. People will choose which one to visit, instead of visiting both. This will just steal visitors from Orlando that are added to Hollywood. -R

The train could easily be doable from a crowd aspect. Have tickets for your train, and multiple loading rooms for different train times. It would be similar to the large groups at Sinbad. However, I think motion sickness would be the bigger issue. Enclosing people in a train, with fake motion all around them, could be a problem. it could be really cool, with a Dementer attack thrown in for good measure, but it could be a puke machine too. -RO

Sounds to me like this ride could have just been on a stationary base and offered 90% of the experience. The awesomeness of Spider-man is the practical effects that are on top of the screens. The bridge scene is fricken amazing. Sounds like transformers has more in common with Speed of Magic,as far as set design and integration go. I hope I'm wrong. I'm surprised there aren't any onride pics yet. -R

Yeah, I recall a MUCH better meal, but it was over ten years ago. T-Rex Cafe was AWESOME. A bit more, but not THAT much more, for such a large gap in quality. -R

Today was a relaxation day. In hind sight, we should have hit DCA, since it torrentially poured on our last day, but we didn’t. We woke up fairly late. My wife had here massage scheduled, and me and the boy were going out for miniature golf. I had some coffee as I watched the monorail go by from my balcony. It was quite full for so early in the morning, returning from the park. We got our car from valet, and headed to Golf ‘n Stuff. This was something I had wanted to do for YEARS. Golf ‘n Stuff in Norwalk is where the first Karate Kid was filmed. When I was young, I really connected with Daniel. I wasn’t beaten up by some punk, but I loved the movie’s themes, and thought the dates between Daniel and the chick at an arcade looked like the funnest times you could possibly have. Perfect dates in an arcade with a big waterslide, go karts, and mini golf. The place was called Golf ‘n Stuff and Pizza ‘n Stuff in the movie. Well, today, it’s damn near exactly like the movie. The games have changed, but the arcade still has that 80s vibe and look. Sadly, nothing from the movie is still there. I was especially hoping the picture booth would be. I think the owners are missing out there. They should still have it. I would have paid to use it, regardless of price. No exact golf holes are shown during the date, just a simple putt into one. So, we just randomly chose one of the back courses, there are 4. The course is decent. It’s huge, with lots of tunnels and a good number of structures. The arcade is pretty good for this day and age. The tokens are non-descript, but the tickets do say Golf ‘n Stuff. We also got a refillable cup what has the name on it. They have a few picture collages posted from the movie. The second building wasn’t open, but it just had a restaurant in it that isn’t in the movie. The very distinct archway with Arcade over it is still there. The slide is long gone. They do have a few newer rides, like a Disc-o. It was a great 80s afternoon. As close as I will come to living Daniel-sans perfect dates. Afterwards, we got some groceries and headed back to the Grand Californian. My wife was out of the spa and very happy. It was time to eat, so I wanted to go to Trader Sam’s. We walked over to the greatly changed DLH area, but still heavily under construction. It really sucks that the old waterfall section is gone. We loved going there for a picture every trip. We got to an almost empty Trader Sam’s which sucked. I would assume this place is much better the busier it is. We did witness a volcanic eruption, and a few other shout outs and noises. I noticed the beer taps play drum beats as they are used. The place is filled with references on the wall. Most talking about the Jungle Cruise, since this is the place that the headhunter at the end runs. We ordered the flatbread which was awesome. I also got a Hippopottamaitai in a really cool tiki glass. I felt pretty good after that. We decided to eat at the Rainforest Café. My son loved the T-Rex Café at WDW, so wanted to go here. Well, that was a HUGE mistake. The food was pretty much crap. The nachos were good, but the entrees were all very blah. Fatty ribs, tough steak, mediocre sides. We definitely didn’t get any dessert. The bill was atrociously huge as it was. Our only real mistake of the trip. I mean, I wasn’t expecting Gusteau quality food, but for the price, I felt raped. We did a lot of pin trading, and the boy had to hit the LEGO store. They were doing a free clinic for October. You got a Vampire figure, so that was cool. He then bought a set of mini-figs which was outrageously expensive, and then a bucket of pieces you fill yourself that was actually not bad. I wanted to watch World of Color from the Paradise Pier balcony in the hotel, so we dropped our stuff off and went there. There was an unbelievably inconsiderate family that had a huge blanket out in the prime location, taking up way too much space. Plus, they were drinking alcohol! Nice! The view is pretty good, but the videos simply don’t refract to the side, so you really can’t see any. They pump in the music, and you can see the fountains, and other lights, but not video. It is a pretty nice perk, overall. The show seemed decent, but unless it REALLY wows from straight ahead, I really don’t see how it holds a candle to Fantasmic. I thought there were fireworks, but it is just the waterscreen sections of Fantasmic with some fire and extra water fountains. Grand Californian's main entrance carport Now where's Elizabeth Shue at? Just a few decades late. pic from the movie The hallway it is from. ANother shot. The arcade. Sadly, the mirror balls are gone. The outside from the movie. A decent golf place. Huge, with four courses. And, a great trip to nostalga. Trader Sam's The bar. A bit cluttered. The view outside. Don't go here. You will be disappointed. Wish they had T-Rex Cafe instead. Free LEGOs!!! There's something you don't see everyday. WHere our first Disneyland trip started. I was incredibly excited. Gladly, the lobby didn't have a big construction wall in it back then. The coolest LEGO sculpture. Free World of Color. Cadillac Mountains Aftershow

It's not clear on the specifics though. Is the penguin ride just a retooling of the existing simulator? "New Ride Technology" is a pretty vague statement. I'm not getting my hopes up for some sort of full on penguin dark ride. And will you be able to encounter otters, included with a normal DC day, or will actual touching involve an upcharge (I've heard that before)? -RO

TR: Disneyland – Halloween Time 10/3/11 Today was a big surprise day. We start by hitting the Character Warehouse, which wasn’t that great. Nothing beats the Disney store in the outlet mall in Florida. Then, another In-N-Out visit, then the surprises. First, we were leaving for our Disney hotel a day earlier than my family thought. Second, as we drive up to the Paradise Pier Hotel, I drive on by, and act like I’m mistakenly pulling into the Grand Californian, I get up to the gate, give my name to the guard, and she couldn’t have been better timed in saying “Happy Anniversary”. My wife was in a bit of shock at this point. I had told her the DL Hotel was too expensive. However, I had been watching every day, and got in right when they announced a 30% off special, and nabbed a garden view room at GCH for just $20 more a night than a theme park view room at DLH, which isn’t much of a theme park view, since you are so far away. It was a bit steep, but we were planning all Disney stuff, and it was our 14th anniversary. We had a concierge level room at DLH then. Of course, the glass elevator is gone, that hotel is under construction, and really, it’s not a resort hotel. The towers are pretty basic, no real grand lobby area (the lobby they do have has construction walls everywhere), so the Grand Californian it was. My son let out a big “WOW” as we went to check-in, and he began pin trading. We quickly got told our room was available, even at 1 pm. As I’m walking back to the car, the receptionist comes to me and says my wife and I need to come see him. So, I get my wife, and we are given a happy anniversary balloon, and pins. The pins got MANY “happy anniversaries” during our visit, but no real perks. We get our luggage, practically taking it away from bell services. I didn’t want to mess with them since our room was ready, and we needed to get it to our room and get ready for Halloween Time! I got our valet card and are off to our room that wasn’t too far from the lobby, on the 4th floor. We get in, and I see the monorail track from our balcony. Sweet! The room is very nice, though a bit small. It did have a fridge, and bath robes. Our view was awesome, and the beds were VERY comfy. I asked my wife how she liked her surprise, and she loved it. Of course, this wasn’t her anniversary gift surprise yet. Amazingly, right after booking the hotel, I saw a forum thread about a Groupon for the GCH Spa. A $230 massage package for $99. Perfect. I give her the reservation for tomorrow, which is a down day, with nothing really planned. We changed into Halloween attire, and started our long trek to Disneyland. That consisted of going three doors down to the stairs, down to the ground, outside, two quick lefts, and right into Downtown Disney!! We were through security and at the gates in SIX MINUTES! The crowd to get in was just as big as Friday for the party ticket holders, which was a bit scary. However, there was NO ONE going into the park in general, as opposed to the huge lines on Friday. We were let in about 10 minutes late. Again, Sprint cellphone service was horrible inside the park. It's like another company has jammers in there. Makes no sense. I had fine service at DTD and GCH, but inside the park was spotty, and caused my battery to only last a few hours. We went to get Space Mountain FPs this time, since we hadn’t ridden it yet, and didn’t want to miss Ghost Galaxy. Then, we hit Star Tours. This is our first time with the new version. I loved the luggage X-ray in the queue. Too bad you could only see it twice, for a short time. The movie is a HUGE upgrade. We got Vader, so I was happy. We also hit the wookies. I didn’t know about the rebel spy photo. Are there cameras for all seats? We tried to do FL side of Matterhorn, but it was closed. DAMN! Never got to ride it the whole trip. Last trip it was the only side. I swear, Matterhorn is one of my favorite rides, and I have had tons of problems riding it, and still only have a handful of laps for both sides. We hit Alice instead, with a decent line. The really cool Chessire Cat effect seemed to be missing. And, WHAT THE HELL have they done with the outside section. Talk about lawyers ruining it. That ride has ran for decades with the cool leaf section, but now they added a huge wooden area and handrails. Might as well enclose it now. Our Space Mountain FPs were due, so we go there, and go on pretty fast. I really liked the Mummy Galaxy layover they’ve added, and my wife loved it, which was a surprise. Next, we went to Adventureland. The park was already close to closing as I got in line for a Dole Whip. The machine was having problems, so I didn’t think we’d get one. Also, they served people from the back side, although not as quickly. After the girl hit a button, it finally worked, and we got our float. We ended up being next to last as they closed the place. Not sure if it reopened once folks were cleared out of the Halloween Party or not. My wife then dragged us on Jungle Cruise, and finally we made it to Indiana Jones!!! Walked waaaaaaay back. Pole was working, but not rope. No real line, and an amazing as usual ride. We tried to cut back in at the handicap entrance, but were denied, which sucked. I don’t know why they don’t allow rerides when it is a walkon. As we got back to the entrance, it went down, so we rested a bit at Bengal BBQ. I went and got one of everything, pretty much. My wife didn’t remember how I got us a lot of them while we waited for our first Fantasmic viewing on the last day of our honeymoon. That’s -1 for her. After eating, Indy was open, so me and the boy rerode. Now we started some trick or treating and notice the lines were MUCH shorter. My son saw a kid with a Minecraft Halloween costume, and wants to make one himself, but time is running out. Mansion even had a short line, so we got it in. Sadly, we didn’t see Maynard on this trip anywhere. We hit Splash, then Stinky Pooh, and hit some treat lines. Some had basically no wait tonight, so if they CM was being generous, you could hit it again. Our bags filled up very quickly. Luckily, we had bought a big bag, and started filling it. Big Thunder's line was so short you cut across straight to the stairs. I'd never seen that before. There were some new pumpkins at the Big Thunder Ranch, and a CM that was giving handfuls of chocolate out. YAY! We again hit Fantasyland as it was closed for Fireworks, which sucked. We decided to just walk around and watch them. We got a so-so spot, with a tree between us and the castle. My son was out of gas for the day, so he was glad to lay down some. Right after the fireworks started, a CM wanted me to squeeze over so others could join the already packed area. I told her no, they should have gotten there earlier. She didn’t press the issue any, surprisingly. I liked the flying Zero, very cool. After the fireworks, we waited for FL to open back up. We hit Pinocchio and Toad again. The boy was getting quite whiny, as was the wife. So we decided to hit Matterhorn and Mummy Galaxy (which was a walkon) one more time. THen we did Buzz, and found that the triangular targets, when lit, were 100,000 points! We sent our picture home again and then headed out, a bit before close. I was pretty tired too, so wasn’t to upset. We did hit the penny arcade for squished coins, got some Disney Dollars, and were out. Of course, we were in our room about 6 minutes after leaving, and we got to realize how nice the Grand Californian beds are. A bit of an upgrade from the Hampton. The horrible lawyer additions to Alice. Sorry, I don't do spin and pukes. Space dildo. Who needs to buy onride photos. For Derek. Great costumes. More incredible pumpkin carvings. Excellent costumes! Sadest part of a Disneyland visit... The final picture. Our haul from two trips to Disneyland's Halloween Party. We had 19 pounds of stuff. About half of it chocolate. Then, Skittles and Tootsie Rolls. Plus Craisins, gummies, apple crisps, and apple slices, which didn't make it home. Easily $25 worth of chocolate.

TR: Knott’s Scary Farm 10/2/11 Today was to be my son’s first visit to a full-on Halloween event. My wife thought I was making a big mistake, as he’s a little skiddish for his age, when it comes to scary things. Mostly due to us being fairly conservative in regard to his movie viewing. However, I wanted to go to the Haunt, and we had no babysitter, so he was going. First, up, though, he and I got up early enough to head out to Magic Mountain. I spring a surprise on my wife, saying she needs to work on packing while we’re gone, since we’re changing hotels the next day, a day earlier than she thought. I figure we need an hour and a half to get to MM, but we end up leaving a bit late, getting a Starbucks on the way, however it only took about an hour. Due to SFMM’s crazy parking lot, and usually running one tram, with a huge wait, I decide to get double raped, and valet park. We were getting in the park for free with our season passes, so I pretended this was our entry fee. I knew we’d do a lot of walking today, so I wanted to try and minimize it a bit. Plus, we were running late, and I saw X testing, so we wanted to hit it first. Having a Discover card was a HUGE deal. First, you get a private metal detector. Then, you are let into the park about a minute before everyone else. It was sort of like a zombie attack: we get a ways into the park, and here comes the attacking mass of people behind us. A few folks run by, but we ultimately get into the X queue well ahead of most people. We decide to wait for first car, since the wait was only one more train. We end up on the third one out. I sit on the outside seat. I don’t recall the oscillating to be this bad. It was pretty brutal in a few places. Such a shame. This would be an amazing ride if it was smooth. Perhaps B&M will get it right in a few years. After X, we head up to Tatsu, then to Ninja, both essentially walk-ons. As I’d hoped, the Sunday morning crowds weren’t too bad, really. Then to Namrepus, which I didn’t know had crazy ass OTSRs now. WTF? It is essentially impossible to fall out of this ride. You really need NO restraints, so SFMM, along with California’s lawyers, decide to trap you in the damn thing. The awesome float time is gone going backwards. It’s nice to go full speed again, but it was MUCH better the other direction. We begin looking for a drink, only to find essentially nothing open. We head back to Apocalypse for another no wait ride. This ride is pretty damn good, not surprisingly for a GCI. It’s all about speed, as few of the hills are very tall. However, but this time, we were both getting a bit dehydrated. We finally find an open drink stand, and ponder our next move. We needed to leave soon, so I figured Green Lantern, sadly, was out of the picture. It had to have at least an hour wait by now, and we had to leave by 1pm. We decided to just take the short cut back to Tatsu, and ride Revolution. My last ride on this ridiculously over-restrained coaster was decent. This ride was a little worse. God, why the F*&^ don’t they at least change the OTSRs to something a little less hard, with a little more space between steel and skull. We get to valet right at 1, and actually make it back to the hotel faster, at about 50 minutes. We shower, and get ready for Haunt, and leave. Our hotel was only about 5 minutes from Knott’s, we got a great parking space, and walked over to the front gate. There was nothing about the ACE event anywhere. I ask a few folks at teh gate, who just stare at me. We go to Guest Relations, where we were specifically told to go, and they knew NOTHING. WTF!! I can’t imagine TPRs event goers arrived and didn’t know what was going on. I got pretty angry, and then a few other lost souls showed up. GR still knew nothing, and were supposedly calling around. How could this be such a hard thing to figure out? How could GR know nothing about this event? Finally, right at the end of the registration time, some ACE guy walks over saying “I’m glad I came over here”, and gets us all to walk over to the side/Haunt entrance area, where others had gathered. So much for the “front of the park” as it said in the event info. I notice a number of people staring at me, obvious fans of my “That guy from TV” thread from RRC of yesteryear. We head into the backstage are, into the show building for the new technology of Haunt showthat has some props and animatrons from years past. A couple of designers talk about their experiences, but very little about the show. They just kept saying we could find out about it in the show. WTF? It was more commercial for the show than anything else. They did show one prop, an old woman puking in a toilet. After the show, we went back outside the park, to get in line with the real early arrivers, to sit there for a while, before being pulled back out of that line, to go into the park, through Haunt level security, and to the buffet area. The whole event had a “we don’t really know what we’re doing” vibe from ACE and Knott’s. We’re then told to all squeeze into the tables on one wall of our area, even though no one else ever came to sit in the other 20 tables. The food was great, as expected. Excellent fried chicken, surprisingly good shrimp cocktail, and great corn on the cob. At some point, the ACE guy came in with a box of shirts from last year, and a few other things. The box was 99% XXL shirts. They obviously knew they were for ACE!!! After some searching, we did find one S, and luckily one M for my son. We also got drink cups with one free refill. One we found had three refill slips in it, but we somehow lost it, although three is all we needed for the night. A few scareactors came in, so we got to see our son’s reaction. One came right over and scared him from behind. He took it pretty well. One guy even did some card tricks, and we talked about the Magic Castle. They also took a few groups to go tour the Delirium maze with the lights on. This was the big check for my son. He ended up not wanting to go in at the last moment, so we told him we’d come back to get him. The maze seemed pretty short without a line. But the attention to detail was quite good, and there were some good photo ops. When we finished, I went back to the entrance, and no son. He had actually gone through with an older lady that said she was afraid too. He seemed OK, but the ACE guys were about ready to call the FBI looking for him after about 5 seconds. We went back to dinner, and it was time for the rope drop of the early event attendees. A slider spooked my son as he was getting a squished penny, but not too bad. At rope drop, we headed straight to the mine train, and got on the first one, I believe. The theme was aliens coming up, and military fighting them. There was an ultra-obnoxious screamer in the front of the train. Thank God I wasn’t in her car, I might have punched her. She was screaming bloody murder at everything, and just flipped out from the strings hanging at the lift hill. It really upset my son. Knott’s always seems to miss the mark with this ride, but it seems better than before. Next we got in line for the log ride, which I always love. This year’s was quite good. Tons of scareactors, good props, and of course the excellent log flume. My son was not impressed. He didn’t like it at all, and said he didn’t want to do any other scary stuff, which put a bit of a wrench into things. We were going to go ride Pony Express, but he saw some scareactor clowns, and wanted no part to do with them, so I went over for the credit while he shopped with the wife. Pony Express is a fun little ride, emphasis on little. A nice long version, with a steeplechase like layout, would be cool. It was time for THE HANGING!! YaY! Haven’t seen this in many years, and the stage had a pretty extravagant setup. I was looking for my family, but they didn’t show up until a few minutes in. It was weird watching this close up in a sparse crowd. I’m used to it being packed. The show was quite good. Tons of pyro to begin, but they didn’t use the zip line this year. My favorite parts definitely begins with the extensive “Under the Sea” number with Osama Bin Laden saying his body is rotting there. Very funny! My son loved the Angry Birds section, of course. They had the obligatory super hero fight, pop stars, including Britney, yay! Captain Jack Swallow was there, of course, and Arnold had a pretty long section. No horror movie characters at all. The Oprah section was pretty funny too. I was surpised at how many SoCal folks laughed at the Obama jokes. ********SPOILERS************** Then Rebecca Black comes out singing “Hanging”, as they take her up to the gallows. At the last second, Charlie Sheen comes out, goes on a long tirade about being the year’s number one douche, and hangs himself. Apparently, the first weekend, Rebecca got hanged, and Charlie was added the second weekend. *********END SPOILERS******** We then decided to go see Ed Alonzo, to continue the magic theme of the trip. We got to the theater just as they opened the exit doors, so we walked in and got in the front row. The chairs were a bit wobbily, but OK. We got a drink and got rid of the last drink, and relaxed a bit, since we were way early. Ed was showing a series of vanity pictures of him with other celebrities. The show was pretty loud, when the music was playing for dance numbers. The show was quite good. Better magic than I saw at the Magic Castle. He did an animal routine, metamorphisis, and some dancers jumped through him, via a drum, as the finale. He brought up a Phillipene woman for one illusion and abused the hell out of her. Making tons of jokes that bed wetting liberals would call racist. He also had a Latino guy that got a lot of gangster jokes. All in all, a great show. My wife tried talking to him afterwards, but the Knott’s folks wouldn’t let us. Our neighbor knows Ed, and sent his best wishes, but all my wife could do was write a short note for him. My son decided he would brave Pony Express, so we dodged a few scareactors to get there. Apparently, since crowds were VERY light, the scareactors were roaming everywhere, especially the clowns, who were way outside their scare zone. We decide to dump him off in the queue and go do the Terror In London maze. It had great sets, a lot of people, and was a good theme. My wife started screaming some, and got tagged by the actors, so got a lot of attention thoroughout. We went to get the boy, and walked towards Silver Bullet, I decided to hit Dollhouse on the way, since it had zero line, like everything. It was pretty good. Lots of hot babes, a cool Babyface-like prop, and one section that had large toy packages full of plush, some of which would jump out at you. It seemed quite long too. I got back with the fam, and we headed to Silver Bullet, dropping off the boy for the credit, and going to the Virus Z maze. This was pretty good, but the zombies moved too fast. It ended up being quite similar to the Fallout Shelter maze we did later. Plus, it was quite short. So, we also did the Corn Stalkers maze, which I liked. The scarecrow guys were great, although I was amazed none were up on the poles. It was basically a straight line maze, with just the corn, and a redneck section. There was also a lot of outhouses, including one large one with the Hulk taking a dump in. It was simple, but I liked it. We met back with the boy, who said Silver Bullter was a bit much, and his stomach was bothering him. He was pretty tired, and running out of gas. We took him to the line for Sierra Sidewinder, while we did Fallout Shelter, which wasn't very good. NOthing really memorable. After zipping through it, I met him in the station. He'd ridden 3 times already, and I joined for the fourth. This was a new credit for me. MY GOD, THIS RIDE SUCKS!!!! I hate spinning, I hate going backwards, and I don't enjoy headbanging. This ride delivered all three. I felt horrible after the ride, since I took one wallup in the back of the head. Never again. We got our final free drink refill, and headed out. My wife got a Pink's hot dog with zero minutes wait. I assume they are the exact same as teh ones in Hollywood, but I was still full of fried chicken, and didn't need another hot dog. What a cutie. My son's first scareactor. This guy lost a fight with Gambit. The chaos it takes to get ready for Haunt. There were hundreds of people getting ready to scare everyone. Delirium's entrance. The Sarlac lives! Mutant mosquito poker. Mutant old folks home. Hmmm, I wonder if the ACE guys like me? OK, so this isn't so bad with the lights on, and no creepers around. Time for the rope drop.

TR: The Magic Castle 10/1/11 When I was a young boy, I became fascinated with magic. I loved Doug Henning, and even got to see him live in the mid 70s. I bought magic magazines, ordered magic tricks through the mail, and praticed them a lot. I had a few favorites that I did pretty well. As I grew up, I continued to watch TV shows about magic, mostly the Copperfield specials. Then I found out he was filming a stunt at Niagara Falls while I was co-oping there. Me and another guy from work went there every day after work for a few weeks, watching what was going on. We were even there the day they filmed the one section with a crowd, and were actually on the show, although you can’t make us out, thanks to low resolution. When I bought my last house, my son came home saying he met our neighbor, who was a magician. OK, I thought, he probably does kids parties or something. I see him outside, and start talking magic, and he claims that Doug Henning named his as one of his main influences, and he said he was on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. OK, at this point, I’m thinking he’s just a crazy old man, but I go up to my computer, and Google him. WOW, he was telling the truth, he created an illusion called the Blaney Ladder Levitation, and traveled the world performing it. Holy crap! My neighbor was literally a legendary magician!!! As I get to know him, I mention we were going to LA, and asked him if he’d ever been to the Magic Castle. His answer: “Sure, I know the guys who started it, and I’m a lifetime member. I could get you in there, if you want to visit.” My jaw dropped to the floor. Nearly a year later, I take him up on that, and here I was, driving up the steep driveway to the valet, giddy as a little schoolgirl. I get out, and take some pictures. My family gets mad at me, demanding them take pictures of me in front of the place. I couldn’t help it, I was ultra excited. THey got even more upset by me taking so many pictures in the entry way, saying I was embarrasing myself. Meh, who cares. They both really enjoyed the day, and my son wanted the same pictures taken of him, after having such a great day. We go in the entry room, and meet the unbelievably hot receptionist, give my name, and we get our tickets for the main show in the Palace of Mystery, and are told we can go up and have brunch. Luckily, we didn’t have to pay the entrance fee since a friend of my neighbors pulled some strings. Of course, this room has no exits except the one we came in. However, if you go up to the owl, and say the magic phrase “Open Sesame”, the bookcase opens up, revealing the entrance. Sadly, no photos are allowed inside the castle. There are some available online, if you look hard enough. You enter into one of the MANY bars, and we could hear Invisible Irma playing in the background. She’s one of the many special features of the Castle. An invisible woman, with an invisible bird, who takes requests. She played Pokerface, Smooth Criminal, and some showtunes people asked for. We head up to the all you can eat brunch buffet. I was unsure about prices. I knew the price was $37 a person, but didn’t know if drinks were included. He said it was a champagne brunch, but I didn’t realize that meant mimosas were included. We were happy to see our bill didn’t include a long list of the drinks we had. The food was quite good. They had an omelet station, prime rib, baked salmon, bacon and eggs, and lots more. The desserts looked amazing, but were only so-so. The first main show in the Palace was still a while away, so we went into the first parlour show, by Dana Daniels. This was a pretty good show, actually probably the best one we saw. He was quite funny. One girl he chose, part of a big group of teenage girls, said her card was the 3 of clovers, which was a classic blonde comment. He didn’t do a whole lot of real magic, but was very entertaining. Once we were out, it was time for the Palace show, which is the main show room, with a stage. There were two performers, the first was a guy who did a few small tricks, and he then introduced Mystina, who was the main person. I gotta say, she was disappointing. She first came out in black light doing some decent slight of hand, but then opened with a record trick that I bought through the mail 30 years ago!! I did get chosen to come on stage as part of a handkerchief trick, but there wasn’t anything that was really impressive. I’m sure it’s always going to be hit or miss. We spent a lot of time wandering the castle, seeing all the pictures and artifacts. There was a real Haunted Mansion plaque. Apparently the Castle helps out on the Haunted Mansion. There was also a cool phone booth with a Pepper's Ghost surprise waiting inside. Jason Alexander of Seinfeld performs at the parlour some, and Neil Patrick Harris is the president right now, so there is definite star power there. As we were sitting at the bar, waiting for a special later show, I see a guy walking down the stairs, and say “that guy looks like David Caruso”. My wife says, “that is David Caruso”. He looks over at us, smiles, and says “hey guys”, as he leaves. This is the reason for the no photos policy, not that there are secrets to be had, but this is a place celebrities can come, and know they won’t be hassled. When my wife finds out that Johnny Depp is a regular visitor to the brunches, with his kids, she suddenly wants to return more than I do. I buy a few things in the gift shop, sadly, they are strict, and won’t sell the “member” shirts to non-members. I do get some cards and another polo shirt. I also tour the rest of the castle. There are tons of little rooms and hallways all over. Downstairs was a little bit of a museum, and a dungeon themed area. I wonder how busy the place gets on Saturday night. If all the areas were full, this place would be hopping. There were tables and little stages all over for more performing. During our time there, there were two people doing card tricks on random tables. One Japanese guy did some great card manipulating, and the other guy did some very impressive tricks, but you never know if they are using a trick deck or not. My son was chosen to sit at the table for the close-up area. The performer there was only 17, but he did one very impressive trick. Luckily, there was a special seminar being given by Mark Wilson, who literally wrote the book about learning magic. He’s also a good friend of my neighbors, so we went to watch an old pilot episode of The Magic Land of AllaKazam. His stories were quite funny, and I really enjoyed it. I also got him to sign one of the magic magazines I bought back in the 70s that he was on the cover of. Everyone was taking pictures so, I took a few in there, including one with Mark. I then had my son take a picture of me coming out of the Palace. A guy bitched at me about it, saying I might get caught. Even though the flashes were going behind me quite a bit. But, like I say, pictures are out there. You can’t enforce a no photos policy now, unless you’re taking everyone’s phone. I’m sure had I tried to take a picture of David Caruso, that would have been a big problem. All in all, it was every bit as awesome as I had hoped. The castle itself is awesome to wander around in, but the magic was not what I expected, including some pretty low level tricks. I will definitely hope to return when I come back to LA. The manager seemed to really enjoy my enthusiasm, and said I was welcome to come back. I would love to go for an evening some day, which has a strict coat and tie rule. Although, it would be a lot more expensive, and the bar was not cheap. We got 3 cokes, and it cost us $3 each for pretty small glasses. So, it ain’t cheap, but it’s an incredibly unique experience, and I truly couldn’t believe I actually got to visit. I literally dreamed of going there in the 70s. Now, I need another neighbor who knows Hugh Hefner. The castle is literally right behind the Chinese Mann's Theater. I can't believe I'd never gone back and at least got this photo. There's also a hotel. I need to find out about it. WOW, I'm here!!! Abpve the fireplace is a vintage picture of the over 100 year old mansion. I remember seeing that owl on TV in the 70s, thinking how awesome it would be to say "Open Sesame" to it. Now, today, I was doing it. The receptionist was amazing. Legendary magician, who's been selling magic lessons to the world for decades, Mark Wilson. His wife Nani Darnell, in the background, along with the Palace stage. I'd love to know if that owl up there does anything. My son, after realizing the awesomeness of the Magic Castle.

Any news on why FR was down? I still think FR IS the park. Although I do wish V12 had been open on my visits. -R

It's directly on the right when you enter he'll in Mr. Toad. My car happened to stop there. -RO

TR: Disneyland, Mickey's Halloween Party 9/3011 We haven't been in LA since Star Wars Celebration IV in 2007, so it's been a while for us. We made these plans before the boy started 8th grade, and we realized he will have a lot more homework, and be a bit challenged this year. We felt a little guilty taking him out of school, and it got worse when he was sick on the last day before the trip, so he missed 6 days (But, after returning, he said it wasn't going to be too bad to make up everything). So, we took off after work, and were of course delayed for over 3 hours by the first real thunderstorm THIS YEAR!!!! Yes, we're still in the middle of the worst drought ever, but it of course rains on our flight. I was getting nervous. In-n-Out Burger closes at 1 am. To make it, I calculated we'd need to leave by 10. We were on the plane by then, but didn't take off for a while. I thought I'd have to wait to enjoy my first until tomorrow. Luckily, we flew through baggage claim. We have the Continental Master Card, which is basically a must if you travel with them, yet few have it. It gives you priority baggage! So, our stuff came off at the very beginning, we zip to Enterprise, get our car, and I ask the gate keeper about In-n-Out. He doesn't think we'll make it, but he gives us the directions. I almost miss it, but my wife points it out, and we pull in. We ended up being the next to last car in the drive-though. SCORE! My first double-double of the trip. My wife gets one with ketchup! Ewww. And my son gets a cheeseburger. They just aren't fans. I find out a few of my old friends on Facebook are also fanatical, and planning a similar run at the airport in a few days. We stayed at the Hampton about 5 miles West of Disneyland on Katella. It was in a business area, very nice, and a typical Hampton. Plus, no parking fee, no Anaheim taxes, and a low rate of $68 a night, compared to about $90 for crap hotels by the park, with parking fees and about 50% more taxes. You can't easily leave the park for a while, but when I visit Disneyland, they usually have to chase me out. We get to the parking structure, after stupidly being directed by the signs to go down and do a U-turn at a light. I can't believe that is the normal way they tell you to get into the garage. We enter for free with our party tickets, and are instructed to park in essentially the second worst parking spot on the level. I give the guy a dirty look, and he says I can drive up and look for another, so I do, and get one WAY close to the escalators. The crowd going in was near a morning rush crowd, but we only had to wait one tram. We were instantly impressed with the large Halloween dioramas on the tram route. There is nothing like that at the MK for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party. We get through the worthless security, and into one of the big lines to get in, only to find out our tickets won't work there. We move twice more before finally getting in the right one. My son starts pin trading immediately. I had read DL had a lot fewer cast lanyards than WDW, but it wasn't a big difference. Maybe half the number, which was still a lot, and plenty for him to trade the whole trip. I had downloaded the MouseWait app,and looked at times. This was a Friday, and the place was already crowded, before the 4 O'Clock influx of party goers. I ran over the Mansion, since FPs were still available. We decide to do Nemo, which opened 2 days after our last visit. Only about 15 minutes to wait, and we watched the Jedi Academy show. We hadn't ridden this since our honeymoon, and my son never had ridden either one. He loved it, since he's a huge Pixar fan. It was a good upgrade, for sure, but low on thrills for the time invested. I soon notice my cellphone is damn near unusable. It seemed to be really struggling for a signal, so it got hot, and started draining the batteries. Really?!? No signal in Disneyland? Is Sprint that sucky in LA? We then hit Captain EO, since I knew it would have no line. We just missed a show, so we hit the head, and sat for a while. The show is definitely a great retro movie. Cheesy as hell, but fun. Plus, the now have the elephant plush on top of the vintage Furrball one, so my wife of course had to get one. Sadly, this is probably the last time I'll see it, since he can't die again for a second revival. We decided to go towards Mansion now. The park was packed, and I was a bit worried about the evening crowds. And of course, Disneyland seems very crowded, due to the narrow paths. Mansion had a full queue. We love this ride. We were at the very first Haunted Mansion Holiday event, with top tier tickets. We were part of 200 people that had their names on a list in the attic that evening. I recall just getting blown away as we entered every room. This ride is quite special to us, and it had been about 5 years since we rode it, so this was a great ride. The gingerbread centerpiece is huge this year. And I think the Oogie Boogie was new since our last trip. When we got out, the event had started, and sadly, the crowds were still big. Waited in a couple candy lines, and quickly realized this was better than MNSSHP. The candy was actual chocolate, not Smarties and Skittles. And, they weren't bashful giving the adults some. Plus, each line would have 3 or 4 stations in a row. And, they would have a bonus item in the center of the candy, either fruit snacks, apple slices, Craisins, or these strange apple crisps. Sometimes you got them automatically, sometimes you had to ask. Our bags quickly started building a level. I noticed a line forming for the Jack Skellington photo op, and decided to get in it, since Jack was arriving soon. My family went looking for stuff to buy, of course. We didn't get much, really. We have plenty of high end mansion stuff from the two HMH's we attended, and the Happy Haunts Ball at WDW. We got a great pic with Jack. He shook my hand, since I was a fellow Skellington with my glow in the dark skelton t-shirt on. His mannerisms and voice were dead on. He was a great character. The boy and I took two spins on Splash without having to leave the log. Although, on the second ride through, we kept hearing announcements to sit down. When we got to the big lift, the ride shut down. They let one log at a time go up the lift, and ended up coming out and pulling one guy off the ride!!!! Apparently someone sits at the base of that lift, since I checked on our second visit and saw someone in a chair. I guess that's a result of the death at the WDW one. We hit Big Thunder Mountain, as a black guy was asking if this was the one you got wet on. I tell him no. He was there with a ton of young asian girls. My wife thinks it was Russell Simmons, since he has an asian daughter. He did sorta look like him. And was wearing a big hat, even though it was dark, so it may have been. The Big Thunder Ranch area had two caves with thunder and fog, but nothing else. Sorta odd. The Mickey and Minnie photo op was back here, but had a long line. We went through the ranch for candy, and to see the awesome pumpkin carvings. There were about 15 different ones that really used the shapes of the pumpkins. Plus, the CMs gave out lots of candy. By the time we got to Fantasyland, they were largely closed down for the fireworks, which had just ended. We waited a bit,and were let in so we hit Toad and Snow White. Toad will always be one of my favorites. We got in line for Matterhorn, which surprisingly wasn't too bad, but only the left side was open. Last time, only the right, my favorite, was open. I thought they had new seats on this, but not yet. I still LOVE this ride. SO unique, tons of fun, and with the double splashdown. My son and I rerode. We were now back in Tomorrowland, but everything had huge lines, except Buzz, so we got in that one. I guess we had never ridden this Buzz, which is infinitely better than WDWs. Plus, there is a lot more point differences between targets, so it's a lot more challenging. Plus, you can send yourself a free on-ride picture!!! The lines were still long for everything, so we actually left a little before the park closed, which is VERY unusual for us. As we walked to the trams, I mentioned how awesome it would be to be staying in one of the rooms above Downtown Disney, in the Grand Californian. Little did my family know that is EXACTLY where we would be on our return in a few days. All in all, we liked this event MUCH more that MNSSHP at WDW. It's cheaper for the early days, there are TONS more Halloween decorations, and the candy is MUCH better. Plus, the weather is of course better. Orlando Octobers can still be hot and humid. I end up getting another double-double on the way home. I was very excited about the next day: a dream come true trip to the Magic Castle. I know R&E hate LA(X), but we were happy to see this. Wow, DL already looks better than WDW for halloween. Yay, we're at Disneyland!!! This is about the extent of what they usually have at WDW for Halloween decorations. Nemo Good to see this again. We stopped in Leota's room The centerpiece New to us Hey, Jack, good to see you again. The candy stations. Spooky My favorite scene in Splash, especially with the spooky music they have at DL. Grim Fandango Is that a hip-hop mogul? Looks cool. MIckey, Minnie, some babe and her kid. THese mark the start of candy lines. Great decorations in Big THunder Ranch Pumpkin carvings A true pumpkin king Cool TRON guy I always like visiting hell in Disneyland. So long, we'll see you again in a few days.

OK, thanks. It sounds like my expectation are in check. Expect the worst because it's SFMM, but we may get lucky. I do have a Discover Card, so I'll look for a special entrance. We have SFOT season passes. I want to get the boy lots of credits, but GL and Terminator are new to me, as is backwards Superman, so I will secretly be trying to hit those before Tatsu and X. He can't complain, he's got more credits than I did on my first visit to MM 14 years ago. I just hope the Knott's event that is decent. I wish we could hit yours tomorrow, but we have Weird Al tonight, and Dl doesn't start Halloween until next weekend. I'd love to do the HHN you guys are doing, but we aren't sure how the boy is going to be. He says he's pumped after seeing some Hanging videos, and a few slider clips. But, I don't think he'd make it all the way thorugh a maze. Especially the much scarier ones at Universal. -RO

OK. Yeah, if X is testing, it may be first, but I figure GL has horrific throughput, so 50 people will end up being a huge line. The boy wants to ride X real bad, but I want the GL credit. Am I wrong to assume Sunday mornings are pretty light crowds? I think it was a Sunday when we met you guys years ago, and the crowd was horrible. But it was also in June. I'm hoping October Sundays are light. We only have 3 hours tops. And the boy has ridden very few of the coasters there. I assume walking around the mountain to GL is the quickest? -RO

I'll be hitting SFMM next Sunday, the 2nd, at opening. I assume we'll have to go to Green Lantern first, before the line gets insane? Does it open with the park now? I assume X still usually opens later, so running there will do no good. I'm hoping for two hours of fairly short lines, so we can hit most of the biggies before we have to leave for the Knott's event. Any other tips? -RO

No, but there are always enough Chinese around to brute force anything over there. This is a clone of one R&E just posted a video on FB of. As I watched it, I said to myself, "I think I'd skip that credit". Especially with the upstop drop Elissa mentioned. -R

I never did post a trip report from our trip to Discovery Cove at the end of our vacation last year. So, here it is, along with a few underwater video links. This was the final day of vacation, and the most expensive. I had always wanted to go to Discovery Cove. The whole dolphin encounter looked great. After seeing video, I really couldn’t justify the price for essentially being pulled through the water by a dolphin for 15 seconds. I thought tickets were $200 minimum to get into the park. After really looking into it, I found that prices were $150 to go to the park, and another $80 to do the dolphin thingy. However, that also included being able to go to Seaworld essentially anytime during your vacation, as much as you wanted. And, they were running another special where you could add another park to that list, and since we were wanting to hit the coasters at Busch Gardens, suddenly the price wasn’t that bad. You were really paying $50 each to enter three parks. Add on free food at Discovery Cove, and we decided to take the plunge. And, since I was not doing the dolphin swim, I could take video and pictures, saving money on those ridiculously priced items. The DVD they sell you has no audio, and shows everyone in your swim group. Prices fluctuate a LOT, but we nailed the lowest price for the Summer available for our last day in Orlando. We get there about 30 minutes before they open. This is an all inclusive resort, essentially, so there is no parking fee. We walk into the welcome center, and wait to check. It’s a fairly basic building. There is a guy holding a sloth, for some odd reason, that you could pet. I don’t know if the sloth lives in the aviary, or what. At check-in you get a personalized lanyard, and the leader of the group gets a map to hang on it also. The card has your picture and dolphin time and place. My wife and son were at 1:30, so we had lots of time to explore the rest of the park (those parts are over the blue bridge). There are 3 dolphin coves and locker areas. You get small samples of special sunscreen to use there. Don’t lose it! You also get your own snorkel, and a DC vest to wear. There were life vest available all over too. You then get a locker to put your stuff in. First up, free breakfast!!! It was muffins, cereal and fruit. A pretty decent spread for free. And all you can eat. I notice the dining area is all outside, which will make lunch a bit warm. After eating, we get our snorkels and hit the lazy river. I’m not sure how my son will take to snorkeling. He’s not a big fan of the water, especially deep water. We all try out snorkeling (it’s the first time for all of us). He does a decent job in the shallow water in a large cave, so we head down the river. We get to a sign saying the water goes to 8 feet. Time to get vests, which was a pain to walk back to. I come to the steps into the river, and find that the last step is a doozy as I fall into the water, and go under. The workers say they purposely have very few signs, they used to not even have the deep water signs. They still don’t have the “Last step is a big one” sign. We floated down this fresh water river that was about like a normal waterpark, temperature wise. The river had rockwork along the entire thing. The whole park is totally organic in design. No pool walls, or flat bottoms. There were a few underwater features, some chests, a totem, and other items. You also went through the aviary. There was a water curtain where you went in and out. We saw a park photographer near one. They would take a pic of your lanyard to keep track of the photos. We had a few taken, but they weren’t in our photos at the end of the day. But, they would also take pictures with your camera. My cheap Fuji underwater camera was AWESOME for this day. I took tons of pics and vids, and I’ll put some in the report. I noticed a the start of the day, we were fairly unique having a camera. By the end of the day, TONS of folks had the disposable underwater cameras that they sold in the gift shop. I should have seen how much they were. I’m sure they make tons of money off of these. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any park photographers with underwater cameras. My wife and son petted a crane in the aviary. We then left it and got out at the coral pond. I thought this was in a different location, but it turned out this was simply the back side of the same pool we saw when we got into the lazy river. Essentially, the non-dolphin section included the river, which surrounded a large salt-water pool that had a huge coral reef section, full of rays and fish, a shark area that you could look into while you were underwater, and a ray pool full of lots of small rays that was about waist deep. And all of this was was COLD! It was the same as the dolphin area, I think it was 76 F, or something around that. Doesn’t sound too cold, but to the fruit and two veg, it was damn cold. We did acclimate fairly quickly, and the mid 90s heat sure helped out to make it feel very nice. The coral reef was quite cool. I assume it was all fake, but it looked good. I got my share of scrapes and scratches on the slippery rocks. The water was probably about 20 feet deep. There were very large rays on the bottom, anch schools of small fish everywhere. I did touch quite a few fish and one ray in the this area. Snorkling in general is quite cool. It’s like you are flying above the ground. My son loved it too. And he totally got over his issue with deep water. He went all over the coral reef area. Snorkling More Snorkling There was a small area that had some underwater glass windows looking into an area with some sharks in it. They were pretty big. Big enough to kill you. Sharks! We spent quite a bit of time here, and since we didn’t realize this was the same pool, we got out, and back into the lazy river where we exited it. We went the rest of the way around, back to the beach. This section of the river was fairly uneventful. It was about lunch time, we we headed over to see the lunch offerings. They were emmense. Salmon, pasta, chicken, salad, sides, desserts. A pretty big spread, and once again, all you could eat. So, I pigged out. They had free “beer” too. Meaning crappy AB beer. I’m surprised this still exists after the sale. There were also two snack bars that had chips, cookies, hot pretzels, and drinks. They even had some slushies. I’ll admit, a few bags of chips made it home. I noticed that during the day, the chips were self serve. About 3pm, they were put behind the bar to keep them all from disappearing. It was about dolphin time for my wife and son, so I went to get the video camera and our other still camera. I wanted to get as many pics and vids as possible. They watched a short video about dolphins, and got a safety talk. Then they headed to their dolphin lagoon. There was a big rock near them that I perched on, and was surprised I wasn’t told to get down. No one else had anyone taking pic/vids of them. Although, for the posed photos, they were facing away from me, purposely I’m sure. They all got to pet him, feed him, and do a few hand signals for tricks. My son got to give him the signal to make a fart noise. The dolphin did a few jumps and flips, and rolled over for a belly rub. Then, the big part came for the swim. My wife was second, and I got a good zoom in video, plus about 5 pics of her being pulled towards me. My son didn’t want to go out in the deep water for some reason now, so they had him get pulled up the side of the lagoon, which was a bit shorter, so he should have got to do it twice. He loved it, and again he was coming right towards me, and I got good pics/vids. My wife said that when you go to the end of the pull, the Dolphin spun away immediately, ditching you. She loved it, and said it was well worth the money. My son did too. It looked cool, but honestly it is very expensive, and done in an assembly line manor that seemed to only exist so that the video and pictures were taken for you to get taken to the cleaners when you bought them. I put the equipment back in the locker, and we went to the ray pool. We got there right before they decided to feed them! So, everyone there got two fish, and were told to hold out your hand, with the fish sticking up like a hot dog. The ray would come up, and suck it out of your hand. It was quite a weird feeling. The water got filled with fish remnants after the feeding. Swarm! Yummy! We headed back into the reef for one more session of snorkeling before hitting the snack bars for hot mini-pretzels and Pepsi. After getting some normal clothes on, we hit the picture and video shack. They had lots of pictures from the swim, including one with my wife kissing the dolphin. The one of my son wasn’t good. My wife bought that one picture for $20!!! WOW, that’s expensive. There was an option to get all of the pictures, but it was well over $100, and the DVD was $50 as an add-on, or $75 straight up. Pretty steep for 15 second clips with no sound. I don’t understand why they don’t film the whole dolphin encounter. If it was 20 minutes, with sound , of the whole thing, I would think everyone would want it. I was wondering if I should have handed out my e-mail to everyone else in their group, offering to sell them the video. I’m sure Seaworld would have booted me out. This is clearly their big money maker, and the exorbitant prices help keep the entry price low. We headed out, taking a bunch of pics and getting a few souvenirs. We asked for another lanyard map for my son, and were sucked into doing a survey that was quite long. The vacation was pretty much over. We had a hell of a time, despite the heat. But, we were quite lucky with the free refills at Universal, and free drinks at Discovery Cove, since that greatly reduced our liquid costs. I wouldn't choose August for Orlando, but if you take precautions, you can still have a fabulous trip. -RO Hey buddy, wanna touch my sloth Map of the park The first view is quite nice The fam in the river caves Learning to snorkle There's more than fish in Discovery Cove The snorkling area Fish! rays! Me! Underwater Isaac! Mr Ray Coral More Fish Still more fish Dolphin encounter group I think he liked it. One expensive photograph.

So, the best new water ride was actually ridden by what percentage of voters? 5 or 6? And Schlitterbahns crappy little indoor park is the best? Golden Tickets are purely an industry thng. I never was asked to vote, when I had a subscription, probably because I wasnt in the "in" crowd. -RO