KBrylczyk

SHENANIGANS! They CLEARLY themed Superman with the air force tent! Also, Nitro has a lot of corrugated steel which, uh, well, is generally used in shanty towns and favelas where there are plenty of drug-making instruments that happen to EXPLODE when not used properly! HA!! THEMEING!

Here's hoping their maintenance team manages to keep it operational. I've yet to ride this type of attraction because they're constantly broken. StarFlyers, on the other hand, I've been on every one I've some across.

I'm positive that the entire experience, not just the train ride, will be incredible. They've got some wicked technology at play at Universal and it'll be interesting to see what a few years' extra development will mean between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. The attention to detail astounded me when I first visited Hogsmeade and I've no doubt Diagon Alley will be any different. Universal has a knack for taking established tech and reworking it to be something you'd never think could be accomplished. The entry to Platform 9-3/4, I'm guessing, is going to be some sort of fog curtain. We've all seen them at work in other places, we all know how they work, but they'll probably come up with some way to make it look perfect. Of course I could be completely wrong. In any case, I can't wait to get back to Orlando and give all of this a whirl!

^ Yeah, see, in this one, the cod-piece is a completely different shape. A blatant ripoff would simply tilt the cod-piece just a bit.

Looks like a Trabant met an Enterprise, then gave birth to a super-wuss child.

^ Would that count as Disneyland holding whales in captivity?

That's not just theme parks, though. You'd be amazed what I witnessed while working on cruise ships after the guests went to sleep.

^^ I'm 6 feet, 3 inches tall (basically exactly 2 meters) and have ridden Blue Fire and Manta. Height is no problem with the trains. Broad shoulders are, though, which I have. It's nothing too crazy, I just can't sit with proper posture. Instead I have to hunch my shoulders forward a teeny bit. Again, it's no big issue. I've said it a bunch in these forums, but the trains are the best in the business for twisty, airtime-filled coasters. Just wait until that final flat spin before the station and you'll know what I'm talking about.

So green, so twisty...

I feel the same.

Yup, definitely heading back there very soon. The new effects look incredible!

Wow, the work on the Lazy River looks excellent! I can only imagine how it'll look once it's finished and painted.

This evil contraption broke me. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] Talocan at Phantasialand, Germany. I've ridden tons of Top Spins in my life and this one is from the bowels of hell itself. The program is extremely long, it flips more than an Olympic gymnast, AND THERE'S FIRE!!!!!!!!!! My brain locked during this ride. Ask anyone who was sitting by me (Ryan, Kevin, Ken, etc) and they'll tell you I went blank and started yelling "Holy s*%&! Holy s*%&!" over and over and over again. Now THAT was a fun ride!

^ It actually looks smaller in the pictures than it did in real life! I wanted to hug it even though it would stab me, haha.

On a lighter note than this morning's news, here's a TR from my trip to San Diego these past two days! The girlfriend and I finally had a chance to go on a mini-vacation again (stupid work schedules going haywire) and we didn't decide on where to go until Tuesday afternoon. We're indecisive like that, haha. Anyways, we hit the road early Wednesday morning and headed to Balboa Park in San Diego. We caught a matinee of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" at The Old Globe Theatre. Excellent show! Living in Las Vegas, it's been a while since we've seen a proper play rather than a big stage production. If anyone is interested in theatres, The Old Globe is a GREAT room. It is a smaller space, maybe 500 seats, but the production was Broadway level. We're definitely going to be back for another show in the future! After the show we took a quick drive up the coast to La Jolla and visited Scripps Park, where La Jolla Cove is. If you're in the area and want to see wild sea lions, this is the place! There were a ton of them lounging around all over the rocks, some sleeping, some swimming, most of them making noise like sea lions tend to do. We wandered around the park as the sun went down (unfortunately there was a thick cloud cover, so no good sunset to view), hopped back in the car and drove the 6 miles south to Belmont Park to ride The Giant Dipper at night! The Giant Dipper - The last time we rode The Giant Dipper was last summer in the back row during the day. This time was (technically) winter in the front row at night. It's still an excellent ride (love me some classic woodies) but it is most definitely a back seat ride. We did have the train to ourselves, though! Apparently San Diegans don't like to visit the beach at night in March, haha. We ended that day in Seaport Village and grabbed some dinner. Be careful with parking here, though. We forgot to get our parking ticket validated (nothing said we had to) and they tried charging us $20 for an hour and a half. Luckily we were able to convince the attendant that we actually did eat dinner and only paid $3. The next morning we were up bright and early for SeaWorld! First, though, we had to get breakfast. What better place than DuPar's Diner? We'd already visited the original location at the LA Farmer's Market in January and loved it and, since this one was directly on the way to SeaWorld from our hotel, why not grab some pancakes? I got a short stack combo, the girlfriend got the corn beef hash combo. Holy wow, was it incredible. The pancakes were great, but the corn beef hash was out of this world! We got to the park right before opening. The current entrance is quite the bottleneck with only 4 turnstiles and two ticket windows, but luckily it wasn't very busy yet and we had arrived in front of the school busses, haha. Once inside we saw a porcupine and some huge, fat lizard as the Animal Ambassadors on our way to Journey To Atlantis. Journey To Atlantis - We got wet. Very wet. Way more wet than our last visit in December. Luckily my phone avoided the water so good news there! The ride didn't seem to shuffle as much as last time, too! They still need to fix a few of the screens in the vertical lift, though. Always a fun ride! After JTA we wasted some time before heading into Pets Rule! Pets Rule! - This show stars almost exclusively rescued pets and is a lot of fun! If you've seen Animal Actors at Universal you know what you're getting into, but these shows are always fun to kill a half hour at! The fact that SeaWorld rescues these animals from shelters and trains them to perform on this level is incredible, though! The animals at the Universal shows are, if I'm remembering correctly, exclusively trained to perform on stage or on film. These animals at SeaWorld come from a completely different past, usually neglect or poor conditions, and are rehabilitated in excellent conditions! Very nice to see! We opted to skip the Wild Arctic simulator and go straight to the exhibits for two reasons. One, let's be honest, the simulator is pretty cheesy. It's fun but it isn't a must do by a long shot. Two, the line was huge and full of little kids screaming and yelling. The beluga whales are still doing their thing, being lumpy and swimming around with goofy grins! The polar bears, unfortunately, are currently out of the exhibit for breeding (giggity) and have been temporarily replaced with seals. The walrus was being awesome, swimming around, bumping into the windows and generally being a blob. There were penguins out in front of the Penguin Encounter building! In December they were exclusively indoors but there were a bunch out front swiming around and grooming each other. At the indoor exhibit we got to see a ton of super-playful penguins today. They were WAY more active than our last visit! There was even one rogue penguin swimming around and body slamming into every other penguin that got in his way, haha. Penguins are awesome, that is all. The puffins were being lazy, unfortunately, but you can't win 'em all, I guess! Turtle Reef was pretty inundated with young kids so we didn't spend a whole lot of time inside. We did check the interactive wall, though, and got some updates on the turtles that are being tracked. One of the turtles has crossed the Pacific since our last visit! She's back in the Phillipines to hang with her buddies! One of the other guys apparently just enjoys to circle from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and back over and over again. Riptide Rescue was fun, as usual. We rode it to waste a few minutes before the next show. Madagascar Live! Operation: Vacation - Yep, we saw it. That's about all I can say. It's a song and dance revue that has nothing to do with the movies other than the cameos from some of the characters. Nice theatre, though! We circled back around to Shark Reef and saw some sharks that had trouble keeping their mouths closed. We made it through just before a huge school group went in, so lucky us! The freshwater aquarium has a lot of cool exhibits in it, but it's kind of hidden (like the Madagascar theatre is) in the back of the park, but keep your eyes open! This reminds me, there was some construction going on between the Sea Lion theatre and the Madagascar theatre that was greyed out on the park map. I'm not sure what is happening there, but judging by the size I'd say a new food venue. Sea Lions Live - Clyde And Seamour are always great! They rip on Survivor, Dancing With The Stars, CSI, and superheroes. OP the Otter needed a little help with his cues, though, haha. Manta - I love this ride. Like I said last time, it's the perfect family coaster. Smooth, twisty, full of airtime, well lanscaped, and it flies by flamingos. We didn't get to see One Ocean (conflicting show schedules) but we did do the underwater viewing where we SUMMONED SHAMU! Seriously. We were sitting down there for a while watching the orcas swim by. We were about to leave when the girlfriend said "Hang on, I wanna see them one more time." A half second later the biggest guy in that tank swam vertically by the glass and jumped out of the water! Probably the most perfect timing I've ever witnessed, haha. One of the trainers came down and did a bit of a presentation, having different orcas come to the glass to say hi to everyone! We headed to Manta for a few more rides before the park closed. We took the long way around on our way out and were met with a small surprise. Explorer's Reef has soft-opened a small section! Explorer's Reef - This is the brand spankin' new entrance attraction that is going to fully open in two weeks (March 21st). A few days prior to our visit they soft opened two of the pools, one for sharks and the other for rays and horseshoe crabs. The way they've set this up is excellent! Each tanks has at least two attendants to give information about the animals inside. There's also an attendant on a microphone giving general information for everything, greeting guests, etc. The look is pretty much exactly what the concept art showed (a rarity these days). I can't wait for the full entrance to open. With the construction wall still covering most of it you can only see the roofs and part of the huge wave out front, but it looks incredible. It will definitely be a huge improvement when the walls come down! After SeaWorld we took a small side trip up to Carlsbad to stop by the Legoland Hotel on our way home. Why? No reason. I just wanted to waste time to get past rush hour in LA. We explored the hotel and grabbed dinner at the Karl Strauss Brewery across the street. Legoland Hotel - Holy geeze. The themeing is awesome! I still haven't been to Legoland (very soon) and now I can't wait to come back! DANCE PARTY ELEVATORS! It's amazing! As soon as the doors close the lights change and a disco ball turns on! Every elevator should do this! Yup, definitely staying here when we come back to Legoland. On with the pictures! The Old Globe plaza. The Museum Of Man, next to The Old Globe. More Globe. Better lighting. La Jolla Cove. SEA LIONS! La Jolla Cove The gradient color on the moss was really cool. Funky trees at Scripps Park. Huzzah! Night pictures on phones always turn out crap. Sorry! Heh, bird on bird. Porcupine with the trainers. Giant lizard! They're getting the gardens ready for the 50th Anniversary celebration. Journey To Atlantis goes splash. Pets Rule! Penguins! Ripetide Rescue doing its thing. Gorgeous day! Looks cool! Pretty "meh" show, though. Eh? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Check that lens flare. JJ Abrams would be proud. Twisty! FLYING DOLPHIN!!!!! Shamu being awesome Hehehe! Whooooo! Explorer's Reef (what's open) Only a small portion has been opened. The rest of Explorer's Reef, opening March 21st. It looks excellent! Touch the sharks, kids! The new SeaWorld Store was very pretty, too! Legoland Hotel! Agreed!

That bill is the death warrant for all ten orcas at SeaWorld. Why can't the morons figure this out?! Also, like Elissa said, what about the rest of the animals? Are all of the sea lions, seals, turtles, sharks, fish, etc, lesser animals than the orcas? Will this effectively shut down the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park if this path continues? Will Disney have to release Mickey into the wilds of Anaheim?

Annnnd to bring this topic back on track, El Loco is yellow.

There was a huge difference from front to back seat. I really think it's a thing I have with the Mack Blue Fire trains. I've been on Blue Fire and Manta and both have scared the hell out of me when the airtime hits (I'm kinda terrified of Helix this summer). I don't feel secure in them at all with airtime, even though I'm definitely not going anywhere. I don't really know how else to describe it. I've been on plenty of other coasters with more intense airtime but I've always felt safe. The Blue Fire trains just do me in. In a good way, of course, haha.

^ With some of the scariest airtime I've ever felt in the back row. Those two twisting camelbacks after the second launch had me white knuckling every time I rode.

I'll never understand how Hello Kitty is so popular, much the way I have no idea how Pokemon is so popular.

Shasta Cola is the way to be, guys! Also, Tron Coaster, hell yeah.

Looks like a mighty nice headchopper leading in, too!

^ Didn't that entire section of the park disappear a few years ago?

Dole Whip. That's all you needed to say. You didn't even need to announce the rest of the park, honestly. Here's your press release - "Cowabunga Bay is coming to Las Vegas! Dole Whip!" End of story. Think of the ink you could have saved!

Chuck, don't you wish, for the first time in your life, that SeaWorld went the Six Flags route and just built clones with the same name?