[PTR] Orlando, December

[davidmorton]

Hello, me again - you know what happens, every couple of months I'm bored

so I nip off to do a load of parks and have some fun.

 

Well this time I was bored in winter, and since I'd been to LA last year I

picked the only other "warm place, lots of coasters" I could think of and

off to Orlando I go for a week....

 

 

Booked a nice hotel across the road from Downtown Disney....

 

Nice hotel, lovely exchange rate = £40/night

 

...and recovering from my flight, nipped off for the first trip of the trip to;

 

Cypress Gardens - 2/12

======================

 

This place was odd.

 

I liked it - but not really for the rides. The coasters were OK for what they

were, but the place was just a nice place and putting the rides in there (a recent

addition) just seemed a shame. I think the place should have stayed as it was, a

nice place, a few attractions (water-skis and shows) and should not have tried to

compete with the big boys up the road?

 

Anyway, "Starliner" I liked, "Triple Hurricane" I liked (neither what you'd call good

rides, but fun in their own little way!). The rest of the coasters were generic

rubbish; their generic Vekoma sitdown "Okeechobee Rampage", the generic Vekoma

suspended "Swamp Thing", spinning mouse "Galaxy Spin" and amazing (!) "Fiesta Express".

These all seemed a bit pointless??

 

But the park was dead (I was 1 of about 5 punters wandering around the rides

section for the first hour I was there), so I even rode Fiesta Express. I'm not

proud of that.

 

Empty rides!

 

But then I wandered through to the gardens side and had a much nicer rest of the day,

just wandering around, watching the water-skiing. A pretty pleasant day all-in-all!

 

Nice lake, nice sky-ride-thingy

 

Reverse view from the nice sky-ride-thingy

 

Lovely trees....!

 

 

Animal Kingdom - 3/12

=====================

 

From the dead-park of yesterday to the opposite...

 

I'd not been here before (hence the visit), and they'd opened a new big ride since I

was last on Florida a few years ago - so I was quite interested in this place.

 

And on the whole, I liked it.

 

First up was "Expedition Everest", which it was not until I'd made my way through the Q

and got a fastpass for a later ride, did I notice had a SRQ for it - d'oh.

 

Looking gooooood

 

I was quite disappointed with this - it LOOKS great, the themeing is great, heck of an

attention to detail in all that - but the ride is a all a bit meh. Probably being a bit

unfair on it, its OK but perhaps I just expected a better ride after all the build up.

 

I did the "Primeval Whirls", just for the sake of it and I was pretty impressed with

"Dinosaur" (or Indiana Jones, I get confused) - this I actually thought was by far

the most frightening ride I've ever been on at a Disney park!! Lots of noise and scary

monsters - NOT one for the little kids I think!

 

The jeep-safari was good (much better than Busch's kinda-equivalent) and I got SOAKED on

the rapids ride (you know when you are queuing for a rapids ride and you are watching the

people coming off and theres always one guy in about 50 who is absolutely soaked, well I

was that guy - and I was not happy!).

 

Going jeep

 

Quite a pleasant park, nice scenery, good way to spend a day!

 

But honestly whats with that stupid tree - Disney have this thing about "mountains"

so they open a park and build a tree. Bonkers.

 

Not a real tree

 

And as an aside - I thought Disney had this rule that Mickey could only ever be in one

place at a time (in a park) - so I was shocked (!!) to see Mickey both at the end of

the parade AND doing character signings at the same time - shame you cry!

 

 

Universal Studios - 4/12

========================

 

The weather was meant to be a bit cooler today (it was really warm every other day of the

trip apart from this day) - so I went off to the park with the most "indoor rides" today.

 

And it was empty

 

About as busy as it got...

 

I think I've got bored of this place though (I'd been twice before, once about 13 years ago

and once 3.5 years ago), can't imagine going again (not even for the Simpsons ride).

 

Not open yet - D'oh

 

Did all the stuff that you'd spend hours Q-ing for in the high-season, all walk-on, suppose thats

a good thing. Shrek, Jaws, Mummy, ET (!), Woody, MiB and a couple of trips around T2 (which

I really like!)

 

A short day then!

 

 

Magic Kingdom - 5/12

====================

 

Odd that the Universal parks could be so empty...MK was busy today (mind you I've not

seen it in peak-busy, so maybe this busy was quiet, relatively).

 

I got there early to get the big stuff done, and so had made my way around Space Mountain,

Buzz Lightyear, Big Thunder and Splash Mountain when (as I was coming off Splash, and was

VERY soaked - theres a theme developing here) a nice Disney person was standing there

handing out "Magic Fastpass Thingies" - which were basically a bunch of free fastpasses

to the rides. Since I had been on the big rides by then I gave mine to the chap behind

me whose wife hadn't gone on the ride - I think it made his day, he was very excited by

it!

 

Splash Mountain Action Shot!

 

I'd been to Tokyo and Anaheim Disneylands before, but not this one. To be honest they

leave me a bit cold, I can't see what the attraction is really, but I spent a reasonable time

just wandering aimlessly around.

 

A few observations though - that Stich thing - useless. And "Its a Small World" - its

obviously a "white world" too - there didn't appear to be any small-people of any

colour in anywhere apart from the Africa section???? Old-school Disney rears its

head again?

 

Theres only one Mickey!

 

I had a trip around the monorails too, that was probably a bit more interesting than a lot

of the time I spent in the park!

 

Obligatory castle shot

 

 

Islands of Adventure - 6/12

===========================

 

Easily the best park of the trip - but you know that already!

 

And it was dead, everything apart from Pteranodon Flyers was walk on (and PT still managed

an hours wait with an empty park, so I didn’t do that!).

 

Watch the feet, oh theres noone on it, never mind

 

I got (by now expected) completely soaked on the water rides, even worse than the Disney rides

earlier in the week, again making me unhappy. People were actually pointing and laughing I was

that wet... how rude!

 

Grrrr I'm an angry green thing

 

The Space Shuttle was meant to launch in the afternoon, so I positioned myself with a bunch

of other mis-informed tourists to watch it over the lake. We spend a fun few minutes pointing

at various airplane vapour trails before we gave up. (Launch was delayed, now until January).

 

Big Sky, no shuttles though

 

In the evening I went to the Blue Man Group. This was very good, if basically 90% the same

as the Vegas show I saw 12 months previously (and on a slightly less-grand scale).

 

Milling around CityWalk

 

 

Busch Tampa/Africa/Whatever - 7/12

==================================

 

Just as I got to the gates at Busch, I noticed a sign that put dread in my heart...

 

"Physics Day" it read. "Uh-oh that explains all those school buses in the car park"

thought I. So basically the park was full of school trips - under the guise of an

educational "Physics Day" there were coachloads of brats out to spoil my day!

 

In the end it was not too bad, despite an hour wait for Sheikra early on, the Qs

evened out later on and it was only a 20min wait in the afternoon, I can cope with that.

 

Strangely Montu was walk-on even in the morning when everything else "big" (from SheiKra,

Kumba to Scorpion) had a big line!

 

But I'd only really come to have a go on the big dive machine, and it was good, and very

photogenic....

 

Very...

 

..pretty...

 

...indeed

 

Although the "water-bit" doesn't add anything to the on-ride experience, it does get the

on-lookers wet I guess!

 

Reasonably pointless indeed

 

 

Pleasure Island - 8/12

======================

 

Ok not a park, but on the Saturday I went shopping, went to the Cirque Du Soleil show

(very good I thought!) and then went and got drunk at Pleasure Island (being as my

hotel was 5 minutes walk away I thought this was a good plan!).

 

Thought the clubs were OK - the comedy warehouse was bit painful and the adventurers like

being in a Disney ride (I guess thats the point). The music clubs were better, spent

most of the time at the RockNRoll one as they had a loud (pretty good) covers band on,

but the Mannequins had some loud trancey/dancy stuff on which was good, and the 80s

club was nice'n'cheesy. Couldn't do more than a quick trip around the more mainstream

stuff in Motion or the BET place as the music ain't my bag! But pretty good evening.

(Only the 80s place was what you'd call busy though).

 

 

Sunday - 9/12

=============

 

Had a look around the Disney hotels and Celebration, got a plane, came home.

 

 

 

 

End of. Ta.

[alpengeist04]

Great TR and awesome pics, thanks. ...and nothing beats the Florida parks during the off-season.

[hemmy]

I was at the MK this 4th of July...I would say try your best to never hit the peak crowded days

 

What a nightmare