Photo TR: The Splendiferous Florida Escapades of Wes41190

[ScOtT k]

Dear god, you floridians have no idea what a ghetto park is. Head to a six flags for a day. Also, your worst operations in the state comment is just plain foolish. Florida has tons of great parks, none of them have bad operations. So what if busch has the worst in the state. The operations are still fantastic. You people really have been spoiled.

 

Also, I found fire to have very little airtime.

[Carnage]

Sounds like you're having a great time.

 

Must be nice to enjoy all that fun in the sun.

 

Just depressing rain here.

[ParkTrips]

The only way I can see ghetto and Busch Gardens being paired in a sentance is if one is referring to the area surrounding the park. Some people just have severe Floriday syndrome I guess, no big deal, they are just in for a shock once they go to a *truly* crappy park.

 

BG Tampa is in my upper echelon of parks, its a great place with the best coaster collection in Florida in my opinion. I just think it gets a bum rep.

[Slacking]

Interesting comments about BGT.

 

I think the park is very clean and well maintained, and except for some exceptions (Gwazi) the ride attendants are pretty efficient.

[JT3000]

Dear god, you floridians have no idea what a ghetto park is. Head to a six flags for a day. Also, your worst operations in the state comment is just plain foolish. Florida has tons of great parks, none of them have bad operations. So what if busch has the worst in the state. The operations are still fantastic. You people really have been spoiled.

 

Also, I found fire to have very little airtime.

 

Foolish? Whatever. I find their operations awful. If I'm spoiled by the other Florida parks, oh well. Having higher standards than you doesn't make my opinion invalid.

[Erik Johnson]

Sorry Wes, I did not mean for your Florida Photo TR to be turned into a BGT discussion. Let's save the BGT discussion for later.

[Nrthwnd]

Everything's looking great so far, Wes.

 

Mmmm, love a woodsy setting for a hotel, huh? Lolol. And a pond, too! Exxxcellent.

 

Everest and Animatronic Dinosaur? Awwwww, are they dating again???

 

 

The whole trip's reading and looking great there, guys. More, more!

 

[Wes]

Ok I'm totally back in LA now. I wrote most of the TR on the plane, so I'm gonna let me 1.5 gigs of photos upload tonight and start posting sections of the TR tomorrow.

 

Winner.

[Jew]

I guess I'll just post my photos in here too?

 

I'm only going to put up a couple for now before I head to bed, so here it goes...

 

More photos and a full TR to come tomorrow after I have failed my calculus test since I skipped a week of class for this trip.

This was our last Song Flight. RIP awesome airline!

YOU LOSE!

That's how they roll in Central Florida.

In case you forget how to wash your hands, WDW has these everywhere...

[Wes]

EPCOT

 

EPCOT was our first park of the trip, and probably the park we visited the most. Despite its lack of thrill attractions and the almost comical 80's vibe sections of the park, the park is very nice and incredibly big. It's gigantic. My legs hate EPCOT.

 

Test Track: For some reason, I had low expectations for Test Track. I knew about the high speed outdoor section, but the indoor parts were more a mystery. I was hapilly surprised that the indoor dark ride section was quite a bit longer than I expected, and the outdoor section was actually alot more thrilling, considering the vehicle is barely breaking freeway speeds.

 

Mission Sinese : Gary Sinese is the awesome. He made the pre-show so great. The actual ride was pretty good, too. I dug the faux-interactive sections, and the forces were actually quite intense. The ride made me a bit light headed, but I didn't get motion sickness. But really, who cares? THIS RIDE HAS GARY SINESE!

 

Spaceship Earth AKA The Internet: This ride is so firmly planted in the 80's it is ridiculous. It's also pretty boring and annoyingly long. The end section when you're traveling backwards is so so terrible. Somehow, we dubbed SE as THE INTERNET (done in the best James Earl Jones voice) and in subsequent rides I began doing my own narration about Ignikok, the caveman who invents the internet. It made the ride about 80000x better.

 

Imagination: I remember really loving this ride when I was a kid. Too bad they pretty much destroyed everything that made it charming and fun. Now it's just plain bad. Eric Idle gets on my nerves and they turned Figment into the equivalent of an annoying 10 year old. BURN IT DOWN.

 

Living With The Land: Fun story here! So we get on LWTL pretty late in the evening, and we get get bar none THE WORST CAST MEMBER EVER. He basically had his own spiel worked out that consisted of terrible jokes, insults about how bad EPCOT was, and get this...HE JOKINGLY TALKED ABOUT THE KID WHO DIED ON MISSION SPACE. It was terrible and in really bad taste. We complained later. I hope he gets fired. Also, this ride is pretty boring.

 

Soarin': It's Soarin' Over California. The queue really isn't that great. Everything else is exactly the same. Oh, there were also fairly large purple splotches over sections of the screen. Lamesauce. hope they give it its own film soon.

 

Universe Of Energy: Build a better ride, please. An indoor Balder clone would be cool. Ellen, oh god, Ellen.

 

The Mexico Boat Ride: This was bad, but it's cheesy as hell, so it's funny as well. It's also dark and air conditioned.

 

Maelstrom: This is an okay ride. It's a bit disjointed and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The trolls are cool and the gigantic polar bear is sweet. Nothing great, but its better than Mexico.

 

Illuminations: Fire barge, hell yes. The middle part of the show when the globe is spinning drags quite a bit, but the bookends of exploding stuff is tight.

 

The Coca Cola Cool Zone: Yes, I drank Beverly. No, it didn't make my ears bleed. It's definately not very tasty, but after all the build up, I was expecting much worse. The watermelon soda from China is awesome.

 

 

The world's largest golf ball welcomes you to EPCOT.

 

Mission: Sinese sure is pretty.

 

CAPCOM GARY!!!

 

You can be my Lieutenant Dan anytime.

 

The Internet.

 

Dan and Joey don't know the hell they are about to experience.

 

Look at this picture for ten minutes while walking backwards and you've experienced half the wonder of The Internet.

 

Soarin' Over Borin'.

 

I think they stole the lights from Spaceship Earth.

 

Universe of OH GOD MAKE IT STOP

 

Just call it "Finding Nemo: The Aquarium" please.

 

I'M A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. I MAKE NO SOUND.

 

It's the Winchester!

 

The home of Beverly, or Bile: The Soda.

 

This handy chart teaches you how to properly "Do The Robot".

 

Jim can dance if he wants to, he can leave his friends behind.

 

Damien666 will love this photo.

 

Second item. No comment.

 

The required artsy photograph of the trip.

 

Gary is powered by solid awesome.

 

[ebl]

It's AutoCAD---The Ride!

 

Glad you guys had fun. I need to do a long trip like that sometime soon.

 

Eric

[Homer]

lol, internet.

 

An awesome review of EPCOT Wes. And hope you pull off a "Barry" with that cast member on Living with the Land.

[Erik Johnson]

Yeah, Watermelon soda from China is also my favorite soda as well at Club Cool. I am glad you had a fun time at Epcot. Yeah I am not a fan of the current version of Figment either...sob!

[Wes]

MAGIC KINGDOM

It's like Disneyland, but everything is bigger. Like way bigger. There's so much space at this park. However, I kinda feel MK lacks a bit of the spark that Disneyland has.

 

The Castle: Yes, it shits all over DL's. It's big and bad and looks amazing.

 

The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management: Dan and Jim had kept saying that this attraction was pretty much the worst thing ever. It's an abomination of the original Tiki Room, but I really hate the original. The show was really lame, but I've seen much worse. At least the Iago animatronic was cool.

 

Pirates: Closed for Jack Sparrow-ization.

 

The Jungle Cruise: We had a pretty good skipper who told some funny jokes. I especially enjoyed the temple section of the ride. It's a bit better than DLR's.

 

The Haunted Mansion: This ride desperately needs a rehab as soon as possible. I like the library and portrait scenes they added, but there so many things off, not working correctly, etc. that it lost major points in my book. If the rumored changes to DLR's come true, WDW won't even be able to hold a candle.

 

The Hall Of Presidents: BEST EVER. Basically, this show combines two of my favorite things, dead presidents and animatronics. I wish the film was a bit shorter, and they kept the presidents talking for longer. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for George W Bush, his little speech didn't damper my experience. They just need to let Millard Filmore, James K. Polk, and Rutherford b. Hayes talk as well.

 

Splash Mountain: Their Splash is definately much cooler, though we all didn't appreciate the gigantic blast of water from a canon on the side of the drop that hit us before we went up the mill lift hill. It seriously felt like someone dropped a giant bucket on us. It did get Dan soaking wet, so that was hilarious. Also, two per row logs rule.

 

Big Thunder Mountain: We only got one ride on this. I think I'd need a few more spins to form a more solid opinion of it. I think it's pretty equal with DLR's in my book. It's a really great themed coaster.

 

Winnie The Pooh: As lame as it is, it's still lightyears better than DLR's..

 

Peter Pan: Pretty much the same. A so so dark ride, with a ridiculously long line.

 

Space Mountain: Ouch. This ride was quite painful on the back and knees. It had some nice long drops, but the overall experience left me kind of cold. We did get to see it with the lights on though, because it magically broke down while we were waiting. Fun times.

 

Stitch's Great Escape: I can see why all you Alien Encounter lovers/Stitch haters feel so passionately about this ride. I never got to experience AE, but Stitch just seems like a waste of a really good idea. It's not scary for adults, but it's way too scary for kids in the target demographic. Joey and Dan said that this version of Stitch wasn't as bad as the one they saw a year ago, but it was still dumb. The Stitch animatronic is really really cool. I hope they find a way to make this thing more tolerable.

 

Tomorrowland Transit Authority AKA Peoplemover: Ah, memories. Please bring it back to DLR.

 

Carousel Of Progress: Cheesy and corny as all get-out, but it's fun to see it again. I wouldn't go on it more than once a trip.

 

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin: This ride pretty much sums up Magic Kingdom for me: Bigger but not as good. The sets are huge, but the gun that's attached to the ride, with no real way to tell if you hit a target or not. As cramped as Disneyland's is, Astro Blasters is far better.

This looks similar.

 

This too.

 

Oh sweet jesus.

 

Not tiny.

 

The little portrait of the castle is the actual size of the Disneyland one.

 

Space Mountain. Bring the pain.

 

Space Mountain does it with the lights on.

 

I didn't know Space was so green.

 

Can't do this in California.

 

The Hall Of Best.

 

Presidentgasm.

 

Best bad idea ever.

 

HM needs a nice day at a rehab clinic.

 

A completely unacceptable amount of water.

 

Can't do this in California, either.

 

It's not a Small World for these people.

 

Money shot.

 

I AM GEORGE BUSH. I MAKE NO SOUND. MY BONES ARE MADE OF CARTILAGE.

 

Joey's nickname.

 

A closing shot of not tiny castle.

 

 

[ebl]

Why they made the Florida park bigger.

 

Eric

[Wes]

Disney's Animal Kingdom

 

DAK was the only of the four WDW I had never been to. The park is pretty much incredibly gorgeous (with one glaring exception). It's also layed out confusiongly. I really liked the park though.

 

Expedition Everest: I'm sort of attached to this ride, being that I have worked on various elements of its websites for the past year or so. I had pretty much watched this thing mature from a bunch of steel framework to a full-fledged mountain. I had let me expectations down a little bit after I saw the first POV's. The hype was too intense and the ride would never live up to the insane expectations the online communities were giving it.

I was pleasantly surprised when I finally rode it. Everest is a very good ride. If it was on a grading scale, I'd give it a B+. It's not super intense, but it's themed nicely and has a good thrill value for people of all ages. In particular, the backwards section pulls some nice forces, and there's even a mild pop of airtime going down the big drop--if you're in the back.

 

The criticisms leveled on the ride are not without merit. The unthemed backside of the mountain is completely obvious from the parking lot. It's very very very very poor show. It's glaring and ugly, and for most people, it would be their first impression of the ride. Either paint it, finish it out, or grow some big ass trees, because it needs to be fixed.

The light showing through the mountain during the backwards section wasn't nearly as obvious, and didn't really bother me too much. The Dinosaur* section really does go by too fast though,. He's so awesome to look at, but you only see him for a few seconds. I think this is really the worst aspect of the ride experience.

Bird on stick was amusing, the queue line is really great (love the bells!), and the mountain photographs beautifully day and night. I loved all the authentic Nepalese theming that went into Everest, even if it did come at the cost of having the backside of the mountain go awfully unthemed. The running joke for Everest was to find unthemed portions and refer to them as "Authentic Nepalese".

 

* While in line to get some food, we overheard some brain dead teen girls exclaiming how the DINOSAUR on Everest was really scary. For the rest of the trip, we proceeded to call the Yeti a dinosaur, and all dinosaurs Yeti's.

 

Dinosaur AKA Yeti: It's Indiana Jones, but alot darker and alot less cool. Too bad DAK had to get this instead of Indy. Also, Bill Cosby's wife was in the pre-show. Hibbity dibbity, Jello Pudding Pops. Theo Huxtable, submarine sandwiches.

 

Kiliminjaro Safaris: I didn't like the whole storyline with Big Red and Little Red, the roads were pointlessly bumpy and rough (made even worse by the hard backed seats), but it was neat to see a bunch of animals. Contrary to what everyone had told me, our safari had quite a few animals out and about.

 

Kali River Rapids: Short and anticlimactic, with a bunch of cheap shots to get you wet. We all came off pretty soaked. But we did get Dan on, and he was drenched by a completely unacceptable amount of water.

 

The Train To Nowhere With Rafiki And A Petting Zoo Fuck this noise. Don't go on this. Seriously. Ugh.

 

Dino-Rama And Primeval Whirl: I've been saving all my venom for this. If Animal Kingdom was a really hot chick, Dino-Rama is the ugly ass mole with three inch hairs growing out of her chin. This is far and way, the absolute worst excuse for a Disney land I have ever seen. The fact they went out of their way to make a fake parking lot to place lame ass carnival rides on makes me even angrier. This was calculated shit. Someone spent years of their lives coming up with this. I want to find this person and destroy their soul. Primeval Whirl was dumb and terrible, even below Six Flags mediocrity. The fact that this area is right next to the absolutely gorgeous Everest area makes me even madder. Goddammit, HATE HATE HATE.

 

Overall, I really like DAK and Everest. Just bulldoze Dino-Rama and Rafiki's Planet Watch, add a few more e-tickets, and the park will be totally awesome.

 

It's Nahtazu!

 

Big fake tree.

 

What's that poking out of the bushes?

 

It's definately quite the site to behold.

 

Um ok.

 

Dan is about to experience Everest. Doesn't he look so happy?

 

The Goldrusher portion of the ride.

 

Nice views from the lift.

 

BIRD ON STICK! BIRD ON STICK!

 

Going down the big drop. Notice my super amazing "signature" shot (finger in lens).

 

The authentic double helix of Nepal.

 

And finally, the Yeti in all his glory.

 

Kali River Rapids was definately not an acceptable amount of water.

 

I heard Dinosaurs love Jello Puddin' Pops.

 

Ugh.

 

Disney or State Carnival, you decide!

 

Having a pole up my ass pretty much equates to how I feel about Dino-Rama.

 

O RLY?

 

Little Known Fact: Dan plays guitar!

 

I've always wanted a Dolphin Friendly Yard...I'd let them just chill on the patio, drink 40's, and listen to old school Ice Cube.

 

Hour six of the walk back to the train station in Rafiki's Planet Waste Of time.

 

MONKEYS!!! HELL YES!!

 

I took a picture of this bathroom because it was gigantic. It's like the size of my apartment.

 

Mount Everest can get internet access, but Pop Century can't?

 

Obligatory CnD shot for Elissa.

 

Spanking the monkey.

 

Let's get back to Everest, shall we?

 

The front of this thing looks amazing.

 

Too bad the back of this thing looks hideous.

 

 

So instead of completing the backside of the mountain, let's look at some of the authentic Nepalese items they brought in to theme the ride.

 

Authentic Nepalese Fire Hydrant.

 

Authentic Nepalese JBL Speakers.

 

Authentic Nepalese Sprinklers.

 

Authentic Nepalese underwear.

 

Authentic Nepalese Redneck.

 

Authentic Nepalese ghetto Macintosh!

 

All Authentic Nepalese joking aside, Everest is a really good ride.

 

It's also gorgeous at night.

 

Expedition Everest is a very solid addition to DAK.

 

Me and my mountain.

 

Yep.

[Tomizzle For Rizzle]

LOL to the photo of the Yeti...nice!

[Erik Johnson]

Great Photo TRs so far. Your commentary is right on. I still need to experience EE at nightime, I understand its pretty cool.

Oh come on! The train ride to nowhere is totally worth it to visit AK's "make out" rooms.

[Shockwave]

Great photos Wes! EE looks like a lot of fun - not the greatest Disney ride ever built, but certainly not the worst. I'll reserve final judgement till Saturday morning though.

 

I can't get any sleep because I'm so excited about coming to the US for the first time in a few hours.

[ECZenith]

WTF is up with the tampon sign? And why does it seem that with every photo TR for Florida there are more pin-trading land whales!

 

Great photos, looks like you were able to see everything.

[Homer]

Wow, that yeti looks real scary!

 

Glad you liked Animal Kingdom, although it does have pointless lands (Dinoland and Camp Minnie Mickey (AKA One giant character meet & greet)). Everest looks pretty kickass though!

[SharkTums]

LOL! Great TR!

 

- Thanks for the C&D Shot!

- For those of you who didn't figure it out, Crampons was photoshopped!

- Thank you for getting Dan soaking wet.

- Nice HK Disney shirt there Dan!

- So they have giant bathrooms in multiple parks!?!?

 

Can't wait to see more!

[Wes]

DISNEY MGM STUDIOS

 

MGM was one of the consistently busiest parks of the trip, with the ESPN weekend and then a massive influx of cheerleaders. Let me say this, five year old girls whored up in cheerleader garb and tons of make-up is so appalling. I don't know why parents would do that to their kids.

 

Tower Of Terror: Good tower indeed. More like GREAT tower. DCA's is such a travesty in comparison to this. Every single thing about is awesome. The boiler room is actually dark and scary. There is no random hallway. The scenes play out without narration blasting over it, making the experience way more creepy. The fifth dimension is a bit corny, but I'd take it over the stupid thermal imaging scene. Plus the TV effect when you're exiting the 5D room is killer. The random drop sequences were very cool, and I LOVED the various effects that happen while you're dropping. The unload scene in the basement is really great, and I appreciated that you unloaded in a different place than you load. Anyone who thinks DCA's is better is smoking crack. Really strong crack.

 

Rock N Roller Coaster: I really had no expectation for this ride. I sort of hate Aerosmith. Vekoma's generally suck donkey balls. The pre-show movie made me want to shoot Steven Tyler in the face. But the ride itself was pretty good. It's not a memorable coaster, but it's smooth for a Vekoma and has some nice elements. The theming could have been a little better while on the coaster, but whatever. They just need to get rid of the pre-show and put in Paris's: "1G, 2G, 3G, and then I heard gooooing down."

 

The Great Movie Ride: I know this ride is cheesy, but I really like it. I think the interaction between the cast members and the sets is very cool. Our second ride was very memorable, as we had a really old woman play the part of Mugsy The Gangster. It was hilarious. And then we got stuck in the Casablanca scene, so I can pretty much recite the final monologue from heart now. Here's looking at you, kid.

 

Lights Motors Action: I was really tired when we saw this, so I was kind of "meh" about the whole thing. The ballet part was very cool to watch. The rest was alright, nothing special. I don't like how they give no warning before the final stunt is about to go. I had my eyes closed because they were just showing a movie on the screen. Luckily I opened them in time to see the car fly off the ramp.

 

Tram Tour: Super weaksauce. I did like the props from The Life Aquatic, but the rest was "please make it stop" bad.

 

Chronicles Of Narnia Exhibit: Sadly, this was not about the SNL Andy Samberg/Chris Parnell rap song, but rather an incredibly elaborate ruse to get people to watch a trailer for a movie that came out four months ago, Jesus is a lion, by the way.

 

The Sci-Fi Diner: I really dug this place. The restaurant is inside and themed to a drive in theatre. They show super cheesy 50's sci-fi on the screen. The food was excellent. I had a chicken sandwich that was crazy delicious (props to Samberg). Recommended for good eating.

 

 

MGM was hosting ESPN: The Weekend.

 

But who cares about sports when you have Good Tower?

 

This version is actually creepy.

 

The extended garden queue was actually really awesome. It does a good job of setting the mood.

 

The infamous directory.

 

Sadly, "EVIL TOWER UR DOOMED" was nowhere to be found.

 

RnRC: A Vekoma in a building themed after a washed up band.

 

I wish I had Janie's gun.

 

LMA was actually better than I was expecting.

 

Pointless tram tour. At least they had the Flight Of The Navigator ship.

 

TEAM ZISSOU!

 

Too bad there's no cracked out trannies to complete the theming.

 

Joey's almost tall enough to play in the NBA. Too bad he's white and Jewish.

 

I perform some Shaq-Fu on the traitor.

 

Joey is a Hulkamaniac!

 

Please move to California ASAP.

[Usf geek]

Great T/R and photos, Can't wait till Universal

[The Cheat]

The reason why "EVIL TOWER UR DOOMED" wasn't seen is because it was never meant to be there. CMs would open it up and put it in there and then every day maintenance or imagineers would have to put it back the way it was supposed to be. I dont want to nit pick their tower but MGMs sign is in the wrong place. It should be gone because thats where the original shafts would have been, note how dcas are above them. But then again, DCAs elevators are in the wrong spot and theres only 2 of them.