Florida 03/22 – Sea World + Fun Spot Kissimmee

Free parking – now there’s a novelty. And with it we finally had the flexibility to be fluid with the itinerary for the day. Which worked a treat on this particular occasion.

Day 7 – Sea World

Looks like someone else is in the lighthouse game.

Geographically #1 Manta was the first thing we stumbled across. I really liked the queue for this one, the fact that no one was in it being an obvious bonus. It set a nice precedent to have those rock tunnels and aquarium exhibits in what would otherwise be a stewing waiting area. It’s a shame no other attraction in the park came close to this level of effort on queueline presentation.

As for the coaster I was, of course, completely unphased. Any air of excitement or intrigue had long ago been quashed, and all at the hands of Nagashima Spa Land. I like the layout, I love the pretzel, +1. One more plus point for this version is that the leg rest things were the older, less-sharp version, very much a mercy when it’s shorts weather.

The lack of penguin dark ride on the website suggested that luck wasn’t on our side, but the ambiguous nature of the remaining signage for this attraction gave the impression that there might still be hope.

Alas, though the queue and preshow remain, they do indeed just lead to viewing penguins by leg. The ride system is, for now, eerily dusty and abandoned.

Here’s half a dark ride though, and one that had only just reopened in time. I had already been spited by one #2 Journey to Atlantis and would have been rather disappointed to see it happen a second time.

The presentation and two-half nature of the layout is quite clever, with the way it tries to hide what’s really going on and the first indoor bit is decent. Other than that, standard water coaster business.

With how unenamoured I had become with all these recent B&M sit-downs, #3 Kraken was somewhat of a pleasant surprise. Yes it’s 90% the same layout idea and yes 90% of it looks real ugly amongst such barren surroundings, but there must at least be some magic in the trains which elevated it to ‘good little ride, that’ status by the brake run. High praise for standard floorless coaster business.

Standard sealion business.

Standard B&M hyper business?
I’ve seen a lot of good things said about #4 Mako over the years and I was rooting for it to be a mould breaker, not being the biggest fan of this style of ride generally.
Initial impressions were that it doesn’t change the formula in the slightest, it wasn’t some glorious B&M breakthrough, the likes of which we’ve never seen and so such notions were quickly tempered.

However, with much persistence, I did grow to love this ride for what it is and there’s no denying that it does do what it does very well indeed. It’s ridiculously well crafted, with each hill giving you that soft, suggestive lift out of the seat and holding you there for stupid amounts of time, yet all in different ways. I also found that it’s much better towards the front of the train.

The weird straight section in the pull out of the first drop gives it a bit of quirky character as it doesn’t feel quite right. That first big hill just keeps on coming and when it’s finally over you land back in your seat with a little welcoming thump, which I couldn’t help but adore. Other highlights include the trim hill, which gives a really odd sensation of both slowing and throwing. It’s not a buzz kill moment and I can’t fault it, unlike with certain brethren. Also the speed hill is rather sweet, and it doesn’t completely nope out of being a ride after the block brakes, unlike certain brethren.

Had a bit of PTSD while boarding what would hopefully be the last rapids of the trip. Infinity Falls was pretty wet, yet totally justified in fun factor. It does things, silly things that these probably shouldn’t do. There’s hills, in water, I don’t really understand how but they’re there. The first one comes as a surprise as you lurch under a bridge and then get lost in a wave. Later on it just goes full blown bunny hop.
The one major downside I found is that the ‘biggest drop ever’ felt rather tame in comparison to certain Hafema legends.

#5 Super Grover’s Box Car Derby, eh? Thought we were done with him.

#6 Ice Breaker really didn’t want me to like it. I can’t emphasise enough how stupid those restraints are and with the hassle they appear to be causing, I hope that becomes evident and Premier can just get back to being sensible again. It’s such an undignified, unceremonious entrance to a coaster train that just doesn’t correlate with fun.

But then it got worse. I’d been having such a care free time with glasses for the whole trip that I’d almost forgotten how stupidly inconsistent and downright asinine policies can be. Here I am on the stepping stone coaster of the park, the warm up, the ice breaker and I’m being told it’s too dangerous to wear them on my face. 99.834% of the time I’m totally cool with this (an accurate figure, I only remember one other major coaster on which this particular instruction happened). Stuff happens, things get lost, guests make a scene, ride systems are delicate, you name it, rules are rules. Even on Kleine bloody Zar.

There’s no offer of being able to put them anywhere however, instead the only apparent course of action is to insist that I hold them in my hand for the duration of the ride. Clearly much more secure.

They’ve ridden Manta today, they did Falcon’s Fury before that. Have you heard of a little ride called X2? I often daydream of whipping out a book to showcase the things they’ve survived over the years, though of course it’s not fair to expect anyone to assess my experience with rides and glasses on the spot.
But by the same measure there’s no way they can assess my inexperience with rides and glasses on the spot and there’s now a whole host of extra potential scenarios in which I could simply drop them into the launch fins or on someone’s head. I’m dying to one day learn the logic behind it.

Honestly it took me several goes to even look past all that and actually focus on enjoying the ride itself, aside from bracing against the greasy collars with minimal points of contact and having to worry about a loose and rather essential item in my sweaty palm.

It’s fine. The silly double ups and downs off of the triple launch give some clunky, lurchy forces and then that top hat is actualy quite intense once you make it over. There’s another decent airtime moment shortly after that before it’s just a few twists and turns into the brake run. It really feels over in a flash once the faff of the launch is out the way and the trains do detract from the experience somewhat. So whilst it’s actually quite good for what it is, it also feels like Premier have gone backwards in 10 years and I can’t say I’m too fond of it.

More fond of that thing.

After bemoaning the location of Disney Springs, again, we took the opportunity to go and enjoy an amazing sandwich 2 mins away in order to clear that mess from the head. It also came with the bonus of back stage views of Mako. We did originally intend to do a cheeky jaywalk over the road for a closer look but no sooner had we stepped out onto the path, two gardeners appeared in the central reservation like sentry guards and then as if by magic the whole area turned into a sprinkler show. Scuppered.

Fun Spot Kissimmee

Today seemed like the best day to polish off at least one of the Fun Spots and with plenty of time to spare we opted for the better one, the one worth wristbanding.

Not for #7 Galaxy Spin, although the host did say we were blessed after finding a couple of pennies on the seat.

Not for #8 Kiddie Coaster, although I do love that train.

For #9 Mine Blower (#1200) of course. This was all perfectly planned so that I could finally catch a milestone on a Gravity. My fave.

This ride kicks so much ass, it’s incredible. I’m regularly astounded by the amount of fun and energy they manage to get out of 40ft lift hills. Mine Blower is only a teenager at 80ft, but the ferocity and intensity is up there with the best of them. I can see why people say it’s ‘rough’, except I think that’s a real shame because for me that level of shakiness is right on the edge of wooden coaster perfection. It’s noticeably worse in the front, so I’d recommend avoiding that, regardless of the fact that the back is the place to be for all the best bits anyway.

The first drop is of course a killer in the back and that inversion is actually good, it has both force and whip and far surpasses the corkscrews on some layouts which are just ‘there’.
The overbanks are wild, but most importantly it has one of those sections which are just Gravity at their absolute finest. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, out of control twisty goodness that keeps on hitting.
It blows through more of the layout with a surprising amount of steam, managing to gain another powerful drop out of almost nothing before turning back round once more into the only real weak spot of the ride. One hill saps an excessive amount of momentum from the train, though it’s likely an entirely essential crossing point due to the compact nature of what’s being squeezed in here. A brief pause for reflection comes crashing down into yet more violence right up until the brakes. Love it.

We took an interlude from our many laps to dust off the final cred of the park, #10 Hurricane. Never done a big boy E.F.Miler before and it’s surprisingly quirky. That large drop doesn’t know what to do with itself and it’s banking and then the shaping of the weird little wild mouse 180s with a flat spot in between is just bizarre and comical. It’ll try to hurt you, but it’ll reward you with a good time If you manage to tame it.

Rather than bore the staff with our faces too much, we tore ourselves away from Mine Blower and headed back for a bit of an evening Mako marathon.

Sea World

Highlights of which were seeing Sea World double down on their questionable policies by forcibly ejecting a man from the station for attempting to put a small rucksack in the loose article containers on the exit platform gates.
The reason? Money. Power.
They have paid lockers somewhere outside the ride and even though they were sending out mostly empty trains, no one was in the station, they had absolutely tons of allocated space to store other items and were happy to do so for many guests throughout the night with anything from hats and shoes (so no sensible evac policy) to carrier bags containing merchandise and even a giant plush Pikachu.
I don’t know why, they just started a random vendetta on this one guy and simply wouldn’t play ball with his bag. He stood up for himself and they subsequently ruined his day. For $2.

Ok actual highlights were the front row dusk rides on the masterful machine that is Mako.
Alright, I’m sold, it could well be the best B&M hyper yet.

Fun Spot

Who wants dusk rides when you can have night rides though. Couldn’t resist putting those wristbands to good use and heading back one more time for extra laps on the masterful menace that is Mine Blower.
I didn’t need to be sold on these, I’m selling.
Although I’m not sure I can sell it as well as the guy who stole the back row from us on our final lap of the day. His complete silence throughout the entire ride was brutally broken as we tore into the brake run with “JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER.”

Day 8

Florida 03/22 – Universal Studios

Day 6 – Universal Studios

The following day began much the same, except that we turned right instead of left and headed for the big blue ball.

First point of interest was #1 Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit. I’d always been intrigued by this thing, it’s so strange to see mainstream Maurer and, Sky Loops and G-Force aside, I’ve had some good times with this hardware.

One of the obvious selling points is the onboard music, which I had preplanned in my head well in advance. After the usual locker hassle, it was confirmed to me on queueline screens how the whole song thing worked and we sat down on the ride, only to discover the list had changed. I spent 10 seconds or so browsing through a generally unimpressive selection with nothing jumping out at me when, inevitablty, the continuously moving train reached the end of the station.

And so the lap was complimented with a default track that contained the lyric ‘I guess I didn’t know’ over an unremarkable beat, which undoubtedly added to my amusement.

Have to say I enjoyed the actual coaster far more than I had expected to. It’s not entirely refined in places, particularly when moving at higher speeds, but there were some good out-of-seat moments throughout, beginning with the big first drop. Much like certain other rides, it’s the shaping into and out of the many block sections that give it charm, sandwiching a moment of pure technicality with a fun little kick up the backside. It’s also got a satisfying amount of ride time and plays things a little differently in each section, all in all a solid performance.

The same can’t be said for #2 Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster, yet another Vekoma Junior, but needs must.

E.T. Adventure was just next door, hiding and looking creepy. It was a pleasant surprise to find this to be a dark ride, for some reason, in my head (something about that batch point?), it was another 3D cinema.
As such, you get to ride on bikes to go and help save E.T.’s home planet, which is dying.
Sure, but we’ve got problems of our own.
There’s a cute little interactive aspect in that you give your first name at another batch point, receive an intergalactic passport and then hand it over before boarding. The idea is that an animatronic at the end personally thanks all riders by name for helping him on the quest. Sadly, due to a very unfortunately timed staff announcement about ‘putting phones away’, the magic was lost.

I really wanted to like The Simpsons Ride, what self-respecting fan wouldn’t? On reflection, I believe I enjoyed the clips, specifically the classic ones, on the queueline TVs more than the actual ride experience. There’s a very jarring and obvious clash between old and new Simpsons styles here, with all of the ‘fresh’ humour content for the attraction generally falling very flat, for me at least, along with constant reminders of how good it used to be – I’m one of those people that subscribes to the scientific pinpointing of when exactly the series just stopped being good any more. Of course the underlying storyline and film also harkens from this modern style and was worth a few chuckles at most, when it could have been so much more.
I was at least partial to the self-awareness surrounding any of the stuff about theme parks, along with a few nods to the Back to the Future ride it replaced.

The biggest queue of the day, of course, went to Harry Potter land part 2, specifically #3 Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. Thankfully the result was another entirely fresh experience and again an attraction I was particularly intrigued by. What is the ride system? Is it really those complicated looking mine car things from the film? Well, no, it’s like if Intamin made cars for The Mummy, which is still cool in my book. Although it reminds me that the real one was closed. I’ll always have the best one.

There was a lot going on in the wait, including elevator rides and a pre-show introducing us to General Hux and some goblin. I had also wondered how the story would tie in, the result being that we were to be innocent bystanders co-existing around the same time as the actual Escape from Gringotts was happening in the usual ‘come and see the sights, oh wait it’s all gone wrong’ kind of way.

And that was the main downfall of the attraction for me. While technically brilliant, I struggled to really get lost in the wonder and spectacle. There were some lovely moments in there, clever tricks with the track and an amazing section of very convincing screen projection on what turns out to be smoke that you then launch through. I’d LOVE to see these types of antics translated over to something else that uses it better.

Ms. Lestrange doing crude, non-harmful lightning spells to our party very early on, much like Spiderman over the road, set the tone off on the wrong foot and then big Voldy turns up out of the blue for pure shock factor, only to be casually be sent packing moments later by Harry himself. That’s just not how it works and it all felt at odds with itself, trying to mash this age old theme park adventure stuff together with existing Harry Potter lore that doesn’t quite fit, while Bill makes the same joke about it being ‘the safest place on earth… right?’ four or five times on the bounce.

Oh, and then there’s the lockers.

But also that dragon on the bank breathes fire and is awesome.

Talking of awesome, Fast and Furious – Supercharged was not. I’m fairly sure that’s well established by now, though I’m not sure it’s all that bad. I thought the actor interaction with the video feeds in the two pre-shows was really slick, different and appropriately styled. The final queue with the buses pulling up is a bit full on, but a good portion of the guests seemed properly into it and you can’t fault that.

It’s more ride than I had anticipated, similar to Kong with actual driving sections, not just immersive tunnel, though far less visually impressive. I didn’t really get what was going on and the animation appeared to get cruder and cruder until they just ran out of footage and it ended really jarringly. Good job guys, let’s head back to base.

This? This was bad, on all levels. It felt like Race Through New York starring Jimmy Fallon had no substance, powering through the foyer, straight through the lack of queue and into the preshow. In contrast to the above, no one at all seemed interested or on board with what was going on, with just the one ex-staff member in the crowd ironically trying to hype it up a bit.

The ride is poor, they promised us a flying theatre, which I don’t really care for, and it’s actually just another big simulator. The audio was poor; I couldn’t hear the majority of what the guy was saying as he obnoxiously chatted to us like it was an afterthought. What I did hear wasn’t funny, or remotely entertaining. It tries so hard with that ego and appears to fail miserably at just about everything.

After bemoaning the location of Disney Springs, again, we took the opportunity to go and enjoy some late lunch in City Walk in order to clear that mess from the head.

Upon our return, it was time for yet another simulator in front of a big screen, specifically Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. I don’t like the whole minion thing, but the actual characters from the franchise are at least somewhat endearing and I wouldn’t be overly averse to experiencing this again (though not at the cost of the Madagascar Boat Ride, what an awful shame that was for Singapore). It was better than Fallon at just about everything, which of course is not a notable achievement by any means.

Men in Black Alien Attack was the last item of note on the agenda and a breath of fresh air. It’s got that classic vibe that’s just so damn good on it’s own merit as a ride, regardless of subject matter. Yet again I only had my hopes set to ‘3D cinema’ and so shooting dark ride with epic sets, complex scoring systems and fun minigames was right up my street. Also that ending with the neuralyzer and the offload station looking just like nothing happened was genius. I feel like it’s got a real replayability factor to it, though the wait and pre-show faff were just a little too long to capitalise on that.

There was still time however to get reacquainted with an old friend in Transformers the Ride. I’m not sure if this one will ever get old for me, having ridden it countless times on the other side of the world. It’s just so well pitched and paced in both content and hardware. The movements are super violent, there’s a real frantic feel to the sequence and once again that ending with the massive setpiece over your head just, stirs theme park emotions in me. And I don’t like Transformers.

With that, the park was coming to a close, time for a quick parade and a cheeky Re-Ride Rockit. We had gone out of our way to look up the ‘secret song list’ throughout the course of the day and once again perfectly planned what to do with it once on board. The host barely had time to touch the restraint before I was frantically following the steps to make hidden stuff happen. In my panic, as soon as I had unlocked the extra songs I immediately hit the inconveniently placed ‘back’ button and had to start the whole thing over again.

By which time it was too late and I learned the hard way that it always defaults to the same thing.

I guess I didn’t know.

Day 7

Florida 03/22 – Universal’s Islands of Adventure

The only major company left to register our presence with at this stage was obviously Universal Studios. The luxuries of the car and timekeeping over the last few days had reduced shuttle buses to a last resort and it was once again of no particular use to us here. Instead we parked right next to a sign of E.T. looking wistful.

With some teasing sights just off in the distance.

Day 5 – Islands of Adventure

With so many of the Florida greats having simply gone by in a flash over the last few days and leaving less impact than I had imagined, IoA was the first park I really stopped for a moment to think ‘I’ve dreamed of coming here for basically all my life.’

And thus there was a bit of a buzz upon seeing this and the adventure begins sign.

But of course I’m not sure any previous visit would have quite been the same, now that Velociwoci is here, looming over the lake. 2 trains on track at once? That’s a promising start.

Though it looks not too far from here, the decision to power straight to it, past all the other classics along the way was a little excruciating. This was the first properly HOT day and the lack of shade in the crudity of cartoon land was stirring up an early onset of vampire mode. It was also crowded to the point of discomfort in that you could never just walk normally without crashing into something.

Having plunged through most of Jurassic Park land as well, still not sure where we were actually going, it was a relief to find this welcoming sight. For future reference – go the other way round the lake and save yourself a hassle.

#1 Velocicoaster is definitely a spectator friendly attraction. The views from the plaza (if you enter from the right direction), throughout the queue and just generally in and around the surrounding area are rather spectacular. Let us just take a minute to appreciate the lack of nets at this point in time.

The first indoor section of queue is a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve never seen the films, but I have to assume they’ve invented this obnoxious cartoon character made out of blobs to talk on TVs about the loose article policy that has nothing to do with anything. It’s annoying, particularly when the ride inevitably breaks down and he just keeps on talking. This however is interspersed with a really cool trailer or maybe TV advert about the ride. Apparently we wanted more speed, height and teeth at Universal. Well thankfully they’ve got teeth.

From there you get Dr. Wu talking science stuff about how they look after dinosaurs, some really neat moments of seeing an on-ride launch through screens and Velociraptors following it, moving raptor heads in lab restraints and then the inevitable locker and security faff.

The final hype room and queue before the station has a video with the main characters from the film. One of them saying what we’re about to do is a bad idea and the other trying to cover it up. It’s got some great details in it, like vital stats and little HUD maps of the people and creatures in the story, changing in real time. Unlike the first room, the dialogue seems perfectly pitched to match the length of time you spend in the room under normal operation, which I thought was smart (or just luck).

I suppose I’m supposed to be talking about an actual rollercoaster here aren’t I. A quick trundle out of the station leads to the first launch section where, like Slinky, you get a bit of teasing easing backwards motion as stuff goes down. I never fully worked out whether all four cages were meant to have screens with raptors breaking out – it seemed intermittent but very nice when it worked.

The first launch hits this weird element above which is a rather disorientating start as you’re thrust back into sunlight at strange angles. There’s some really tight rockwork here, the kind that makes you really think twice about putting your hands up but then that sort of ends after two moments and you hit a particularly sweet inversion that did all sorts of things in different places.

If I’m honest, the number of laps we got over two visits wasn’t enough to get my head around the layout in the first half, so it will remain a bit of a Taron mystery to me for the foreseeable. Much like Taron in fact I did find it a bit meandering and without powerful purpose in this portion and, perhaps most disappointingly to me, the scenery doesn’t really add to the experience like I imagined it would. There’s a downwards slither between raptors very reminiscent of what even Cheetah Hunt managed to do better the previous day and for at least the first two laps I worringly didn’t even notice they were there.

The entry into the second launch marks a significant change in tempo, with that gorgeous rawness of an Intamin hitting those fins running. The top hat is of course a highlight, trims notwithstanding, with quite an intense entry and twist when seated near the front or a satisfying ‘first drop’ type feeling from the back row.

I didn’t think the stall was all that. Much like Gwazi it was a little too quick to give that wow factor, though I love it’s placement.

The fast turns are packed with some fun airtime of both the sideways and twisted variety, including a little teasing change of direction moment which I particularly warmed to. It’s a little weird to see all these clashes of scenery as you blast around.

This speed hill was a bit hit and miss depending on positioning, but it leads into the only moment I had heard of before riding.

And what a moment that Mosasaurus is. Blue Fire did it first, but they added the water and the all important viewpoint. It’s a great final fling to leave that lasting impression on a layout.

Once again, there are actually other things to do here. Hogsmeade was a right pain to navigate with the dense crowds always found around Harry Potter stuff.

We wanted to check out #2 Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure next, but were somewhat disturbed to find that the queue started all the way out here, in the Lost Continent. Really breaking that immersion today aren’t we.

This ride involves locker faff like no other and the general lack of organisation really bugs me. It’s nothing short of chaos, with staff in random places trying to control people returning from the attraction and people trying to get to the actual attraction either before or after the lockers. In this particular instance it also blocks several other entrances on route, including the train ride and adds an unncecessary stress to the day that has me worked up now even thinking about it.

I just wanna ride the motorbikes.

And, 90 minutes later we did just that. The highlight of the wait was the very first outdoor section where you get to marvel at the number of trains on track at any one time and sadly this is very fleeting. The indoor queue seemed to go on forever and the preshow was broken, but it had some moments of interesting scenery.

Someone must have jumped onto the station conveyor belt too hard because as soon as we boarded we got held up in there for several minutes of nothing but revving. I do love these Intamin bikes, they’ve come such a long way from Mick Doohan.

A really long way, what a ride. It’s just so joyful to behold from start to finish. I couldn’t help but laugh when, during the first scene, Hagrid says that’s enough for the day and tells us to head back when 90% of the ride is yet to come. The onboard commentary is a welcome feature as you swoop about from launch to launch and helped to paint the picture a little more after our lack of preshow. God damn Arthur Weasley was about the gist of it.

Great animatronics, great immersive scenery, an extended backwards! section with a smartly played out of control feeling (while it’s narratively out of control) through multiple uses of yet more launch track. Can’t go wrong with a drop track, I think the only thing that lets it down is the slightly muted final section which feels like the most powerful launch yet and then ends after one corner. Family coasters have been redefined though, everyone really exceeded themselves on this one, what an absolute marvel.

Until the lockers.

We weren’t out of the woods yet however, we needed even more lockers. After being thoroughly unimpressed with the Tokyo edition of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, we felt like giving it a second chance here, perhaps just the lack of 3D glasses would be enough to save it.

I’m now even more worried for the state of our health that day in Japan (I did legitimately fall asleep during the Terminator show that day, only to be rudely awakened by the seats dropping) because this one played out so differently to how it was in my head. It was actually paced appropriately, spending all the right amount of time in each scene, enough to understand the screens, enough to appreciate the more impressive set pieces, enough to add tension to the scares. It wasn’t bouncing around at a million miles an hour in an incohesive mess that would make anyone feel ill. And rightly so.
Redeemed.

Until the lockers.

Talking of things that were a blur in USJ, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman’s alright, I guess. I’m not sure an increased sense of awareness helped this ride however, I remember being somewhat more impressed by it before. Perhaps it’s my oversaturation with this ride type these days or maybe seeing the most recent Spiderman film actually lent weight to these characters who are now back to being crude caricatures with no substance beyond an evil laugh.

I never expected to love a legend like #3 Incredible Hulk, but these things haven’t aged well, retracked or otherwise. I think it’s best described as it once was to me by a guy from work – that bit where it launches up… and woop… crazy.
I’ll give him that, the inversion out of the launch is the clear highlight of the ride. Beyond that, the repetitive sequence of loopings just grinds me down. It also gets surprisingly ugly after that corkscrew over the station. I always pictured some of these veteran Florida attractions to have nailed their respective aesthetics, aircon vents and sand weren’t what I had in mind.
Also that indoor queue was just awful.

After bemoaning the location of Disney Springs, we took the opportunity to go and enjoy some ice cream in City Walk in order to clear that mess from the head.

Upon return it was time for the quirks of The Cat in the Hat. This was far more elaborate than I had anticipated and almost makes it worth the entire land it takes up in the park. Fever dream dark rides are always a winner.

As was the welcome return of Poseidon’s Fury. The over-acting of the guide is a bit of an acquired taste and it does drag on a little in those first couple of rooms, but the sheer spectacle of this show attraction cannot be denied. Water, fire, that epic disappearing backdrop moment, bliss!
It also pretty much inspired some of the greatest Fantawild attractions to date, so I’ll always have a soft spot for that.

Due to their weather-induced popularity, we had tactically left the water rides until quite late in the day. There was still a bit of a queue for Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, not helped by a breakdown as soon as we entered, but we persisted with nervous anticipation. They’d been cheeky outside and not offered complimentary lockers unlike the rest of the park, so in defiance everything had had to come on board with us. In my head, this ride had a reputation for being extremely wet.

It was a military operation to get in, what with the awkward seating, evil lap bars and our continued attempt to protect the valuables at all costs. Most of the layout was filled with equal parts dread and excitement, having no clue when the worst part was to come or if it was already over. The indoor drop was the worst, but nothing to write home about. One of the effects on the biggest lift hill was unfortunately aimed, but not the end of the world. The big drop was good fun, but it ain’t no Chiapas. We survived, sort of. I got sun cream in my eye and spent several minutes in agony.

It was now dark and our Dudley designated bag protector decided that that was enough wetness for one day. This was a stroke of luck of astronomical proportions, because this meant sitting out Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges. The other two of us boldly walked straight onto it, with me at least still having it in my head that what we had just ridden was ‘the wet one.’

Well I never believed it possible, but Valhalla has been bested in the water department. It started out like any other rapids, a few corners through a canyon with some bumpy water and mild peril over who was going to hit that bit backwards and get a bit wet through the side. Then came a shower head. Thick, volumous drops of water straight across the entirety of our seating area, at a slow pace, gave me a thorough soaking akin to stepping into an actual shower for 30 seconds.

Things become a blur from here on out. I believe a similar thing happened soon after, to much surprise, and then we hit a lift hill. I turned round on said lift hill to see what was coming and saw what can only be described as a nightmare. Several powerful jets of water waving up and down but shooting directly into the path of oncoming boats and rides. None of these things are turning off, are they? As I turned my face to shield myself from the worst of it, I was, essentially, waterboarded to the point of both having a sun cream relapse and having to remove my glasses for safety.

The rest of the ride was spent in terrifying blindness and experienced vicariously through having it described to me. I hear there was nothing to see at the top of the lift, some epic drop and tubey section that I would have adored had this been a Hafema, or perhaps if I wasn’t dying. All I could do was hold on and scream while being soaked, to the bone, again and again without mercy. I’ve never been so unwillingly violated by a ride for as long as I can recall. But was it worth it?
No.
Valhalla has pay off. It earns it’s sadistic tendencies. It is (perhaps was) one of the all time greats as a dark ride. I don’t mind being drowned when I can shout YES, FIRE and have an explosion in my face while subseqeuently swallowing dangerous amounts of chlorine.
Popeye is just some rapids ride that took it too far. I dread to think what would have happened if the bag had come on. Full on trip ruined at the very least.

With the copious amounts of water attempting to drag the clothes from my very skin, I declared a medical emergency as we unceremoniously stomped across the platform and out the exit. Never have I needed a theme park toilet more in my life. Frustratingly, never had it been more difficult to find one. Several minutes in some cubicles later, filled with worrying exclamations from the pair of us, I re-emerged as a sodden husk of a person. To my surprise, a man and his son were standing right outside the door, who looked me up and down and said ‘please don’t do that’. To this day, I haven’t managed to fathom what he meant, but it was a welcome moment of comic relief.

After some further vain attempts to dry ourselves with hand dryers and paper towels, we knew it was time to trudge on – the day was not yet complete.

And so most of my time on Skull Island Reign of Kong was spent trying not to inadvertently get people wet. The queue was rather spooky and ominous, feeling darker than your usual Universal style attraction. The on-truck experience was rather impressive on the whole, some of the larger set pieces have an enthralling scale to them.

It goes downhill a bit when things get immersive in a tunnel, feels like I’ve seen this sequence of gorillas punching dinosaurs a hundred times, particularly when it’s the only portion of the film I have accidentally caught on TV. There was an obnoxious amount of screaming going on and I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not, I feel like this sort of thing was only genuinely scary in the 1930s. The big Kong head at the end made up for it at least, though it was a shame they found a way to build ‘put your 3d glasses on’ into the narrative, yet didn’t do the same for ‘take your 3d glasses off’ in order to benefit this particular moment of wonder.

With that there was time for one night time lap with the raptors, hoping it would dry me off some more. It was a suitable spectacular experience, I’d say the ride only got stronger throughout our first few goes on it and though it certainly warranted more laps, I didn’t feel like it needed much more reflection. It’s better than Taron, not as good as Taiga and will inevitably land somewhere in the lower half of my top 25. Not the list destroyer I had perhaps hoped for, but a world class ride nonetheless.

This was all planned around being cheeky. It worked well on Slinky and it would work well here too. #4 Flight of the Hippogriff had been maintaining an insufferable 90 minute queue all day (while Veloci bottomed out at a mere 30), so we caught the late night ‘show’ thing on Hogwarts that isn’t very good and then slithered into the queue for the last cred of the day moments before it closed.

Park complete.

Day 6

Florida 03/22 – Busch Gardens Tampa

It was time to take a break from the wonders and queues of Disney and deal with the pressing matter of getting on some of these fancy new coasters that had caused the push for this trip in the first place.

Day 4 – Busch Gardens Tampa

There’s quite the introduction when walking from the car park to the entrance. Hello freshly painted Montu, you’re looking rather yellow.

The actual entrance to the park must have been rather forgettable because my very next picture is this.

They’re clearly making statements about how this day is going to go.

Being at the very front of the park it was the obvious move to quash any anxiety over new ride breakdowns and get straight on this thing.

A man was animatedly shouting into his phone at his family who sounded like they weren’t yet in the park. “We’re in the front of the park, near the… the big Khwazi… the big I-Ron Khwazi. On the tables? God damn! What are you doing out there?! Get inside the park!” I’m so glad I caught this piece of dialogue because it forever redefined the character of this coaster. God damn I-Ron Khwazi!

And it’s fully justified, because #1 Iron Gwazi is an absolute beast. I was worried when it slowed to a crawl at the crest of the lift as I’m not one for caution on a ride, I like to be flung over the top of these things in a relentless manner. The disappointments of Shambhala are not what you want in your head to begin proceedings.

Once again it’s fully justified, because it’s an absolute beast. That drop still manages to have all the makings of one of the best in the business, though equally importantly the subsequent pull out into the next element is uncharacteristically intense for one of these. I don’t recall ever seeing stars on an RMC before and if you’re not feeling too fresh I can see it easily approaching grey-out status. But fear not, unlike some rides, they don’t dwell on that sensation for long.

I’d have struggled to describe to you how the rest of the ride plays out on only single figure laps and luckily enough we were able to get significantly more than that over the course of the trip and here’s how it goes down. Ish.

Wild, wonky airtime from the first, whatever it is, while you’re still trying to regain focus and composure from that pull out. Hurtling at speed through head choppers and up into that death roll thing. This is exactly the kind of inversion that deserved invention – good name, does cool stuff. It’s like their downwards barrel roll drops but with that extra surprise of rotating more than 360°, an out of control feeling I can only think is most similar to the 540° twist on B&M flyers. You think you’re done, and you’re not, it hits you hard, in this case with some wicked laterals on the exit.

Wild, wonky airtime from the third, whatever it is, while you’re still trying to regain focus and composure from that inversion.

This. The most effective sideways airtime hill I’ve ever encountered. Keeps you pinned for way longer than it has any right too and comes with a great near miss under the lift. A lot of these are just visual spectacles, this one delivers hard.

It enters more familiar territory at this point with some solid pops in different directions before hitting that signature stall just a little too fast to appreciate it fully. Others do this particular moment better.

The final sequence though, as violent as they come, particularly when seated towards the front of the train. RMC sure know how to end things on a bang and these 4 powerful bursts of ejector separated by banked turns don’t look like they should work at all. They really do.

So, as mentioned, it’s hard to catch your breath on this ride and process any of what is going on, which is a true strength of the layout. On my initial laps this contributed towards the ride feeling far too short, but as I grew more familiar with it, I learned to love it even more for the relentless machine that it was. Duration is the only real downside I can come up with at this point, and it’s barely even a downside because anything more might have spoiled the pacing. Perhaps it would have benefitted from one of those funky little pre-lift sections, though it does it’s best to try and remove you just the once, even before the chain begins.

Contrary to what we may have thought at the time, there is other stuff to do here.

From the worst to the best with #2 Air Grover.

These definitely don’t do it for me any more, blame China. It was cool to at least see that signature splash down of #3 SheiKra in person.

It’s hard to imagine a universe in which #4 Tigris is better than Helix, though I have seen that proclaimed. Beyond my usual lack of enthusiasm for the abomination that is the comfort collar, I don’t remember these trains being so obnoxiously hard to get into, it’s like an assault course. Nope, these don’t do it for me either.

Rather watch real tigers.

My standout memory of the Congo River Rapids is getting sunburnt on the final lift hill, some sort of capacity nightmare was going on even though it was a walk on.

I never expected to love a legend like #5 Kumba, but these things haven’t aged well. I sat there appreciating the engineering, but never really enjoying it. That quirky twist and dive into the tunnel was unexpected at least.

Disappointed. Falcon’s Fury has all the makings of a terror machine and is of course legitimately scary, but there’s no physical pay off to dropping on your face, it simply doesn’t do to you what drop towers do best.

Scorpion was broken somehow. What would Anton say?

Which meant that #6 Sand Serpent, a name I thought I’d made up, was vile. Second longest queue of the day for a lazily profiled mouse.

Still not sure what this is.

I wanted #7 Cheetah Hunt to be a bit of an undercat and was rooting for it to entertain me better than is generally proclaimed.

It did and it didn’t. I don’t so much mind the meandering and the stretched out elements, the weird straights that serve to get you a different piece of landscape rather than to enhance the ride. I did mind the restraints, and the falling into them in that dumb slow inversion that just feels completely out of place. Without it, it would have been a solid sit down with multi-launch goodness as there’s two decent airtime moments in the exit of the crow’s nest(?) and the surprisingly profiled return hill after the final launch. I also enjoyed the little slalom between the rocks, good lats there.

Rather watch real cheetahs.

#8 Cobra’s Curse was impressively themed in the queue, I liked the anger in the little preshow. While the big snake himself looks great, I never actually managed to catch what he was saying to us at the top of the elevator lift and do feel that would only have added to the experience. As a ride it’s an interesting take on the spinner and not what I anticipated, controlling you both forwards and backwards for different sections before having a light sequence of chaos. S’alright.

It’s a little bit scary to think about but I don’t believe these do it for me any more either. Whilst I can say #9 Montu was one of the better inverts out there, even with some real ferocity in certain places like that final corkscrew, they’re just so… formulaic and that really stands out when it’s in such close proximity to a ride that breaks all the rules.

Rather watch crocodiles.
Wait, no, that’s an alligator.

And so, with the lap of the park complete, it was time to close out the evening with as many goes as possible on the lineup wrecker.

I’ve thought of one other downside in that it’s too difficult get photos of. A spectator coaster this is not, it’s stuck in a weird no-man’s land between service roads and sheds, while somehow being in the centre of the plot.
It is glorious at night of course.

A cheeky bonus occurred in that #10 Scorpion re-opened halfway through the night. We took the opportunity for a quick sprint and, with relief, finally declared the park ‘complete’.

As the night drew on, the operations steadily ground to a halt and then God damn Iron Gwazi managed to break down. This kept us in the park nearly an hour longer than expected and it was already getting pretty late. Not good for my already aching bones but obviously worth it.

That’s Busch for now, though we’d be back later in the week for some proper reflection.

Day 5

Florida 03/22 – Animal Kingdom + Epcot

Next up on the agenda were the ‘credless’ Disney parks. With the desire to park hop and with Animal Kingdom being a particularly early opener, we decided to forego the lazy shuttle bus on this occasion in an attempt to justify having the hire car again. The one benefit to the parking tickets with their rather hefty price tags is that you are free to use it at any of the establishments within a given day.

Day 3 – Animal Kingdom

And here it is.

Once again the day began with a 3D cinema, It’s Tough to be a Bug!, because it’s likely the first thing you stumble across. Some of the effects were pretty scary in this one, to the point of making several children cry and their families leaving early. Dropping massive spiders from the ceiling will admittedly cause that, but I admire what they were going for. For me the biggest scare was at the very end when the insects leave the theatre before the guests, in a rather violating fashion.

The imaginatively named Dinosaur was a lot of fun, I find you can’t really go wrong with the ride system that Indiana Jones made famous. It has more back story, in that we’re time travellers trying to save an Iguanadon, along with a more claustrophobic feel to the layout. Associating the attraction with that film I had forgotten existed makes no impact on the proceedings, beyond this statue, which is probably a good thing.

It was rather upsetting to walk past Ex-spite-ition Everest while it undergoes the first proper maintenance in 16 years. How I long to ride that coaster. Hopefully it will be restored to it’s former glory when that time comes at least.

Instead we had to settle for views from the Kali River Rapids. Not the most impressive of these rides that Disney has put out, but solid fun with a light soaking. Having free-to-use ‘get other guests wet’ buttons is also a plus.

Time to enter Avatar land. This was the total opposite to Star Wars for me, I knew nothing about the franchise, hadn’t seen the film and was completely uninvested in what was going on. Would it win me over in a casual encounter?

To start, it was another of those epic moments of laying eyes on the scenery for the first time, there are few parks in the world that can make that type of impact. As we slowly wound our way up the multiple hour queue for Flight of Passage it maintained a steady impression of ‘this could be good’. The indoor parts got a bit rocky and plain, though there were also rooms full of stuff to look at, like one of those blue blokes in a jar.

The preshow felt a bit condescending to be honest. It’s like they anticipated me coming in with no prior knowledge and they try to cram a lot of terms into the dialogue that didn’t really need to be there like fictional language lessons. What makes this worse is that after a lot of faff, you move into another room for some safety instructions and a different scientist character starts covering some of the same ground again. We’re blue, we’re flying on creatures, that’s all I need to know.

Eventually we entered our ride area and strapped in to the motocoaster style seats, complete with that brutal anticipation of a restraint punching you squarely in the lower back. The system kicks into life and off you go, moto-flying theatre.

Credit where it’s due, this is by far my favourite flying theatre experience on record. It had subtle details that added some flair, such as the seat moving between your legs to simulate the breathing of the creature and some pretty killer scent and mist packages.

Most importantly for me though, the film managed to create that sense of wonder that I believe all of these types of attractions are, or should be, ultimately going for. Usually it’s flying around the world in some pretentious manner, or occasionally you get something in adventure mode instead and it’s a bit of a laugh. But this. This is all focused on actually living and feeling those moments you’re being presented with, being the Avatar and not just a tourist. They present it as a ritual, an experience of great significance, a flight of passage. I can’t really describe how, but it works. For me at least.

So does this.

The other ride in the area is the Na’vi River Journey, which was alright at best. I proclaimed as we boarded, after another rather extortionate wait, that all I wanted was a sit down and some blue. We got just that. There’s some visual effects in there that I can appreciate, but not all of it feels up to par. It’s another rehash of ‘breathe in your surroundings’ but far less impactful as you slowly sail past trees and wolves. The highlight is probably the big animatronic shaman character who sings various soothing syllables. “Na’vi waaa… wakalaaa… taka wakaaaa…”

This endured as a staple of the trip, whenever we got tired and needed to spout some nonsense, so at least the attraction made a lasting impression.

With that, Animal Kingdom was done as far as I was concerned. Time to hop in a car and grab a sandwich.

One thing about the Florida resort that didn’t gel with me was the lack of convenience exterior to the parks. We’ve already established they’re faffy to get between, but with that there’s also no Disney Village or City Walk experience to give that easy escape from a theme park for a quick bite to eat.

They do have Disney Springs, but it’s not designed for that. It’s entirely self-contained and is a bit of a mission to include in any Disney experience rather than just being a casual day out and shopping trip. We drove for a good while and ‘popped in’ to the free multi-storey car park in order to get reacquainted with the Earl of Sandwich, a Paris favourite. As a detour it was in excess of an hour and based on public transport on other days it could easily be two. Worth it? Yes.

Epcot

And here it is.

This was another wide-eyed novice experience for me, it’s nice to go to some of the most famous parks ever and not really have a clue what’s going on. First up was Spaceship Earth, located within the iconic building itself.

Rather than my expectations of it being about space, I instead found a slow and steep omnimover narrated by Judi Dench that concisely describes the history of humanity and the development of communication. Upon reaching the summit, the story ends, the cars turn backwards and you begin to descend. Now the story is about you. Built in touch screens allow you to answer a number of questions about your hopes for the future and then, by means of an on-ride photo and some cartoons, these dreams are realised. Funnily enough, my photo didn’t work, which only added to the comedy that ensued amongst us (and my personal relief).

Never mind that though, Mission: SPACE, specifically the Mars mission, kicked ass.
It’s quite an intimidating build up, what with the number of times they tell you you’re on the ‘intense’ version as you go through the various videos of what it takes to be an astronaut. It’s only Disney.

The safety instructions get rather more worryingly specific when they tell you to face forward and breathe normally and try not to pass out. Like when Derren Brown tells you to calm down, only this actually means something. Then you board the extremely cramped little 4-person simulator pod, lower the over the shoulder restraints, see the complementary sick bags poking out at you and suddenly the realisation hits. This ain’t Disney.

Similar to Smuggler’s Run, we’d each been given a role that involved pushing buttons at certain points and whether or not they did anything remained dubious. They are a bit of a welcome distraction from the ride cycle which is, well, I loved it.

It’s so genius, what you see with your eyes not matching up with what’s actually happening to your body. Yet it’s believable, and a little bit terrifying. The sequence goes on through the various motions and I found it quite the physical endurance, but in a way I could appreciate for how unique and inventive the experience is. Better than Lech.

Journey into Imagination was more how I imagined Epcot to be. Dark rides about stuff I don’t really care about. It was filled with cool effects at least, the cage and a mirror and one of those lightning fast backdrop changes. Figment though, I didn’t get on with him at all. I hear they butchered the original ride for this, then brought him back in to try and save it. It’s gone.

Living with the Land was above and beyond how I imagined Epcot to be. Dark rides about growing plants. It was fine, I guess.

The Seas with Nemo & Friends wasn’t the first time that forcing Nemo onto a ride with fish as an afterthought has left it feeling flat. It was fine, I guess
Never mind that though, dog on a dark ride!

Ugh, Coco. He’s even managed to take over the inside of this building, with all the shops and restaurants latching onto his theme. Thankfully he isn’t on the El Rio del Tiempo boat ride, though it does involve Donald Duck trying to be a Mariachi, which is grating enough in of itself.

We were just about ready to clean up, when Frozen Ever After broke down on us and had been evacuated. It had been holding the second biggest queue on park all day, so the dilemma was whether to camp it out in the hopes of a swift return and a guaranteed walk-on ride, or go and queue an hour for the one other thing we wanted, possibly then spiting us the evening show. The staff seemed reasonably optimistic and so we opted for the former. Sure enough, a reasonable amount of time later we were amongst one of the first boats to depart, the moment it was fixed.

You can tell this one is clearly shoehorned too, though it probably managed to satisfy any of the millions of guests that came here just to hear a bit of Let It Go in it’s prime. The story doesn’t make sense, it’s just a highlight reel of songs in poor chronological order, with some slightly off-looking face projections. The Marshmallow bit was solid though, with a decent enough drop. Glad we didn’t queue.

Last but not least was Test Track and we were in two minds as to whether to test it out, as it clearly can’t be better than Radiator Springs. I’d call it a winner, in the right company, though, once the nasty corporate sponsor queue was out of the way – it started to feel a bit like Ferrari Land for a minute.

The biggest surprise was entering this room in which you get to customise a car, one that seemingly comes out rather ridiculous looking no matter what you do to it. The initial intention was to recreate Homer’s bubble car, though it soon became clear that that sadly wasn’t possible. Deploy the cow catcher.
This final product gets downloaded to your ticket which you then scan again upon boarding the ride.

The indoor section of the ride contained far more than I anticipated, with the various road tests being performed on your crude uploaded car, including some good acceleration and fun swerving going on, alongside the added jeopardy of regular scoreboards showing how you stack up against the other group sharing your ride vehicle.

Finally you head outside for the speed test and though it feels a bit of a non-event, topping 60Mph on a dark ride is rather impressive when you pause to think about it. As for the scores, we started out so well but lost 3 out of the 4 tests by the end. Needed more cup holders.

Time had run on a little and we just caught the lake show after the initial moments, from afar. It wasn’t anywhere as impressive as Magic Kingdom, with the water projection being the main focal point and yet far less clear than the two accompanying screens of visual filler. It did at least spend more time on each song, of which the selection felt pretty poor. Also Coco again. Bah.

That’s it then. Disney World complete in 3 days, bar one ride. What else have they got around here?

Day 4

Florida 03/22 – Hollywood Studios

Day 2 – Hollywood Studios

This was by far our most anticipated of the Disney days and the only one we’d made any kind of arrangements to return to later in the trip if needed. And oh, how it needed it.

And here it is.

Shows how little I knew of this place in that the Chinese theatre being the centrepiece was a complete surprise to me.

Things started off casual with some Muppet-Vision 3D. The preshow room was a bit of a drag, but I loved what they did with the theatre, having animatronic Statler and Waldorf up in the stage left balcony. Film itself was hit and miss with the comedy and I think the finale fell a bit flat. This isn’t why we’ve come.

For me, it was this. Star Wars land, and what a true visual stunner it is. I’ve missed those jaw-dropper moments from Disney as of late and this one takes the cake. I don’t think I’ve ever cared more about a theme park IP than I have for this franchise, it’s one I’ve always been really invested in, for better or worse, and the fact that something of this magnitude came to a place of this calibre at such a late point in it’s history just had me hyped up like little else before it in the theme park world. This was my Florida moment.

Anyway, The queue for Smugglers Run was stretching around the Falcon as we hopped on the end for a long wait.

Eventually it heads inside where there’s plenty of detail to keep guests distracted. The amount of effort for a simulator feels insane.

Then you get into the preshow and there’s a ridiculous animatronic.

Then you get batched and you’re actually on the ship, floor panels and everything. It’s such a heart in mouth moment if this means anything to anyone because the time spent amongst the most incredible parts of the theming are so fleeting and ultimately such a tease.

I’m not sure the ride itself quite delivers after all the build up. For all the intricacies throughout what you’ve just witnessed, it doesn’t feel much like you’re sitting in the Falcon at the end of it. The simulator sequence itself is ok at best, they try and throw in a little interactivity by assigning different roles and making you press a button at certain points but it doesn’t do a whole lot with it. The story is kinda there, if a bit woolly and I don’t really know what to think at the end of the day. At least it’s only the low tier attraction of the area.

It’s got nothing on the headline act, with a waiting time posted at 160mins. Well, here comes the longest queue of my career. Bad luck, Taron.

In stark contrast, the indoor queueline sections for Rise of the Resistance are rather repetitive and underwhelming. Rocks, cages, a lone screen like the people watch the Hoth attack from. Two hours with the question of ‘why are we here?’ rattling around the head.

Suddenly things get a little intense for the first preshow, all the familiar faces start appearing along with ludicrous animatronic BB-8. Oh, and actual Star Wars holograms are a real life thing now?

Then you see daylight for the first time in forever and this happens. Before you get a chance to think, you’re boarding the Derren Brown’s stand-up spaceship simulator flown by astounding animatronic squid head. Turns out it’s a trap, people die and you’re tractor beamed onto a Star Destroyer.

Suddenly daylight becomes this, and I love it even more. The bad guy staff batch you into various prison cells for an interrogation with Bill Weasley and big Kylo himself comes to force all the light out of the room and make it shake.

They make their excuses and a droid cuts you out through the wall of the cell and into your actual ride vehicles, a double team of 8-seater trackless beasts all driven by their own little evil-turned-good droid.

I feel like I’ve probably spoiled too much already but to do a play-by-play of the actual sequence of events is to do it an injustice. I knew so little going in and yet expected so much. I think it actually met those expectations, perhaps in a different way. The ride technology alone still blows my mind, I probably love the geeky side of that most of all. Watching the dance of the trackless vehicles has always been a firm favourite of mine, but to see it in this context with all the other cool stuff going on is…

Live blaster holes in the ceiling, sets of epic magnitude and visuals, casually driving into an elevator, animatronics creating legit tension, the pacing of the thrills, casually turning into an escape pod simulator and ENDING OUTSIDE.

Once again it’s far too much to take in, especially off the lethargy of a near three hour wait, though I think that adds to the mystique somewhat.

It is, technically and by pretty much all other measures, by far the best dark ride I’ve ever experienced or even hoped to witness. But it left a void. It didn’t warm my heart. It didn’t even come with a cup of tea.

Something I learned after we were done is that the ride has several B-mode moments allowing it to continue operating while some of the more advanced effects are temporarily broken. Without this knowledge I noticed two of the three Bs we had on our cycle, in moments that felt a little off:

1. Being chased into an elevator with a lightsaber, only to then have a crude screen of what looked like nothing more than welding in the ceiling.
2. Having that chase then abandoned, only for Kylo to be crudely hovering outside in space in his pointy Tie-Fighter trying to shoot us through a window and getting taken out by random crossfire – our victory moment.

The part I didn’t notice is that some giant cannons firing out into space are supposed to be physically recoiling as the little droid dodges our way past them.

Once again though, the promise of it being even more life-changing next time, that’s reason to come back and queue again, right?


With over half the day gone and no sign of a lull in the crowds, it was time to get a little tactical and hit all of our intended attractions in order of shortest queue first, to try and maximise any and every opportunity. This moment was punctuated with some comedy in the form of a man screaming “90 minutes?!…………… and then what?!” at his family beneath the entrance to Toy Story Midway Meh-nia. Glad we don’t need that one.

For us it begain with a mere 70 mins for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, a ride that was described to me as the sleeper hit of the trip.

And it was. I’d basically barely even heard of this thing, along with not knowing this building was here, how was I supposed to know what it contained? The attraction name, to me, had conjured images of a powered coaster, an indoor Casey Jr. at best.

So what a pleasant surprise it was to find an elaborate cartoon preshow that turns into a ‘how the hell did they do that?’ visual effect. Guests then enter into the cartoon for the remainder of the queue and it gets a whole lot wackier from there.

I was trying to soak up the moment at the air gates when the ‘train’ pulled in towards us. There’s nothing joining this train together. Is this yet more tantalising trackless dark ride tech? Yes it is.
This thing is like Hunny Hunt x1000 for being weird and wonderful and once again there’s no way I can do it justice with words. Oh, and it’s violent too. The power of those vehicles scares me. Much love for this attraction.

Something slightly less high tech was waiting around the corner in the form of #1 Rock’n’Roller Coaster. This sucked so bad, but the cred withdrawal was seeping in. Two hours for a trash clone. And my feet hurt.
I think we got to skip the preshow in Paris, and good, because it wasn’t needed. I just don’t get on with this thing.
At least the speakers weren’t broken this time, but I spent half the ride thinking about how it’s not loud enough for a ‘rock concert’ to really get you in the mood it’s going for and the other half thinking ‘this layout is mostly right turns’. It was an endurance at worst, a relief to sit down for two minutes at best.

By now the sun had long gone of course, leaving time only to complete the +1s of the park. #2 Slinky Dog Dash was better than I was expecting to be fair to him. I even liked the theming details, initially only really expecting ‘Toy Story = roller coaster = money’ and instead being continuously shown that Andy was gifted a backyard coaster kit from Mack Rides, designed it all carefully and runs his dog around it.

The layout is fun, has an interesting flow and some poppy moments in the first half. Usually pausing on the second launch would irk me, but he does more with it and backs up a bit, building the tension with various effects before bursting up into a high section consisting entirely of amusingly sequential hills. Good variety, great family ride.

With that success we were left with only one major hole from the day, a certain ride that had also been attracting eye-watering wait times due to what appeared to be capacity issues. I suppose the other hole, though it was fully expected, was the lack of a Fantasmic show to end on. Instead there was a half-baked attempt at projections and fireworks on a central building, including my old mate Coco again. Not seen that before.

As we headed out once again to our inconveniently located shuttle bus at the front of Epcot, there was a transport conundrum. In the morning the driver had been ranting on about how the bus system was broken and how it takes people two and a half hours to get to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom from the TTC these days. It felt like scare tactics in order to tout for a few tips really, which we had in fact taken advantage of that morning to save precious Star Wars time.

However, on reaching the official Disney man at the HS bus station he loudly and proudly declared that ‘we don’t do buses to Epcot’ despite literally standing in front of a sign saying where to get the bus to Epcot. Instead we were recommended the cable car system that runs, in a roundabout way, to the bottom of the park, via various resorts and hotels.

This was rather fun in itself, bouncing between different areas we hadn’t seen in the dark and eventually landing sort of where we needed to be, except it was the entirely wrong end of the park. Everyone was leaving said park after their own night time spectacular and the cable car drops you just outside of the security entrance, with the masses surging straight towards us.

We can get in though, I assume? The question was asked to a nearby staff member. “Oh… you can’t really go through the park to the bus station from here, you’d probably have to get on your knees and beg for them to even let you in. The best way from here? I’d probably take an uber.” From the park, to the park. Huh.

Well we went to security anyway and were waved straight in as though it was the norm, walked straight through the park as though it was the norm and got to bus with time so spare.
Winging it was still paying off, with or without their help.

There, I’ve spent longer writing about buses than I have about the most advanced ride in history. Entertainment.

Day 3

Florida 03/22 – Magic Kingdom

Florida. They’ve got rides right? I’m sure you’ve never heard about them before.

For someone in the unhealthy realm of four-figures, it always felt pretty weird that I’d not yet visited the theme park capital of the world.
Well now I have. I guess that’s one less thing to look forward to in life.

Let’s get straight to it.

Day 0 – Travel

Not a huge amount to tell here. We landed in Miami because the car hire was way cheaper, missed the two creds at Uncle Bernie’s by a few minutes (as was fully expected) and then drove the wholly unremarkable Kia Optima for four wholy unremarkable hours up to Orlando, where we were then based for the entire trip.

Day 1 – Magic Kingdom

The hotel resort in question had some shuttle buses to the parks, albeit not entirely useful ones. Nevertheless we attempted to make the most of them in lieu of paying for parking every single day and our first experience with the system took us to the Transportation and Ticket Centre (TTC) just over an hour after park opening, from which the Monorail for either Magic Kingdom or Epcot can be accessed. We had opted to start with the quintessential Disney experience that is MK, as I entered their final resort in my now complete collection.

I’ll head this up with one more weigh-in to all the negativity I see around the painful planning required for Disney parks, Florida in particular, that unfortunately seems to put some people off ever visiting. We made very little effort to plan anything about these parks other than a swiftly jotted down list of attractions that were considered must-do. Admittedly the burden on certain days was eased by having experienced cloned attractions before and deciding they didn’t need another go here, but by the same measure I’m well known for being the type of person who won’t say no to an hour’s queue for a Vekoma junior just to get that sweet, sweet +1. All I’ll say is that with minimum thought, a little common sense and some general theme-parking experience, it was a very rewarding, relaxing and virtually stress-free experience. No fast track. No genies. No reservations. No rope drops. No hassle.
Alright, some hassle.

And here it is.

Tick.

First ride of the trip was the Carousel of Progress. This I knew nothing about, so it was cool to kick things off with that old school vibe from a unique attraction with a rich history that feels both dated and charming, rather than Peter Pan dark ride #47.

For the uninitiated like myself, you sit in a big room that rotates from scene to scene about once every 5 minutes, each one containing a look at what life was like throughout different eras, narrated by the same animatronic family each time and interluded by a catchy, cheesy tune about a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day. What’s not to love?

As soon as that was done, the rain started chucking down and we attempted to shelter in #1 Space Mountain, failing to do so as the hour queue put itself well into the outdoors. Umbrella in hand, it was a steady and relatively dry shuffle into the indoors and eventually onto the first of the two tracks.

I loved the ride system itself. Those old single-file, bobsled style trains on the janky tubular track, much like a distant Matterhorn cousin. For a coaster with such low speed, it creates a great sense of illusion as you blast around in the dark in any unpredictable direction. The highlights were actually the susprise jolts into and out of the various block sections. Sadly the lack of ambience in both music and visuals was similar to that of how we experienced the Tokyo version, rather than the epic sound and spectacle I found in others. I expect it to place squarely in the middle of the Space Mountain pack if I ever manage to not get spited by Jules Verne.

Next up was a ride on the Peoplemover, a cool little LSM train journey around Tomorrowland, including inside the buildings of other attractions, though you don’t get to see a whole lot.

Tron though, get excited.

Finally, I finally got to do Haunted Mansion without it having a holiday layover. It’s a such a classic attraction as is, though the queue after the lift is always a bit stewy. It also stopped for a long time in the dining room, in silence, reducing the atmosphere somewhat. I’m thinking Phantom Manor is still better.

Not least for having a slightly more imposing presence.

Something else that Paris does best is #2 Big Thunder Mountain, though I can’t deny the good times these rides always bring.

What they don’t have however is a Country Bear Jamboree. This animatronic based show of bears singing was nothing short of genius.

Heading back across the park and dodging yet more rain, we checked out the Little Mermaid’s take on an omnimover. It wasn’t new to me, but has a vastly more impressive exterior and queueline.

No longer able to avoid the weather any longer, as the circus part of the park was due to close early, it was time to suck up the queue for #3 Barnstormer. It was wet, it was poor, especially for a Disney park. At least some of their other baby creds look the part.

With cred hunting still being at the forefront of our minds, we had to dust off the other side of #4 Space Mountain next. Not that it didn’t warrant a reride anyway. It’s potentially the best thing here. Had to ask the cheeky question at the batch point to a host who treated it like a covert operation, but it was all good.

And then, to complete the quest, things got rather grim. The longest wait of the day was for the #5 Seven Dwarves Mine Train, essentially a lesser Big Thunder Mountain and a clone I had walked straight onto in the past (courtesy of a free fast pass, ah the good old days). The queue ground to an absolute grinding halt thanks to a multitude of Genie users, in the worst cases only batching four standby riders at a time, across two trains.
It’s consistently the most popular ride of the park right now and yet entirely unimpressive, though I hear I expect too much.

Coasters complete, there was time for one cheeky walk on lap of yet another Pirates of the Caribbean, though they were playing scare tactics and keeping it posted at 30 mins. Money? Probably. The drop didn’t feel as big, but that pirate ship scene astounds me every time.

Finally it was our turn to find a spot amongst the masses for the obligatory night time spectacular. It was mysteriously delayed for 10 minutes just as the crescendo happened, which caused mass confusion amongst the masses.
They’ve become a mixed bag over the years, ranging from complete shambles to life-altering.
This, brand new one I believe, was almost back to old form with the visuals. I wasn’t all in with the music choices however and it felt more like a highlight reel than ever before, taking the briefest of pauses to deal with each tune rather than ever getting into the meat of the song, which I would have particularly enjoyed on the Moana and Frozen 2 numbers. That Coco kid was grinding on me though, haven’t seen the last of him.

A satisfying end to the day at the very least, as was the impressive spectacle of how the monorail system chews through 50,000 people all leaving the park at once. We left the crowds at the TTC however, in order to get our hotel shuttle which was, inconveniently, only ever running from the bus station at Epcot each evening. This involved taking the other monorail, which strays a little too far into the park, purely for the benefit of a bit of sightseeing. Looks nice and all, but not when you’re in a hurry, which we certainly were due to the unexpected pause in proceedings. Some sprinting ensued in order to flag the man down at the last second, much to the surprise of the remaining stragglers.
Still got it.

Day 2