Day 7 -

A bit apprehensive I went with the other MC folk to Universal on Day 7. There still was so much I hadn’t seen of Walt Disney World but I had already purchased a multi-day ticket so I went anyway. With luck I hitched a ride and spent the first part of the day over at Islands of Adventure.


With the group we hit the Amazing Spider-Man first which had a very short line as opposed to my previous visit. It still is an incredible ride and just takes you to a whole new level of experiance. After, I split from the group so’s to take more pictures of the park and hit some things I wanted to see.

Me and Spidey!

Sub-Mariner picture over the restrooms - irony

Also ironic that Electro recently "came out" in the comics - I guess the designers didn’t see that comin’

My first stop was Rip Saw Falls, which is a water/log type ride that absolutely soaks you to the core. The que was a lot of fun keeping in tune to the whole animated theme of Dudley Do Right. I understood that they had added lapbars to the "logs" and they weren’t kidding. I barely fit into the seat and the lap bar had no use other than to land squarely on my chest preventing me from moving anywhere. It was extremely uncomfortable and lucky for me, no one was seated in the first row (I was in the 2nd and two other people sat behind me) The ride itself is very well done and takes you from scene to scene with Duddly’ Do Right and cast. By the first drop I knew I was in for a soaking wet ride. The finale to the ride is a 75 foot plummet with a couple of bunny hills (Similar to the Bear Butt drop on Splash Mtn) that left me so wet I could not see as my eyes were filled with the spraying water. I was drenched and laughing all the way back to the dock. Sadly, since I couldn’t see anything, I’m not sure how the ride ended beyond trying to get out of the log.



Jurassic Park soak

Soaked to the bone, I made my way thru Jurassic Park area to the Lost Continent and Poseidon’s Fury, which both puzzled and surprised me. The outside is just an amazing structure and detail. The show itself is kind of a walk-thru with a Fantasmic ending and getting to the end was really, really cheezy. The end has a wow factor that has to be seen at least once. I won’t spoil it.




Suess Landing was up next and I wanted to catch "The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride" which is a nice little train that goes around the Seuss Landing area and is maybe 10 - 15 feet above the ground. It’s themed so very well with all the great look of Seuss. Even the tops of the buildings below were in-theme which is just amazing. It was a nice little ride. Some video is on my Myspace.

Trolley loading area

The nearby roof.

It was time for lunch and reservations had been made for Mythos! Voted best theme park restaurant and they weren’t kidding. The themeing was ok - someone in the group said Al Lutz was quoted as saying that Universal can’t do rocks like Disney can or something like that but it’s true. It looked very play-dough to me. A choice for what to eat was very tough - there were many things I would’ve liked to order and I know I’m somewhat of a picky eater. I ordered the "Buffalo BBQ Fried Chicken Wrap" which was just phenomenal. It was a wrap with boneless fried chicken bathed in BBQ sauce with lettuce, shredded cheese and mashed potatoes all wrapped up. It was just fantastic.

Mythos - front entrance.

Mythos - Lake view

After lunch the group made its way back to Marvel Island and some of them rode The Hulk, which I passed on and we eventually made our way over to Universal Studios. There we breezed thru the Mummy, which is just a great ride and Men in Black which lead us out the exit and back to the parking structure. It was time to head to Animal Kingdom for a rare extra evening at the park and one that I didn’t want to miss.

There’s not really much to say as the group met up with other and we rode Expedition Everest a few times, some braved the Rapids and for me, finally, a ride on Dinosaur! I really loved the ride and thankfully it wasn’t as jaring and spastic as Indiana Jones. It was a lot of fun.

In any case, the evening was mostly spent admiring the park that is Animal Kingdom from the night perspective and it is just a spectacular looking park at night. I wish I had a decent camera to capture it but here are a few pictures that seem to come close to what a sight I saw.

Dusk settles in on Animal Kingdom


wow, wow wow!

After the closing of Animal Kingdom I went with the group to Downtown Disney for some dinner at Earl of Sandwich and then back to the hotel. It was a fairly early evening in, and I took advantage of it to get some rest.

Next: Disney MGM Studios with the Fantasmic buffet!

I LOVED the Earl of Sandwich. The Earl's Grey Lemonade, yum.

Still lovin' your report!

The Earl is the best deal on property, hands down. I bought the kid's grilled cheese and it looked to be about the same size as the adult sandwich. I wasn't in the mood for bacon on my grilled cheese.

Cool photos of Animal Kingdom. What all is open during Evening EMH?

not in the mood for bacon? Heretic :p

Yeah, Earl of Sandwich was great - I had the Meatball sub.

Animal Kingdom had all the major attractions open except those that had live animals. The group had hoped the Safari would be open for a nice Sunset Safari but that was closed.

Good thing Tampa has one now... Not far from one of my campuses as well...

It is a great gourmet sandwich shop.

I think Monday i will get a cannon balls... or a Hawaiian BBQ...


Oh... and they dont do many sunset safaris in the off season... they want to be as safe as passable.

-jealous on mythos.. i've never been-

Day 8
Disney MGM Studios - The full day.

I had a fairly full day at Disney MGM Studio back on Day 3 but I’ve returned to do the things that I missed the first time around and for the Fantasmic Buffet that was part of my "package" trip.

Tower of Terror!

First off, I went to Tower of Terror and got a fastpass for later on and then headed to the New York area to get some pictures of the streets. Disney Channel "Star" Kim Possible and some other dude were just standing around so I got a picture with them. I don’t watch the show, but c’mon - I just don’t like face characters of cartoons. Works for the princesses but I would’ve rather seen a big head.

More characters here than any given time at Disneyland!

Kim Possible

The streets of the world were cool to see and the Osborne Christmas lights were already up. I headed to the Back lot Tour next which started in a building that had props and models from Pearl Harbor. Most of them were just shells and not in very good shape but I guess you have to look at something. The next exhibit was a water tank where they filmed some guest doing various things and Inner-cut it with some real film footage. Water tanks, bullet hits and minor explosion. Everything I’ve seen before, but was nice to see this show. Then we were moved to the prop warehouse and onto trams to take us to the back-lot.

Water Tank.

The back-lot consisted of passing by prop cars, thru a warehouse with costumes and thru Catastrophe Canyon, which was kind of cool. Albeit very simple setup, it was one of the best parts of the tour. The coolest part every was Walt Disney’s personal aircraft, so they say, on display. This one would have been fun to be able to board and check out. Very cool

Walt’s Wings


Also caught a glimpse of the Herbie split car used in the Motor Cars Stunt show.

And one from Herbie: Fully Loaded

This was cool. They had a Snowspeeder and one of Jabba’s Skiffs from the Star Wars Films.

After a painfully short back-lot tour, we were dropped off at a exhibit featuring some of the movies greatest villains. There were various costumes and props on display, but for the Star Wars geek, these were the coolest!

Vadar costume and a Tie-Fighter model


And part of the Death Star surface molding. Very, very cool!!

By this time I still had about an hour until my Lunch reservations at The Sci-Fi Diner, so I did some looking around and went on the "Sounds Dangerous" with Drew Carey show, which is just basically a sound demo/ film where you sit in a theater to watch a "pilot" where we follow undercover cop Drew Carey. Its like the recent version of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln where you get your hair cut and the such. It was a time killer but I was glad to see it – once.

Me and At-At - keeping the Star Wars theme.


Nice touch!

Mickey’s Hand prints at the Chinese Theater - oddly done on my 19th birthday!!

A visit with Mike and Sully.

The meet and greet with the Monsters Inc. guys was so well planed. There was a door with the logo that would open and the characters would be there and there was a roped line with instructions posted on the M&G. AND a CM dedicated to keeping everyone informed. There was no chaos, no screaming kids or parents shoving their kids in front of you. It was a nice thing to see. Plus the "Mike" was just a total schmuck. After the picture, he walked away and started pushing around the cameraman.

By now, I was hungry and it was time for my lunch reservation at the Sci Fi Diner! I was surprised the outside was just a simple "sound stage" but I guess it was in keeping with the studio theme. I was seated in the backseat of a car and the atmosphere of the restaurant was wonderful. Big screen showing trailers and short subjects. They even had a section from one of the Walt Disney episodes featuring the Aliens that live among us cartoon. I just had the typical Cheeseburger, which was good and ended with a Sundae. It was very "diner."

Alone in the back seat again!!

After, I went on The Great Movie Ride again, and caught some video of the Wizard of Oz segment. Naturally, not my favorite film at all, but it was the best scene in this ride. Plus I had heard that the Wicked Witch was one of the best AA’s around.

This is a link to the video.

Next was Tower of Terror, using my fastpass and then got another fastpass for Rockin Rollarcoaster! The Beauty and the Beast stage show was up next and I was a bit weary because of the previous trip to the Studio to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which was disappointing. This show was terrible. I got in to the Theater and found a pretty good seat down front about 10 rows back from the stage on the end. A great view. Although it was nice to see the walk about characters and the dancing and music, this was barely a clif-notes version of the film. The major big scene of the film, the ballroom scene isn’t in the show at all and the rest were just very brief songs, with Be Our Guest being the big number, which wasn’t very "big" at all. Now I’m not stage/ Theater critic, but with the Aladdin show at DCA and even the really terrible Snow White show at DL, this was total garbage. Yes, there’s only so much time, its aimed at kids etc. I was just floored at how bad this was.

The Animation Courtyard area with the Magic of Animation was next. I understand in its glory days, this was the heart of the park and I could tell that its just been glossed over with some props, a store, some drawing and some character M&G. I can imagine it was really wonderful at one time and it’s all to sad to not be able to ever see that.

Rats in the Animation Building!

The Light’s, Motor Action stunt show was next. Wholly Cow was this a humongous outdoor venue. The view stands was like something you’d see at a real raceway and I got to walk all the way up to almost the top of the venue. The show was neat but nothing more than what you’d expect from a stunt show. Lots of dead time where they set things up and they have "directors" explaining what they’re doing. Plus there’s a big screen so you can see things fairly up close and they go into some detail about the cars they use. That was pretty fascinating.

Out come’s Herbie who splits after a bit.

They set a guy on fire!

It was a fun show and the finale was full of explosions and cars flying everywhere. It was quite a spectacle.

After waiting to exit and seeing everyone spilling out into the park from the stunt show, I made my way to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Coaster - which broke down just as I was next to get onto the ride. There was a lot of running around by the CM’s and some people in suits ordering them around. They cleared the ride and gave everyone passes to come back to the ride when it was "fixed." I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to ride it again, as the day wore on, I had to meet the group for the Fantasmic buffet and show. I had some time to take some pictures before the meet up.

Coming soon to DCA! I wondered if anyone knew what this place was?

The group met for the Fantasmic Buffet and we were taken backstage by our own personal CM (With lightsabre flashlight) to the private viewing area in the back of the Theater. We entered back behind Tower of Terror - "No pictures please" we were told - so it was interesting to see the back area I guess. Nothing too amazing.

The "Private" area was just a platform behind a railing that sat right next to the control booth. It was just high enough to see over the heads of the people sitting in the stands. The food was a pretty nice spread with Chicken and Beef skewers, Sesame Chicken, various cheese and bread, fruit and sodas. The show started and we all lined the railing. Now, I’d see the show on YouTube so I knew what to expect. There are things I really liked about it, but for the most part the Disneyland version is superior in many ways. The layout of the stage was awesome, I like having the Sorcerer Mickey on top of the rock and I loved the water fountains. The Aladdin and Lion King scenes were nice - especially the animals of the Lion King. On the bad side, Pochahantas goes on forever - the bubbles go on forever - the Peter Pan segment is sorrily missed and is the spectacular Mark Twain ending. I do understand the cartoony boat at the end and it has some impact on the show, but it reminded me of a milk carton floating downstream.

My one good picture of the show.

Still, it had most of the heart of what I love about Fantasmic and that got me thru it.

The park was closed now and I limped my way back to the hotel thanks to a ride from Rixter and MickeyMax. My feet were raw by now and I still had a whole day at EPCOT and the evenings event at Pleasure Island!

To be continued...

Next - Pleasure Island, Mannequin Dance Club and the Adventurers Club!

Keep up the excellent updates Mark It reminds me of lots of good stuff, I might even post my own one day :rolleyes:

(and I'm capturing video as fast as I can)

This has been a great report so far, more please!
Really, it makes me want to go to WDW, soon!