It seems like more than a few board members have been to Orlando, so I thought it might be worthwhile to make a thread about it.
So, who's gone, and what are your thoughts?
1) Magic Kingdom - Ok to good. Around Christmas is really the best time to go to the park. Very short wait times for things like space mountain or splash mountain. Space mountain still kicks butt. Splash mountain is very odd for anyone actually from Mississippi. The Arcade around tomorrow land was good. It had some classic games and a few Japanese rarities like the Gradius rail shooter. Pirates of the Caribbean is weird now because the Jack robot looks like a real human being.
I was expecting it to be bigger.
2) Epcot - Good but to commercial. Things like the 360 vision were awesome, especially if you took into account that the technology came out in 82. 180/360 vision was awesome enough to make me think France and Canada do not suck. However, the fleecing of my pocket book got old. Each area of Epcot has two gift shops and two restaurants. One beer cost as much as a six pack. All of which has to be gone through before you get to the rides and films. Epcot loses many points for trying to hard to get my money. Shame on you Epcot.
3) Downtown Disney (shops only) - not very good. Downtown Disney had the largest Disney store I've ever seen. Despite that however, I couldn't find anything I wanted in it. If you wanted something with mickey, or the princesses you were set. However if you wanted anything with Scrooge on it, chip and dale, kim possible, the rescuers, NMBC, sleepy hollow, etc, etc, you were SOL. Very disappointing. I'd like to have had a shirt with scrooge on it counting his money. The other stores were forgetful.
EXCEPT the lego store. The lego store was fucking tight. It had huge lego statues, a wall of little lego men, and place to by parts separate and more lego kits than you can shake a stick at. hmmmm legos
I can't rate Pleasure island however, because I waited for cow to go and he never got back to me.
4) MGM/Disney studios - mild - There really isn't a lot to mgm. It has one or two good rides and a few interesting shows. It really isn't worth the entrance fee. Its two big thrill rides are rock'n roller coaster and the tower of terror. I didn't do the tower because I didn't have anyone to go with me, and rock'n roller coaster is really just space mountain on steroids. The downside to Rock'nroller coaster is that you have to listen to non "dream on" airosmith songs while you ride it. Very lackluster place.
My trip would have been better if I was a) 7-11 years old and had no concept of money b)I was rich and also had the park to myself and/or c)had a flask and some good friends with me and not my boring sisters.
In the end, the place made me kind of sad. It's not even the fakeness of the place. It is the fakeness + the money grubbing. They used to still show Walt on the Disney channel when I was little. They also used to whore WDW and universal nick studios out on their respective channels when I was growing up too. You couldn't watch either channel without many of the shows ending with "filmed at so and so studio." It was very disappointing to grow up with that image of the place, only to have it shattered by the grandest cash grab I've ever seen.
