Florida Part Eleven: Legoland

[Gavin]

Re: Florida Part Nine: Universal Studios

^ There's a Kwikemart gift shop with some tacky plastic figures in front of it. It's dreadful.

I chose "I Will Survive" for the first ride, which cut off halfway through. I can't remember what I chose for the second ride. I want to say Eminem, but honestly don't remember.

 

[Gavin]

Re: Florida Part Nine: Universal Studios

Day 10: Busch Gardens

I’d booked a free shuttle bus to the park from right next to my hotel, which seems a bit pointless since they don’t actually bother checking for reservations, names etc. and just sent a second bus after the first one filled up. It got me to the park just after opening, and I contemplated buying a fast pass thing since I wouldn’t get quite as long here as in previous parks. The woman behind the counter said not to bother though, and she was right. Most other parks would have just taken the money anyway.

I ended up having to wait 10 minutes for my first ride on Cheetah Hunt since I went straight there first, as a lot of others did, but literally every other ride, including rerides on Chunt, was walk-on after that.

I’d never really thought much of it from pictures and POVs, but I actually really liked it. It’s a decent length, is well-paced, feels pretty fast in sections and actually has some decent airtime which I wasn’t expecting. I’d also completely forgotten that there was an inversion as well. It’s a really decent coaster overall, and very rerideable.

Next up was Montu, which is a pain in the arse to get pictures of really. Again, an excellent coaster and up there with my favourite inverts now. However, I didn’t find the Egyptian theming to be quite as impressive as a lot of other people seem to. It’s basically just around the entrance area and then the ride itself is pretty much just a mess of track.

It’s a great ride though, and a total lack of queue made it easy to get a few rides in, though it’s not exactly something you can whore.

More cheetah stuff:

Then it was through to the Pantopia area with Falcon’s Fury, the new, tilting gyro drop tower.

It looks intimidating, but it’s not actually all that good. You get the same nervousness/anticipation on the climb as usual – and it is very high – and the tilting seats at the top are a definite WTF moment. However, because of the seating position, the actual drop doesn’t feel as good/strong as a normal drop tower, where you get that airtime and a real sense of falling. This, despite facing the ground, doesn’t give that same falling feeling as a regular tower. I liked it enough, and it was quiet enough, to ride a few times, but I don’t think it’s a ride I’d spend a lot of time waiting for.

Scorpion was ok, but not really worth more than a couple of rides.

The wild mouse was clearly a +1.

The rapids were closed. Good, because I would’ve felt inclined to ride them and no doubt, like so many USA rapids, they would’ve been more wet than actually fun. People are morons about rapids. “I got soaked; the rapids were great!” No, sorry. They need more than that.

Kumba was a ride that I’d been looking forward to for ages, seeing as it’s the closest thing there is to Dragon Khan, which I loved. It didn’t disappoint either. It was forceful, but surprisingly still pretty reridable. I’d need to reride Khan again to make a fair comparison, but I don’t think there’s a lot in them. They’re both better than Wildfire at any rate, which is the only other B&M regular looper that I’ve done. The way it’s shoved off in a corner is a bit of a pain though. You’ve got to make a real effort to bother going back to it if you want to reride later since you’re never going to just be passing.

I looked at some animals and stuff, but didn’t do the train ride as that was the only thing that had a queue the whole day and I basically kept mistiming it. I went through all of the various animal paths/enclosures, but to be honest there was nothing there that you can’t find at any other semi-decent zoo. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice and they had a decent enough variety, but, like Animal Kingdom, the collection was made up of very generic species.

Sheikra was annoying. It broke down right as I was about to get on. After waiting in the station for almost half an hour, they started evacuating the riders from the brake run, so that was that. It reopened a couple of hours later, so I got a two back-to-back rides in then, but then the same thing happened and it didn’t reopen again for the rest of the day.

I’m glad I got the cred obviously, but the down time was annoying as I probably would’ve whored it a bit. From what I can tell, it’s basically the same as the one at Chimelong Paradise anyway, though maybe a bit smoother, so it’s not as if I haven’t ridden the s**t out of the same thing already.

Another +1:

I missed Gwazi – well, the one side that was still open – by around a week. Annoying really as not only is it a cred, but I actually like to try out the infamously crap coasters to see if they’re as bad as everyone makes out.

I have next to no recollection of this show now other than remembering there was a really, really f**king annoying brat in it. If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have watched it. I f**king HATE arrogant, stage-school, douche-cock ten-year-olds in shows. It’s why I’ll never go and see The Lion King again.

Let’s finish on more positive note:

I liked this park, but not as much as I was expecting to. On paper, it’s fantastic, with 4 world-class coasters including 3 B&Ms, a lot of decent filler rides, decent theming and plenty of animals. It’s probably down to the fact that it was so quiet though. It was great that I could get so many rides in without having to wait for anything – it was literally straight onto trains for the most part without even having to wait in the station - but the practically empty park meant that there wasn’t much of an atmosphere. I’m glad it was quiet, but a few more people around – say, enough to at least need to wait for a train or two before riding – would have helped to create a bit of a buzz around the place which I felt was really lacking.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Re: Florida Part Ten: Busch Gardens

Brilliant report!
You're spot on about the show, I've never heard/seen a more annoying child!
Montu can so be whored :wink:

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Re: Florida Part Ten: Busch Gardens

I wonder why it always seems so dead. We had the exact same "problem" when we went, although I put that down to the storm that came. I loved the park though, and I'm surprised it didn't live up to your expectations. I would've liked to try the rapids, too. Roman Rapids were pretty good at BGW, so I'm sure these would be no different.

Spite about Gwazi. I got spited by Sand Serpent <\3

 

[Gavin]

Re: Florida Part Ten: Busch Gardens

^It's not that it didn't live up to expectations. In terms of ride selection, it absolutely surpassed them. Like I said, the four main coasters are excellent and they've got a bunch of decent filler as well. It's definitely up there with "best parks" in that respect. I think it was just lacking in atmosphere a bit after going there straight after the two Universal parks. I'm just being picky though, and shouldn't really complain that I could whore a park like that.

Day 11: Legoland

This place really wasn’t on the cards at first, but I had a full day left, had done all the other parks and needed to fill the time really, so I booked an online ticket at the bargain price of just over $80, plus $5 for the shuttle bus. The bus leaves from the new Merlin area on International Drive, despite none of those things being open at that time. Still, easy enough at just a ten-minute walk from the hotel.

I was mostly in two minds because there’s only one bus in and out of the park, meaning you’re trapped there all day if you’re not driving, which has happened to me at the Malaysia park and was so bloody bored. This place was closing at 5 though, so I figured it shouldn’t be too bad.

I’m not going to dignify this place with much of an in depth report because it’s f**king dreadful on every conceivable level.

I did the flying island first, one of many rides that were already here before Merlin took over. It was great, with amazing views over some construction. The best part was the spiel from the clearly uncomfortable ride-op advertising the new hotel. This would be a common theme throughout the day.

The park is actually bigger than I thought, and from that height seemed like it might be quite nice.

The 4D Theatre was gash. The first film had something wrong with the projectors, meaning that the 3D wasn’t working. It was just a blurry mess with or without the glasses. The staff said they’d call someone to fix it, but when I went back later for a different film, they’d done **** all and there was still the same problem. Why didn’t they just close it down?

One of the main reasons I bothered with this place is because of the woodie, Coastersaurus, again an inherited ride. I knew it was just a kiddie woodie, but it’s by far the worst kiddie woodie I’ve done. It was just soooooooo dull and basically did f**k all.

As at most (all?) of the other parks they had a “Dragon” coaster. I actually really liked the one in Malaysia, but this one was crap. Again, it was already here; they just gave it a bit of a retheme.

The map showed what looked to be a decent water ride. Again, Malaysia’s water ride was actually pretty decent, but this one was just a f**king splash battle, which I didn’t do as everyone was coming off drenched.

Same old s**te as at the other parks; such a piss-poor excuse for a dark ride/shooter:

There was a vintage car/safari ride which I didn’t do as you could see the whole thing from offride anyway.

This was probably the only time in my, or anyone’s, life that I would’ve given my left nut to be in Stoke or Luton.

The only coaster that didn’t come with the park was this piece of crap, which they’d relocated from Windsor:

They had a couple of shows. This is what Merlin thinks is acceptable for a show in a Florida theme park:

The auditorium was stunning:

Another inherited ride, which, like the rest of them, wasn’t up to much:

The other show had the potential to be ok. They’ve clearly taken on an existing water ski show as the seating areas were clearly pretty old. I don’t know what it was like before, but it’s f**king s**t now.

The nicest area was the old Cypress Gardens. Apparently it’s actually still owned by the local government, so f**k knows why you have to pay Merlin to get access to it.

America’s idea of “historic” really does make me laugh.

Steeped in history right there.

Miniland was ok for what it is: a bunch of elaborate Lego models.

Missing the cred:

This thing had a countdown, making it seem like it was going to do something impressive. The people standing around waiting were less than impressed when a little damp fart of smoke came out the bottom for a few seconds.

It’s annoying to finish this report on an otherwise great trip on such an absolutely s**t park. It’s actually embarrassing that Merlin have had the downright audacity to do such a crappy job of rebranding an already existing park, and to then have the f**king nerve to basically charge Disney/Universal prices for it. The quality is appalling. The rides are pretty much all pre-existing and/or relocated from their other parks, and the whole place is shabby.

Before anyone starts, I’m FAR from anti-Merlin, but this park was just shameful. If they want to enter the Florida theme park market, they’ve gone the wrong way about it. You just can’t get away with old, piss-poor rides, shows, theming and atmosphere and then tell people, based on your pricing, that you’re equal to Disney. Just no.

On the whole though, this was a great trip. I’d pretty much been putting off Orlando because I’m so f**king sick of hearing about the place, and I usually try to combine park and culture trips, so to spend this long just doing parks in an otherwise craphole city isn’t something I’d normally go for. Having said that, it definitely deserves its reputation as the top theme park destination in the world.

It’ll be a few years – and a few major additions – before I’d head back, but I’ve definitely got an appreciation for the place that I didn’t have before, though I still can’t see the appeal of going over and over and over. That’s just me though; I prefer to try and new places over revisiting places I’ve already done.

So, there you have it. It’ll be back to reporting on Chinese s**tholes for a while now!

 

[Jordanovichy]

I agree pretty much totally with your Legoland opinions you'll be over the Moon to hear.

It's pretty ****. The only other Legoland I've been to is Windsor which is much better in comparison. I didn't mind the Florida version while I was there but I realised later it was a pile of w**k, and the smell in the place, ugh all that awful stagnant water, vile.

It’ll be a few years – and a few major additions – before I’d head back, but I’ve definitely got an appreciation for the place that I didn’t have before, though I still can’t see the appeal of going over and over and over. That’s just me though; I prefer to try and new places over revisiting places I’ve already done.

I loved Florida, as you'll know from reading all of my lengthy report but basically what you said. There's so much more out there, I know you're much more experienced in theme parks than I am, so I especially feel that there is so much more to see out there than to return to Florida year after year, even with their couple of pretty decent additions next year (the hyper and polercoaster)...plus culture <3, Florida obviously severely lacks in that.

I'm not getting at people who go with families obviously because it is a great family destination whereas lengthy road trips through the States aren't necessarily the best thing to do!

Loved this report Gavin, looking forward to the usual Asian **** to return :lol:

 

[peep]

Finally got round to reading the rest of this report. Fantastic stuff Gavin and most of your ride comments fall in line with how I feel. Love T2:3D though, will actually cry if they remove that. Does usually have smoke, must have just not been pumped out in your screening.

Simpsons is dreadful though, a really awful attraction. California just added the Springfield area though and it looks even better than what they added in Florida.

I'd never pay that much for any Legoland, let alone the one in Florida, so grotesque.

You might be happy to hear that Osaka's harry potter and the forbidden journey is in 3D (or so I've been led to believe). I can't see that working myself.

Still, great report.