5 weeks in the sun

Today was a long day. Got up at 7am and got a shuttle bus to Universal Studios, arriving at about 8:45. There are two Universal parks in Orlando - Universal Studios is the park with all the movie attractions like Back To The Future, Terminator 3D, Shrek 4D, Men In Black, Twister, Earthquake, etc. and Islands Of Adventure has all the white knuckle rides like Jurassic Park, Dueling Dragons and The Hulk rollercoaster.

You could easily spend a whole day at each park but I got a ticket that covered both and paid extra for an express pass to make sure I could get around all the rides I wanted. For an express pass you pay an extra $25 and you can skip the queue once for each ride. If you ever go to Universal Studios then I highly recommend you get one. There are a limited number available and are usually sold out by 10am so get in there quick.

I had already seen a lot of attractions in Universal Studios in LA so I started off in Islands Of Adventure. First up was the Marvel Superhero Island and The Hulk Coaster. It's a rollercoaster that starts off fast and gets faster. Instead of slowly ascending to the peak of the first drop, you're shot out and up the steep incline so you're already travelling fast as you come into your first drop, which immediately twists you upside down. It's a very fast coaster.
Doctor Doom's Fearfall was another ride for re-arranging internal organs where you're shot straight up and then dropped again.

Next up was probably the best ride in the entire park. I loved the coasters and water rides but I've been on those before. Most theme parks have them. I've never seen anything like Spiderman before. It's a combination of Terminator 3D, Back To The Future and Men In Black (the rides, not the films). You feel like you're swinging through the city rooftops, you feel you're being chased by The Green Goblin, you see Spiderman land on the front of your car. The 3D effects are so good that the people in the seats in front of me were ducking when Dr. Octopus was shooting at them. If you only go on a single ride then make it this one. If you get to go on two then go on this one twice.

After that I got soaked on Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges. I don't mean wet, I mean completely soaked through. I figured that since I was wet anyway, I may as well just go again and after a second go I moved onto the Jurassic Park island. I knew that I'd be getting wet on the Jurassic Park River Adventure so that came next. I've been on this one a few times before (long story) but I still love it.

The last rollercoaster was Dueling Dragons. It's actually two rollercoaster that intertwine with each other, like two dueling dragons. At a point in the queue you decide whether to turn left to the red dragon or right to the blue dragon and then take your seat on the inverted car that's suspended from above so your feat dangle. At speeds of up to 55mph, they're fast and at some points they come within a few feet of each other so when you're riding it you can see the other coaster whip past. A very impressive ride.

The Eighth Voyage Of Sinbad is a stunt show that runs a couple of times a day. It was good, but not nearly as good as the Waterworld show that runs at Universal Studios in LA. Some pretend fighting and a little pyrotechnics glazed over with comedy can't compete with jet skis, aeroplanes and a lot of pyrotechnics. The stage was also too dark to take any photos.

The last attraction was Poseidon's Fury. It's more like one of the Studios attractions where you move from room to room in a group and a story is played out by some actors aided by special effects. I suppose it was pretty good but the most impressive thing was the set outside the attraction. See photos below.

Seuss Landing was the final island but was primarily targeted at kids so with a whole other park waiting I moved on to Universal Studios.

The Studios park contains attractions, as opposed to rides. They're very tame in comparison but no less entertaining. Shrek 4D is one of their newest attractions but is only a re-badged Terminator 3D. You get 3D glasses on the way in and after a long introduction you sit in a cinema theatre and watch the 15 minute 3D animation that is set immediately after the original film. The 4D comes in a few times through the feature where you feel a spray of water or a brush of air at the right moment to give you a little extra sense of immersion.

Men In Black was a very disappointing ride. It had one of the longest queues of any ride in the park and I'm certainly glad I didn't have to waste any time in it. Essentially, it was simply a ghost train like ride with aliens and you had to shoot them with a little gun that registered your score.

Back To The Future is another ride I've been on quite a few times but it's a favourite.

Twister is like the Backdraft attraction in LA. You move from room to room while watching introductions by actors from the film and then finish up standing and watching some live special effects. Earthquake was similar and although it looks dated now, it's still one of the most famous rides in Universal Studios with it's falling ceiling and oil tanker stunt.

There were a few other rides and attractions throughout the day but by now it was 8pm and all I'd had to eat was three bananas so I thought I should probably get something nutritional. Then I saw a Churro and Pretzel stand and the 'nutritional' idea went out the window. A Churro is a Mexican food made from dough and coated with sugar and cinnamon. I discovered they don't go well with pretzels, which are very salty.

During February and March, Universal have a Mardi Gras every Saturday night. There were a few bands on a stage all day and at 9pm the parade started. The floats would have been impressive in any other setting but when you're walking around looking at the top of restaurants being held up by three story high Greek gods, it takes a lot to impress. All the floats had rolled past by 9:30 and it was time for the main attraction on the stage. The Black Eyed Peas.

I couldn't believe it when I found out that they were playing this weekend. Last weekend was Sean Paul and next weekend is Donna Summer so I think I got lucky. I've been waiting for ages to get a chance to see them and now I got to see them for free! Unfortunately the crowd was a bit lifeless but they put on a great show.

The parks closed after the concert and everyone moved to City Walk, the area between the two parks that houses all sorts of shops, restaurants, bars, and night clubs, including Hard Rock Orlando. I got a vanilla latte in Starbucks and decided to go see Dawn Of The Dead in the 20 screen cinema. The theatre was full, something that must have been repeated throughout the country since the film reached No. 1 on its opening weekend. I was worried about the remake after the disaster that was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That film lost everything that made the original so good. However, I'm delighted to have finally seen a film here that I've really enjoyed. It managed to retain everything that was great about Romero's 1978 film, the tone, the atmosphere, even some of the dialog and especially the generic, non-descript mall background music. Another great Zombie movie to add to the collection.

I got back to the hotel at about 2:30, watched the second half of a Mutant X episode and went to bed 20 hours after getting up.

I'm spending this weekend in Orlando. It's about 250 miles away and Map Quest's overly optimistic estimation of a 3.5 hour drive was actually a 5.5 hour drive, which is more like what I expected it to be.

Instead of taking the I-75 north and the I-4 east we decided to follow directions someone gave us and take a diagonal route through the state. The roads were smaller and we had to drive through a few towns, which provided a little more mental stimulation than the interstate. We passed through miles of orange groves on the way and the air smelled like sun-cream. I'd like to think it was all natural but it was probably the smell of chemical pesticides.

The Quality Inn on International Drive was relatively cheap but we got what we paid for. It's no big deal since I don't intend on spending much time here. I only have Saturday to do as much as I can so it will be a long day.

We stopped to get fuel and a snack in a filling station on the way and I saw this amazing mural on a wall of a nearby restaurant.

Went to see Starsky & Hutch today. I can't say I was a huge fan of the original series but I did like it and have seen quite a few episodes. However, this film has as much to do with the series as Undercover Brother does. The film was just a parody of 70s shows and the only link with the series was the names of the characters, the car and the unfortunate cameo by the original actors at the end of the film. Nobody would want to see a film remake of The Munsters if it was written as a horror. Why would we want to see Starsky & Hutch written as a comedy?

As far as 70s parodies go, it was funny in places and I wouldn't call it a terrible film but it could have been so much better. In fact, I'd say that Undercover Brother was funnier. The film had no plot worth paying attention to so the only thing it had going for it was the comedy and making fun of the 70s wore thin very quickly. Another tragic mess from the Hollywood production line.

We went back to 5th Avenue South this evening. We figured that if anywhere was going to be celebrating St Patrick's Day in this place it would be in the Irish bars. When we got there we were surprised to see the place mobbed with people. Both bars were full to capacity and people had taken over the street outside. There were Irish flags flying, people with painted faces, people wearing silly Irish hats, people drinking green beer, people drinking beer with a green light in it.

Obviously places like New York and Boston like to celebrate St Patrick's Day but we didn't think there'd be much of a fuss made down here.

Went to see Eurotrip today. The film has a couple of funny moments but overall it was pretty bad. Ordinarily I'd recommend you give it a miss but for three reasons - Lucy Lawless, Kristin Kreuk and Michelle Trachtenberg. In fact, Lucy's cameo is the only reason I went to see it. I'd forgotten that Michelle was in it and didn't know Kristin was in it at all. It's good seeing Lucy and Kristen play characters quite different to what they're known for but Michelle was only playing a slightly older Dawn. I suppose there's no point in picking apart her performance. She did the best she could with what she had to work with.

If you're a Lucy, Kristin or Michelle fan then you might like seeing them on the big screen. They couldn't save the film but they did make it a lot easier to watch.

Nothing much to report today. Went to Publix (supermarket chain) after work and bought a 2 litre carton of reduced fat milk. Nothing strange other than the fact that it has a best before date of March 31st, over two weeks from the date of purchase! What do they put in this stuff? Maybe they have really fresh cows over here, or super-fresh grass for them to eat. Or maybe they just put more chemicals in the milk than cow juice.

Today we chartered a boat and went deep sea fishing. The Lady Brett 45 took us out into the gulf to fish for grouper, snapper, king fish and cobia. The outbound journey took an hour and fifteen minutes, mostly because there are heavy speed restrictions in the bay area because of the endangered manatee. The entire Gulf Of Mexico is shallow, which is why the water stays so warm, so even though we were twelve miles off the coast we were fishing in only forty feet of water.

You must have a license to fish here (included in the price of the charter) and there are strict laws about how many fish you're allowed to catch as well as the size of the fish you're allowed to keep. We all caught a few small fish and I got a couple of big grouper but they were only 18 inches long and had to be 20 before I could keep them. We had intended to keep what we could and cook it back at the hotel but we came back with nothing so had to settle for a seafood restaurant by the pier.

Overall it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. The trip ran from 1:00 to 5:30 but 2.5 hours of that was travelling, which left only two hours for fishing. It was also a bit strange that the people running the boat didn't want us baiting the hooks or taking the fish off ourselves. They did everything for us. All we had to do was dangle the hook in the water. I don't know if they're used to idiots who don't know how to unhook a fish or if they were worried about us hooking ourselves and suing them. It is the US after all.

The best part of the day was the pelicans and seeing some dolphins on the way out to sea and again on the way back. We also got a great view of how the rich people live. I didn't bother taking any photos of the fish as we had precious little fishing time as it was.