This year, Universal had 18 food/drink booths, and SeaWorld had 28. It was quite the challenge to visit each one and take photos. Hopefully, I didn’t miss any this year… I hope to share some articles comparing the two different food events. We enjoyed both of them far better than we did the last time we went to EPCOT Food & Wine. As someone who grew up a Disneyland/Disney World kid since the 1970s, I never thought I’d say that!
We also got to visit the re-opened Mel’s Drive In on its first day open to the public (Tuesday, February 27, 2024). I had never eaten there, so it was a good excuse to try it out and get some new photos.
I also captured some more raw footage with my VR360 camera which I will share to my YouTube channel at some point.
Another upcoming project is to create a detailed page about the annual pass and how much it can save, even if you are an out-of-state visitor like I am. If you stay on site at a Universal hotel, you can save even more with pass discounts on rooms (sometimes; only a few trips have ever had them available–usually it’s just “Seasonal Rate”). For example, after several three-night hotel stays over the course of the year with the pass, the savings are more than what two Premium (most expensive) Universal APs cost! I have spreadsheets going back several years documenting the savings…
I don’t like to brag, but literally dozens of folks visit this site every year. They tend to come here mostly via web searches for specific topics. For 2023, here were the most-viewed articles on this site:
Here is what those articles are about, in case you wanted to check them out in 2024…
“It seems like only yesterday” that Disneyland had announced plans to open a third theme park — all during the time when Disney’s California Adventure was still under construction. They set up a teaser website which gave us a look at what the re-development of the area around Disneyland could look like. It also mentioned some of the types of attractions that could be added to the third park.
With recent talk of “Disneyland Forward,” this probably explains the interest in this post about something from over 20 years ago.
I grew up in the 1970s visiting Disneyland and Walt Disney World with my family. Although I had visited Universal Studios Florida as a teenage (during its first year or so of being open), most of our time was spent at Disney. I only visited Universal a few times until I got my first Universal annual pass a few years ago. I also had never stayed at an on-site resort hotel anywhere (well, I did stay at the Hersheypark Lodge once) until Universal.
My lack of experience with the park had me completely unaware that there was a beautiful walking path that connected all the hotels except Surfside/Dockside to Citywalk. I recall seeing them and trying to find information about them after a trip. Since I did not know the name “Garden Walk,” I could find nothing. After learning the game, I could find tons of videos and references to them…but no maps.
So I made a map. The map has layers that can be turned on showing locations of the water taxi docks, the walking paths, security checkpoints and such. It’s surprising how walking from a resort to the front of a theme park via Garden Walk can be LESS WALKING that walking to the bus stop and taking the bus where it drops you off at the far end of CityWalk.
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, this one goes back to things my father was told during visits to Walt Disney World in the 1970s — back when the only theme park there was Magic Kingdom. He had heard they build the Contemporary Resort to have a casino… A casino associated with Disney was quite a shocking idea back then, but in recent years, the topic actually has come up about Disney having casinos.
Well, I never thought we’d see alcohol at Disneyland or Magic Kingdom, or beer kegs at ice cream carts, so who knows. Modern Disney is very different.
I bought my first digital camera in 1996, and began taking pictures at theme and amusement parks. I visited Universal Studios Florida the year before Islands of Adventure opened, and then the first year the new park opened. I have a few photos taken at the preview center that was were the New York tribute store and Mummy lockers are today.
I suspect interest in the upcoming (hopefully) Epic Universe tribute store is why this article has been getting views.
There was a time when FastPass was new. There is alot of conflicting information on when and where it started, but this was the first time I got to use it.
I was practicing click-bait. Discussions come up from time to time about how folks swear the original song had the word “rape” in it. Until the modern internet, where lyrics and downloadable songs became a thing, I too had memories of that word being in the song and how out-of-place it seemed.
But history shows this was never the case.
But there have been times when the song was presented in edited form 😉 Click the bait to find out more.
Although I had visited Disneyland in the 1970s — I remember being there before Space Mountain and before Big Thunder Mountain — I did not start going as an adult until 1995. By 1996, I was visiting with a digital camera. I put together some of the photos of what the park was like before Disney’s California Adventure was announced and construction began.
I remember when “Interview with the Vampire” came out and folks familiar with the source books were upset that the vampire Lestat was cast by an actor that did not at all resemble the description of the character from the books. Folks like me who had never read the books did not notice or care.
But Universal Epic Universe information was released the other day and I found it interesting that the Monster of Frankenstein’s creator has been gender flipped in the new park version – Victoria Frankenstein. I doubt that many have actually read the original Mary Shelley book (I certainly haven’t), but the story is so iconic that I think the name “Victor Frankenstein” is pretty well-known. I wonder if their story will be a sequel of some sort with Victoria being his daughter or a relative.
Victoria Frankenstein is not new – she has appeared before in remakes:
The 2007 film Frankenstein introduces Victoria Frankenstein. Instead of making the creature out of corpses, she uses stem cells, intending to use her experiment to save her dying son. The experiment goes wrong, however, and the creature escapes. When Frankenstein catches up with the monster, she comes to love it because it is her only remaining link to her son who has since died.
…
A 2014 ongoing web seriesFrankenstein, MD, created by PBS Digital Studios and Pemberley Digital, focuses on Victoria Frankenstein, a medical student determined to prove herself in her field. This series gender-swaps several characters – Elizabeth becomes Eli Lavenza and Henry becomes Rory Clerval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Frankenstein
…though the Frankenstein movie from 2007 does not appear to be a Universal Studios release and I do not know if PBS has any connection to Universal for their web series. At least they aren’t the first to do it.
Press release mentioning Victoria may be found here:
