Over 44,000 Universal Studios/SeaWorld Orlando photos…

As of today, March 6th 2024, my Universal Studios-SeaWorld photo gallery now has over 44,000 photos. The most recent ones include SeaWorld’s Seven Seas Food Festival and Universal Studios Florida’s Mardi Gras.

http://us-sw.disneyfans.com

New to the gallery are photos from Universal’s Endless Summer Surfside hotel – one of the two “value” hotels over there. The gallery now includes photos from many of the resorts – Dockside, Surfside, Cabana Bay, Aventura, Sapphire Falls, Hard Rock Hotel.

I did visit Jake’s at Royal Pacific (the first time I ever explored the Water Taxi’s) but I do not know where I would have sorted those photos. I also remember having a drink on a rainy day at some outside bar at Hard Rock Hotel, and walking around Portofino Bay one morning, but I cannot find any photos to back that up.

Needless to say, sorting and organizing these galleries is an ongoing project here.

More to come…

More DisneyFans photos on YouTube…

Today, Poseidon Entertainment posted a new YouTube video called “Even More Weird Things in Disneyland.” It’s a fun watch — but be sure to watch the first installment as well.

It’s always a surprise to see one of my photos pop up in videos like this (along with some from Yesterland), though it is a bit annoying they do not ask for permission. They even crop off the watermarks! At least Poseidon Entertainment does add it’s own credit (“Source: Allen Huffman”) when they “borrow” other folks images 😉

Check it out…

I think the image may have been taken from this Yesterland article:

https://yesterland.com/sbwalkthru.html

Request: If you run in to one of my photos in a video, please send me the link and I’ll post it here, too.

I’ve been taking and sharing digital photos since 1996, and do not recall ever turning someone down who wanted to use one of my photos. I can provide the original, full-size version without the watermark, as well, and can even enhance my old photos so they look much better.

SeaWorld and Howl-O-Scream photos coming…

I have now sorted the latest SeaWord Orlandos enough that they are ready to share. This batch includes a daytime visit to the park when family Halloween festivities were going on, and an evening/night visit to Howl-O-Scream. This will bring the total Universal-SeaWorld photo gallery to over 38,000 images.

It will take a few days to get everything processed and uploaded, but when complete, they will appear here:

http://us-sw.disneyfans.com

More to come…

Over 3600 new Orlando Halloween photos coming soon…

Photos from this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida and Howl-O-Scream at SeaWorld Orlando will be added to the gallery in coming weeks. We were able to visit all ten haunted houses, the scare zones, and the one (!) show at Universal, and also all five haunted houses, the scare zones and three (!) of the four shows at SeaWorld Orlando.

While Universal’s offerings had zero scares (the only time we heard anyone scream all night was from a chainsaw in a scare zone), they sure were amazing walk through theatrical experiences.

SeaWorld, however, actually had real haunted houses — letting in groups rather than a large conga line. The groups were too big so most scares were spoiled, but we were certainly startled many times during that four hour event (mostly in the scare zones).

Over at my Des Moines Haunted Houses website project, folks there know I scream like a little girl and am a pretty easy target. Seeing these two big theme park haunts be so tame was a surprise — especially with the reputation of HHN being one of the biggest haunt events in the nation.

More to come, and much more to say…

Huge photo gallery update

The Theme Parks gallery has been updated with a batch of photos from Lost Island Themepark in Iowa:

http://themeparks.disneyfans.com

The Other Places gallery has also received a huge update, adding photos taken as far back as 2015 from events and places in Iowa, Texas, Illinois and more.

http://misc.disneyfans.com

These include:

  • Amana Colonies – including Wurst Fest 2023
  • Living History Farms – including Christmas
  • Jolly Holiday Lights
  • Blank Park Zoo “Wild Lights” Asian lantern festival
  • Trek Fest in Riverside, Iowa
  • Texas Pinball Festival
  • Galloping Ghosts Arcade near Chicago
  • Pella Tulip Time
  • …and probably more.

There are still dozens of galleries to be sorted and added, but this is at least progress.

Universal and SeaWorld to get their own photo section

When I got my first digital camera in 1996, I never could have imagined there would be a time when I’d be updating photo galleries with over 150,000 photos in them. Initially, all my theme park photos were able to fit in one master “DisneyFans Photos” gallery. Today, the number of files in that gallery far exceed what my web host account can allow. Because of that, I had to split the gallery up in to multiple accounts – Disneyland, Disney World and non-Disney Theme Parks.

Due to how much time it takes to update the non-Disney gallery each time I return from Universal and SeaWorld (due to having to go through all the other theme park photos), I am finally going to split off Universal Studios (Hollywood and Orlando) and SeaWorld in to their own sub-gallery.

This will group photos as follows:

  • Disneyland
  • Walt Disney World
  • Universal Studios & SeaWorld
  • …other Theme Parks

I am in the process up creating the new US/SW gallery (over 31,000 photos just from those parks) and will begin uploading it later tonight. I will then redo the Theme Parks gallery to remove Universal and SeaWorld. Hopefully folks will find them at their new location.

As one of the longest running theme park sites on the Internet (from my pre-domain days back in 1996, to the DisneyFans.com days and now this site), I hate to make big changes like this. Apologies in advance for the links that will be broken…

More updates soon…

Universal Mardi Gras and Disney World photos coming soon…

Over 4200 new photos will be added to the gallery in coming weeks. They include photos along the Disney World Skyliner route (the resorts and area with stations), a half day visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and a trip to Universal Orlando for this year’s Mardi Gras event.

We also visited the Universal Great Escape Back to the Future experience, which was a cool technical achievement. Actually, the higher end bar there is worth a look if you partake in adult beverages.

Blog posts coming, as soon as things are caught up…

Theme Parks & Disney galleries updated

Some of the recently updated galleries still need more/better sorting, but the first pass has been uploaded. There are still some other galleries yet to be added, but I expect to get around to them next.

The most recent updates are to Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farms and Disneyland Resort. The Disneyland photos include Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and Pixar Pier, both of which were new to me. (Though we did see Pixar Pier under construction in an earlier visit.)

The Walt Disney World gallery will soon be regenerated to match the layout of the others.

I also have a batch of ultra-low-light photos to add taken inside queue areas for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Sleeping Beauty Castle. There also will be a batch taken inside Kockturn Alley, revealing many details you just cannot see with your eyes.

If you enjoy browsing this photographic “history” of the parks, you can drop a coin in the tip jar on your way out 😉

Photo library update status…

Work continues on generating new versions of the non-Disney Theme Parks photo gallery and the Disneyland Resort photo gallery. There have been updates to the JAlbum program I use for the gallery, so I expect I’ll be redoing the gallery again soon to make use of some new features.

Meanwhile, I have gotten back to updating my Trips page (formerly listed as “About” in the menu). By using dates found in photos I have taken, I am trying to come up with a list of all the dates I was at various parks. Who knows … maybe you were at one of those parks on one of those days and might be somewhere in one of those photos.

I also plan to try to remember all the various digital cameras I have owned since the original Epson PhotoPC I bought in 1996. Some I kept for years, and at least one I used only for one trip then got rid of due to its inability to take good pictures inside Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion 😉 Unfortunately, unless the camera model is stored in the JPG photos (which some cameras do), I don’t expect to be able to come up with a complete list.

For what it’s worth, my current camera is a Canon G5X. It’s an old, discontinued model, but still serves me well. I still have my previous Panasonic Lumix camera as well, due to sentimental reasons.

Thanks for dropping by …