Hoke’s Ramblings

Well, I must say, I have mixed feelings about the new Disney Studios park. I’ve always preferred Universal Studios to Disneyland, because it’s more in touch with the movie industry than just a garish theme park. Disney Studios is a feeble attempt to clone that.

The back-lot tram tour was quite uninspired, although I may be a bit biased in saying that, because one of the “hot set” features wasn’t working at the time (from the park map it looks like a lot of flames and water everywhere). A few of their “behind the scenes” things were rather lame, but there was good stuff to report, too.

The Armageddon Special Effects attraction was quite entertaining, and very well done. The poor little kid next to me was shrieking and bawling her eyes out while we were on MIR being obliterated by the asteroid.

The crowning feature of this park, however, is their stunt show, presented by Opel. It is utterly mind blowing, enthralling, hilarious and a whole bunch more adjectives I can’t put my finger on right now. It really puts the Waterworld stunt show at Universal to shame. A whole bunch of stunt shots for a “movie”, that just keep getting better and better, with some surprises along the way, including a cameo by a certain celebrity car (I know what you’re thinking, but no, not the one The Hoff drove in the 80’s!)

I got through the main attractions in about three hours, so I’m very glad I happened to go at a time when they were having a park-hopping special (Access to Disney Studios AND Disneyland for the price of a single park). I thought I’d go on a nostalgia trip and visit my favourite rides from Disneyland USA again.

The revamped Space Mountain Mission 2 was impressive, but I spent most of the ride making sure my neck was still on my shoulders to take in the speeding galaxy properly. Then I went to see the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience spectacular. This is a 3D immersive movie, replete with hydraulic effects and a bunch more “interactive” surprises. It lost a bit of its touch having to wear clunky slimy headphones for the “translation” (back into the original English) but still undoubtedly one of the best features at Disneyland.

Saving the best for last, I went to go and visit my old friend, Indiana Jones. This was my favourite ride at Disney USA, embodying the true spirit of Dr Jones, dodging poison darts, booby-trapped tunnels, scraping past giant rolling boulders and a whole lot more. Disney Paris, for reasons unknown to me, replaced that fantastic experience with a lame roller coaster.

Utterly disappointed at being let down by Indy, I walked back over to Disney Studios to see if I could catch a showing of the two show’s I’d missed that day: Animagique and Cinemagique. I managed to see the last show of the latter, which makes me very glad. It certainly lifted my spirits a bit. Another bit of immersive cinematography that brought out a few chuckles.

After a day in the blazing sun (I couldn’t have asked for better whether these last four days, apart from maybe a bit more cloud cover) I headed back to home base. Just in time, it would seem, because twenty minutes into the train ride back, it started hailing.

The M?tro in mid-summer at rush hour is not a pleasant experience. However, I think it’s a fantastic system, and if we had it in SA and I didn’t live across the road from work, I’d use it all the time.

You get all kinds on the underground. This one guy either spent the whole trip either talking to me or his dog (an apparent cross between a Labrador and Daschund, intriguing), I couldn’t tell which.