Yes, I have not been to either of Universal's Orlando parks. Regarding Disneyland, I have a really bad taste in my mouth about Paul Pressler's tenure. And recently, the overcrowding (paired with the absurd increase in ticket prices) has soured me a bit. It's a better park than the Magic Kingdom, but some days you physically cannot move in the walkways.
It’s also a botanical park & the exhibits are so well done incorporating hills, waterfalls, rock work & more. It’s more than just seeing animals, you get a sense of escapism just walking around the place. I remember on my first visit we started with the free tram tour & passed by an area where all you can see are walkways going through dense trees & waterfalls. I knew immediately we had to go there first. A lot of the same reasons I love Animal Kingdom. The park is humongous too with trails going everywhere, whether on the ground or up in the sky. I finally became a season pass holder two weeks ago as 2 visits pay for it so it made sense.
Yes, they were spectacular. Montreal was the first thing like that I was able to go too. I did a number of times that summer. I lived around 60+ miles from Montreal and after the first visit, just wanted to keep going back. The one in Osaka, Japan fit in with my time in Vietnam. We were given a choice of where they would send us for R&R for one week out of the years time. The government paid for and arranged our flights (all military) but we had to pay for the rest of it. I chose Japan because the Worlds Fair was there. Took a bus from Tokyo to Osaka and the bullet train back to Tokyo. I never regretted that decision! I cannot, for the life of me, remember how I went about making all those arrangements pre-internet days. Must have had a travel set up at the base in Tokyo.
(Mayan Mindbender for the win!)(Panama City Beach)
however I would guess that it is much nicer, the front of the park has some good theming and it's a pretty big park with a lot of different areas. There's even a monorail, a zoo area and a waterpark area.
Huh, you haven't done Disneyland? I could have sworn you had been to both!
Dollywood is definitely BIGGER than SDC and has grown faster, but I'd say SDC has done a better job of staying true to its roots. They're doing a TON of massive infrastructure work this year-hopefully their Dollywood-esque phase of growth will commence shortly.Huh. I don’t even think I’ve BEEN to 15 parks…. But here goes.
1. Epcot Center (during the Horizons/Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit era)
2. Disney-MGM Studios (back before they sold their soul to Star Wars. As my username implies, I used to LIKE Star Wars before Iger started shoving it into every orifice.)
3. Magic Kingdom (the Eisner years)
4. Six Flags Astroworld
5. Miracle Strip Park
6. Busch Gardens Tampa (does the zoo/theme park concept far better than DAK)
7. Six Flags Over Texas
8. Silver Dollar City (Branson/Table Rock Lake Missouri)
9. Dollywood (when I went, it was an inferior clone of SDC, but I haven’t been in over a decade…my understanding is that it’s actually surpassed its predecessor these days)
10. Disney’s Animal Kingdom
11. Dixie Landin’ (dinky little park outside Baton Rouge….also my first “real” job)
That's how I found Bok Tower in the 2000's. Before that I had never even heard of the place. I really enjoyed Boc Tower just because it was so relaxing compared to the theme park agenda's. I actually fell asleep siting under a huge live Oak, complete with Spanish Moss.