Well, what a year 2012 has been for me!
My first moment of 2012 and I was working in Mickeys of Hollywood in Hollywood Studios. Party atmosphere going on, Mulch Sweat and Shears playing music and counting down until the new year, fireworks going off... All of which I missed because at exactly 00:01, I had the most miserable Brazilian **** woman person I've ever met dump a load of **** onto the counter and demand she gets served. Did she even realise it was the new year and there was a massive party going on outside? **** knows!
So, anyway, working my way into 2012, and it dawned on me that I only had a couple of weeks left in Florida, so I visited the Universal parks for my final time and re-did all of my favourite Disney attractions until it was time to say goodbye and return to the UK.
Park count: 6
But I wasn't in the UK for long, as a couple of weeks later I was on my way on the longest flight I've been on in my life to Brisbane to study for a semester on the southern tip of the Gold Coast!
Maybe it was a lack of planning, but I never realised how ridiculously expensive everything would be over there! The theme parks are the same price as Disney parks, but about a quarter as good, for example. Also, it's sooo hilly on the Gold Coast, and everything is an utter pain to get to without a car. The people I met weren't exactly the greatest, and nobody ever wanted to do anything, but then again it only seemed to be the non-Australians I met that made my life miserable, and most Australians were fairly friendly... It didn't help that my Grandad died when I was there either, which really didn't help my mood.
Themepark-wise, Warner Bros Movie World is probably the best, but it's sooo small! Green Lantern was good, Scooby Doo was ok, but Superman was excellent. If the park was, say, double the size, it would probably be one of the best parks in the world (well, minus their horrible worse-than-Six Flags locker policies). DreamWorld was ok and I really enjoyed Tower of Terror, and Wet n Wild was fun for what it was. Sea World, however, is one of the worst parks I've ever been to.
After meeting the fantastically knowledgeable Gavin, we made our way up to Aussie World, only to find out that the Wooden Wild Mouse was closed, so we visited Australia Zoo instead, which was awful! Still, it was excellent to meet Gavin, and he took me to the lookout point above, and gave me a tour around, Brisbane, which was very much appreciated.
I also managed to travel down to Melbourne and meet up with a "friend" from Disney... Well, I say friend, but it turns out she's an absolute **** to hang around all day. Thankfully, she had a friend from Disney, and that person had a French boyfriend who was also visiting, and they made the day a lot more bearable! We visited the Melbourne Gaol and did a couple of other things, but I still feel I could have seen and experienced a lot more if I had planned everything for myself.
Whilst in Melbourne, I did manage to get to Luna Park, but thanks to my "friend" not being a huge fan of parks anyway, and then promptly getting sick when we rode their Enterprise, my time there was very limited. I did get all the credits in, although I kind of wish I didn't as their Scenic Railways was one of the foulest pieces of **** I've ever been on! Like, Kings Dominion levels of crapness! Also in Melbourne, I managed to visit some ultra-Ghetto park laid out on a big green map by a large broken ferris wheel.
2012 Park Count: 12
After three fairly bittersweet months in Australia, it was time to leave. When booking tickets to Australia, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to have a layover somewhere, and my three options were Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai, and as Cathay Pacific was the cheapest flight, I soon found myself planning for Hong Kong, and what an incredible city it is! I'll get around to writing my main trip report of my experiences there some time in the next decade, but everything about the city is fantastic. Incredible scenery, excellent food, everything's cheap, the public transport is fantastically easy to use, and everyone is so polite!
Hong Kong Disney isn't the best Disney park in the world, but it's definitely one of the most charming, plus contains the Golden Mickeys and their version of Festival of the Lion King!
Ocean Park really blew me away. I didn't research it whatsoever before I went, but my word what a park it is! Surely one of the most visually stunning parks in the world!
I also had a day where I decided to cross the border into Shenzhen and spend a day in China. After spending an age looking like a twat trying to figure out where I could get my Shenzhen pass, I eventually realised that I was nowhere near that point yet and still had another security checkpoint to get through.
Finally in China, and the queue for the taxis was burdenous, until some bloke managed to convince me that his taxi would be a lot cheaper. I thought he had parked close by, so started following him, but when we were still walking 5 minutes later and some random car without any taxi plate turned up, I finally realised it was dodgy as **** and returned to the normal taxi place to the blokes bemusement! :lol:
Eventually, and with the use of some extremely helpful pictures I had printed off, I found myself in Knight Valley, where I found out that EVERYTHING was closed, apart from Wood Coaster, which had an hour long line and some stupid operations. Any park that doesn't allow the train to be filled before everyone had left the station deserve to me heavily fined. Seriously, why do some parks feel this to be necessary??? I eventually got on Wood Coaster, and really couldn't be arsed to wait in the humidity again, so I exited, saw a taxi drive off just in front of me, but another bloke was there offering his own special taxi which I had to get. I spent the whole journey worried, especially as it took forever, but I managed to make it to Happy Valley, although I kind of wished I hadn't. What a crap park! The S&S being open would have improved the park significantly, but it wasn't and neither were most of the other rides. Needless to say, I left after a couple of hours and visited Window of the World, located about a minute's walk from HV. What a strange place this is! I can't even really explain how weird the place is, but they had an almost life-like replica of the Eiffel Tower, a rip-off of Soarin', a log flume where everyone wore a poncho, random shops trying to force you to buy their goods, an insanely fast electric toboggan, a strange coaster themed to something, and a load more model replicas of random world landmarks. Amazing! :lol:
2012 Park count: 17
Since coming back from Hong Kong, I've done the usual trips to Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, been on two of the best CF-Lives I've ever been on to Pleasurewood Hills and a first-ever trip to PortAventura (I also went to GYPB with my family during my week in Norfolk), and have now almost completed my first semester in my final year of university!
2012 Park Count: 22
So, yeah, 2012 really has been amazing, and the positives have vastly outweighed the negatives. I don't think I'll ever have another year like this, but only time will tell! It just makes me depressed that I haven't got any plans for next year yet, and will be the first time in about 8 years where I've got no plans to travel abroad!
This needs urgent fixing, in my opinion.
I think I've covered most things here. 22 parks over 5 countries really isn't too shabby I don't think.
Hope you have enjoyed reading.
-Mike-
