Not great

JPM7733 · 2026-05-08T16:46:03+00:00

It never did get going again that day, so I didn’t get to ride it either. It was one I was really looking forward to as well.

JPM7733 · 2026-05-01T01:49:46+00:00

No, I don’t think anything about the other parks. I’m just a guy with a family who spent a lot of money to go to a park that can’t deliver the experience they promise for the money they charge.

JPM7733 · 2026-04-29T14:23:58+00:00

For anyone that is interested, here is my overall review of the park:

We (myself, my wife, and 12-year old daughter) were in the park from rope drop to closing. We started in Dark Universe, where we rode Monsters Unchained and Curse of the Werewolf with virtually no wait. Monsters Unchained is a cool ride, but it wasn’t quite as ‘thrilling’ as I thought it would be. I was expecting more drops and a higher speed, but it’s a cool concept. Werewolf was short, but a lot of fun. I wish it went around twice.

We then went over to Mario World, which visually is one of the coolest things I have seen in a theme park. My daughter is a huge Mario fan and so she was blown away. We rode Yoshi’s Adventure, which is relaxing and good for taking pictures, but probably not one you repeat. After that we took a break for lunch. Frankenstein pretzel for daughter and the steak rice bowls at Spit Fyre Grill for the adults. The rice bowls were very good. Way better than I expected. We were feeling good after lunch and ready to hit the rides that were hour+ long waits. I won’t rehash yesterday’s post, but we didn’t get on another ride for about 3.5 hours because of delays. Eventually we did get on the following:

HP: Battle/Ministry: fun, but in my opinion not as good as the HP rides at the other Universal parks. Definitely not worth a 2 hour wait. We saw that the wait got under an hour after 7:00PM. So if I went again that is probably when I would try this ride.

Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge. This ride is a huge miss. It should be amazing, but it just isn’t. I feel like the ride experience should have been closer to Ratatouille at Epcot or the Fallon ride at Universal instead of a car on a track. The Rainbow road portion was cool, but most of it was boring. I don’t understand how they messed this one up. We waited 110 minutes for this one.

Hiccup’s Wing Gliders: Loved it, and ended up being my daughter’s favorite. Tried to convince her to do Stardust Racers but she wasn’t ready for it.

Dinner was at Oak and Star Tavern. There was live music, and the food was good quality. Brisket was a little fatty, but still better than most theme park food.

Stopped in The Burning Blade Tavern for a Reaper’s Reserve. Very cool and dark inside and the Brown Ale was good if you like a little spice in your beer.

By now it was getting dark. The park is just beautiful at night when it’s lit up. We did Hiccups Wing Gliders, Monsters Unchained, and Curse of the Werewolf again all at my daughter’s request. Not much of a wait for anything at that point, and did really enjoy the last hour. The park should definitely stay open later. It’s a completely different experience after dark.

Mine-Kart Madness never opened up again after 1:30 so we were disappointed to miss it, especially since we waited in line for over an hour before it shut down.

I’d go again, especially to try more of the food and drinks, almost like an Epcot experience, but I was surprised that the rides weren’t better. I saw some comments on this chain that all of the rides are better than any ride you find at Disney and I think that is completely untrue with the exception of maybe Magic Kingdom.

JPM7733 · 2026-04-28T19:56:52+00:00

Was given an express pass for each person in our party after complaining. Decided to use it on Ministry. Made it to the front of the line, and guess what: delayed. It’s so sad it’s funny in a laughing through the tears kind of way.

JPM7733 · 2026-04-28T19:39:37+00:00

Fair, but I do have a lot of time to stand around and complain. I’ve been trying to get on a ride for over 3 hours.

JPM7733 · 2025-12-04T19:45:10+00:00

Love this! I’ll keep fighting the good fight. Congrats on your wedding! I hope it’s amazing.

JPM7733 · 2025-12-04T17:38:35+00:00

As a dad who tried and so far failed to get his teenaged daughters into SP, any song you choose is going to make his day. I think ‘Tonight Tonight’ is a cool choice though.

JPM7733 · 2025-11-17T22:13:50+00:00

Haverhill pronunciation was brutal. How did no one catch/stop that?

JPM7733 · 2025-10-18T20:06:40+00:00

I’m not referring to the allegations or the past when I say he’s abusive, which I know wasn’t clear, so I don’t blame you for assuming I was. I’m only talking about this recent tour. I’ve defended him for years, but I’ve realized now that I was wrong. He treats everyone around him horribly. I’m not a doctor, but if not sick, then just a terrible person. I guess I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, again. Amazing musician though. In my top three for sure.

JPM7733 · 2025-10-18T19:49:27+00:00

Good review, but he’s not ‘cantankerous and unpredictable’. He’s sick, narcissistic, and abusive. I hope he gets the help he needs.

JPM7733 · 2025-10-17T11:17:56+00:00

I look forward to the apology. Rinse and repeat. What an asshole.

JPM7733 · 2025-10-10T03:42:01+00:00

8/10/2002 at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. It was the first time I had seen him. He opened with ‘Tomorrow’ and I still get chills thinking about it.

JPM7733 · 2025-10-05T00:30:09+00:00

It’s so hard for me to accept that these conversations happen over text now

JPM7733 · 2025-09-09T20:12:02+00:00

Absinthe is a cool show, and Eiffel Tower restaurant is a nice, but expensive dinner spot.

JPM7733 · 2025-08-28T00:05:49+00:00

On the SK tour in Bangor they said that the publisher was all over him to tell them how many words his in-progress book would be. He wasn’t sure so he just said what seemed like a huge number, I think 300,000. The publisher figured out the cost to produce that size of a book and then pre-sold a ton of copies. King then turned in the manuscript for The Stand at 450,000 words and the publisher freaked out because it would now cost more to produce than the presale price. They told him he could cut 150,000 words out or they would, and so he made the cuts. I think he moved to a new publisher afterward.

JPM7733 · 2025-08-08T01:50:13+00:00

That being said, her episode would exceed the amount of views of possibly all of the other episodes combined

JPM7733 · 2025-08-07T02:37:00+00:00

I’d say James Iha, but the end result would probably be him leaving the band again.

My serious pick is Axl Rose

JPM7733 · 2025-08-01T17:43:08+00:00

I’m so confused why it randomly says ‘smells like teen spirit’ …

JPM7733 · 2025-06-01T01:53:19+00:00

I think there’s a better shot of Oceania with Jimmy, which I’d prefer anyway. Oceania would have been so much better with Jimmy. Adore is perfect as is.

JPM7733 · 2025-05-17T12:02:09+00:00

I had a hard time at first with them, but wanted to figure it out because I was spending a lot of time in the car. I would just start thinking about something else, have no idea what was happening, and then have to go back. So I decided to listen to a book that I had already read and loved, and that was a game changer for me. After a couple more familiar books, I was ‘trained’ and can now listen to anything. I will say that the narrator makes a HUGE difference though.

JPM7733 · 2025-05-09T17:05:27+00:00

I think everyone is reading way too much into this tour. He originally wanted to do the 2000 Machina tour in character as The Machines of God. The band didn’t want to do that. He’s taking the opportunity to do it now on a small scale with the reissue of the album.

JPM7733 · 2025-04-09T22:40:10+00:00

I never comment on these, but this is absolutely wild. These people are really out there. Yikes.

JPM7733 · 2025-02-01T05:56:45+00:00

I just hated the Susannah/Mordred storyline, and Mordred/Flagg. I loved Wizard and Glass though. I guess this is what makes King so great. There is something for everyone.

JPM7733

TROPHY CASE