Monkee

1 hour ago, johnnyboy said:

Snap!  Disney spreadsheets are the best spreadsheets.  Early doors I'll even colour code attractions based on preferences before slotting them into my master plan.

 

I like your style! I can’t get down to that level yet until we know what reservation thingies (new FastPasses) on Genie+ we can get.

Realised posting the draft above that we’d missed Kennedy Space Centre so we might pop that into Sat 7th.

Bit disappointed with ‘extra curricular’ stuff going on outside of theme parks this time. We’ve done various sports games, concerts and swimming with manatees before but there’s bugger all on this time. Elton John and The Who are playing but my mate’s not arsed. And we looked at getting tickets for the Miami GP (Sunday only) but they’re only doing full weekend tickets and the prices are extortionate.

21 hours ago, PunkStep said:

Lego Land looks fucking shite in fairness. Looks like a fraction of the park we have over here at Windsor. 

Will give the Universal water park a miss, seeing as we can (and will) go to Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach as part of our passes, even if the Universal one looks better. Was initially going to pick Seaworld over Busch Gardens, but starting to reconsider that. Kennedy Space Centre possibly if we have time. 

@Monkeewhat do you use to play your itinerary? Is there an app you like to use, or are you just going old school and using some sort of diary?

Blizzard Beach is closed for refurbishment at the moment so you might need to keep an eye on when it’s reopening.

I love a spreadsheet so I usually do it in Excel. Make it look like a calendar and have a list of what you want to do. Start plonking them in and you can see if you’re overdoing it or have space to squeeze in another park. We tend to try and do park > pool/water park > park > shopping/sightseeing > park > pool/wp, etc. 

Some years we’ve been there we wanted to so much we ended up doing 2 parks a day (hopper) or parks back-to-back and we were knackered.

When we’ve finalised the itinerary I usually print a couple off in A5 size and then we stick one to the mirror in the hotel room. That way we know what we’re doing and, if something comes up like the weather’s shit, we know we can do a quick re-jig.

Forgot I had this on my phone. Here’s the current draft. We can’t make dinner reservations yet so they’re on standby.

Raven’s right. At the moment (including water parks) you have 3 Universal parks, 6 Disney, 2 SeaWorld (excluding Discovery Cove), Busch Gardens, Lego Land and of course Kennedy Space Centre if you want to go out that far.

If you did all of those that’s 14 days non-stop and the cost of a kidney, third mortgage and the soul of your first born child.

You have to plan ahead if you don’t want to be completely overwhelmed when you get there. We finished our itinerary last night and have now got all the park reservations done. We can’t do any dining reservations for another 3 weeks yet and we have to work out what rides we want to book on Genie/Genie+ as well.

I think I’d be a wreck just turning up and not having a clue about everything there is to do and see.

47 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

@Monkeei absolutely loved Cabana Bay.  Just loved the goofy vibe. Apparently has a lazy river but I wasn’t there for long enough to find out. It’s a good mirror to Pop Century in terms of theming as well.

We’ve wanted to stay at Cabana Bay since it opens as the theming just looks so cool. And we were originally booked into Art of Animation but it was full or something so we were moved to Pop Century. We’ve never done on-site hotels before either (except DLP), always stayed in Kissimmee, but we’ve gone all out on this. It replaces a 3-week West Coast road trip we were meant to do in 2020. 

All being good, I’m heading to Florida in 9 weeks (69 days but not counting the seconds or anything). We’re doing 6 nights at Cabana Bay and 11 nights at Pop Century.

We’re just in the process of looking at Genie and Genie+ now as I think we need to book/reserve soon. I used to get confused with FastPasses so I’m leaving all of that to my mate to sort out. The whole park reservation thing is a ball ache too. You have to book which park you want to do on what day and, if you want to park hop, you can’t do it until after 2pm.

All of these hidden extras are very annoying - it makes it difficult to plan, it’s more expensive and spontaneity is impossible - remember the days of being able to just swap out a park for tomorrow if it’s raining today?

I’m really looking forward to going though. My trip to New Orleans in Dec put my travel anxieties at ease because it was all actually very straightforward. The VeriFLY app made it simple and the worst thing was having to wear a mask the entire flight but then I slept for most of the way (crap film choices) so it didn’t really matter.

5 hours ago, Loki said:

I was just about to post.... Max Verstappen fans.  The fandom of F1 has historically been quite collegiate (Tifosi excepted) with drivers moving around, teams changing, and people being fans of the sport more than any individual.

Boy, has that changed!

Max Verstappen fans? Rubbish. It’s not limited to one driver or team. It’s become completely divisive. It was never like this 20 years ago. Have you ever been on the F1 Fan Forum? Right now F1 is a double-headed beast when you have donkeys in charge (Liberty Media) wanting it to be an entertainment spectacle rather than a real sport and social media giving the moronic fans* a voice. It’s the definition of toxicity.

* Girls who’re only interested in Photoshopping themselves into photos with drivers or launching hate campaigns against any woman who might be a ‘threat’, and people who are racist, xenophobic, sexist, misogynistic and want the sport to go back to the 1960s.

F1 has become the worst fandom in the last couple of years. You either have the “I’m not a racist but…” / “I’m not against women in motorsport as long as they’re half naked grid girls” men or the batshit crazy girls who stalk the drivers and try to break into their homes. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I’ve left all the groups I used to be in because there’s no happy medium.

TIL the guy who does all the maintenance where I live used to play for Arsenal in the 80s/90s.

Just seen the line-up for Celebrity Mastermind and there are some cracking specialist subjects coming up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/celebrity-mastermind-lineup-revealed

Dave Rowntree, musician (Blur drummer) on Nikola Tesla

James Acaster, comedian on the history of ice cream

Jackie Weaver, council officer on The Chronicles of Riddick

Martin Offiah, former England rugby international on the Battle of Britain

I’m currently at a football game in New Orleans. Haven’t a clue what’s going on but it’s Baylor 7-7 Ole Miss in the 3rd quarter apparently 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

EDIT: 21-7 at full time. Still no idea what happened. The marching bands at half time were my favourite - a medley of The Beatles followed by Foo Fighters.

On 12/16/2021 at 9:07 PM, neil said:

"Rock Star" staring Mark Walberg is deffo a musical 🤘

YES! I love that film and the soundtrack is incredible. I had it on CD are played it to death. ‘Stand Up’ and ‘Wasted Generation’ are great songs.

I’m not hugely into musicals but I do have a soft spot for a few movie-based ones such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (that’s not aged well in the #metoo days), The Sound of Music (it’s WW2 so I’m obviously going to like it), and Grease 2 (if only ‘Reproduction’ and ‘Cool Rider’ were karaoke songs).

I loved Jersey Boys in the West End and Beautiful: The Carol King Musical was absolutely amazing. I also saw the BTTF musical a couple of months ago and wasn’t as appalled as I though I would be to be honest.

I think, though, the best musical I’ve seen live was actually Licensed To Ill - a Beastie Boys musical. It was a glorious work of art. I ended up seeing it twice and interviewed the guys behind it for a blog.

I got two videos for a friend’s birthday earlier this year. She’s a huge Neighbours fan (as are we both) so I got 2 Cameos. One was great - he gave a full tour of one of the filming lots where the garage and tram are, Kyle’s building yard and Grease Monkeys. He talked for ages, mentioned all the stuff I’d told him about my friend and it was great. The other one in comparison was a bit of a let down. She only did it for about 20 seconds and that was it.

I’m on the hunt for a new laptop for graphic design and video editing. My current one is 5 years old - it’s slow and Premiere Pro doesn’t support the graphics card any more.

I’m not particularly techie but I was told that this was really good for the price and that it’s 17” (I really need this screen size):

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-vivobook-x712ea-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-1-tb-ssd-silver-10226090-pdt.html
 

Typically it’s out of stock everywhere and I can’t really afford much more than this right now. I’ve been told that although it’s out of stock it will be back at some point but they have no idea when exactly. I love everything about this model plus the fact it comes with 0% interest for 24 months was a real selling point for me.

Can anyone recommend the same spec model where I might be able to get a similar deal?

I was very lucky when I was little and started going abroad when I was 4 years old and my brother was 10. We went to the south of France by coach and stayed on a campsite.

We went a couple of times and my parents got to know the owner of the travel company. They became friends so the owner would send us on test trips (being a family with a good age gap between me and my brother) where he’d only charge the absolute bare minimum for my parents. This meant we went to different parts of France and Spain trying out these campsites before he then opened them up to the wider market. We’d go 3 times a year until I was about 8.

Then when I was 8 (my brother was 14) we progressed to flying and we went to Florida for the first time. That was incredible. My parents said they wanted to wait until my brother and I were both old enough to properly appreciate and remember everything. I think that’s when my travel bug properly took hold.

After that we flew most places but still did a couple of the coach trips to Spain in between ‘main’ holidays. We did Tenerife, Egypt, Jamaica and Florida a couple more times by the time I was 16.

I am very grateful to my parents and know this was a very privileged childhood. I love to travel and have been to a lot of different countries, even took a gap year after university and went around the world. My travel buddy and I try to go to different countries as much as possible and usually do 3 trips a year under normal circumstances (sometimes for a Grand Prix). My favourite places have been Fiji and Brazil, and one of my bucket list trips was Chernobyl.

Dave. 

I couldn’t find a general films thread so I’m posting this here instead. I started a “World Cup of War Movies” on Twitter if anyone fancies chipping in (trying to get more followers). It’s based on the top 100 war films on Rotten Tomatoes and I’ve cut it down to 32 contenders.

Escape To Victory wasn’t on the list, sorry.

I was guest in Byker Grove.

Paul Draper from Mansun has always had ‘issues’ anyway so I wouldn’t be surprised.

I unfriended Alan from Shed Seven a couple of months back when he became more vocal about his views. He’s against venues insisting on vax checking / testing so he left the band.

If anyone’s interested in a bit of 90s reminiscing, there’s now a Renford Rejects podcast. It’s something I’m helping out with so would appreciate some listens. Available on a few channels:

https://linktr.ee/RenfordPodcast

Thanks guys!

This is Dave. He’s the newly adopted brother of Frank.

He’s settling in well… I spent 45 mins earlier cleaning up after he flung shit-covered litter everywhere.

I got these recently. The design is based on the Dakota C-47 named “That’s All, Brother” that led the D-Day airborne assault on Normandy. I love them.

On 5/9/2021 at 4:04 PM, Version1.0 said:

Watching Sunderland 'Til I Die and one of the players is Homer Simpson's alter ego Max Power 

"I got it from a hairdryer."

 

That just reminded me of two motorsport drivers named Will Power and Scott Speed.

I’m booked to go to New Orleans in September and I’m praying it’s going to happen. There’s a Band of Brothers Anniversary Symposium and accompanying conference at the WWII Museum and I’ve got an all expenses paid trip booked. I’ve been working with the actors over the last few months on virtual events (looking to make them physical soon) so I’m flying over as part of the team. I have everything crossed that travel corridor thing is open by then.

7 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

@Monkee got a similar letter from him, I think?

I did indeed. I sent a Bottom DVD to both Rik and Ade to be signed for @PowerButchi’s UKFF Secret Santa present. This is what came with it when I got it back...