Today we visited Universal Studios in Florida. This is about 5 miles from the Marriott's Cypress Harbour Club Resort where I am staying.

Universal charges $9 to park in their parking lot, compared to $8 charged by Walt Disney.

There are a couple of popular rides in this park that should be early morning targets or at least use the Express Plus option.

1. Revenge of the Mummy
2. Men in Black - Alien Attack
3. Back to the Future

Also there isn't much information on the internet on some of the landmarks around the park. One of the houses on Park Ave is the Cosby Show house. I am unsure which one, but I'll check my notes from my previous trip to see what other landmarks are around the New York lot.

Today we visited the Disney MGM Studios in Orlando Florida.

Unlike Disney, early morning guests are escorted to the two popular park rides, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. This morning it appeared to be a split decision between the two rides. As the day went on, the Aerosmith ride had a longer wait time than the Tower of Terror.

There are two rides to avoid: Sounds Dangerous and The Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour.

Sounds Dangerous - Starring Drew Carry
You are brought into a sound studio with all sorts of special effects. A brief introduction by one of the Cast Members, and then you are told to put on the headphones that are located to the seat next to you. Then a seven minute sound clip is played, much of which is done in total darkness. At the end of the clip, you take the headphones off and leave the sound studio to another room with some activities center.

That's the whole ride. No explanation on how the effects were done, no lab demonstrations. Very poorly done!

The Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour
This starts off with a brief demonstration on some of the special effects in Pearl Harbor. Then you walk through a room full of props, but no one explains what movie they were in. Afterwards you are put on a tram and look at about 15 items in the "bone yard" and then experience a canyon explosion. However, you never get to see any of the "Backlot."

I know that there are some TV studio homes on the lot, such as Golden Girls and Empty Nest. I saw these a few years ago. Very disappointing ride and should be renamed to Studio Fx's or something similar.

This morning we arrived very early at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. This was challenging since there was an early morning road race.

We ended up walking from our parking space to the Monorail train station, which was about a half mile walk. This was because Disney wasn't running trams and the buses were causing long delays for people waiting to get to the station.

The only major disappointing part of the day was that the Magic Kingdom closed at 7pm this evening. Which makes dinner plans at the park tough since the fireworks goes off when the park closes.

At the Haunted Mansion, the person working the gift stand left an hour early before the park closed. I was planning on buying items before leaving, but didn't want to carry around the items around all day. Because the person left, I was unable to buy any Haunted Mansion items.

After arriving at Orlando International airport, I spent some of the afternoon at Gatorland, which is about 10 miles east of DisneyWorld.

This was my first visit in about 10 years, and the first thing I noticed was that it was pretty difficult to get to the part, due to the road construction. Also it looks like Gatorland will be increasing its size in the near future.

Inside the park there were a few changes, it looks like they added a new childrens play area and there appears to be a lot more alligators than the last time.

Its worth a trip, and most people can cover the entire park in about 2 hours. Be sure to catch the feeding show!

Last night I scanned 20 San Francisco photos from my collection. In 1998, I spent several weekends around the city and took lots of photos. Tonight I'll add the collection to the photo gallery.

Some other categories that will be coming soon include:

• Cross Country 1996
• Boston Massachusetts
• Cape Cod

Most of the photos for the Boston and Cape Cod are digital, so they should be up pretty soon.