With a week's worth of parties, performances, and promotions, it's easy to forget that the signature event of Orlando's Big Gay Weekend takes place at an amusement park. Gay Day, now in its 22nd year, sees members of the LGBT community visiting Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom park en masse. This first Saturday of June tradition is also the start to the busy summer season for all of Central Florida's theme parks. With hopes of maximizing ticket sales from June to August, the parks typically roll out new attractions, rides and shows in late Spring, which means Gay Days attendees can be some of the first people to experience these latest additions.
Gay Day returnees will find several updates to the Magic Kingdom.
The park's Fantasyland is undergoing a massive overhaul and the first phase has recently opened. Guests can take a spin on the new Dumbo the Flying Elephant; the first part of the attraction features Dumbo spinning clockwise for the first time in Magic Kingdom history. Debuting just a week before Gay Day is The Magic, The Memories, and You!, a nightly spectacular that utilizes Cinderella's Castle as a giant canvas. During this modern day slide show, hundreds of photos of Magic Kingdom guests taken that day are projected onto the Castle, which is also transformed into a sand castle, an ancient vine-covered ruin, and a tropical aquarium!
Speaking of tropical, the Enchanted Tiki Room's Polynesian revue now pays tribute to the Disneyland original with a new version reminiscent of the attraction's original show.
It's not just the LGBT community that traditionally visits Disney World each first weekend of June. Auto enthusiasts will return to Downtown Disney's West Side then for Car Masters Weekend, which features a classic car show and a marathon of the Disney-Pixar animated Cars movies. Sci-fans will be out in “force” at Disney's Hollywood Studios for the park's popular Star Wars Weekends; June 1-3 will see an appearance by Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Many guests will also take their first trip on the celebration's centerpiece, the recently retooled Star Tours. Opened just before Gay Day last year, the attraction combines motion simulator-based technology with an original 3-D film to immerse riders in the Star Wars galaxy.
At Orlando's other movie studio theme park, Universal Studios, guests can watch and join in Universal's Superstar Parade. SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, and the yellow minions from Despicable Me are but a few of the many animated characters that come to life in this new interactive travelling street party. The park also has a new nighttime show, Universal's Cinematic Spectacular, which celebrates the studio's most iconic films. Clips are shown on huge waterfall screens in the park's central lagoon while pyrotechnics and special effects add to the stirring tribute to Universal's 100 years of film-making history.
Often voted the area's best attraction, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal’s Islands of Adventure recently received a facelift. The ride's makeover includes new digital high-definition animation, high-tech 3D glasses, and a cameo by Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee!
Universal's CityWalk is home to the all-new Hollywood Drive-In Golf, which offers up a “double feature” of two 18-hole courses”The Haunting of Ghostly Greens and Invaders From Planet Putt”themed to the hilariously silly horror and sci-fi movies of the 1950's.
Golfers can putt their way through a cemetery and a flying saucer, under a giant spider, around a 30-foot robot, and into the basement lab of a haunted house!
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay also has several new attractions this summer. World-class skaters, aerial performers, master puppeteers and live animals come together in Iceploration, a Broadway-style stage spectacular that takes audiences on an adventure around the world. Home to 2,000 animals, Busch Gardens is also one of the largest zoos in North America. The park's new Animal Care Center lets guests observe and take part in the animal care experience; visitors will be able to prepare food for and feed many of Busch Gardens' residents. Plus, opened mere days before last year's Gay Day, the park's newest roller coaster, Cheetah Hunt continues to thrill riders with three adrenaline-fueled surges of speed inspired by the world's fastest land animal.
SeaWorld Orlando's TurtleTrek is a new 3D/360-degree film that showcases the epic journey of the sea turtle, combined with two massive saltwater and freshwater habitats. Guests can see turtles, manatees and more than 1,500 fish swim in naturalistic environments. And while not a new attraction, it is noteworthy that both SeaWorld and Busch Gardens will eliminate plastic gift bags this year, offering recyclable paper bags instead. The eco-friendly move will save an estimated 4 million plastic bags from entering landfills and impacting wildlife.
Parents may want to include a trip to Central Florida's newest theme park in their Big Gay Weekend plans. Located in Winter Haven, LEGOLAND Florida is geared specially towards youngsters ages 2- 12. Only the second park of its kind in the U.S., the park celebrates the iconic toy building blocks with more than 50 family rides, attractions and shows. And though the park opened just last October, they're already expanding for Summer 2012 with the addition of LEGOLAND Water Park, scheduled to open May 26.
