A blog by Cameron and Shannon

As you all may or may not know, Cameron and I are from Florida. Cameron is from wayyy on over in the panhandle in Pensacola, and I’m from Live Oak, in the north central part (ever heard “Way Down Upon the Suwannee River? I’m from there.) We’ve been planning our summer trip back to good old FL, and got the idea that perhaps a theme park would be a fun choice for our visit.

I get the impression that most American children are taken on several trips to the Orlando parks - for the typical Floridian child, that number is multiplied by about 3 to 5. It’s not because Floridian children are spoiled; it is because they live in Florida - weekend trip? Theme park. Day trip? Theme park. School trip? Theme park. When you go to a theme park so many times, you start to get used to things a certain way - you begin to pick favorites attractions, and so forth. So imagine my surprise as I perused the various theme park sites and began to see that things were not as I left them as a child - heck, things are not as I left them as a college student. When I cross referenced that information with Wikipedia and Google searches to find out what happened to some of my favorites over the years, I began to get really…ticked. So I’ve compiled a list - the top ten Florida attractions that should have never been altered/cancelled/shut down. I realize these incidents are the result of an accumulation of years, but these things are really starting to add up and I can’t take it anymore!!

As I began writing this, I realized if I listed all 10 at once, it would take me about 5 hours and would be quite lengthy, so I’ll list one a day, starting with ten and counting down. Reminisce with me!

10. Ghostbusters, Universal Studios Orlando.

Opened: 1990. Closed: 1996.

As a child, I was obsessed with Hollywood, thus making Universal Studios Orlando the Holy Grail of theme park trips. Every gas station in Florida has a ready supply of theme park brochures, and my absolute favorite to pore over was Universal Studios. I literally spent hours gawking at the awesome art and 75 word descriptions of each ride - not to mention the Hollywood head shots on the back - this was where the Hollywood people were! This was where I needed to be! I finally got to go for the first time in 1995, when I was 11, and have, to date, been at least 5 times. Sadly, only on the first trip did I get to see the Ghostbusters Spooktacular. This was more a show than a ride, but it had all the important stuff from the movie: Ghostbusters, Gozer, the Temple of Gozer…the stinking Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, for crying out loud!!! You can ride it here. OMG LOOK AT GOZER’S TEMPLE. And the CLOWN! This was replaced by Twister, which you can ride, albeit quite dimly, here …Twister isn’t bad, but, let’s be honest, Ghostbusters is simply superior raw source material. Until fairly recently, even though there was no longer a show, the Ghostbusters would ride the Ectomobile through the park - way to twist the knife, Universal.