Column by Audrey Brown Movies are king when it comes to theme park merchandising, ticket sales and advertising. As early as Aladdin, the Genie was off to Disney World after being freed. Stop for a second and just try to imagine Disney World or Universal Studios without movie tie-ins – it’s impossible. But not so [...]

Feb. 3, 2011 – Join hosts Greg Hutson and Jessica Steele Allen as they bring you the latest Orlando theme park and attraction news and more on this week’s episode. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8txdDZ-1nCI This weeks show covers these topics and more: • Monster Jam monster truck show • Disney Channel stars Friends for Change at Castaway Cay [...]

Column by Derek Burgan SeaWorld’s six official hotels now provide a unique vacation package that includes several exclusive benefits, and booking the package through SeaWorldVacations.com allows the opportunity to enjoy free all-day dining and the ability to add a ticket to Aquatica or Busch Gardens Tampa for $39. By staying at one of SeaWorld’s official [...]

Column by Andy Guinigundo Well, after a bit of a hiatus, the Out of the Loop online edition has returned to bring you some attractions news from outside the Orlando area. As always, you can get a full dose of Out of the Loop in the Orlando Attractions Magazine print and iPad editions. 2011 is [...]

Jan. 20, 2011 – Join hosts JD Trussell and Jessica Steele Allen as they bring you Orlando theme park and attraction news and more on this week’s episode. This weeks show covers these topics and more: • Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus • Wild Africa Trek at Disney’s Animal Kingdom • Gwazi Roller [...]

Dec. 31, 2010 – This week’s show brings you 2010 in review. Join hosts Samantha and JD as they bring you all the Orlando theme park and attraction highlights of the past year, with some news thrown in. We’ll review all the big news at Disney World, Universal, Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. Then they’ll let [...]

Another year has passed and that means it’s time to take a look back. Over the year, we published four print editions of Orlando Attractions Magazine, launched a free iPad app, switched our free e-mail newsletter from monthly to weekly and launched our new weekly video show. This week’s Show will present a review of [...]

The Winter 2011 issue of Orlando Attractions Magazine is now available to order. The magazine is at the printer and will be shipping out within the next week or two. Look for it in our iPad app soon, and in major bookstores nationwide sometime in January. Subscribers should receive their copy within the next four [...]

Dec. 16, 2010 – Join hosts JD Trussell and Samantha Sanders for Episode Three of Orlando Attractions Magazine – The Show. They’ll bring you this week’s theme park and attraction news, viewer feedback, fan videos and more. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uozPnoghr0 This week’s topics include: • Celebration Concert and interview with Kicking Daisies and Allstar Weekend. • Clarion [...]

First we had Orlando Attractions Magazine and a website, then we added a YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, an e-newsletter and an iPad app. Today I’m excited and proud to present Orlando Attractions Magazine – The Show. We’ve assembled a fantastic cast of hosts that are all theme park fans in their own right. Each week [...]

The International Association of Amusement Parks Expo, the largest annual gathering of the amusement park and attractions industry, returned to Orlando this week to begin a 10-year run. Although we don’t claim to have visited all 1,136 exhibitors which filled 1 million square feet of space at the Orange County Convention Center, we did our [...]

Article, photos and video by Don Gworek Plans are in progress for a 220 mph high speed rail in Florida. The first segment from Orlando to Tampa is expected to be completed in 2014, with Miami to Orlando to follow. With proposed stops at the Orlando airport, the Orange County Convention Center and Walt Disney [...]

Article by Don Gworek A friend of mine asserted that the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride in Universal’s Islands of Adventure is in the largest show building in the world. That didn’t seem right, so I pulled out my phone and Google mapped to prove what I thought – that the Revenge of [...]

Busch Gardens has ended the speculation and stopped dropping hints. The new attraction coming in spring 2011 will feature a cheeta habitat called Cheetah Run and a roller coaster called Cheetah Hunt that will give riders three seconds of airtime and three boosts of speed along the track. Cheetah Hunt will be a Linear Synchronous [...]

International Drive, AKA I-Drive, has a number of new businesses on the way. Some are proposed and some are already under construction. The above photo shows a wooded 70 acres that are for sale next to Festival Bay Mall at the northern end of I-Drive. Local TV news station WFTV.com is reporting that Baker Leisure [...]

Life-long fans of Halloween, April Richardson and Adam Cochran (pictured below) are the winners of Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights Wedding contest. They will “tie the noose” on Friday, Oct. 15 at Halloween Horror Nights XX on the steps of a haunted house, surrounded by their family, friends and some nightmarishly ghoulish guests. April …

Column by Audrey Brown Not that I want to hone in on Andy Rooney’s territory, but there was once a time when getting to an Orlando tourist attraction was half the fun. At risk of having to start a sentence with the phrase, “You know, in my day…” I do want to say that in [...]

Beginning in 2011, Magic Kingdom guests will become the stars of a nightly spectacular when photos taken in the park that day become larger-than-life projections on Cinderella Castle. Disneyland in California will offer their guests’ photos projected on “it’s a small world”. Beginning this week, Disney guests will also star on television, as part of [...]

The Fall 2010 issue of Orlando Attractions Magazine is now available to order. The magazine is at the printer and will be shipping out within the next week or two. Look for it in our iPad app soon, and in major bookstores nationwide sometime in October. Subscribers should receive their copy within the next four [...]

A particularly nasty storm rolled over Orlando last night, bringing with it a lot of lightning. It’s not the kind of show most theme park guests want or expect to see, but it can be spectacular and provide some unique photos. Photographer Rick Rootsey of Litebox Studio took these photos of the storm hovering over [...]