Theme Parks Books

While AAA puts out some great books, this is not one of them. There are a lot of mistakes. Whoever compiled this stuck with the mainstream parks and used park-supplied information with little or no original research evident. If you're looking for a guide, there's none better than Tim O'Brien's The Amusement Park Guide. It lists nearly 300 parks and is written by someone who knows the industry better than just about anyone!

This guide is now somewhat out-of-date, but it is much livelier and more useful than the O'Brien book. You really get a sense of each place. The O'Brien book is deadly dull (which is weird, given the subject matter) and not formatted so you can go directly to the information you need.

I work at Universal...don't waste your money. Just go to the park and ask an attendant near the front gate or the first ride you go to to help you plan your day, and they will. We're trained to, and we know when stuff is going to be busy on each particular day.

Being a very compulsive vacation planner, I have read, or at least skimmed just about every Universal and Disney/Universal guide book out there. This one is the best, especially if you are planning a true Universal Orlando vacation, rather than just a Universal day or two during a Disney vacation.

The planning section covers everything you need to know about visiting at different times of the year, the advantages of staying on-site, ticket options, transportation information, and so forth.

Mr. Monaghan does a great job covering all the attractions, including comparisons to similar Disney attractions, best seats, and descriptions of how scared or wet you might get. There are also touring plans for those who don't have the on-site hotel express privileges. The only addition that would make these summaries even more useful would be survey results showing what ratings people of different age groups give each attraction (as provided in Bob Sehlinger's unofficial guides).

This book gives the best restaurant descriptions of any guide I've looked at. Mr. Monaghan describes the atmosphere, noise level, and of course food quality of each full service and counter service restaurant (and even the little food carts) in the parks, hotels, and Citywalk. These reviews could only be improved by adding information on whether vegetarian options are available and some more detail on available kid's meals (since kids are usually the pickiest eaters!)

The descriptions of each of the three resort hotels really made me want to try staying at all of them! The amenities of each hotel (including the all-important hotel pool) are given plenty of detail, as well as a feel for the overall atmosphere of each hotel. The different rooms are described well, but I would love to have floor plans and square footage given for at least the more common room types.

The information on Citywalk is great and gives enough detail even for me!

The chapter on off-site hotels is very bare-bones (just a brief sentence or less and list of amenities for each property), so those planning to stay off-site would probably want to find another hotel information source. Or better yet, change your plans and stay on-site!

Overall this guide is probably more than enough for a "normal" vacation planner. Pictures would be a great addition, but I suppose there might be some legal or expense related reason that there are no pictures. For people like myself who enjoy information overload (as in the Unofficial Disney guides), this book could add in a lot more information. I would love to know more about the history of the Universal theme parks and maybe some humorous or interesting anecdotes about the parks, hotels, various attractions, etc.

Last of all, you may want to check the other orlando dotcom (trying not to get this information deleted!) first for more information.

Happy vacationing!

I was expecting a book with more than just pictures of beautiful places, I wanted information also. It did not fulfill my needs so I returned it.

As the saying goes, this small and inexpensive book gives you exactly what you paid for ... very little! The introduction to the book consists of three pages and the katsinam which are shown, though accurate, are certainly not some of the best examples. The primary katsinam for various seasonal dances are included, but very few others. One would be wise to chose other books on the subject.

Having just returned from Disneyland Paris, I can tell you that the ONLY thing this book got right was the information about how to get on Space Mountain just as the park opens to avoid the lines.

This is old, outdated information. The author apparently has bias that he doesn't like thinks European intruding on his Disney experience. In MY experience, this is the most beautiful of the three Disneyland Parks (I have been to all three) and the unique rides are terrific. The food is actually quite good at some of the restaurants in the park (the author thought they were tasteless and overpriced).

More seriously -- this information is so old, it doesn't even include Disney Studios or the Village...the Village has now been there for years and the Studios have already celebrated their first year anniversary. What a great park that needs some mention somewhere.

Finally -- and most disconcertingly -- I wrote a 20-page updated information letter to the author after my visit almost a year ago -- no thank you, no response, as if he doesn't even care to incorporate changes.

I do NOT recommend this guide -- but if you go to one of the stores that has the book, take it with you to the coffee shop area and thumb through it for a basic (OUTDATED!) overview.

Amazon and the publisher should be ashamed to still be selling this book! It has a "2nd edition" and a copyright from a couple of years ago, but that is a lie. This book is obviously a decade old information. It does not even mention the Studios park or the Disney Village area. It is completely out of date and utterly useless! First book I have every returned to Amazon. This book should be pulled from the shelves immediately! Don't make plans based on this book. Don't buy this book. Look for something up to date!

Ok. So I have no immediate plans to visit Disneyland
Paris, but, as a committed Disneyphile, I decided to
check this one out, to see if, if and when I DO
someday go to Paris, it would be worth a visit.
Now, I don't know for certain how identical DLP is to
Walt Disney World, but from the guidebook, you would
think they were virtual clones. While DLP has a few
unique rides (which get their own, original descriptions),
most of the ride descriptions, and the guest comments,
are lifted directly from the other guidebooks. Isn't it
AMAZING that a mother visiting DLP with her son had
EXACTLY the same experience on Dumbo as a mother who visited
WDW a decade or more ago? Much of the other information
(advice on visiting with kids, planning your day, understanding
traffic flows, meeting characters, etc.) is also reprinted,
virtually word for word, from the other Disney guides.

Of course there is some unique information. The hotels and
restaurants are described (the latter very briefly indeed -- 3-10 lines per restaurant, with no real description of the food, and only the most general indication of cost); you can apparently buy cigarettes in the park in Paris, and the few rides unique to DLP are described. (Interestingly, he doesn't seem to care for most of them.) He also gives basic information on getting to Paris, finding in-town hotels, and so on.

But most of it is just a tired rehash. Instead of giving us
a generic "DisneyX" book, why couldn't he focus on what makes
DLP different from the other parks? I'd guess that most readers, at least most American readers, have already been to either WDW or DL, and already know the basics. They are not going to be planning a trip to France JUST to take Junior to DLP as their first visit to a Disney park.
If Sehlinger REALLY doesn't want us to
go to DLP (he doesn't like most of the unique rides; the few rides for which he mentions differences from the U.S. version [for example, the French "Haunted Mansion"], get a poorer review here, and he thinks the food is lousy and overpriced) why not just say so, and save us the cost of the book.

OTOH, if you've never been to any Disney park, and never read a
Disney Unofficial Guidebook, this might be of some use.

This is the worst guide to DLRP. The author clearly hasn't done his homework and judging by the misinformation concerning the newer attractions must not have visited the place at all in the past ten years. His descriptions of the Indiana Jones ride (ie that it runs forwards and then backwards through a loop) and the Canal Boats (he says there is a guide cast member on board each boat)are just plain wrong. At the very least a purchaser should be able to expect such information to be factually correct. Do yourself a favour and give this one a miss.

Seems that cutting and pasting any old text together and calling it a book is what happened here. With a book titled " Disney world with kids" you have to wonder when there are text entries such as
"skip this if you don't have kids". I do not think the writer actually went near some of the attractions as the comments appear to be rehashings of older promotional discriptions. Avoid this book.

The title of this book is very misleading. There is little, if any, information to do with Disneyworld "with Kids". Any information provided is easily gotten elsewhere. Buy Frommers guide to DisneyWorld instead. It has lots of tips for traveling the Magic Kindom with kids.

I am a WDW veteran and an avid Disney World travel guide reader. Much of this book is outdated and inconsistent. Descriptions are vague and lack vital information. You are definitely better off with Birnbaum's Walt Disney World for kids, by kids; Birnbaum's Walt Disney World: Expert advice from the inside source; and The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. Did the publisher read this book?...

Although few people realize it the National Park Service has a proud and ancient history. The service dates back to 1916 and has grown over the years from a few parks to more than 385 parks that include the best of America's natural, recreational and historic resources. This is the history that is claimed to be represented in this collection of documents. Anyone who is buys this CD will soon notice several problems.

This first problem is that many of the links in these documents do not work. The reason for this is that the publisher downloaded all of this information from the National Park Service History web site...In addition, many of the links that do work take the reader to documents that have nothing to do with the history of the National Park Service. Anyone trying to read the information contained in these documents will soon become frustrated. Secondly, the collection of documents is badly formatted with many errors not found on the original documents (possibly resulting from the publisher's conversion of the original HTML documents into PDF format). Thirdly, contrary to the title, this collection is not complete. This information was downloaded between February and April 2002 from the National Park Service history web site. Since that time more that 50 additional documents have been added to this collection and are not included on this CD. Finally anyone who purchases this CD should know that the National Park Service has nothing to do with this product and will not profit from its sale. There is no reason to buy this product when all of this information and much more can be found on the web...

The images are not crisp and sharp. This is not Galen Rowell's best work -- and I suspect it has more to do with the quality of the printing than the original images -- but one just can't tell. I would recommend his book, MOUNTAIN LIGHT over this book. The Sierra's are naturally beautiful and this book falls short of representing this area well.