Hello and welcome to very amusing, your one-stop shop for the stories, secrets, and

shenanigans of a popcorn-fueled theme park journalist. I'm Carly Weizel and I am

having a very unusually exciting week, given how, I don't know, the last year has gone?

Now since last Wednesday's episode, I've previewed Avengers campus, visited on opening day, flown to Florida, and am

about to ride Velocsoaster. Yes, strangely this episode is coming out about an hour or two before I am physically in the seat of this beast of a coaster.

As I said last week, it's a real trip to have started this podcast mid-pandemic,

which was never the plan by the way.

This thing was in the works well before the world shut down

and done all these other episodes

while I wasn't in the parks to now be back at them for a summer opening just like old times.

It's way too much for my feeble brain to process, but my main takeaway from returning regularly to theme parks and running into everyone I know is that I can no longer make eye contact.

I can't do it.

It feels creepy to be not staring to people on a screen but see them in real life and

looking right into their peepers I just can't I can't handle it I just could end

up looking straight ahead just at a weird angle and people probably think I'm

avoiding them but you know we'll work on it.

We're all out here doing our best in a new sort of world.

Anyway, this week, as you now know,

is all about Universal Orlando Resortorts Velocsoaster.

Putting this out at the same time I'm going to ride it is kind of like playing that

rocky montage, only I'm not running upstairs, but just running directly to a roller coaster. I am absolutely terrified of.

I'm going to be brave, I'm going to be brave, but just know that while you listen to this,

...