Theme Park

CHATHAM, England -- In Dickens World, rat catchers hunt vermin on London's cobbled streets, pickpockets roam the alleys -- and visitors line up for a fun-tastic water ride. A new theme park inspired by the work of Charles Dickens aims to transform a 70,000-square-foot warehouse near London into a teeming -- and family-friendly -- corner of Victorian England. Literary purists may balk, but the attraction's backers are confident. "Would Dickens approve? Yes," said Thelma Grove of the Dickens Fellowship, a global association of the writer's fans.

ORLANDO — Pull down your lap bars: Universal Studios, the theme park chain controlled by Comcast, is rolling out new weapons in its battle against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts — and Disney is fortifying its defenses. Universal's parks have always languished in the shadow of mouse ears, and that will not change anytime soon. Disney has eight parks in California and Florida that attract over 73 million visitors each year. Universal operates three parks, with annual attendance totaling about 18 million.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. -- The early reviews are mostly positive at the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood where the menu changed on Christmas Eve to cut unhealthy trans fats from many junk food favorites. Twelve-year-old Jack Xu noticed something different about his french fry. "It tastes drier and not too salty," he said, then added: "I still like it. " The self-described junk food addict, an exchange student from Beijing who's visited the park before, was on a field trip this week and enjoying a basket of chicken tenders and fries.

Finnish mobile game developer Rovio has announced it will launch a successor to its immensely popular wingless birds franchise "Angry Birds" in the next few months. CEO Mikael Hed says it has bought the rights to "Casey's Contraptions" — a puzzle game played on cellphones and computers — from developers Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. Hed told Finnish YLE TV on Friday that the game will be renamed "Amazing Alex," and revolve around "a curious young boy who loves to build things.

HOUSE OF HOLES: A Book of Raunch By Nicholson Baker Simon & Schuster, 262 pp., $25 Nicholson Baker's new novel, "House of Holes," is brilliant, absurd, puerile, depraved, and completely enthralling. Reading the book nearly caused me to miss my bus stop. A day after I finished it, I could barely remember what I'd read. The novel is a surreal sexual fantasia, set in a theme park called the House of Holes, and brimming with men and women eager to have sex in a startling variety of manners.

If Charles Dickens had made it as far as the Everglades during one of his US reading tours, he may have been inspired to produce characters suspiciously similar to the Bigtrees, the family at the center of Karen Russell’s debut novel, “Swamplandia!’’. The Bigtrees — a clan of downtrodden alligator wrestlers, struggling to hold on to the theme park of the title — would be at home among any of the outsized personalities in Dickens’s cast of eccentrics. Russell, who on the merits of her story collection, “St.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- While Florida Splendid China closed on the last day of 2003 after struggling for 10 years to find a moneymaking niche, other local theme parks had no such troubles. A crowded Walt Disney World claimed record attendance over the Christmas holidays, and Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando felt healthy enough to increase ticket prices by $2. The contrast in fortunes marked the latest in a Darwinian shakeout in central Florida's tourism market, where only the biggest and strongest have survived two years of stagnant growth...

XIAN, China -- Not so long ago, tourism in China was all about foreign tourists. It used to be nearly impossible for ordinary Chinese to take anything like the kind of vacations in their own country that thousands of Western visitors enjoyed every year. But things have changed. The average Chinese citizen now lives far better than he did 15 years ago and has more money to spend -- increasingly on luxuries like culture, tourism, and recreation. These days, European and US visitors are likely to be sightseeing, shopping, and dining next to scores of...

ORLANDO — Pull down your lap bars: Universal Studios, the theme park chain controlled by Comcast, is rolling out new weapons in its battle against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts — and Disney is fortifying its defenses. Universal's parks have always languished in the shadow of mouse ears, and that will not change anytime soon. Disney has eight parks in California and Florida that attract over 73 million visitors each year. Universal operates three parks, with annual attendance totaling about 18 million.

A Harry Potter theme park is coming to California. Universal Studios executives said Tuesday that the company will spend several hundred million dollars to build a Harry Potter attraction inside its existing Hollywood theme park, mimicking the success of a similar park in Florida. At the same time, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando will get an expansion. Since the Harry Potter attraction opened in June of last year, attendance has jumped by about 50 percent. "It was a game changer for us and frankly for Orlando," Universal Studios president Ron Meyer told...

There was nothing at the start of that January morning to hint at the extraordinary triumph that would come later in the day. Bob Collins put his pants on one leg at a time, had some breakfast, and stopped by one of the state's fine courthouses to defend a client from an undoubtedly trumped-up charge. He drove to his law office in Randolph to move a few papers around his desk. Then he did what he loves most, which was to point his Grand Marquis toward his native Dorchester to while away a pleasant afternoon in the incomparable Adams Corner.

The Patriots are heading to Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI. For those of you who plan to follow and haven't planned ahead, don't worry - I found a few hotels with rooms available near the center of all the action. Caveat: these hotels had rooms available as of Jan. 21. You'll need to call these hotels directly to get pricing and room information; booking online isn't available for Super Bowl packages. Doubletree Carmel: The Doubletree is breaking out all the stops this year.

A Harry Potter theme park is coming to California. Universal Studios executives said Tuesday that the company will spend several hundred million dollars to build a Harry Potter attraction inside its existing Hollywood theme park, mimicking the success of a similar park in Florida. At the same time, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando will get an expansion. Since the Harry Potter attraction opened in June of last year, attendance has jumped by about 50 percent. "It was a game changer for us and frankly for Orlando," Universal Studios president Ron...

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - There's a new castle in Cinderella's neighborhood. Less than 30 miles from Disney World, the Sunshine State's latest fairy-tale fortress is one of the attractions at LEGOLAND Florida, which opened Oct. 15. Modeled on a LEGO play set, the medieval citadel features LEGO block versions of knights, damsels, and a fire-breathing dragon as well as a roller coaster roaring through its rooms. Try to count all the Danish plastic bricks in the castle, let alone in all of LEGOLAND, and you'll go madder than a hatter.

HOUSE OF HOLES: A Book of Raunch By Nicholson Baker Simon & Schuster, 262 pp., $25 Nicholson Baker's new novel, "House of Holes," is brilliant, absurd, puerile, depraved, and completely enthralling. Reading the book nearly caused me to miss my bus stop. A day after I finished it, I could barely remember what I'd read. The novel is a surreal sexual fantasia, set in a theme park called the House of Holes, and brimming with men and women eager to have sex in a startling variety of manners.

The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday that its net income in the latest quarter rose 11 percent as growth at ESPN, its theme parks and consumer products businesses outweighed lackluster performance at its movie studio and interactive unit. The results beat Wall Street expectations, but the surprise boost to Disney's fiscal third quarter came mostly because of the early booking of revenue at ESPN, which will result in an offsetting negative in its fiscal fourth quarter. After gaining nearly 4 percent to $36.08 in extended trading, Disney shares reversed course, dropping...

LOS ANGELES - After a decadelong courtship, the Walt Disney Co. has won approval from the central government of China to build a Disneyland-style theme park in Shanghai, a landmark deal that carries enormous cultural and financial implications, Roger A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said yesterday. The agreement for a Shanghai Disneyland was announced late yesterday. Analysts estimate the initial park - not including hotels and resort infrastructure - will cost $3.5 billion, making it one of the largest-ever foreign investments in China.

Finnish mobile game developer Rovio has announced it will launch a successor to its immensely popular wingless birds franchise "Angry Birds" in the next few months. CEO Mikael Hed says it has bought the rights to "Casey's Contraptions" — a puzzle game played on cellphones and computers — from developers Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. Hed told Finnish YLE TV on Friday that the game will be renamed "Amazing Alex," and revolve around "a curious young boy who loves to build things.

BUFFALO - Operator error was to blame for an amputee Iraq war veteran's deadly fall from a roller coaster and the amusement park was cited for having improperly trained workers, state officials said yesterday. Labor Department investigators found the Ride of Steel coaster at Darien Lake Theme Park & Resort was mechanically sound and safety devices were working properly when Army Sgt. James Hackemer, who had lost both his legs to a roadside bomb, was lifted from his seat near the end of the ride and thrown to the ground on July 8. The 29-year-old father of two died of blunt force trauma.