I just got back from a short trip to Futuroscope (english site / french site) in Poitiers, France with Robert and Liesbeth (which they gave me as an early birthday gift…AWESOME!), and although I’ve been there twice before it still rocks. In fact, since my last visit a couple of years ago they updated appox. 50% of the experiences. Yowza!

It’s basically a theme park about movie technology, interactivity and effects, hosted in a series of very futuristic buildings.
There are some 20 “experiences” to enjoy, ranging from a fun kiddy park (skipped ) to full-on Omnimax 3D movies. My favorites are still the 3D Omnimax and the live show at the end of the day (using projection on water-jet screens, lighted water jets, multi-color lasers, fire and smoke effects and fireworks), but the new stuff is very cool as well. Some are “immersion” rides using motion and screen tech simultaneously, some are closer to thrill rides like the “Danse avec les robots” (”Dance with the robots”) where you’re strapped into a seat connected to a huge industrial robot which then performs a choregraphed dance to music. It’s all great.

I always realy, really enjoy going anywhere or doing anything with Robert and Liesbeth, and add the really great Futuroscope to the mix and you have one awesome mini-trip, well worth the long drive!
Thank you guys!

Oh yeah, Liesbeth took some piccies, find them here on Flickr.

Small update: Liesbeth put a small clip of the dancing robots on YouTube: