TombRaiderFTW
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Posts posted by TombRaiderFTW
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13 minutes ago, disco2000 said:
So car manufacturers never tout the safety rankings they get? They never produce videos showing what goes into making their cars safer?
That's not an apples to apples comparison. Car accidents typically don't cause people to question the safety of cars as a genre of machine. If a car is unsafe, people will at most not buy that model or make again. The amusement industry does not work the same way (with non-enthusiasts, anyway.) The car industry is not nearly as dependent upon each other the way the amusement industry is.
I don't think Tr0y deserves hellfire and brimstone for their post, and I hope I didn't come across that way. There's a lot of ways that Tr0y's kind of response makes sense when compared to how online PR often works nowadays. I just think "throwing shade at Carowinds" (which IS what was original post said) isn't the right approach for the amusement industry, and I decided to explain why.
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1 minute ago, Tr0y said:
You gotta throw shade! It’s a missed opportunity! Showcase your maintenance department and promote yourself. You know how many companies throw shade at McDonald’s Ice cream machines because they are constantly down?
Also any amusement park incident or accident that makes national news looks bad for the industry as a whole. You gotta make it seem as if it’s a them problem and you problem.
Ice cream machines being down aren't perceived as a threat to human lives. That's the difference. McDonald's ice cream machines being down doesn't make Wendy's customers wary of buying a Frosty. Amusement parks don't exist in a vacuum the way fast food, for example, does.
Yes, a nationally publicized park incident makes the whole industry look bad. What you are missing is that organizations like the ASTM F24 committee, IAAPA, etc. exist to help professionals support each other and improve safety for everyone. Company lines have no meaningful presence in those places, because a loss for one is a loss for everyone. I know nothing, but I guarantee you that Fury is and will be discussed heavily there so that this does not happen again.
The industry is much, much more of a family than various Twitter feeds would lead you to believe.
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1 hour ago, Tr0y said:
I’m surprised no other park has taken this incident and made a marketing video of a backstage tour on how their coasters are kept safe with daily checks and stuff. If I was in marketing for a competing park I would be throwing major shade towards Carowinds.
Why, though? The amusement industry is already perceived as being unsafe by many Americans. How does publicly throwing a major player under the bus do anything besides make that negative perception worse for every park in the country? Remember that the general public neither knows nor cares to know the difference between a Fun Spot and a Cedar Fair. Enthusiast perception is not the reality of the market.
It's also not like Cedar Fair or Carowinds are in the business of being negligent. Obviously, this wasn't anticipated. If you make a big production of throwing one park under the bus and then it happens to you as unexpectedly as it did to them... Where does that leave the public perception of the industry then? You've sold your colleagues for a shot at more ticket sales, and it wouldn't have even paid off for you.
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I honestly don't feel like any of the Fun Spot parks make sense within any major seasonal operator's portfolio. They're closer to roadside tourist attractions (like miniature golf, Ripley's Believe It or Not, etc.) than traditional amusement parks, in my opinion.
That being said, if I had to choose, Fun Spot Orlando has the closest aesthetics to a Cedar Fair or Six Flags park, so probably them. If Disney or (especially) Universal were to buy it, I think it'd be to shut it down and sell the assets. But I also think it hardly dents the attendance at either, so it's a moot point on that front.
Fun Spot Kissimmee is closer to that roadside attraction aesthetic than the Orlando park. Honestly, if I were to pick someone to buy it, I'd probably choose the family that owns ZDT's Amusement Park in Seguin, Texas. The Kissimmee park feels like a moderately bigger version of that park.
I haven't been to Fun Spot Atlanta, but based off what I understand secondhand of it, it seems pretty similar in size and aesthetics to the Kissimmee park.
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On 7/5/2023 at 4:26 PM, SonofBaconator said:
Technically, Boo Blasters is part of International Street but was rebranded when the chain dropped the Scooby Doo IP.
I’m assuming they went with a generic ghost IP to make the transition easier while still keeping the shooting aspect.
This is a minor point, but Boo Blasters is actually an out-of-the-box concept from Sally called "Ghost Blasters II" that exists at other parks. Like, "out-of-the-box" to the point that Sally's website refers to Boo Blasters as Ghost Blasters II:
https://www.sallydarkrides.com/dark-rides/ghost-blasters-ii
Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle was, I suspect, originally based on the Ghost Blasters II concept--or, at least, they were very similar. (Sally lists the SDatHC's as their own listing in their portfolio.) Either way, it kind of tracks for Kinzel's Cedar Fair to choose a theme that's both premade (i.e., cheap) and close enough to what's already there.
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1 hour ago, SonofBaconator said:
IIRC, you need goggles to ride Formula Rosa which I don’t think CF would want to bother with.
Formula Rossa is in a desert. You wear goggles because of sand.
I would be shocked if the max height or speed of Top Thrill Dragster increases at this point. I would imagine that you don't just tack on 30 mph to a ride's speed without reprofiling the climb up. And that part is already being painted.
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9 hours ago, disco2000 said:
They should make the code unique to the person so they can track down who is sharing it and ban them LOL...
I agree that they should make the code unique to each person--but as a way of nullifying this issue altogether. Doing it as a generic, enter-the-code-and-receive-it promo code (which, reading between the lines, is what I speculate happened here) is an oddly low-tech way of handling this, with the risk being exactly what happened.
Kings Island already has a passholder portal, both in their app and on their website. Is the technology not already there for issuing passholder-specific ticket offers...?
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At the time, Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular was a neat enough change. At least when it first opened, anyway. It was in pretty sad shape towards the end--lots of burnt-out or unlit strands of lights.
I think to today's crowd, it'd be somewhat underwhelming. Just about anything done with lighting at Winterfest, Haunt, or even the closing fireworks these days is more impressive.
It's really nice to be on this side of the Kinzel era.
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18 minutes ago, funpark said:
Sol spin is now my favorite flat.
I love your picture! It makes Sol Spin look like a flower.
6 minutes ago, disco2000 said:What will it take to prevent guests from pulling on the restraints with all their weight LOL.
PSA - the restraints will come down on their own.
My understanding is most of the downtime is related to guests pulling on the restraints and tripping faults.
So while we see the ride down a lot, it appears to be more guest initiated as opposed to ride initiated because folks are used to pulling down their own restraints.
I wonder if KI is talking with Zamperla at all about modifying the restraints so that this won't continue to be the case, if that's even an option. Purely from an operational standpoint, every other ride in the park with OTSRs has you pull down your own restraint. You can't fault people for expecting the exact same out of Sol Spin. If people pulling on the restraints is causing downtime, modifying the restraints to eliminate that would make better use of everyone's time, and there's a cost savings that could be attached to that.
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22 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:
Did someone from Holiday World discretely but purposely put this info out? Otherwise I don't see how it was leaked if it was legally discovered.
I'm glad someone else is saying this, because I've always thought Screamscape "rumors" and "leaks" out of Holiday World were a little too specific to be picked up by most enthusiasts, let alone the general public. Nobody's watching chain theme parks that closely--and as great as Holiday World is, I have a hard time believing anyone is watching them even more closely.
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14 hours ago, Tr0y said:
That’s because Cedar Fair know’s darn well if they invested in KI the way Paramount did. It would eat away at Cedar Point. Cedar Point literally survives off being a destination park. That’s one of the reasons why all of their coaster additions with the exception of kiddy coasters were or are record breakers. Kings Island on the other hand has a good local base to draw from. The number 1 steel coaster in the world with Fury 325, 4 hours away from the flagship park?? Devastating. Cedar Fair can’t have that. We’ve been the step child ever since Paramount sold us.
Literally begging y'all to stop seeing Cedar Fair as an unchanging monolith who has always done things the same way and always will.
People at the top have changed heavily. You just described how KINZEL ran CF. We're a full decade past that era.
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Not to simp, but the thing JUST opened. I think some downtime and awkward/slow operations are to be expected right now.
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I voted no. I'm indifferent to it being an upcharge; I just never enjoyed riding it. I rode it a few times.
I have similar feelings about Xtreme Skyflyer.
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8 hours ago, Tr0y said:
I would love if the park upgraded or changed the location of the Soak City train station. It is currently an abysmal concrete pad with fencing. Same goes with the path that leads to Soak City, it’s not even a direct path to the water park. Honestly Soak City and the Train aren’t going anywhere so they might as well invest in having the path either go underneath or goes over the tracks and get rid of that hideous looking pedestrian bridge.
I kind of agree with this. The Soak City station feels like an afterthought, a backstage area, and way too undersized for the volume of people who use it. It routinely doesn't have enough space for the people who are waiting to board, so the line often extends out into the already cramped adjacent path, especially on busy days. I like your placement for the new station and think it'd also make good use of that path alongside the lazy river, which (I think) is currently blocked off anyway.
I think the only downside to this plan, apart from trees, is that that'd also do away with a maintenance road. But, I'm sure there's something that can be done to replace it or provide another way for employees to get around.
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12 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:
I feel personally attacked
21 minutes ago, beastfan11 said:I feel a bit responsible for the PT dead horse beating. But I won’t apologize.
Alright, let me clarify my post real quick.
I'm not singling anyone out. I too have talked about these things. There's nothing wrong with talking about those things. There's a reason they're common topics--they're good topics that many around here care about. You're exasperating no one if you continue to talk about them.
My tone was meant to be playful, while also listing things that get talked about around here a lot. I couldn't care less if y'all were to make a thousand new Phantom Theater threads tomorrow. This is a Kings Island fansite. If you're NOT posting about hopeful you are to speculate that Phantom Theater will be back next year and what it might be like, then I'm not sure what the point of this place even is. Keep doing what you do!
I apologize if anything I listed was hurtful to anyone. That wasn't my intent, but intent matters less than effect.
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This is pretty typical of Inside the Magic, to be honest. "Mislead and then take 4 paragraphs to actually tell the story" is the name of the game over there.
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Edit: Nevermind. This post was not my finest idea.
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1 hour ago, rlentless said:What is the meaning of name Craig?rock, rockyOrigin:Scottish. Meaning:rock, rocky. Craig is a masculine name of Scottish, Gaelic, and Welsh origins. Coming from the Gaelic word creag, this name translates to “rock” or “rocky.” It also comes from the word “crag,” which describes a steep, rugged cliff that makes for a stunning sight on the Scottish coast.56 minutes ago, zac2211 said:
it's also a joke from Halo
I'm gonna be very honest... I picked Craig because he looks like a Craig.
That it has any other connotations with a statue is both unintentional and hilarious.
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1 hour ago, DeltaFlyer said:
I got some mega spins in Cacao Beans and Fish Oil yesterday.
It took me a few minutes to realize you were naming barrels on Cargo Loco and not making a joke about eating cacao beans and fish oil and getting diarrhea.
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46 minutes ago, jdf21972 said:
So what is the name of the big giant head ? Tonatiuh for the Aztec name for sun ?
He looks like a Craig to me.
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1 minute ago, CorkscrewMcPuke said:
I know people are quick to anticipate disappointment, but the park is really ramping up the Outpost 5 stuff a lot. I can not help but feel serious anticipation for something big.
You should probably know that the Outpost 5 stuff is originally based on Adventure Express's original queue audio. You're seeing more mentions of it because Adventure Express just got its makeover. There's a really good chance you're setting yourself up for disappointment by looking into things any more deeply than that.
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If they're teasing this much, we must be getting close to an opening date announcement. I'm beyond excited to ride Adventure Express and see the updates.
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36 minutes ago, IBEW_Sparky said:
Am I the only one on tjhe forums who would much rather see the return of Cirque to the Theater in some form? PTE was and is a one and done for me, last year was enough.
Nope. Not just you. I mean no hate towards the cast and crew of PTE--their execution of the show was great--but I saw it once or twice. That was enough for me. I appreciate some campiness, but the concept and script just don't resonate with me. (I also don't entirely understand the nostalgia for Phantom Theater, but that's for a different topic.)
I personally preferred the cirque shows, too, but I'd also like to see a bit more story sprinkled in if they were to return. Cirque Imagine was amazing and had just enough of a story that the show felt like a journey. Origins and Gravity were both very enjoyable, but they were a little less enrapturing than Cirque Imagine.
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50 minutes ago, BoddaH1994 said:
Scooby was soldto us as an interactive dark ride where no two rides would ever be the same.
Now now, they didn't lie. No two rides are the same when something new stops working every cycle.
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Canada's Wonderland's Next Coaster
in Other Amusement Parks & Industry News
Posted
Concept #1 definitely seems like it'd require Wonder Mountain's Guardian and possibly Vortex to be removed. I wonder if they're already being considered for removal...