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MisterSG1

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Everything posted by MisterSG1

  1. Doesn't I-Street get its name moreso on the fact that the buildings themselves draw on different cultural architectural styles? Also, I'm sure we all know who caused detheming.....PARAMOUNT! It was them after all who put a mysterious temple in Rivertown.....
  2. I'm no expert at what goes on at Wonderland behind the scenes, but in all of Wonderland's history, they have only dismantled one roller coaster so far. Flight Deck of course is not nearly as popular as it used to be. I mean within the Paramount era, arguably Top Gun was the star attraction of Canada's Wonderland right until Cedar Fair took over. I have a personal bias against Time Warp and personally would like to see it go, but I don't see it leaving anytime soon. I could be wrong, but I think out of newer rides, say from Paramount ownership onwards, only really Sledgehammer has long maintenance. Even so, it doesn't seem to have as many problems as a ride like WindSeeker does.....I even saw WindSeeker malfunction last Saturday. For the most part, Wonderland has made uncanny designs to fit more recent roller coasters in, sure the Skyrider was removed in 2014, but I wondered before, how such rides like Behemoth or Leviathan were possible to build without compromising rides. I'm sure Wonderland doesn't want to remove any more roller coasters unless they REALLY have to.
  3. Moreso, what I was speaking of earlier, it seems at KI, the haunt people don't have those 10 foot pole signs indicating the end of a line for a maze. The point I linked to at 2:29....shows such a sign......I'll let you sadly figure out who that person is holding the 10 foot pole.
  4. Right, my mistake. There is no Haunt on Sundays there.
  5. But there is the blatantly obvious, how do you tell apart the monsters from the costumed guests?
  6. We have a strict policy at Canada’s Wonderland that guests are not to be in costumes during Halloween Haunt, I assume it’s the same there as well.
  7. In my maze, I counted two parents pushing a stroller through a maze, I mean seriously. Planet Snoopy and KidZVille are also barred off during the Haunt here as well. Haunt begins like a second opening of the park here, with another rope drop that takes place. I did warn against people going through mazes with a "no boo" necklace, but almost all went through still.
  8. I am just wondering this as an outsider.....I'll admit that since I'm back in school, I decided to for the fun of it, be involved with this year's Haunt event at Canada's Wonderland. I noticed that on the website, it doesn't show a time when the park closes during the day. Does the Haunt just begin after 6PM, or is there a time when they have to remove everyone. Your haunt is 7 hours long, our Haunt is only 5 hours long, in my opinion it's kind of unacceptable and on busier nights makes it practically impossible to get to every maze without fright lane. Do the Haunt Ushers carry the same yellow picket signs to indicate where a line starts for a maze like at Wonderland? I am just curious about this.
  9. Interesting, if you look more closely, you can see the logo is almost identical other than it showing the ride is a suspended coaster on the Wonderland version. Source: http://www.incrediblecoasters.com/VortexCW.jpg
  10. Speaking of Vortex, did the Kings Island version ever officially use this logo? Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-waymarking-images/903fe898-f85c-4d01-ab52-3350ef06efc8_d.JPG
  11. Although it's maybe just a coincidence, keep in mind that The Vortex name at Canada's Wonderland is to be going the way of the dodo at the end of this season. Although my personal two cents is that Firehawk is going, the consensus is no one really liked it, and the ride itself has been very temperamental.
  12. It's just something I was curious about, I only went to a Haunt event once. (although it was at Canada's Wonderland) I'm not entirely a fan of the whole concept of the Haunt but that's a personal opinion.
  13. I never went to Ontario Place much, I lived in Brampton and rarely went downtown. In fact, I can count on one hand how many times I went there. I went once in 1995, then again in 1999, and as a Grade 8 Graduation Trip in 2000. Other than CNE crossovers I did in the late 2000s to watch the airshow from atop of the pods, I never went there since. But on those times I crossed over from the CNE, the place was really starting to look neglected and run down. The CNE is the Canadian National Exhibition, it's kind of like a large state fair which happens in Exhbition Place, the exhibition grounds just on the other side of Lake Shore Blvd. The CNE occurs from about the middle to August to Labor Day, the last 3 days of the CNE, an airshow is held, and it was ideal to watch the airshow from Ontario Place. Admission to either CNE or Ontario Place at that time allowed for you to crossover to the other place for free. As for the Nintendo Power Pod.....very little information on the internet exists about it, but someone else beside me can prove its existence. The Lego Pod existed in 1995, however the Lego area moved to a different spot outside the pods in 1999. This is a video of the Wilderness Adventure Ride in its better days, there's many videos on YouTube of it at least: As for the children's village.....perhaps the most memorable thing was the punching bag forest. But perhaps the most embarrassing story if you ask me was the water slides which no one ever got to ride. The waterslide in the front was to be known as Topsy Turvy, built in the 2011 offseason before the sudden closure in 2012. At least the good news was this ride was relocated to Canada's Wonderland's Splash Works, where the ride is now known as Typhoon. For what it's worth, Ontario Place was trying to improve, but someone upstairs ordered the doors shut. I remember reading an article saying that the justification figures used to close Ontario Place were from a notoriously bad year and that attendance was starting to improve in the final years. Here's the article if anyone's interested. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/08/08/secret_ontario_place_documents_tell_a_story_of_success_not_failure.html
  14. Ontario Place was/is adjacent to downtown Toronto, and well if you were to drive straight north without backtracking west on the QEW to reach the 427 to eventually get to the 401, it's a distance of around 27 km or 17 miles. Ontario Place's Marina, as well as the large concert venue, the Molson Amphitheatre (now the Budweiser Stage), and Atlantis pavilions (which used two of the pods at the time) survived the 2012 closure. The cinesphere closed in 2012. The Molson Amphitheatre ended up "stealing" the big shows from Kingswood in Canada's Wonderland in the mid 1990s. Similarly to how Riverbend did the same thing with the Timberwolf Amphitheater. Atlantis has now completely shutdown, it was used for private events I do believe. The Cinesphere CLOSED in 2012, but it reopened as of November 2017 with constant showtimes. During the older days of the CNE, the IMAX documentaries were usually only played in the Cinesphere and not "regular" movies. The Ontario Place grounds are completely free to walk around, although I do believe much of the East Island looks different now. http://ontarioplace.com/en/cinesphere/
  15. Ontario Place.....a government owned amusement park shut its doors out of the blue in February 2012. Since then, what to do with the land it sits on has been up for debate but it's been currently decided on a regular public park of sorts will be on the islands that make up Ontario Place. A portion of this park is open, and learning that the iconic Cinesphere (more on that later) was operating again, and they were playing 2001 A Space Odyssey in the world's first IMAX theatre, well it was a given that I had to see what became of Ontario Place. Below is a map of it's final years as an amusement park: Ontario Place to give a brief history lesson, as I understand was not intended to become an amusement park. The islands were landfilled in order to cheapen the cost of the centerpiece, the five "pods" which float over the water, these pods contained exhibits apparently regarding the history of Ontario. A few years later, a giant play area for kids called the Children's Village opened up on the east island, which was followed by a water park, and I guess the rest was history. But understand the difference, Ontario Place's attraction for the most part appeared to be centered around DOING rather than simply riding. While much of the East Island has been redone with the park (the map is south-up, so the left side of the map is the east island) the west island appears to be in the same state as it was when they closed the doors. The heart of the West Island was three main attractions: The Wilderness Adventure Ride - this was a log flume ride which was themed after Northern Ontario, indeed there was an indoor lift hill partway through the ride with animatronics similar to the final lift hill of Adventure Express at Kings Island Mega Maze - a bunch of silos on the outside were used in this unique attraction as a collection of mazes you walked through, unlike a Halloween Haunt maze, this was an actual maze per se, the guest was given a plastic card to find a dozen or so readers hidden throughout the mazes. This attraction closed a few years before Ontario Place did, in 2009 Motion Ride - While I would call this "Sea Trek", the Sea Trek ride only existed in the 1990s, and I'm going to be brutally honest, the theming of this ride for a generic attraction was very good. The only other ride that had similar theming in my opinion was Tomb Raider at Kings Island. Very little exists on the internet about this ride, but I can find a Hamilton, ON news story speaking about this ride when it opened: I believe they changed the ride in the 2000s a few times, but I never rode it then. So it's unclear if the theming was as strong for the subsequent motion rides. Here's the current state of Adventure Wilderness Ride.....no water to be found at all of course: The ride's station is below, now a bunch of picnic tables This was the beginning of the ride upon leaving the station: Below were one of the walkways that connected the megamaze silos together, back in the day these were covered over, and it never felt like you went outside. I never did get to explore the East Island, but even seeing the state of the water slides a few years ago is sad stuff. The slides have been removed, but that tower in the background still stands for now. As for the Cinesphere.....this it still seems to look okay, and the presentation of 2001: A Space Odyssey was awesome! The Cinesphere was the world's first IMAX theater. j And of course, the entrance is starting to look fairly run down now, but what can you do. And finally....the pods themselves, they look much the same as I always remember on the outside. However, they have not been used on the inside since the late 90s except for the two in the foreground, they were used for potential private events. Back in the early to mid 90s, the other pods had great attractions in them, like a laser show, the Nintendo Power Pod which was full of SNES games that were free to play, in 1996, the N64 was playable before it's official release in September of that year. I never experienced that but it's what I've heard. Next door to the Nintendo Power Pod, was Legoland which was inside the pod next door. Somehow, these attractions withered away, I personally think they were great attractions. The Children's Village which arguably started the whole direction of amusement in the first place was torn down in 2002 and replaced by carnie rides. This is a view of the pods. While many have a lukewarm opinion of Ontario Place, and I was one that really didn't care in 2012. It's still kind of sad how this all turned out. It's possible the future of Ontario Place may be up for debate again, like putting a giant ferris wheel on the site. But who knows, for those who actually experienced the place as a kid in the 80s or 90s, it was a decent place.
  16. I thought the ride experience was good in 2004, but I'm no coaster enthusiast really. It was a smoother ride than the original Beast for me.
  17. I think you misunderstood what I meant. After all this is a Kings Island site and I don’t expect to average poster on here to be well knowledgeable on Wonderland’s attractions.
  18. Since you know more about the Wonderland than the average bear, I'm curious, do you see any spot where a new wooden or launched coaster could go? I mean one could say that the easiest solution is to put the Wild Beast on the chopping block, but it's something I don't want to see happen myself. The reason why KI's supporting coaster lineup is superb is because obviously. KI was the flagship park. KI got the record breaking Vortex, we got Dragon Fire. Or KI would get Flight of Fear while we would get as it was known Top Gun. While Kings Island gets the Son of Beast, we get The Fly. It was only when Cedar Fair took over that Canada's Wonderland started to get some respect from corporate. If I recall, I remember reading once that Leviathan was intended to go to Knott's originally, I mean it does seem a bit redundant having a hyper and giga, it's like junior and senior.
  19. Here's just a few two cents: It's a no brainer that in the pre-Cedar Fair days, Taft and including Paramount, that Kings Island was the flagship park of the chain. In this era, all the good stuff went to Kings Island, The Beast, Vortex, Son of Beast (despite its failure) broke records in their own ways. Before SOB, most would think a giant loop on a wooden coaster would be totally impossible, and that wooden coasters can't invert. It's what I think of attractions in the sense of those that "attract" visitors from great distances. Kings Island has not really done anything big since Cedar Fair took them over. They got Diamondback, but pretty much everyone has a 200' Hyper B&M nowadays. Then there's Banshee, a world record breaker sure, yet personally it doesn't strike me as a mega attraction. I mean, with the new rides that Cedar Fair has brought upon Canada's Wonderland, especially now with the addition of Yukon Striker, the first roller coaster built in Wonderland that will be a record holder of some kind, one could debate if Wonderland or Kings Island is the better park. This would be a dumb question to ask in 2004, as the answer would be a no brainer, Kings Island for sure, but now Wonderland has gotten close to the level of Kings Island. As for someone who asked why Kings Dominion attendance is so low. Even though it's on the I-95 corridor, it practically is in the middle of nowhere. The city that it's anchored onto, Richmond, is the smallest metro area for starters out of all the former Taft/KECO properties. Canada's Wonderland on the other hand, is anchored by one of the largest metros in either Canada/US, has great public transit access relative to the other parks, you can almost take the subway there now. (Toronto outside NYC has the strongest usage of public transit) I'm sure the vast majority of Wonderland's associates come in to work using public transit. Kings Dominion is for better or worse, an attraction in the middle of nowhere along I-95. Some could say Cedar Point is the same thing, but Cedar Point has made itself more of a destination than the local amusement park, at least that's how I see it.
  20. You sure about that, was the 2017 season much more successful because it happened to happen on the 150th anniversary of when Queen Victoria decided to unite three British colonies and split one of them into two pieces? Id like to see the numbers to prove that Canada’s Wonderland was more successful despite this. The whole Canada 150 movement was met with indifference in reality. Many were angry that the government was spending any money at all on Canada 150. i don’t really want to get deep into politics as I’m assumed that’s not tolerated here.
  21. This is all great news, and especially Winterfest. However, I am sort of lukewarm about the addition of Frontier Canada, call me pessimistic but that was something I was glad that they skipped out on originally. It seems like a forced Canadian Content concept, which was something some protestors of Wonderland demanded form the beginning. It's the kind of tackiness that's the same kind of thing if a Disney Park opened here and there'd just have to be Mickey in an RCMP ceremonial uniform. I'm not exactly sure why Cedar Fair all of a sudden is obsessed with tacky Canadiana theming that doesn't resonate with anything in the modern Greater Toronto Area.
  22. Quick question, can the antique cars actually be driven? The ones at Wonderland are simply a car ride that runs on a track and you pretend that you drive. But is there a level of control with the vehicles?
  23. So let me get this straight, is this actually a world record breaking coaster being built at Wonderland. As in tallest and fastest DIVE coaster, 246 foot drop, with a speed of 80 mph if this is the case, it’s a first for wonderland in getting a record breaker.
  24. Well in the example of Canada's Wonderland, there's a few things that make that park different. We know that Wonderland is the most visited seasonal theme park in North America (North America being our two countries) BUT, Wonderland doesn't have much to offer and isn't as "famous" as Cedar Poiint or Kings Island are, not by a longshot. I point back to Son of Beast as an example of making your park famous. It was the main attraction that got me interested in going in 2004. Kings Island and Cedar Point were all about innovation and world class roller coasters. Although Cedar Fair has been improving in putting big things in Wonderland, like Leviathan. But even so, Leviathan should have been the tallest traditional lift hill coaster in the world, even if it were to be beaten in a few years. So Wonderland's attendance, I think it's safe to say that it mostly comes from locals, I mean other than Knott's, Wonderland is the only park anchored onto a very large city. The Greater Toronto Area would be the 5th largest metro area if it were in the US. When including Hamilton, (which I think is fair as Dallas's incluedes Fort Worth) the population of the metro area is over 7 million. I'm not trying to be a downer, I'm being realistic, when's the last time you heard of someone saying they're taking a trip to Canada's Wonderland?
  25. And just last week, he refused to participate in the Rogers Cup in Toronto at York University....not far at all from Wonderland by the way. I wonder if he would go on with his anti-American rhetoric if he was told off by the officials at Canada's Wonderland for doing this on a ride on the Leviathan. Your days are done Andy Murray.
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