BryanJay

I wonder if they’re teasing Boocifer making a cameo within the new ride (maybe he’s ‘watching us’ and the new curtain call’s about the obscure Easter eggs they put in). I would say it’s just nostalgia posting or just saying that both Boocifer and maestro play the organ, but it’s odd that there was also a Boocifer mention in the Valentine’s Day post. They’d be mostly level, just accounting for the slight incline in the hill up to the entrance and the slight decline from the exit (which is level with the exit). I think there’d be more of an issue with the emergency exits, as there’s two on the ground floor (and also blocking the employee’s break/maintenance area door, but stairs could be placed back there if needed)

I have absolutely no clue what the quote is referring to, but glad to have an update finally. I can’t wait!

I've tried taking screenshots and it doesn't show up clearly, but there's currently a crew working on the facade (or landscaping maybe?) on the live cams.

To my pain, I don't know if the plan is to open it with the park (though it seems odd to me that it would open the weekend after opening instead of having a soft opening with minor effects or adjustments being made during the weekdays the park is closed) but I also don't think it's likely for it to have been delayed. For reference, two months before their opening, RiverRacers hadn't been fully assembled, and the trains for Soapbox Racers hadn't arrived. Though I suppose I'm just "defending" the April 18th opening date because if manifest it enough I'll be able to ride it sooner. I think the reddit source is trustworthy, but I'm more inclined to believe the April date that has remained on Sally Dark Ride's site. Perhaps this is more of a personal want, but whether it opens with the park or if they hold a charity event, it would be a shame to me if there wasn't a clearly communicated opening day and if it randomly soft opened without notice a few weeks into the season. The crowd energy from fans at the last performance of Encore and the last day of Boo Blasters (and probably the Rick Bastrup Q&A, I'm still salty about having to miss that) was very fun to experience and I'd love to have it for the theater's grand reopening.

Historically the facade’s been worked on once the interior of the ride has basically been finished (as in that happened with Scooby Doo, that’s really the most recent example). I am doubtful at this point that the facade will see much of a facelift besides a repaint, but I’d love to be proven wrong. I’m very curious if we’ll see anymore updates this month from the park. The two unlisted videos have been removed from the YouTube playlist. There’s a Six Flags shareholders meeting on the 19th, but I don’t think the opening date or anything would be released because of it.

Good catch, those are definitely the opera boxes. They definitely go through inside the maintenance area behind the show building but I’m not sure what would be easiest to do. I wonder if they have had to remove and reassemble the ride cars every off-season like they do for the other rides, or if they’re allowed to stay because of the ride system. Either way I love seeing visual construction progress!

Who says they're not planning to do that? (They're probably not, but I'd love if this would happen eventually if the ride is a hit)

I photoshopped some nonsense after thinking of meet and greet characters. Do y'all think we could see an Arpeggio meet and greet like this (Or Maestro or any other PT ghouls for that matter)?

The two videos would be the video and shorts version of the same episode. I wouldn’t discount them not working on more episodes documenting the construction process, but I’d be worried personally of them spoiling too much if they did that.

I understood the All Park Passport thing from the sale, I'm still partially confused on what exactly this is so I can only imagine what the GP must think, but this is cool I suppose.

The Reddit source claims programming starts the first week of March and will take to months (installation’s definitely still going to be happening awhile into February regardless of how long it takes to program. My understanding is the animatronics and ride cars aren’t at the park yet, but don’t quote me on that.) If taken literally that would place the ride’s completion date at the start of May, but since the park did say it opens in April I’m now leaning towards it opening with the park (if nothing has changed it’s essentially a difference of a week, assuming there’s not a charity thing that would happen before passholder previews.) I’m also optimistic because the park said since the beginning that PT’s set to open in the spring, and Camp Snoopy/Adventure Port were always advertised as opening in Late Spring/the Summer.

Last season they didn’t have any shows inside the theater and used it as a meet and greet space that kept the doors opened. Depending on how many turnstiles they’d be able to fit I’d imagine it’d be easy enough to fit most of the crowds back there considering the reused ride system has consistent loading times and any returning ride operators have experience with it. For opening weekend it could potentially be an issue of deciding whether they want to create a within the Great Pumpkin Coaster entrance, or the exit to PT. I’m now questioning the source’s belief that it won’t be ready by opening day, but it also depends on how much integrity the park wants to put into a first impression. If show programming starts the first week of March and takes 2 months, April 18 is in sorta in the middle where if programming takes faster than expected it could be ready, or they could choose to open it with some effects potentially not working and making any adjustments within the weekdays before they begin daily OPs. It could maybe be a case where they do passholder previews until a few weekends into the season, but that would probably only make more people upset than if their flashlights weren’t working properly.

If I recall someone made a mockup in one of the threads, but I'm assuming for about the first month or so they'll loop it back by Pumpkin Coaster, possibly going through the Peanuts Showplace theater as well (Which I still think would be cool if they put some of the old displays they used for the lobby of Encore in there). They used a similar setup for the final week or so of Boo Blasters, but I imagine Phantom's going to have a larger turnout.

From my perspective (not being directly involved or knowing much about construction) I’d believe it isn’t a holdup, but rather they just didn’t plan for it to open April 17. The leaker said they’re completing theming until February, and beginning show programming which would be completed in about 2 months. I think this is the closest turnaround they could complete considering guests would be in the park for Winterfest which hasn’t been an issue. I selfishly hope they don’t do an unplanned soft opening because I really want to be there opening day, but it wouldn’t shock me if they opened it as soon as programming was finished, and it would be even more surprising to me if they waited until Memorial Day. Because it’s accessible and indoors, I’d assume it’s the kind of thing KI wouldn’t want sitting dormant besides when they absolutely had to for Haunt/Winterfest to allow for the building to be cleared.

Never trust everything some rando claims to know on Reddit... except for this one time, it's for sure legit. I'm not necessarily shocked, we haven't had a new addition open alongside the park in years. I'm just disappointed that Phantom couldn't be the exception. But I've been waiting like 15 years for this, what's another few weeks? I just hope they announce a firm date instead of having a random soft opening which I miss, and they jump up and down in anger for not choosing to go that day.

As of November it’s been said to be opening with the park in April, but I think it’s too early in construction/a liability for them to confirm that it is. I also won’t claim to know anything about construction but I assume there’s less room for error when retrofitting an indoor attraction with new props than there are with an outdoor project built from the ground up. But I choose to be optimistic. I have faith in Sally Dark Rides.

I wonder what the construction timeframe will be for that. In my mind the exterior would probably be the last aspect of construction to be completed, but who knows. I wonder if when we get closing to opening daymare, we’ll get more on-site construction updates outside of Curtain Class episodes. Part of me wants them to save any photos from inside the ride to be saved so it’s more of a surprise, but I’m also desperate for any updates so who cares.

I actually really love Sir Pretzel and the reasoning behind his name, he’s my favorite now because there’s no previous design from the original to compare him to. (I had a shock seeing they slightly changed Lionel’s outfit in the background and I’m hoping they do him justice (as if he was a vital character in the original)) Also RIP Bosco for real now, iykyk.

Here’s every animatronic (except one I guess, I’m not sure if they’re counting the gargoyle as one). I’m assuming some of the head sculpts will be reused for the main characters. I wonder if them being yellow within their model means they have facial movements (Which would align with Maestro and Larry well. The two oddballs with this theory are Hilda and the Boiler Men which I assume would talk but I after this new episode I also need to remember that it’s a homage to the original versus a remake. Also if Houdelini gets a voice that will be cool.) They all look fine here, and when judging the models with the physical figures we’ve seen I’m sure they’ll look fantastic!

Love the new precedent of announcing Curtain Call episodes in advance so I don’t have to stress about a random drop on Thursdays. Starting the new year off right.

So like… they’re fitting them in holiday outfits already.. Winterfest overlay?

Important to note that I still don’t think this is 100% what is in the ride vs early ideations: Bottom row,5th: Final scene where the Boiler Room was in the original. 4th row, 2nd: Larry turntable (with also the same flower setup as boo blasters) 4th row, 3rd: Peppers Ghost (??) stage scene. The 5th scene also looks to be Maestro at the organ again, so I wonder if this is before they got the budget and maybe used more elements from Boo Blasters retrofitted to Phantom (which they still could do but I think it’s a complete rebuild unless they use any props as easter eggs) 3rd row, 3-5: Houdelini, Hilda, and ?? Houdelini again??? Also after much reflection… I actually kind of feel bad at calling the documentary thing underwhelming I apologize. I think I expected more new footage of the animatronics, but this is also a good intro for someone who may not be extremely familiar with the phantom theater lore like me and probably everyone else who was refreshing for this all day. The next episode will be the best one yet.

Potential spoilers from new documentary episode

Simultaneously underwhelmed personally because I knew about this stuff before and not much new footage was shown (I get very high expectations so I expected a full ride pov in my mind ig lol), but very excited that this is a continuing series! What’s interesting to note is that there’s at least 3 private videos in that series, so either it’s a monthly thing leading up to March, or it’s on some other schedule. I also love the opening to the video so much. It’s very well done and honestly should be in like the commercial they’ll inevitably make for advertisements.

… guess I called off work for nothing today