bkroz

Flubbed from start to finish. The viral marketing campaign promising feuding hillbillies, White Lightning, moonshine, distilleries... The end result... the slowest, most meandering, useless flume I've ever encountered. Not a single animation, robotic figure, special effect. Not a single story element. An absolute let down. The accident that occurred on it is horrifying and horrible and scarring. If there's any silver lining in such a terrible event, it's that without that accident, the ride probably would've just plodded along for decades as a waste of space and resources.

IF you buy a single day, multi-park ticket. Out of 100 people, how many stay for a single day? The hyperbole continues.

Welcome! I'll say this much - what you probably mean is what we'd call an "inversion." An inversion is a piece a track that turns riders upside down. A vertical loop is one kind of inversion, but there are many, many others - a corkscrew, an inclined loop, a dive loop or an Immelmann loop (same physical feature, just traversed in different directions; twisting out of a a half-loop leading into a half corkscrew), a cobra roll (which, I guess, is two half loops connected by two half corkscrews and turns riders upside down twice), a barrel roll (you twist around the track), a heartline roll (the track twists around you), and a zero-G roll are just a few. Sometimes different ride manufacturers give different names to the same or similar elements. When Arrow built a roller coaster called Drachen Fire, they built what Bollinger and Mabillard called a 'cobra roll' and called it a 'bat wing' instead. Here's a list someone put together, but even that isn't exhaustive. You can learn a great deal by looking up roller coasters on the Roller Coaster Database site. For example, here's Banshee's page, which lists all of its elements including its 7 inversions. At Kings Island, five roller coasters turn riders upside down: Firehawk, Flight of Fear, Banshee, Vortex, and Invertigo. Saying which is the best isn't as easy as it seems. Just because both Banshee and Vortex go upside down doesn't mean they're comparable rides at all. What's it like to go upside down? Centripetal force pushes you back into your seat. When you go over airtime hills like on Diamondback, you feel weightless for a few seconds. When you go upside down, you feel heavier than normal for a few seconds, though the easier way to think about it is that you feel like you're pushed deeper back into your seat. Each element feels a bit different. A loop is quick and smooth; a barrel roll is like an elongated twist; a cobra roll has a little "snap" as you pass through the complex shape, etc.

Yeah, seriously! The way they act, you'd think that the Disney brand itself is worth something! Hmmm... Come to think of it, maybe that's why Joe Schmo can't open an Etsy shop (or a candle shop) selling products that prominently use the brand's identity in hopes of banking on that affiliation.

Big thanks everyone – the feature was just now posted to Theme Park Tourist's Facebook page, but it had well over 800 Facebook "likes" before then! That's astounding. I take it to mean that many of you shared it on your social media and got it circulating among your friends, which is pretty incredible to me. Great to see the comments and shares rolling in on Facebook... At this rate, I'd say this experiment may well be deemed a success. Thank you for starting some great discussions about it here, and don't forget to comment on the article and on the Facebook post if you have one! You all are the best!

The current backstage warehouses there would make a GREAT spot for a Triotech dark ride if we're to get one. The possibilities to go along with the secret government base are endless. If Voyage to the Iron Reef takes guests into the ocean, a dark ride in X-Base could be space-themed. And hopefully, such an addition would add a restroom and a full "land" designation on the map, too.

Infrastructure like the quality, price, and service of food? Or chain-wide passes working effortlessly at each and every gate? Respecting themed areas with appropriate attractions? Tone-setting music in the park? Emphasizing quality entertainment across the park? Maintaining the details and effects that make rides special? Tower Gardens? Trams from the parking lot? 'Cause I'd say THAT is infrastructure. Did Paramount / Viacom / CBS score perfectly across the board in those categories? Absolutely not. And there ARE many aspects of park operations that Cedar Fair is far and away better at. Cedar Fair's doing a wonderful job with pavers, high-capacity and high-quality attractions, a balance of nostalgia, minimal advertising, and more. But it's hardly black and white.

For a very long time, I vilified Kinzel and company for opting out of the Paramount licensing that we believe they had the option to extend. The Interpreter confirmed once, long ago, that the option to purchase that license WAS available... for many times more than the parks themselves had cost. And to be clear, the $1.24 billion Cedar Fair spent acquiring the parks alone propelled them into massive debt from which they probably still haven't fully recovered. The idea that it might've cost even $1 billion to secure the "Paramount" name for X number of years... well, we might not have Kings Island today at all. To me, the feeling of Kings Island shifted after that transition really took hold in 2008. At the time, Cedar Fair said that the parks would now be more nostalgic, harkening back to the 1980s. Having grown up with Paramount, though, THAT was my Kings Island, and a time before that wasn't nostalgic... I can only say that after taking a few years off of parks and returning to Kings Island in 2009 – without ever having gotten a proper "last ride" on Tomb Raider or a "goodbye" to the Paramount era – the park felted markedly different afterwards. And not in a good way to me. It felt generic. Thoughtless. Tired. I think the loss of TOMB RAIDER left a massive hole in the park's line-up that's still not filled today. A stunning attraction that once was, no longer is. There was good and bad about Paramount's Kings Island and good and bad about Cedar Fair's. Altogether, I suppose an objective person would argue that Kings Island today is a better park than it was in 2005. Fair enough. But I STILL think that Tomb Raider was one of the greatest rides to EVER exist, and the fact that it no longer does is... wow... a real kick in the stomach. Many of us had complaints under CBS / Cedar Fair's first year when Tomb Raider was on its last legs. But even then, we've heard it said here that "One day, THESE may be the good old days." It was true then and it's true now. Who knows what's next?

Thank you both. Really awesome to hear. The whole point of the In-Depth articles I've been writing (in my mind) are to tell these stories. I'm in my mid-20s and I grew up with Tomb Raider as a defining attraction that led to my love of theme parks. It set the bar for the kinds of attractions I enjoy and the ones I would populate my dream park with. It's what primed me for Indiana Jones Adventure, Revenge of the Mummy, etc. The memories I have of it, of lowering toward the lava, of flipping up and slamming to a halt before the icicles... Those sorts of things are just indescribable. It's easy to forget that the circumstances you grew up with are not the same circumstances others experienced. A whole new "generation" of theme park fans – including many here! – have only heard of Tomb Raider and maybe even wondered, "Geez, what was the big deal?" I hope articles like this add context and really save these stories (even in a very simple, brief format) to help them understand what the big deal was. Those of you who worked on Tomb Raider or the Crypt have far, far more knowledge than I do, so it's awesome to hear that you appreciate this article or that it brings back a memory. Wow. If Kings Island announced that for 2017 they were adding a new top spin into that ride, bringing back the lava, the music, the goddess, the icicles, etc., I might literally cry. In fact, I think I would. Just the idea that something so tremendous could exist at Kings Island again... yeah, I'd buy a Platinum Pass for me and for each of my friends, too. Cavern of Terror alright.

Which, as I've said before, would be alright if they'd set the park up to be forested again one day. Instead, they replaced the dozens and dozens of mature trees around Swan Lake with a handful of dogwoods around Diamondback. If they'd re-planted some real trees – and a lot of them – we would already be well on our way to returning to that historical picture. Instead, 50 years from now, that'll still look like a concrete trough with a finely manicured lawn and a few small trees scattered around it.

Hey friends. As many of you know, I occasionally write for a site called Theme Park Tourist. It's admittedly a very Disney-focused site (and Disney World at that) but I created a thread here a few years ago linking to my favorite features and stories that I've written. I updated that thread today because lately I've been on a kick with two new series: an In-Depth Retrospective that looks back at the detailed stories behind lost favorites and a Possibilityland series that examines never-built attractions, lands, and theme parks. So if you're interested at all in sitting back and reading some cool stories, and mindless (but interesting!) theme park listicles, check out that thread linked to above. But anyway, I've had a very unique opportunity after speaking with the site owner. I mentioned that TOMB RAIDER: The Ride was one of my favorite rides of all time and even though it's a bit of a niche piece (on a website almost wholly dedicated to Walt Disney World), he let me go ahead and do an In-Depth piece on TOMB RAIDER, saying that if it catches on it could open up a whole new avenue for the site. Obviously, I'd love that. So if you have a few minutes, check out TOMB RAIDER: How One of America's Best Themed Rides Was Buried For Good. If you share it on your social media, get it circulating among friends in the Midwest, and get some comments going at the bottom of the feature, it'll help to justify this little test of expanding to seasonal park coverage (and it would make me very happy, too)! At the end of the day, the whole point of those In-Depth articles is to preserve the stories of rides lost to time. I think TOMB RAIDER is worth preserving and warrants a look back. So check it out!

But at the same time, Vortex offers a much different ride experience than Banshee. Banshee is intense in terms of the forces and maneuvers, but it's a sleek, smooth, quick, and surprising ride. Vortex is lumbering with awkward track transitions, a strange pacing of elements, and a very different feeling. Yes, technically they can be compared by the fact that they both have multiple inversions, but I personally wouldn't say "ride Vortex to see if you can handle Banshee." Doing so would cause a lot of people to say, "Shoot, if Banshee is a bigger version of THAT, I don't want anything to do with it." (With apologies to Vortex lovers, who I have tremendous respect for.) My mom rode Anaconda at Kings Dominion a decade ago and swore off coasters until very recently thinking they all felt like Arrow multi-loopers.

Depending too on your driving situation, I'll let you in on a little secret: many folks choose to leave the park for lunch. Drive down the street to Wendy's or Taco Bell, grab a cheap, quick bite, and return to the park. As long as you've got your parking receipt, you can get back into the lot for free. It's also a nice way to escape the park during the (often) hot and crowded afternoon. Get a good breakfast, eat lunch outside of the park, and get a late dinner on the way home / to the hotel and voila. You've saved big time. It would be something different if the park's food was great or special or featured some must-haves. As it is, I wouldn't even call it "good." Then to consider that they're charging premium prices for it... Yuck.

Historically, tickets will always be cheaper online, so buy before you arrive. My best advice is that most of the rides you've listed (the drop t0wer, slingshot, and bungee) are all rides meant to build tension and anticipation and fear up to a single point of release. I'd start with the drop t0wer because it's likely to help you see that – yes, the build-up and anticipation are wild and unbelievable – but the eventual release is quick, fantastic, and (most importantly) fun! If you can do one, you can do them all (even if you don't think you can). It may very well be that once you're at the park looking up at the bungee, you go "Uh uh. Nope." And that's okay! My advice is always that fear and anticipation are natural and appropriate and can actually heighten your enjoyment... up to a point. If you're sick at the thought of riding Banshee, don't! If you think the fun will outweigh the fright (which it usually does), try it. Logically you know you're safe, so it's up to you to decide if the experience is worth the mental discomfort the precedes it. At least in the past the price for the bungee and slingshot vary throughout the day to match the current demand. First thing in the morning, they're typically both at their very lowest prices. My understanding is that you can buy your tickets for them right away for a low price ($5 or $10 per person) and then return any time that day to redeem the tickets. It sort of throws off their system, but until or unless they explicitly state that you have to immediately enter the queue, it's fair. Just be aware that even a dozen people in front of you in line can be an hour wait thanks to the low capacity of the attraction, so in a once-in-a-summer special trip, it may not be worth the time. Holding hands sounds like it'll help till you're seated on a ride. Then suddenly all you want to do is hold onto the restraint.

What about these Polercoasters, which marketers often cite as the tallest roller coasters on Earth despite being neither higher than or containing a larger drop than other coasters?

And imagine - Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey in Japan and the one soon to open in Hollywood are in 3D! Seriously! *barf*

Sure, in the same way that Pirates of the Caribbean and "it's a small world" are basically the same ride due to their identical ride systems. Or Jungle Cruise and Jaws; Peter Pan's Flight and ET Adventure; Cat and the Hat and Men In Black (yes, same ride system). The point is that even if guests look at Transformers' vehicles and say, "Hey, this ride must work just like the Spider-Man one!" it's hardly a problem. I do agree that Universal has reached a sort of saturation point with 3D screens. The running joke is that they ought to just give you a pair of 3D glasses when you enter the park and you can use them all day long. It's a shame. The physical environments that the designers of Universal Creative have crafted (even pre-Potter) are evidence enough that their cinematic heritage can build outstanding and habitable worlds. But, to be fair, the kinds of worlds Universal takes guests into are – frankly – easier to create digitally. Each of Universal's rides is clever and unique and surprising and modern, but in the next year alone, the practical-effect-laden Twister will be replaced with yet another screen-based simulator (Jimmy Fallon's Race Through New York) and the practical-effects-based Disaster will be replaced with screens (Fast & Furious). We've been promised that King Kong will have physical sets and animatronics, but we can know pretty surely that the King Kong 360 3D projection tunnel from Hollywood will be its signature moment... And now, to me, we're at the tipping point. I actually think the parks can't take any more. Spider-Man was clever and unique and groundbreaking. Forbidden Journey did it again. Gringotts exceeded them both. But frankly, that's enough. I adore Universal Orlando and would (and do) choose it over Walt Disney World. But the folks at Universal Creative need to lead a sincere and purposeful campaign to bring old-fashioned dark rides to the parks. Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem is a fine simulator. But in retrospect, a fun, comic, frenzied, physical dark ride with Minion animatronics would probably have been even better. Examples of that abound. In comparison, only ONE of Disneyland Resort's rides requires 3D glasses. Two very different approaches. Perhaps they could both benefit from finding a happy medium.

Which explains why we're hearing that Six Flags in China is a $4 billion project... more than the cost of Tokyo DisneySea. Granted, that's likely including much more than just the amusement park, but still. Not the kind of cash Six Flags Entertainment Corp. would likely be tossing around.

The parks proposed across the globe would not be owned or operated by Paramount (or Viacom or CBS) but instead pay big, big licensing fees to use its names, properties, characters, etc. The same goes for Tokyo Disney Resort, by the way, which is neither owned nor operated by the Walt Disney Company. Instead, its owners – the Oriental Land Company – pay Disney enormous amounts of money to license Disney's intellectual property. In return, Disney offers its own Imagineers to design for the Tokyo Resort and, doubtlessly, remains vigilant in the presentation and use of its IP. My understanding is that the arrangement expected of the Paramount Parks (operated and owned elsewhere, with Paramount simply paid for licensing) is about equivalent to what Paramount would've enjoyed IF Cedar Fair had taken them up on their offer to extend the Paramount licensing. If Cedar Fair had elected to go that route, Paramount would have no involvement in owning or operating the park, but it would still have use of the Paramount IP. I was eager to see how the Paramount Parks overseas would develop. I have an affinity for the "Paramount Parks" brand thanks to PKI, and I adore some of their more theatrical endeavors (TR:TR, FOF, even IJST). When it became clear that the Paramount Parks designed for Europe had none of those concepts, I was "meh." To then find that Paramount Park in Spain would've been a clone of Disneyland, just inserting Paramount's far less worthwhile IPs, I balked. A blatant ripoff of Frontierland, just anchored by Rango? A blatant Fantasyland copy based off of Sleepy Hollow and Stardust? Even the park's Tomorrowland equivalent anchored by Star Trek just felt inadequate. Point is, if you can't best the Disneyland formula (and you can't) then don't copy it. I wrote this two years ago and updated its intro upon this news.

For comparison, visitors to Disneyland would cite Disney California Adventure as the park with not much to do. Toy Story Midway Mania Twilight Zone Tower of Terror California Screamin' Radiator Springs Racers Grizzly River Run Soarin' Over California Monsters Inc. Mike and Sully to the Rescue Goofy's Sky School Then don't forget the mid-level attractions: Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters Mater's Junkyard Jamboree 4 flat rides in "a bug's land" Muppet Vision 3D It's Tough to be a Bug The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure Plus: Animation Building Turtle Talk with Crush Sorcerer's Workshop Red Car Trolley and Buena Vista Street Boudin Bakery Tour World of Color Pixar Play Parade In Paradise Pier alone there's: Silly Symphony Swings Mickey's Fun Wheel Jumpin' Jellyfish Golden Zephyr Carousel of the Sea (This is me continuing my eternal quest to get more people to give Disneyland a try. Sincerely, even for an Ohioan, a trip to Disneyland costs less than a trip to Disney World at the end of the day. Period.) Sorry for the late response. The way I read the article (and I could be wrong here) is that whether you watch the videos or not, you still have to wait in line to get into the Launch Bay itself. It's just a choice of which line. The author reported short wait times, but that was in late November or early December, judging by the datestamp on the article, so that's definitely off-peak time. When prime vacation season hits in June or July, I'd hazard a guess that there will be hour-plus standby waits in both lines to enter the Launch Bay, then once inside, additional long standby waits for the characters. Hollywood Studios' Launch Bay is about equivalent to Disneyland's. I'll say that I wouldn't wait 10 minutes for what's inside. Meeting the characters would, of course, have a wait and depending on your interest that could be worth it. But to see Launch Bay itself... absolutely not. But at Disney's Hollywood Studios, what else are you gonna do when 2:00 rolls around?

I'm a little disappointed thematically, as Air was part of the Forbidden Valley themed area. It was meant to be a deserted, post-apocalyptic canyon of blood rivers, rusted machinery, and giant skeletons leftover from ambiguously alien creatures. Air was located in a dedicated sub-area within Forbidden Valley meant to represent a last hold-out; a single verdant oasis in the ruins. The coaster was meant to represent the gentle, fresh, clean air in the one last habitable realm left in the Forbidden Valley continuity. The transition from "air" to "space" makes a modicum of sense, but the themed land now doesn't. At least, not that I can see yet. Even their half-baked answer doesn't satisfy: We'll see how they do it. bkroz, perhaps one of the few who's always looking out for that sort of thing.

You make a lot of disconnected points. Cedar Fair is an amusement and entertainment company that operates small, regional amusement parks across the United States. They spend $20 million to add a roller coaster to Kings Island. Disney is an international media conglomerate that happens to have one division that owns and/or operates some theme parks. Their parks are international resort destinations. They spend $200 million to build Radiator Springs Racers. (That's 10 B&M coasters.) Star Wars land will be at least $600 million easily - enough to give each Cedar Fair theme park 3 B&M coasters all at once. Ride Boo Blasters, then ride Indiana Jones Adventure. Given that, it's actually surprising how CLOSE the pricing is for Kings Island and Disneyland. Asking why Cedar Point's ticket price is below Disney's is a bit like asking why your local steak house charges more than a Steak 'n' Shake (with no disrespect to regional parks... I rather like Steak 'n' Shake.) I don't know where you heard that Disney isn't raising prices for the money, but that would be a little silly to say, wouldn't it? In 2006, Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion dollars. In 2009, Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion. In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion. Yes, Star Wars toys are everywhere. I'm not sure why that would be unexpected or what you're meaning to imply by mentioning it. Sounds to me like their acquisition of Lucasfilm is being put to good use.

I think this is a compelling and useful read, but I'm the one who wrote it. Same website. Different perspective: http://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20150221/29975/price-hike-disneyland-ticket-timeline-and-why-price-rose-again

I'm surprised that they're going with the 8-row trains, and I wonder why. Griffon's are 10. 24 riders vs. 30. That's a substantial difference.

They're all surprising, but I'm bamboozled by the thought that WindSeeker is FIVE!