bkroz

Problem is that it would be a madhouse. Saturdays in July or October - for half the cost of a cheeseburger, you can ride Firehawk RIGHT NOW. Woof. I'd pay it, which is how I know many others would.

Even though I'm certain it's entirely different, it reminds me of Anheuser-Busch staying on as a sponsor of Busch Gardens, retaining a level of presence and sponsorship while the park uses the Busch name and was free to continue to use the signature eagle logo and share in Anheuser-Busch based marketing campaigns ("Here's to the Heroes" and "Salute the Troops" promotions, etc). I'm not sure what kinds of monies are exchanged there, to be fair. I'm sure any agreement between Cedar Fair and Paramount would've seen a LOT of monies exchanged, and I have a pretty good feeling I know in which direction they would've flowed. Still it's odd to think that maybe Ouimet would look at things differently. On the most extreme end of the spectrum, he might've said "This partnership is valuable, these brands are valuable, and this can work." Worst case, he might've said "You know what? We don't need Paramount's names, but we can learn something from this," taking care to re-theme instead of moving to immediately wipe-out movie ties with as little creativity as possible. Haha! Would be a different park either way, I think.

I know we give a lot of credit to Mr. Ouimet for shifting attitudes at parks (improving food choices, prioritizing theming, aiming for "best day" experiences, etc) and that many of us perceive a huge fundamental shift in the industry and in Cedar Fair Parks. While glancing through the park's website today, I stumbled across the timeline and of course, expanded 2002 to see what they had to say about Tomb Raider: The Ride. Interestingly, they describe the ride as "a collaboration between Paramount Studios and Kings Island." True, I guess, but to sort of look back and dissect it as a relationship between a studio and a park – a partnership or collaboration – got me thinking... If, in some parallel universe, the Cedar Fair of today was the one that had purchased the Paramount Parks back in 2006, do you think Mr. Ouimet and his management team would've found it worthwhile to continue a "partnership" that would maintain Paramount licenses? Supposedly (and I'm no expert here) that option was out there for the Cedar Fair of the time, who no doubt carefully weighed options and decided to lose any branding or licensing through Paramount. I don't know. I'm not suggesting keeping the Paramount's monicker or its film tie-ins was necessarily a better choice than what did end up happening. But you have to wonder if Ouimet's Cedar Fair, given a second chance at it, would see the "collaboration" as a positive thing. At the VERY least, I doubt we would've ended up with "Flight Deck" or "Drop Tower" like we did. I guess to ask that also asks for suspension of disbelief since Ouimet's Cedar Fair probably wouldn't have purchased the Paramount Parks to begin with, and that Ouimet probably wouldn't be affiliated with Cedar Fair if they hadn't... I don't know. Confusing thought. Something worth thinking about.

Love this. With the parks' shift toward drawing in families and travelers, the idea of providing quality, fairly-priced, delicious food is obvious. When you're running a "thrill park," hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken fingers are expected fair for the pre-teens and teens who just asked their parents for twenty bucks to go out for the day. A family park runs its kitchens very differently. We've seen that happen at Kings Island. Premium price, premium quality. They're not perfectly balanced, but I suppose you wouldn't expect them to be at an amusement park. However, the "captive audience" idea seems to be fading, as it should. If Fun Perks and Dining Deals have taught us anything, it's that management realizes this is NOT a captive audience. There ARE choices, and in the past, most of them involved leaving the park. We saw it change at Kings Island. Knott's has always had a different atmosphere, especially with food and celebration. Carowinds is changing, too. "They gotta eat," we used to hear. Last time I was at Kings Dominion, the Trail's End Grille (now renamed the Hungry Hippo - hopefully its offerings have changed, too) offered three burgers, period. All were served in plastic to-go boxes and under heating lamps. Grab a tray, grab your burger, and pay. The plain burger (a tasteless patty on a humid bun) was $8.00. Adding cheese (labeled only by a yellow sticker on the plastic to-go box) made it $10. Adding a patty-shaped bacon circle (discernible only by a brown sticker on the plastic to-go box) made it $12. No fries. No beverage. To be fair, it did include a lovely toppings bar of shredded iceberg lettuce and a vat of tomato slices. "They gotta eat." I did. Not at Kings Dominion. And at Cedar Point, my last dining experience was watching teenagers swat flies from their sweaty faces as fluorescent lights flickered behind a 1980s-style menu at a pizza place in Frontier Trail. $8 for a pizza slice, $12.50 for a "chicken tenders meal." Two choices. Miserable employees with no empowerment (who could blame them?). Pizza took 25 minutes. Food can be PART of the experience, not a hinderance to it. I don't mind paying $12 for artisan flatbread pizza with fresh ingredients and barbecue chicken at Disney California Adventure's Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta. I'll spend $11 for the park's Mediterranean steak skewer with rice pilaf, cucumber salad, and chimichurri sauce served with a warm pita. They're STILL making a killing, but pleasing the guest at the same time. In the past, Cedar Fair's prices were downright ridiculous for the food offered, and "well, it's a theme park, what do you expect?" was the least sensical answer in the bunch. Lines are out the door for bratwurst and knackwurst in Busch Gardens' Das Festhaus. That said, you eat your sausage and sauerkraut while watching an Oktoberfest show, not "The Boyz Are Back." At Disneyland Resort, you'd be hard-pressed to find chicken fingers or a hamburger. When you do find one, it's an angus burger with BBQ pulled pork and guacamole, served with sweet potato fries. Price? Same as Kings Dominion's. This shift was much-needed. Glad to see it spreading.

Are there not still picnic tables under Invertigo's lifts outside the park? What are those for? For deciding you'd rather eat your in-park-purchased food outside the park? It's gotta be a misunderstanding on the guard's part. Folks lay out picnic blankets along that grassy median and have full-fledged picnics every time I'm there.

The folks manning the security cameras would probably get a kick out of the topic title and would have a thing or two to add if the discussion were different... My final score the other day was 0. And not because I was texting, using apps, or talking on the phone like the young kids a few cars down. Wasn't because my gun was broken, either... though it might've been! GYK, an observer.

Kings Dominion got a Ferris wheel just a few years ago and placed it right at the end of their equivalent of Coney Mall. Basically whereabouts our WindSeeker is. It's a great weenie! The weird* thing is, not too many major parks out there are missing a Ferris wheel, so Cedar Fair's usual bulk purchases would not happen. Kings Dominion's is a hand-me-down from a now-closed park. Edited for spelling. "i before e except after c." Weird!

We can hope that whatever conglomerate that would be would have enough sense to recognize that "Six Flags" did not, in 2009, carry the same prestige it had years before. There was a time when prefixing a parks name with Six Flags meant something positive. I think we're getting back there?

Getting the ride into the building would be the least of problems. Not only does it break into pieces (on purpose), but the access space for the Crypt building hasn't changed at all with Diamondback or the new Haunt building. Same access road (maybe diverted), same parking lot, same garage doors... The way you people described it, I thought the new Haunt building might be up against the Crypt. You guys made it seem like it could reasonably be an extention to the Crypt building. It's fifty yards away! Line areas might to be too small for the ride? What kind of crowd are you expecting!?!

In 2010, Six Flags dumped partnerships left and right (Terminator, Thomas the Tank Engine, Tony Hawk, Evil Kineval, Wiggles, etc). Are we thinking that that was inevitable (and probably even necessary)? It makes one wonder... if the two had merged, would Kings Island have cheap, half-done DC Heroes tie-ins? Looney Tunes? Coldstone Creamery? Stride gum wraps? M&M banners? More likely than not, Six Flags' partnerships would've outranked Cedar Fairs if Cedar Fair's parks took on the Six Flags brand, right? Snoopy would be out? Kings Island: A Six Flags Park? I don't know how that works at all. Definitely a much different place.

I was 'lucky' enough to ride it at Great America. Yikes!

The ride was originally going to play the respective national anthems from each country represented. In testing, they found that the many songs were outrageously miserable when overlapping between rooms and scenes. Enter the Sherman Brothers. Another thing I like – all of the dolls' faces are made from the same mold, just painted, dressed, and decorated differently. Get it?

What if your roof didn't need replaced? But then, yes, this could expand in the future. This was a HUGE gamble for Disney. HUGE. If they can get this to a place where it's easy, natural, intuitive, and smooth, then they'll be the envy of the theme park world. They are set up to be decades ahead of their competitors. At this point, all of their computer systems are state-of-the-art, top-notch, and ready. Their parks are united and unified and 21st century. There is no resort on Earth of comparable size, but even smaller ones can't say that they're as technologically prepared as Walt Disney World. SO FAR, it just seems like this wasn't needed. It wasn't broke. And with every new caveat that was discovered as the program unrolled (limits, tiers, one park per day, perks for hotel guests, etc) fans were like "Well... I mean... Okay, I GUESS. But was the old FastPass / park ticket system THAT broken that we needed this? Now that it's here, the limits and tiers and perks make technical sense, but it doesn't seem like we needed MyMagic+." And the tough thing now is that fans and followers and even management are practically SCREAMING that Disneyland's "roof" doesn't need fixed with this. They just don't want it. They know they won't use it. It's not right for Disneyland. So it's not a question of "We COULD use this for an expansion, but let's be smart about it and fix the roof," you know? Complicated thing. But Disneyland's roof is not broke, and they don't want it fixed. *shrug* We'll see.

Absolutely agreed. I can't remember who it was, but someone on here did accuse me pretty harshly of cheating the system because I was able to get six or seven FastPasses a day, all by following the rules Disney had set forward (getting a second FastPass only once the return window of the first had begun, and always returning during that window... indeed, the distribution machines and Cast Members won't allow anything else). There's nothing wrong with the way I did things. It was unequal in that there are Disney guests who don't know FastPass is free, and others who don't know the rules and only get one or two a day (of their own innocent naiveté). This new system, at its core, distributes FastPass reservations evenly, giving everyone three, period. By making FastPass+ reservations part of vacation planning, right alongside picking a hotel or picking park tickets, they more or less ENSURE that everyone will get those three. Was the original way of doing things unfair? No, not really. The new way just insists on equality. Which is fine. Just different. It's not just preplanning (although many, many people do NOT want to do that), it's the unnecessary complexity of the system altogether and its MASSIVE cost. Did you catch that MyMagic+ cost Disney $1.5 billion? That's MORE than the cost of Disney California Adventure's 7-year rebuild. To put it another way, for the same $1.5 billion, Disneyland Resort got Buena Vista Street, Red Car Trolley, Carthay Circle, World of Color, Toy Story Midway Mania, Cars Land (including the rides Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi's Flying Tires, and Radiator Springs Racers), Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure, and a floor-to-ceiling rebuild of Paradise Pier with a couple million leftover. So... if that $1.5 billion had been spent differently at Walt Disney World, EACH of their parks could've gotten a brand new, good-sized, well-done land. Instead... MagicBands. Will it pay off in the long run? Maybe. But you can see the slap in the face that that is to guests as Universal builds two E-tickets a year, minimum.

If the annual passholder crowd really does constitute a large portion of Disneyland guests, and none of them select FastPass+ selections months in advance, by the time they actually get to the park, there will still be open FastPass+ slots which can be reserved just as easily as getting a FastPass is now. Okay, sure! You're right! There would be plenty left since practically no one would pre-book. Yeah! So... if it ain't broke, why fix it? The current set-up is working. And this is a theoretical resistance to change. It's not just that FastPass works but FastPass+ might be better. Quite the contrary, we see plenty of evidence that FastPass+ is NOT better... Given that evidence and a firm knowledge of how Disneyland and its guests work, I can promise you that the system is not welcome there. I'm not sure if you've been to Disneyland Resort or how familiar you are with the dynamic there, but trust me that Southern Californians (who make up a VERY large portion of the resort's guests) don't want to pre-book FastPass+ selections. It's not a matter of worrying about what will be left. It's that the whole system is totally unnecessary in California. I can guaruntee that MOST people who are making trips to Walt Disney World in the first half of 2015 have already started planning for those trips. They've booked hotels, booked flights, booked dinner reservations, and adding FastPass+ reservations is a natural extension of that. Sure. It makes sense at Walt Disney World. There is no fundamental need for FastPass+ at Disneyland Resort because that resort is not an international destination in the same way. That is considerably less of an issue at a two park resort. Besides, one can schedule FastPass+ reservations the day of at a different park once all FastPass+ reservations have been utilized at one park. It shouldn't be an issue now, either. Disney arbitrarily decided that you could only book at one park per day. Why they chose to have their computer system limited in that way, I do not know. It's not a question of it being an issue that they're trying to find a way around. They decided to limit initial reservations to one park per day. Why would you assume that they won't make the same decision at Disneyland Resort? I know of the new caveat that they added that allows you to book at a second park... after you've used your first three, and after you've traveled to the new park, and after you've accessed a kiosk at the new park. Guess how many E-tickets are left by time that happens? There is such a thing as leaving a Magic Band in a glove compartment or opting for an RFID card instead. You can take them off? Whoa! No, the point I was making is that the MagicBand is actually convenient in Florida. Because of that whole resort-international-vacation-destination thing that I mentioned, guests can put their MagicBand on on the flight, and leave it on for the entire stay. In California, MagicBands are not convenient in the same way, because Disneyland does not cater to a captive audience who relies on it for a week at a time. So if the point of the MagicBand is that it's convenient, then its point is lost in California. I fail to see how it would never work at Disneyland considering it works at the Magic Kingdom. Put simply, Magic Kingdom has the following headlining rides: Big Thunder Mountain Space Mountain Splash Mountain Jungle Cruise Peter Pan's Flight It's a Small World Disneyland Park has those attractions listed above PLUS: Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Matterhorn Bobsleds Pinocchio's Daring Journey Mr. Toad's Wild Ride Alice in Wonderland Star Tours: The Adventures Continue Monorail Thor: Treasures of Asgard / Captain America: Living Legend Pirates of the Caribbean Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin In fact, the two parks of Disneyland (Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure) contain as many major attractions as Walt Disney World's four. If a guest is presented with the dozen E-tickets at Disneyland Park and told "choose 2." Uh... What? Impossible. Likewise, at Disney's Animal Kingdom you have to "choose 1" from: Kilimanjaro Safaris DINOSAUR Legend of the Lion King Expedition Everest At Disney California Adventure, you'd be asked to "choose 1" (2 if you're lucky) from: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular Radiator Springs Racers Mater's Junkyard Jamboree Luigi's Flying Tires California Screamin' Toy Story Midway Mania Mickey's Fun Wheel Soarin' Over California Grizzly River Run It's just a very different set-up. Each of Disney World's parks has 3 or 4 major attractions. Disneyland's each have a dozen or more. So not only would the local clientele not accept pre-booking, but they would arrive to see "choose 2" and go BALLISTIC. Depends what function you're looking for. For Disney's international guests who are VERY into planning their vacations, it works. For regional guests who get excited about planning, it's great. For Cast Members? For annual pass-holders? For locals? For foreigners who can't speak English? This system has LOTS of requirements and is VERY complex. It works for many people, but I don't think you're looking at it in a macro way. I think you're looking at it as an enthusiast. The Interpreter doesn't want to. He says he's not into visiting Walt Disney World unless or until this changes. I don't have a vendetta against it, but anytime I go to Central Florida, it's for Universal Orlando anyway. Just trust me that this system is not wanted at Disneyland, and would not have the same functionality there anyway. Different place. Different people. Different flow. Different everything. Thankfully.

Is a 300-foot stand up possible? Sure. Is it likely? Probably not. An inverted stratacoaster? Dueling 4th dimension coasters? A suspended wooden coaster over 100 feet? Its feasibility (n. the state or degree of being easily or conveniently done) would be based upon two things: A park / chain's asking for it A manufacturer's willingness / ability to make it I don't think a standing giga-coaster would make it past condition #1. Even if it did, condition #2 might be a sticking point. Few would've guessed that the year 2000 would've seen a wooden hyper-coaster though... But there was a 1, and then a 2... sort of...

It'll be interesting to see how this new test expands, since Disney just spent many millions (probably all factored into the MyMagic+ budget) adding "interactive queues" to most of the resort's slow-moving lines. Soarin', Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and quite a few others got completely rebuilt queues with games and activities to entertain guests. And now, they're being bypassed. On purpose. As if guests aren't frazzled enough by having to pre-book Disney FastPass+TM on My Disney Experience to sync with MagicBands for MyMagic+ integration (including optional Disney PhotoPass), now they don't know if they can get in line or if they need a piece of paper or if they use a smart phone app or if it's done at kiosks or... Your vacation: SIMPLIFIED, and it feels so good!

Insiders say that it's been internally confirmed as coming to Disneyland. Give it a year or two, at least. That said, whatever the devil they go for there, it's going to look VERY different. Planning two months in advance? Psh, the annual passholder crowd there won't plan a day in advance. They visit casually, after work, a few times a week. Limited to one park per day with your Fastpass+ reservations? Forget it. Wearing rubber wristbands to work since you're going to Disneyland for dinner on the way home? Good luck. Choosing one "tier 1" attraction and two "tier 2" attractions in a park bursting with E-tickets? Never. Gateless entryways? Yeah, try that on the absurd 24 Hour Parties or New Years Eve where the Esplanade between parks is surging with thousands of people, all stuffed and waiting for the all-clear to let a dozen more folks in. Perks are best for folks staying in Disneyland Resort Hotels? Just try it, with a vast majority of visitors coming from Southern California. Personally, I believe / imagine / hope that Disneyland's crowds would adamantly reject this from the get-go, and that it would be shot down and DOA. And we're not talking about a petition with a few hundred signatures. We're talking about complete and utter revolt, on the ground. Lines to City Hall wrapping to the 5, refusal to use MagicBands, etc. Disneyland annual pass-holders are infamous for threatening to never visit the park again if x, y, or z happens. With MyMagic+, I believe they'd mean it.

The era of "record-breaking" is more or less over. Cedar Fair still likes to give it a go ("The first face-to-face seating inverted coaster in the Midwest..." Someone break out the streamers!) but the industry has shifted. The new push in Cedar Fair parks and around the country is for "best day" experiences, unique opportunities (for dining, shopping, etc) and things that the family can do together (see Gemini midway, Dinosaurs Alive, WindSeeker [despite its unfortunate marketing], Guardian, etc). Saying something is the tallest and fastest is great, and it certainly draws in a huge number of a certain demographic. Problem is, it alienates just as many. My mom, little cousin, and grandma don't want to ride Top Thrill Dragster, but WindSeeker, Dinosaurs Alive, Backlot Stunt Coaster, and Guardian would bring them to a park. I think in the industry as a whole, we've seen a shift away from "400 FEET TALL" and "100 MILES PER HOUR" and "10 INVERSIONS" to seeing moderately-sized rides that do something unique. The draw for Verbolten isn't its speed or height. Same for Guardian. Same for Gringotts. Big coasters will always be the lifeblood of amusement parks, but the way they're presented is changing. To plug my own agenda for a moment, I recently wrote an article called 'Less Is More: 6 Incredible Coasters that DON'T Break Records.' Similarly, I used Theme Park Tourist's 23,000 ride ratings and the automatic rankings they create to write 'The Top 15 Coasters - As Voted By You,' which is overwhelmingly populated by mid-sized family rides that appeal to everyone instead of just thrillseekers. I think, under Ouimet's lead, Cedar Fair is seeing that that's the way to go.

^ Why do they schedule so many things in such proximity?

This year, Cedar Point opened on the 10th. Being so far north (and in the chilly waters of Lake Erie), Cedar Point tends to open comfortably into May (compared to Kings Island's April opening). Just to be safe, you might want to plan to do it the weekend after your birthday (May 9, 10 2015). Opening day will be announced early in the spring, too, so you should have time to shift the plans as needed. Happy birthday! ... well, in nine months.

Again, depends what's offered and the price. If Kings Island builds a haunted house that is, really, no different than the ones they already have and charges $1 per person, there will be folks who'll do it if only because its line is bound to be a little shorter (and the up-charge may give the illusion that the haunted house is superior, even if it isn't). If Kings Island builds a haunted house that is, really, no different than the ones they already have and charges $50 per person, then sure... that'll exclude people. If Kings Island built the world's longest and most intense haunted house and it cost $10.00 extra, then you've reached a happy medium where it's an upgraded experience with a moderate up-charge that is probably earned. As Knott's has done it in the past, the up-charge haunted house is $60 for a group of up to 6. So $60 for one person, $10 per person for a group of six (with the idea being that facing it alone is a test of bravado and a once-in-a-lifetime type experience, and thus something folks would be willing to pay for).

Disney's begun to sort of renege on Fastpass+. For one thing, popular attractions sell out months in advance. Without good ole day-of legacy paper Fastpass, your only choice to ride Soarin' is to wait two, three, four hours, unless you were one of the lucky ones to choose it as your single tier 1 attraction 60 days in advance. Beginning just a few days ago, there is no standby line for Soarin'. If you come to the attraction without a Fastpass+ reservation, you're given – wait for it – a paper ticket with a return time. Still in testing, this "Standby+" (not Disney's name for it) is confusing the heck out of everyone, including Cast Members, as guests who want to wait in line... can't. It's not an option. Either you made your reservation a few months ago, OR you can come back in a few hours for a "moderate" wait (hovering around 40 minutes). Old Fastpass used to pulse folks through the Fastpass queue. Now, both lines for the ride are metered, Fastpass+ and "Standby+," so Disney theoretically provides space only for the ride's hourly capacity. So far, the last return tickets for the day end at 6:00 or 7:00. After that, the ride reverts to stand-by. http://www.themeparktourist.com/news/20140731/19768/3-questions-raised-walt-disney-worlds-new-queue-system?page=0,0 Good. Now try to explain that to throngs of Brazilian tourists. Having fun yet?

By the way, here is a capture of the SEAS stock trading price over the last two years. The white hand cursor with the blue dot corresponds to the same blue dot in the image I posted in the original post almost a year ago. In other words, things are NOT necessarily looking up. Oh, and Blackfish was released in large scale on July 19, 2013. Take a look at that time frame in the image above. Just sayin'.

The park's Festa Italia section has always been the most disliked by fans. While the rest of the park's hamlets are supposed to be authentic historic recreations of "the old country," Festa Italia (not to be confused with the park's Italy hamlet, which is beautiful and charming) is really just a cheap cover for the required carnival-games-and-family-flat-rides land that every park seems to need. For what it is, it's fine. They even tried to loosely tie it to a celebration sending Marco Polo on his way, with royal purple tents and ancient Roman theming bringing it all together. Obviously that's out the window now. Yeesh. Sad, but not surprising. Europe in the Air was the first to toss the park's prior commitment to authentic attractions based on legends and myths of the old country. Mach Tower continued to shift away from Busch Gardens' usual reverent storytelling and attention-to-detail. Even though I love it, Verbolten is very thoroughly "modern" in a park that's otherwise based on timeless legends. In 2014, the plan was for the park's entry hamlet (a Victorian era England) to be re-themed to a modern rock-and-roll London. Thank god, only a new show called "London Rocks" made the (literal) cut, bringing with it some obnoxious decorations that detract heavily from the once-charming land. This is more than just "modern." It's obnoxious. Yikes. Originally, I'd heard that the ride may be named "Tempesta" (Italian for "Storm") which could at least be a reference to the Marco Polo storyline, and could be nearly dressed in Roman columns and fog. Seems that's been tossed... And then some. Anyone know the theoretical capacity of these rides? I'm guessing mid-hundreds?