bkroz

Disney's worst kept secret, and the first thing discussed on many of those Travel Channel documentaries. They're called "Utilidors" and connect the park so cast members can move between themed lands without having mismatched costumes. They're only under Magic Kingdom park, and yep, the park itself is on floor two, Utilidors are on level one, only because you can't dig into Florida very much before you hit the water line!

Florida's ride (above) loads on one floor, then enters a "show shaft" where it encounters the hallway scene. Another floor up, it enters the horizontal shaft, and navigates forward to enter the drop shaft. At the end of the ride, the elevator navigates backwards and revolves to an exit door, then the elevator enters the show shaft again and rises up to the load level to gather more passengers. As you can see, Florida's can load four elevators, but only has two "separate" rides. So if the "horizontal" scene breaks (which it very often does), half of the ride is broken, and the capacity is reduced to two elevators. California / Paris / Tokyo's Tower has three shafts that are both "show" and "drop" shafts all in one. Each shaft also has two load levels that feed into it (which is why their boiler rooms are two stories). The elevator on the lower load level of a shaft loads while the elevator from the upper level participates in the ride. Then, the one doing the ride stops at its level and is pushed forward to the load area. Then, the elevator that had been loading just below is pushed backward into the shaft and starts the ride. The result is that the "second" system is MUCH more practical. The ride essentially contains THREE separate rides, not two. There is horizontal movement, but only into/out of the shaft. If by chance one of the shafts does experience a technical problem, 2/3 of the ride is still functional, which is 4 elevators. So in Florida, the ride moves horizontally toward the front of the building, which is where the drop happens. In California, the show scenes and the drop are in the same shaft, which is why there's a big bulky extension of the building out front. Florida's is almost exactly the same size, but the two shafts allow the show scenes to occur BEHIND the drop portion, making the building flat on front and appear much much taller, also helped by its location in Florida. Sorry, I love those rides.

You can imagine a lot of broken hearts when all day you're promised that the show you're going to might have a photo of you projected on the castle! ... then when it's not, how many people would report to guest relations that they staked out a spot for an hour beforehand, watched intently, and got hopes high only to find that their picture was never used? Probably a few.

It depends what you like. This "texture mapping" has become a big deal in the industry. Canada's Wonderland uses it on their centerpiece mountain as part of their nighttime show - vines grow up the mountain, then lava drips down the waterfalls, etc. Disney has used it on castle shows in Florida and Paris and projected a show onto It's a Small World. The change at Indiana Jones is just neat to see. The face "comes alive" like it never has before and it's something visually interesting. As well. The story of the ride is about looking into Mara's eyes. Now, his eyes are hard to avoid because they glow and move and change color. Each of the rides three paths is also different. In the "visions of the future" room, Mara's eyes spark white when he wakes up, then his face takes on the appearance of reflective metal with electricity shooting across it. I haven't seen the "fountain of youth" path yet, but it'll doubtlessly be watery. Again, it's not meant to change the ride, and the ride didn't close at all to install the change. It's just a neat detail that betters the experience. Walt Disney called it "plussing." And this is a plus. If something half as cool were added to Adventure Express, there would be four topics about it.

Mara is male. I guess not all languages use "-a" as a feminine and "-o" as masculine. Can you imagine "Maro" as an Indian name?

As some of you know, I hold no ride on Earth in higher regard than Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. The ride closed last night as normal and opened today with an incredible new special effect. To review, the story of the ride is that the ancient god Mara promises one of three gifts to riders (with the ride entering a different one of three doors on each ride). No matter the door, each path comes face-to-face with the giant stone carving of Mara, and of course, looking into his "Forbidden Eye" triggers the collapse of the temple, and the start of the thrill ride. Just watch from 2:45 and listen as Mara awakens and curses you to the Gates of Doom (just about 30 seconds). As of today, Mara's face comes alive with texture-mapped projection software so that when you look into his eyes, his stone face cracks and a layer of rust sweeps across him as his eyes open. This effect is really successful and really awesome. The only downside? His voice. Be sure to watch the video above of the original first, because it features Mara's voice - deep, booming, authoritative, and chilling. His new voice... Well... it sounds like they plucked a 20-something from his part-time job and had him re-record the dialogue for no reason whatsoever. With any luck, this change is temporary while the original audio is remastered. But watch the original ride, then the new one, and try not to laugh. Are we really supposed to fear Mara in the second clip? Whether the voice is permanent or not, it's a cool visual effect. Might have a place on Adventure Express, for example! Too bad The Crypt is gone... What a way to bring the goddess to life!

Cal/OSHA have always been meticulous about that sort of thing. I don't know anything about it, but The Interpreter says New Jersey has some of the harshest theme park safety regulations in the country, too.

It's not superstition... It's not like any great number of people would say "Oh, a Banshee signals death, so I won't ride that because I don't want to die." Rather, it's something to consider in marketing the ride - the headlines write themselves for if someone with a preexisting condition runs straight to the new ride first thing in the morning on their first day at the park and returns to the station unresponsive and - God forbid - passes away as a result. A legend that directly connects with the death of someone who sees a Banshee is different than say, "Demon" or "Possessed" or "Poltergeist." Granted, not NOW necessary, but expect a backlash if someone ever is seriously hurt or killed in relation to this ride, directly or otherwise. Again, I'm not saying I'd rally to change the name. I'm just pointing out what could happen, and perhaps part of the reason why Banshee never came to be last time. That said, the Internet has now spread news of the ride internationally. It wouldn't be as easy to bury and replace as it was a decade ago where the only mention of Banshee was a few promotional shirts. EDIT: It'd be a hell of a marketing ploy, though! If this were Alton Towers, maybe...

Though I don't mind either, the Banshee legend is that anyone who sees or hears one will soon die / have a death in the family. That's a little different than a general "demon," I think. Let's just pray no one with a pre-existing condition rides this and returns to the station unresponsive... Now THAT will be a unique situation to explain to the press, and you can see the possibilities for backlash immediately. The feeling I get was that when the Banshee dilemma occurred in the 90's, it was at least also partially because a Banshee is always a female, and her ear-piercing screech is deadly. A bit of a sexist undertone in there... Cedar Fair appears to pre-empt that negative connotation this time by proudly saying on every page of Banshee's site that it's the first Cedar Fair attraction based on a female, omitting the backstory that makes that prestigious record a bit less triumphant for the fairer sex.

I'm a fan, and I think it'll be a massive hit and a fantastic roller coaster. I consider myself an enthusiast, though, so my thought wouldn't be complete without a "but" or a complaint. In this case, I would love to have seen a few tunnels. Maybe the parts of the ride that are low to ground would swerve around graveyards; maybe the in-line twist is a near-miss with a cracked stone angel, a tunnel through a stone mausoleum, etc. Again, I'm REALLY happy with the ride and can't wait to ride it, but it would be really awesome if they were able to have some semblance of themeing through the course. Montu and Alpengeist have simple little things (like sand-colored ground, Egyptian obelisks, near-misses with sandstone walls; little patches of "snow" valleys, snowy rooftop near-misses, skiing flags, etc) along the course that really add tremendously to the experience, giving you something to look at and a real sense of place. Doesn't seem like "Banshee" should just a typical steel coaster, especially with the attention put into the station.

http://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20130808/13794/preview-Banshee-kings-island

Wait, are we ignoring The Bat thing? Looks like a professional logo to me...

2014 attraction doesn't mean another $20 million+ roller coaster. For some people, a new garden is a notable attraction. Granted, they likely wouldn't market it this way. But I can't remember a year that Kings Island or Cedar Point has actually gone without the addition of something new.

I will say, Dive Machines pack more punch than expected. I say again, the track is double-wide, so pictures can't capture the scale or scope of them, given that we're used to a particular perspective based on the track width we see every day (EDIT: that is to say, it appears literally half its height due to our expectations based on the track... in person, they're much more obvious about their size). The ten-across trains are absolutely awe-inspiring as you see them roaring around. And while coasters have gotten steeper, the experience of say - Maverick or one of those 110-degree Eurofighters - is absolutely incomparable to a Dive Machine; nothing in common whatsoever in terms of sensation or presence. YoungStud, have you ever ridden one? You'd be surprised how many cite Griffon as one of their favorite roller coasters ever, even given how deceivingly simple it looks. Try it before you knock it. (And folks who have been on both Oblivion and SheiKra, which you posted above, would probably almost all say they prefer SheiKra - I know I do.)

On September 2, 2011, a forum member named PizzaBaby027 (who some here may recall quite fondly, or not) made a prediction for the 2013 season. Now, we're a year late, but I promised to give that member due credence and to post his prediction. Here we go. We'll see if he was close (just off by a year) in a few short days.

Riders on Alpengeist rarely seem to think so...

- @KingsIslandPR

It's just a safety feature built into Premier trains. Flight of Fear also has them. So do Full Throttle, Revenge of the Mummy, and the Mr. Freeze rides. Think of it maybe as a replacement for over-the-shoulder-restraints - Premier has apparently said that the leg restraints make it so that you don't need over-the-shoulder restraints (and thank god for that... Flight of Fear and Mr. Freeze and other inverting premier coasters used to have them and they did a real bang-up job).

I would guess that the park has done nothing... so far. An apology implies responsibility - a "here are some Fast Lane passes" implies responsibility and guilt. I definitely don't know anything technical, but in any and all retail jobs I've had, it's explicitly clear that if someone slips or trips over an unmarked step, do not apologize and do not offer to give them something for free - supposedly, that could be used in court as an attempt to bribe the patron. Not sure how different it is in a situation like this where responsibility is at least not able to be passed on to the customer in any sense the way that a simple trip or slip could be. EDIT: For all I know, the park may have immediately apologized and given lifetime passes to all involved. Again, I don't know the legal advice aspect of it.

Yep, it's now Green Lantern in New Jersey. The difference, to my knowledge, is that Six Flags removed Chang with the intention (whether real or just publicized) of expanding the waterpark into Chang's footprint and continuing to operate the park. So it's like Cedar Fair announcing that Firehawk would be rotated to Cedar Point on the good faith that they'd do something else with that land at Kings Island, but then selling Kings Island shortly thereafter, getting off scot free with a roller coaster.

Definitely more noticeable tightening during the ride than I've experienced on any other ride roller coaster. To the extent that it was memorably unpleasant for me, and I do not have an extreme body type in any sense. This was before I had heard that this was a common issue that lots of people were experiencing. I didn't even say anything about it until my friends mentioned it.

Your "cryptic word structure" that is "very similar but the same to Terp's" lacks a key element of his verbose wordplay - I won't say what the element is. GYK, noting that there's a time and place to end a post with the third person - and every single post you ever make ever is not the time nor the place. Please.

Isn't one of the key questions whether or not consumers could be confused? I think in this case, they could be.

And depending on your world view, you might imagine that the woman had been in Flight of Fear's line nine months earlier. That power surge... I'm tellin' ya.

^ I was gonna say, this will at least go down in history as a fun allegory for the length of Firehawk's line.