purdude86

They had an incident (or another dueling coaster somewhere else had an incident; I forget which) several years ago where a loose object was either intentionally or inadvertently ejected from a rider on one train and struck someone on the other train at a high rate of speed. Since then, they are very careful to stagger the dispatches to specifically ensure that the trains do not duel. If I remember correctly they actually had multiple incidents of people getting hit by objects. Kept shutting the ride down and inspecting it but everything was fine so was determined that had to be coming from the riders so they stopped the dueling and haven't had issues since with it. Now that they are strict about no items hopefully they will duel them again but wouldn't be surprised if they don't. One plus though is that they can dispatch faster. Can let the train go once it's ready versus having to wait for both to be ready. I agree with everyone as well about the Jurassic Park area. It's a property that has so much potential but doesn't live up to it. The fact that there is just one major attraction and a small very-low capacity and low thrill coaster with a visitor's center type building seems like a waste. There is a lot of unused area, would love to see a Jeep themed ride put in with animatronic dinos in the old Triceratops Encounter area. And while the Skull Island looks great I'm a little disappointed that it took out space that could have gone to a Jurassic Park expansion. Kind of wished they put it in the area between Marvel's island and the Toon island. It seems like it would have been big enough and filled in a large gap there. Do kind of hope that if the Pteradon flying coaster is a success and popular that they might bring it over to IoA to give another great coaster that is a different experience and a new attraction to Jurassic Park.

Yea I'm hoping it's got a decent mix of actual scenes and screens, but probably be 85-90% screens. Really hope some of the new stuff they put in over the years uses more actual scenes and AA than just continuing to use screens. The one caveat I would allow is a new Simpsons ride using screens since it would be very hard to really pull them into the real world with AA and have it be the same.

Yea and you can look at Universal as having faster construction times but the footprints are smaller generally and many of the rides are using lots of screens for scenes whereas Disney is using animatronics and fully realized and built scenes which takes more time to build than putting up a screen. (This is not to diminish what Universal has done but just to denote that there are differences in what each resort is doing).

Plus keep in mind all the water rides at US are next to each other so you could marathon them together then do the giant family dryers.

In general I'd say Universal is easier for a one day trip as the parks are right next to each other and can by an Express Lane pass to let you skip the line on rides if needed (though should be fairly light crowds this time of year). The Harry Potter areas are great, even if you're nto a huge fan the level of detail is great adn teh rides are a lot of fun. For what you seem to be most interested in Disney might be the better option. I'd follow Gabe's options but might swap Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. The rides at Hollywood Studios will line up fast so if you get there early you can knock those out then head over to Animal Kingdom and do the attractions there. But defitnely end the nigth at Magic Kingdom as it's open late and has a good fireworks show. most of teh Star Wars stuff sin't opne yet, mostly just the Star Tours attraction that has been there with a few new scenes and teh Launch Bay walkthrough display (which is supposed to be really great itself). Outside of Rockin' sounds liek yu have a lot fewer ride limitations at Disney, and Splash mountain you can generally stay reasonably dry on, especailly to the back. Kali River Rapids would probably be the onyl water ride you'lll need to avoid at Disney. If you go to universal I'd avoid both Ripsaw and Jurassic if you want to stay dry.

If it does turn out well would love the PvZ attraction to go in there. Looks like it uses all new seats as well so the lack of seats in there currently wouldn't affect it as they would need to be removed anyhow. Between the addition of dark rides the past couple years and motion simulator type rides this year to numerous Cedar Fair parks I think it is highly likely that the Action Theatre building will get used for one of these two.

This is how I always felt for the trips here as well. When you compare it to a full week vacation elsewhere and add in food, lodging, entertainment, etc. it doens't come out to be much more than Disney. I went down at the start of last year with a couple friends. We stayed off property and got 4 days tickets to Disney adn 3 day tickets to Universal and visited everything. We ended up spending about $750 a piece with driving down there instead of flying. Granted I do prefer to fly down and stay on property, but for a more budget friendly trip there are ways to cut back on costs as others have mentioned. also when you look at the tickets for a single day it does look pricey, but the ticket pricing is designed to entice a longer term stay. After the first few days the pricing cuts down to about an additional $10. So a 7 day tickets is about $340, coming to $48 a day which is actually cheaper than a standard priced ticket to Kings Island or Cedar Point.

I'm planning to hit Six Flags Great America since I've never been, and recent additions inclduing next years Justice League ride seem like it's a worthwhile trip. As well as Cedar Point. Haven't been in awhile. Really want to go to Dollywood but probably have to push it back to 2017. Gotta a trip down to Universal already planned for the fall to coincide with a friend's wedding down there so kind of wipe's my account for anymore trips.

I've been on all of them and would make a few changes to the list. Great Movie Ride and T2 are both alright but I would hardly place them as top experiences of pop culture. GMR really just has the benefit of fitting so many different movies into it but overall is just an ok attraction in my opinion. A few highlights but overall pretty meh. T2 I'll grat I haven't seen in awhile buteven my nostalgia of it isn't that great when seeing it as a kid. As far as shows like it go I'd defintiely place It's Tough to be a Bug over T2. T2 is nice that ti ahs some live actors but ITTBAB has stuff going on all around the theatre and really draws the audience into it with stuff coming from the screen, animatronics around the theatre, stuff from above and the siders and even in the seats themselves. I would defintely put the Jurassic Park River Adventure on this list in place of one of those two. As it's one of my favorite attractions in general, I'd say Splash Mountain deserves a spot over some of these attractions as well. The main thing hurting it would be the movie it is based off of, Song of the South, isn't too widely known.

It seems that the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Universal has closed a deal to purchase the land. Really not too surprising that they would win a bid on it, though still not officially confirmed. Excited to see what they announce for this property in the coming years though. Sure their current promotional focus will be on the stuff opening through 2017 for the time being though and not things likely years down the line. Here's the source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-universal-orlando-purchase-20151223-post.html

Princesss Fairytale Hall had zero to do with the closing of Snow White's Scary Adventures they are talking about. There might have been some other reasons for its closing but the primary reason was that people thought it was too scary. AS the article states it closed down in 1994 and then reopened with less intense scenes and had Snow White added into the ride. That was another common complaint from people that they were confused why a Snow White ride didn't feature Snow White (as you were supposed to be going through the ride as her). The remodeled, softer version was closed down in 2012 for Princess Fairytale Hall and the opening of the Seven Dwarves Mine Train as well, but the version they are speaking about in the article had nothing to do with FPH, that didn't come until 18 years later. Also yes it was a typo in the article when talking about the Witch pushing a giant gem over onto the riders. Snow White was not featured in the attraction at all.

I think some fake pumpkins would be best. Less maintenance needed and don't have to worry about them rotting or attracting insect and other animals. Real ones I think would look cool though and be interesting to see how big they could grow some of theirs. Be really nice to have a real pumpkin patch during Halloween Haunt as well too. But I think the negatives outweigh the positives when it comes to real ones.

I should have saved mine for it but we used it on another house. Ended up skipping Blackout, but have done similar mazes int eh past and never been impressed with them. Lines were big for the mazes but they all moved fairly quick. We did about 8 of them and the longest wait was probably about 40 minutes for Madame Fatales, and that was with the line back almost to The Beast entrance.

I agree with the statements made here. Slade might have been wrong about his guess in the article but his statements about a dark ride being what is missing from Cedar Point's line up are correct and hopefully they will see one added soon. The dive coaster they put in did fill in a gap in the coaster line u p but it didn't do too much for their general ride line up.

Can anyone confirm the in park price to online?

KD is going all out for Haunt this year.

Not a big fan of the standard motion simulator attractions, but wouldn't be too disappointed to see an addition like this added. Could be a lot of fun and looks different.

I'm not a huge fan of the motion simulator rides. They can be fun but rather have an actual ride in the building. However if given the option of a motion simulator ride or nothing, I'd definitely go for a simulator.

Exactly, think it'd be pretty easy to pull off, dones't have to be anything major, just some good ghost story narration ro something with some simple decorations would be good enough

YEa I've had a few friends that have lived or worked down there. And all said it loses some of the magic but I think overall it still retains it more than a regional park. They are much more innovative rides and fully immersive. You can really have a great time just walking around and more shows and great fireworks to catch. But yea it isn't nearly the same as when you visit every couple years or so.

Cant' say for sure this year but last year yes you got the Skeleton Key room as well. It was basically a single use Fright Lane ticket. So if you went to a maze with a Skeleton Key room you got to experience it as well. Making it hard for me to decide which to use it on this year. Money is tight so we are forgoing Fright Lane passes but doing the Fright Feast. Feel liek Blackout will have biggest line, but loved Slaughterhouse's Skeleton Key room and the new one for Urgent Scare sounds cool too.

That is awesome. Really helps set the mood just walking into the park.

Planning to do it this year when i go in a couple weeks. We ate at it last year and sounds like it is the same stuff. The food was good and a good value I felt with the season pass at $12 for good buffet, drinks, and front of line pass. To Ffej, not sure if there year is different yet but last year there were no scare actors and minimal decorations. Just some hay bales and pumpkins pretty much. However I'd definitely recommend. It's cheaper than most meals around the park, great food, all you can eat, and the line pass. Just $12 with a season pass versus $15 for a mediocre meal and drink elsewhere in the park. Not sure about dietary needs like veggie burgers though, I'd recommend calling the park to ask about that unless someone here knows for sure.

RingMaster, I agree with you about moving Tombstone Terror-tory into a scare zone through Rivertown. That would be a much better use for it, and could leave the train open as well then for a relaxing evening ride.

I agree with the quality statements a bit. Haunt is till a lot of fun and I love it but some of the mazes are lacking severely or getting very dated and tired. And renaming a maze with a very minimal theme change does not make it new (e.g. Massacre Manor to DDD or the many chainlink fence mazes where BTD now stands). A big part to me comes down a bit to layouts for some, like Tombstone Terror-tory hard to be scary in a straight line with obvious hiding spots, and number of actors, Cornstalkers has always been woefully understaffed when I've gone through. I do like that we get so many mazes to experience and helps to spread the crowds out some but I'd almost rather them cut down the number of mazes and make them better staffed and themed. Can pool decorations together and have funds dispersed better plus more scare actors per maze. One examble would be taking three of their weakest mazes, Tombstone Terror-tory, Wolf Pack, and Cornstalkers, and combining them into one big haunt. Could start in a farm house that has been attacked and then venture out into the cornfields. I feel the props and costumes for these three could work together into a cohesive haunt with the Western garb able to be refitted as lost souls on the farm and having werewolves and scarecrows attacking. I also like Forsaken's idea of making Carn-evil into a dark/gritty circus theme that is scarier than a bright 3D haunt. It's decent as is but coudl be really creepy if made more realistic. I think if we just had like 8 or 9 mazes the quality could be improved.