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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/14/2020 in Posts
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My visit this past weekend was great, even with Saturday being very busy and me missing out on FL until Sunday. I went into Orion not having followed its construction or watched a POV or even really knowing the layout. Also haven't been watching the reactions to it. I thought it was great. No surprise here that the huge new B&M is a smooth, fun, smile-inducing, infinitely-rerideable, gentle giant. I think it packs a little lighter punch overall than Fury or Leviathan, and I actually love it just like that. The setting is beautiful, especially this time of year and in particular just before and through the big overbank turnaround, just a breathtaking view out over a sea of vibrant foliage. Back left was my seat. Something about first drop in the back felt a little more special than Fury or Leviathan to me. Oh and the light package on the ride at night. Holy poopoo it's so freaking nice. Mask compliance was really quite good. Operators were actually pretty on top of asking people to wear or correct how they were wearing, and I saw only one case where such an interaction went sour. Distancing in the queues wasn't always great. Two impressively motivated operators actually forced the line to space out on Banshee and Invertigo. Their efforts were effective and appreciated. Got lucky to get a backseat night ride on Beast. My only previous ride was a front seat night ride. Woah that descent into the tunnel off the second lift, in the pitch dark, just one of the most sublimely out-of-control feelings on a ride I can imagine. Think I actually enjoyed it more in the back. Sunday morning I ended up on a third row ride and found that quite uncomfortable. Speaking of seat selection, operators were actually really friendly about, and generally accommodating, whenever groups asked about preferred seats. FastPass greatly increases your opportunities for front or back seats. Mystic Timbers was a pleasant surprise, more fun than I'd imagined. It makes some cool maneuvers with nice forces, while also retaining that overall terrain/journey feel. It felt a bit like a big brother to Wooden Warrior with the tunneled turnaround. Banshee was absolutely rippin' thru the course and so much better than I recall my one previous ride. Just kept wanting to go again. OK the beer. So look. I'm really not into pumpkin flavored stuff. But I am into coffee, and I have grown to occasionally appreciate dark complex beers, so I gave the Elysian Punkuccino they had on tap a shot. Wow! It's great, really great. Not in a "hmm that's certainly interesting and I'm going to pretend I like it to look refined" type of great, but a genuine "dang I want to chug this and then spend eleven more dollars on another one, immediately" kind of great. The bar between Mystic Timbers and Diamondback was a super relaxed stop off for a decent burger and brew early Sunday afternoon while it was not at all busy. Also tried the Original Sin Black Widow cider. Tart and blackberry infused, really liked it. Great selection of boozin' absolutely all over the park. Oh and the fried chicken and fries by Banshee are solid. Love this park! Clean, pretty, great ride selection, food, drinks, and friendly people. Two-day ride totals: Adventure Express x1, Backlot Stunt x1, Banshee x4, Beast x3, Diamondback x5, FoF 1x, Invertigo 1x, Mystic Timbers x4, Orion x6, Racer x1, Delirium 1x, Boo Blasters 1x, Woodstock Gliders 1x4 points
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With Japan largely handling its COVID scenario better than some other countries, I was able to finally check Nagashima Spaland off my to-do list after having been on for quite some time. With my trip landing in the middle of what would ordinarily be one of Japan's busiest travel seasons, I was expecting some fairly decent crowds, but I was surprised to see just how much COVID was doing to the parks. With the crowds being extremely manageable, I was also curious to see how the park was handling operations in light of everything. Outside the sanitation procedures, rides with smaller trains had distancing enforced through cut capacity (Hakugei being the worst affected). Thankfully, most of the other major rides had enough distancing built in to operate almost normally (Steel Dragon, Arashi, Acrobat), which offset some of the capacity issues. Overall enjoyed the park and thought it had a solid lineup (especially with Hakugei on it now). Onto the photos: The gateway to happiness. Fairly average queues for the day (though the half capacity one train ops made for longer waits). Longest actual wait time was about 30 minutes. Masks are mandatory for Hakugei and Steel Dragon per newly posted policy. And yes, they survive both just fine. Easily the most photogenic of the RMCs. Probably best to let the photos do most of the talking. There's just no angle that doesn't look good. Fantastic ride with a ton of airtime and awesome elements (this "actually zero G" zero G roll being my favorite), and my new #4. A+ With the last time on a first gen being almost 15 years ago, it was nice to get to ride one again (and the kerchunk wasn't even bad). A Heading to Arashi. With the only similar ride in my count being Green Lantern and knowing how annoyed people have gotten with the 4D Free Spins popping up everywhere, I really didn't expect much out of it. Thankfully, it went against my expectations in all the right ways and ended up being my second favorite behind Hakugei. I don't know why S&S decided to make this particular one able to get every ride spinning almost nonstop, but they need to keep doing it. A+ Steel Dragon 2000 (Nisen), the other big and bold headliner. Pretty solid, long (obviously), with some good speed and nice floater moments. Basically a super giant old school hyper. A- I was also excited to try out an Ultra Twister for the first time. Rough around the edges (Togo, what else?), but still a quirky and enjoyable ride. Sadly, I had also been planning to go to Rusutsu to try the dive loop variant, but my trip plans fell through. But for this one, B. Heading to Acrobat, the Manta clone. "It looks like Manta, but due to international copyright law, it's not." I Can't Believe It's Not Manta!™ Ran fairly rattly, but it's the Manta layout, so it's still good stuff. B+ And some classic Schwarzkopf goodness to round things out. A- Can't go wrong with the Shuttle Loop. A- Not sure if this actually does anything to help pandemic stuff, but still nice to walk out to.3 points
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The old forum software had that weird thing where the body of the post and the photo section were kind of separate entities, and arranging the post exactly the way you wanted it was awkward, especially if you wanted a few photos mixed in throughout the post. That is all much easier with the update -- just put the pictures and text wherever you want them. The old software also resized photos down to a width of 1200 pixels, and the new software keeps the dimensions larger. Just testing this out with a picture from an upcoming TR, totally unedited -- and the forum kept it a at 2400 width. Not that I'll use anything that big, but another big plus to the upgrade that it'll keep some larger image dimensions intact.3 points
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The park reached out a second time to clarify about the Toothless water coaster. Single riders can ride, but they cannot ride alone. They will send a lifeguard around with single riders.2 points
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Yes, exactly. I think mainly because the photo section of the old forum was a mod that we later added and then had re-written. This one is fully integrated. Also, as far as photo size goes, I chose 2,400 on purpose. Figured that would be a good size. But your original photo should be uploaded to an unlimited size if you click on it. I thought that would be super handy for people uploading higher res pictures.2 points
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Knoebels is absolutely one of my favorite places to visit. And it would take a lot for me to be steered away from returning (ie- ripping down Phoenix, and Twister, replacing the bumper cars with standard ones, and getting rid of all the tasty treats). I think it is an interesting thing to look at and dissect, is all. I am really a numbers guy. There's no doubt that the value of parents being able to go in and ride just a few rides is immense and can offer huge savings over most parks that require an admission. The main reason for bringing them up is moreso to just point out that I *think* the ride increases are occurring at a faster rate than in the parks history. And so, if they get to a good level (like where they are now) and they begin to slow down again, I think that would be a okay. But ifi in a few years, the Flyers are at $3.25, Phoenix is at $4, and the kiddie rides are alll $2-2.50, that's a pretty quick progression and a slippery slope. I enjoy paying with the tickets for whatever reason (always at Weiss) and it allows us the opportunity to spread our fun out over two days and ride a bit less each day and save a few $$ over buying two all day wristbands. I did this just now out of morbid curiosity and figured I would at least add it here so my work wasn't for only me. (Prices 2001, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 via Wayback Machine); Inflation is $1 in 2001 = $1.47 today. Phoenix: $1.50 $2, $2, $2.50, $3, $3 Flyers: $0.80, $1, $1.20, $1.50, $1.75, $2.50 Carousel: $0.70 $0.80 $0.90, $1, $1.50, $1.75 Red Baron: $0.60, $0.70 $0.80, $1, $1.25, $1.50 Adult Wristband w/ Coasters: (not available), $31, $37, $39.50, $47, $50 Is it still super affordable and far cheaper by the ride than most other parks? Absolutely. Does that detract from the fact that I doubt rides saw these % increases in the previous two decades? E.G. were the Flyers like 25 cents in 1980? Hope someone besides me at least found the above mildly interesting!2 points
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Would you believe it? After 15 years of the TPR forum being online, we finally updated it!!! We hope many of you will love the more streamlined look, improved functionality, and new features. And I'm sure some of you will hate, because... "change" but, hey... that's okay, too! This is also the thread to use to report things not working or not working correctly. With 15 years worth of content, it is impossible to check and test every little corner of the forum, so if you find something that doesn't seem right, please report it here. So why did we make the change? Mostly due to the fact that the old forum we were using was pretty outdated, and even though there were some updates available for that software, it really is more of a "free" open source base of code, and we wanted to switch to something a bit more "professional" with a proper support staff. It's a change we've wanted to do for a while, but never really found a good timing for it. So here are some of the new features to check out... Much better Mobile View! With about 85% of our traffic now coming from mobile devices, we needed a forum that would look and feel better on your phone. Easier to add photos! Either from your phone or from your desktop, you can now quickly upload photos to a post! Much like you would on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! You can even drag a photo from your desktop right into the place you want it to appear in your post! That's what I did here... "LIKE" a post! This is a feature long overdue and something people have been asking us to add for years! Now it's easy to "LIKE" and react to a post! But please do not let that stop you from also adding your own reply! Replies are what helps keeps the forum alive! Import VIDEO into a post! Yes! You can now add video clips to your trip reports! However, while you can now import video, we do ask that you keep it to shorter clips, no more than 5 minutes. Please don't post full length movies! Embed YouTube videos instead! lava monster.mp4 Overall, this updated forum will add a lot of new functionality, ease of use, and better browsing. We hope you all like it, and please let us know if you find anything that doesn't work right! I will continue to update this thread with new features we highlight! This would be a great time for you to click that "follow" button on the top of the page so you can get notifications for when we update this post! Thanks again for your support!!!1 point
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The construction of the new B&M Invert Monster is quickly going forward. I did a short construction update video if anyone is interested in seeing more.1 point
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Yes, I love this as well. The new software is obviously a huge upgrade and it has a ton of features. The time spent upgrading was well worth it. Also want to commend the staff for being so responsive to questions and (reasonable) fixes being asked for here.1 point
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Looks good! Wasn't here for a long time, but I will now come by more often again1 point
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There's honestly a ton of "little features" like that all over the place that I love with the new forum. It's overall just a more "professional" piece of software and it shows!1 point
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Bert, I have a very, very similar Chocolate Crunch tin. It is my favorite souvenir of the trip and was super affordable. Best believe I would be grabbing some more when I return.1 point
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The new look is fantastic! It is much easier to read and looks modern. Cheers!1 point
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I’m thinking maybe I’ll actually upload some Photo TR’s with the much easier tools... it absolutely was a bit tedious and frustrating before. Thanks again!1 point
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^ Ah, that Chocolate Crunch. How the heck did I miss that, in past visits? Next time, for sure.1 point
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I usually edit down to 1800x1200 so that will be more than sufficient!1 point
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Thank you, that's on me for missing that. I really appreciate the help though.1 point
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Here are two different ways to add a photo and write a caption. It's so insanely easy. Anyone who can't figure it out has to be overthinking it... how to make a caption.mp4 From your desktop, you can literally just drag in a photo into your post, and then write a caption under or above it. Or from your mobile phone or from your desktop folders, you just "choose file...", upload it, and then click the little + to add it to the post, and write your caption where you want it to go. This is such a HUGE upgrade from the old forum. Sorry, but I just cannot imagine anyone complaining or having trouble with this... or missing that old, awful, confusing way to upload and post photos.1 point
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I heard back from the park. Single riders are allowed on the water coaster as long as they are 150 lbs.1 point
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Efteling has announced Nest, a new inclusive / accessible playground opening next year. The playground will be themed to Efteling's roller coasters and attractions, for younger children and those with disabilities to feel like they are experiencing them and taking part. The playground will indirectly replace the Polka Marina roundabout ride. https://www.efteling.com/nl/blog/nieuws/20201013-aankondiging-nieuw-speelbos-nest1 point
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Rumor is there are some high up California government peeps out in Florida, checking out the parks, and putting something together for your terrible governor who hates parks!1 point
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We'll be at the park on Friday! If anyone else will be there, give us a hint. If not, prepare for some autumn shots of GeForce!1 point
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Also, I just went back and looked at the old forum, and there wasn't any difference in text at all between a read and unread topic. It was just the icon next to them. I've now changed the color of the star or circle to make it stand out a bit more. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can do...1 point
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I ended up visiting the Dreamworks Water Park for the second time this past Thursday. Wait, what, second time?! Believe it or not, I was one of the few people that managed to sneak a visit in during their brief soft opening preview weekend back in March. The whole family and I really loved it, although a few of their slides were non-operational at the time, and we were eagerly looking forward to returning when it was able to reopen. Please note that all of the photos in this trip report were taken during our first visit, back before social distancing measures were implemented. Their new process for operation during the COVID-19 pandemic is similar to what you've seen at other places. They are severely limiting capacity; they are letting a total of 750 people into the park at any given time, which is actually more restrictive than the state's currently allowed 25% of max capacity (and the water park's capacity is in the over 5,000 range). You need to purchase your tickets online in advance. When you arrive at the mall, they will not let you down the entrance ramp unless you show an attendant your barcode in advance. Once you do that, you proceed downstairs where they have a contactless temperature check station set up, with the cutoff at 100.4. Then you go over to the desks where they would typically be selling tickets, they scan your barcodes, and issue you your wristbands with an RFID tag. These tags are used both to get you into the park, and also for use with any lockers you may choose to rent throughout the day. There's a big family locker room, with lots of individual changing booths, but with separate entrances and exits for men and women that lead into the showers and bathrooms. The lockers in here are large (holding two full bags and four pairs of shoes) and rentable for $20 per day. It's a very modern, sleek changing room, kept impeccably clean. For the time being, they are asking that everyone wear their masks in the common areas such as this where you might be in closer contact with others. Obviously, once you're in the park and splashing around, they do not require you to wear masks, with one exception that I'll get to later in the report. Once you get changed and exit the locker room, you're greeted by a big statue of Shrek floating on an inner tube, with a water fountain gushing underneath him. This section is where you'll find the exits for their 1-2 person tube slides, their body slides that end in deep pools, and their surfing simulator. The surfing simulator is currently free for guests but they have stated that they will be making it an upcharge in the future. This is slightly different than the Flowrider models that you can find at most other indoor water parks. It's not nearly as high, with the wave being only about a foot or two high, and they require that you wear a helmet while riding it. For that reason, we all passed on it. Entrances to the different slides are broken up into different collections of stairwells. Directly to the left of the surfing simulator is "Stair A", which leads to two short body slides that drop into a 10' pool, similar to the Shotgun Falls slides at Morey's Piers' Raging Waters. Unlike Shotgun Falls, these have a 48" height requirement and you're not allowed to wear any life vests, so our youngest kid couldn't go on these. Climbing up to the second platform on Stair A takes you to their bowl body slide, Mad Flush, which spins you around before dunking you into a 6.5' deep pool. All three of these were pretty fun! Especially when you're flying five feet in the air before splashing down. Immediately to the right of Mad Flush are the exits for their 1-2 person tube slides. These tube slides were located at Stair C. The only place to get the tubes for these was... right here, by the exit. You'd then have to circle around back past A, walk past B, hang a left at the wave pool, then climb up the steps to get to the entrances for these three slides. It was a bit of a hike but honestly there probably wasn't a better way to do it. All three of these slides allowed riders 42"-48" to ride with an adult, or 48" and above to ride solo, but the double tubes were the only tubes available. The yellow and green slides were your standard enclosed tube slides, with a decent amount of speed and twisty turns. The red one finished in a spiral bowl, and my wife was NOT expecting this. After a few choice words for me she ended up laughing about it, though. Now back to Stair B. When we first visited back in March, these were not open yet, but on our visit last week, they had opened to visitors. All four of the slides located at this stairwell are extreme capsule drop slides, for riders 48" and taller, spread out across two levels. The first level contains Carnivortex and Surfari Slider. The green-yellow Carnivortex is probably the most standard of these, with a short drop into a 360 degree tube. The purple Surfari Slider was more interesting, as you had one initial drop out of the capsule, you leveled out most of the way, and then there was a second drop down to the bottom. I wasn't expecting it and it caught me off guard when that second drop hit. And then the orange and pink slides on the second level, Thrillagascar and Jungle Jammer, were identical open-air drop slides at a whopping height of 142 feet, currently the world's tallest. You drop through the capsule, slide through an empty airplane cockpit hanging from the ceiling, and zoom all the way down into an extra long runout. I did both of these and while fun, they also weren't the most comfortable. I'll probably skip them if I return in the future, but I'd definitely do Surfari Slider again! Stair D holds two lengthy body slides, the Zany Zigzag and Zanier Zigzag. Both of these end in a 3.5' deep pool at the end and are for riders 48" and taller. While they were fun enough due to the length and twists, there were a couple of spots where the speed slowed down to a near crawl. You can also see one of the hot tubs in this picture. There's a few over in this area, and a couple over near the entrance to the lazy river on the other side of the wave pool. During our March visit, these were open, but currently they all are closed off due to physical distancing. Stair E is home to their mat racing slides, Dragon Racers. Well, at least, the entrance to it, anyway. Similar to what they do with their tube slides, you need to get a mat from another location. The mats are located at the bottom of Dragon Racers. However, to get there, you need to climb Stair F. In other words, you need to go up Stair F, grab a mat, go back down Stair F, walk along the edge of the drop slide run off, get back to Stair E, and climb up another three flights of steps. It's a weird layout decision that really isn't that friendly to guests, and as such, I never saw that many people taking advantage of it. Which is a shame, because it's pretty fun for a mat racer. This is one that has a timer so you can brag about coming in first place with your family and friends. Speaking of Stair F, that's the home to their water coaster, Toothless' Trickling Torpedo. Pretty silly name, but it's honestly one of the best water coasters I've yet had the pleasure to ride. I believe they're advertising it as either the longest water coaster in America or possibly the longest indoor water coaster -- not sure, but either way, it's great. Even with the length, once you get up the lift hill, the speed carries you through the layout very rapidly. It's super smooth, the hydromagnetic uphill portions make it an absolute blast to ride without worrying about getting absolutely drenched by the water cannons. There's also a couple of really good airtime hills towards the end that might catch you off guard so make sure you're holding on tight! It's complemented by some statues of the How To Train Your Dragon characters throughout the ride. While there was a wait for it during the middle of the day, during the last hour of operation, it was a walk on and they let us stay in the raft for re-rides once we got back to the loading platform. I would have gone as many times as they let us, to be honest! It's that fun. Let's talk for a minute about the centerpiece of this water park, their absolutely MASSIVE wave pool. This thing is jaw-droppingly huge. This is a wave pool made for social distancing. This takes up a good chunk of the real estate in here, and it dominates your view no matter where you are in the park. Currently, they have most of it roped off along the edge to keep people from just running in from wherever. There's a single roped one-way lane for those looking to enter the pool, and although they weren't limiting capacity while we were there, it seems as if that's the point of doing so. Most of the pool is either at wading depth or for young children, but it does go down to a depth of 8' at the furthest point. During the day, the waves are pretty large but manageable. On our initial visit back in March, after they closed it down to the general public, they brought in some pro surfers and cranked the waves up to the maximum. It was fun watching them drop in from the edges and ride those waves like only they can! On the opposite side of the wave pool, far from the entrance, they have their lazy river, two separate kids' areas, and their three large 4-person raft slides. The lazy river is not that lazy; at spots it was almost as fast as, say, Hubba Hubba Highway at Water Country USA or Roa's Rapids at Aquatica Orlando. There are some smaller blue tubes that have a flat seat for younger children, and there isn't much of a difference in size between the larger blue and pink tubes. Unfortunately as far as tubes go they are still on the small size, and I flopped right off trying to get on one. I ended up just hanging on and floating around the river, but it would be more enjoyable if they were a little bit larger and easier to kick back and relax on. There's quite a few water features throughout where you will get sprayed, drenched, or otherwise soaked, but overall it's still pretty relaxing. The first of their two kids areas is themed after the Penguins of Madagascar. This area has six separate kiddie slides of varying sizes, and they're only for children underneath 48". This was my youngest kid's favorite spot to get repeat slides throughout the length of the day, as they were made for kids just her size. The theming, with the fake iceberg and a penguin in an ice block being carried off by helicopter, was absolutely charming. The other kids area was the Kung Fu Panda Temple of Awesomeness, and for the kids, it definitely lived up to that title. It's another one of those large play structures with a ton of platforms, spouts, buckets, water guns, bouncy bridges, and the like, all capped off with three smaller slides for kids only and three larger body slides for kids and their parents alike. Those larger slides were definitely on the mild side; my wife mentioned that she ended up getting stuck at one point and had to push herself along. But the kids loved them, and in the end, that's the target audience there. This is all in a 6" deep wading pool so even the smallest kids can splash around if their hearts so desire. Just beware of the splash bucket! All the way back in the furthest corner, over a bridge across the lazy river, are the entrances to the two final stairwells, containing three 4-person raft slides. All three of these have a 48" height requirement. First up is Shrek's Sinkhole Slammer, which is their stunning and massive Tornado funnel. It gives a great sense of weightlessness as you drop in and make that seemingly never-ending ascent up the other side. Tornados are usually a big favorite of the kiddo's and mine, and this one definitely doesn't disappoint. Up this same stairwell was the Swamp & Splash, which had multiple smaller funnels to float in, with some sharp dips out of those funnels giving you a good amount of speed in the enclosed parts. The first funnel gave the biggest air out of all of them! The final raft slide in this area was Dragon & Dronkey's Flight. To reach this one, you had to go up the alternate set of stairs, and this was the only one on that set. However, the attendants were letting you choose it if you took the wrong set of stairs by accident. This one was the most mild of the three, with no major airtime features. There was a pseudo-bowl area with a Shrek statue watching over you, but even this didn't really give any significant forces. It all ends in when you splash down through the dragon's mouth. To be honest, this seems like it would have been a good candidate for an all-ages and all-heights family raft. The only reason I think it has the 48" height requirement is because they're using the same cloverleaf style of 4-person rafts here as they do on the other two slides, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this change at some point in the future. A few other items to note: On this visit, the amount of tables and chairs throughout the complex had been significantly reduced and heavily spaced out to provide for better social distancing. If you didn't feel comfortable leaving your stuff on a lounger, you could also rent a smaller locker in the park itself at $12 for the day. These were large enough for a couple of towels, water shoes, and a single small bag. The food options were mostly pre-packaged cold items, such as sandwiches, wraps, and salads. The only hot items were hot dogs and soft pretzels. For the four of us, we spent about $55 on lunch for the day. The service counter was also the only spot inside the park itself where wearing a mask was mandatory; still, the employees were separated by a thick plexiglass barrier. During our initial visit, there were several costumed characters walking around willing to pose for photo ops with the kids. Princess Poppy from Trolls got lots of hugs, and the kiddo got into a flossing dance-off with King Julien from Madagascar. This past time around, there were no up close meet-and-greets like that, but King Julien continued to make appearances near the wave pool, dancing on top of the (currently closed) swim-up bar and DJ booth. Most of the major slide stairwells were separated in two; one side had a "Turbo Pass" sign on it. They weren't selling these either time we visited. I assume that once the pandemic restrictions are lifted and they're able to fill this place to capacity, the lines will get much longer and it might be a case where if you want to do as much as you can in a day, you'll have to buy a skip-the-line pass. For that reason, I'm definitely recommending checking it out now while the capacity is limited. There's been a lot of complaints about the pricing structure here. There's no question about it; it's not cheap. They're currently charging $89 for adults, and $79 for kids. Is it worth the price, though? In my opinion, right now, I would say yes. There's a huge amount of stuff to do, the big attractions that they have are especially rerideable, and there's plenty of space to keep your distance from others. With the current limitation of no more than 750 people in the park, now is pretty much a perfect time to visit if you want to just slide and enjoy yourself. I don't think it's going to be a case where the price will eventually go down, simply due to its proximity to the NYC area. There might be some Groupon discounts eventually but I think the retail price will only go up from here on out. One last thing to note; while this is located in a mall, the mall itself is located in Bergen County, which has a blue law that states there is to be no retail shopping on Sundays. I don't get it either. This wasn't a problem on Thursday, obviously, but on our first visit back in March, we did end up going on Sunday... and ran into a problem when we realized we forgot our daughter's swimsuit. At the time, no retail stores in the mall were open, but even if they were, we wouldn't have been able to purchase anything for her. What we ended up doing was leaving temporarily, and driving about ten minutes away to a nearby Walmart that was in a different county just to get her something she could wear. Embarrassing for sure. Hopefully at some point this law will change... or hopefully other visitors won't be nearly as scatterbrained as we were. Overall, this has quickly become our favorite indoor water park, one that we look forward to visiting many times again in the future. If they end up offering a season pass at some point, I think we'll definitely pick up passes. If you're a fan of water slides, I highly encourage you to bite the bullet and check this one out, and advise you to do so sooner rather than later!1 point
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Not at all! Anything broken in the park index should be fixed very soon!1 point
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Looks awesome! Thanks Robb for what was surely a monumental and thankless job! I thank you!1 point
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I was playing around with this and adjusted the settings slightly on my end to get it more like the old "View Your Posts" on the previous version of the forum. If you start from the "Content I Posted In" activity stream, then change "Read Status" to "Everything", and view from "Expanded" to "Condensed", it ends up looking a lot like the previous style's list of topics. Then, you can also save that as a new stream (in my case, I named it "Latest Replies") and set it as your default stream, so when you look in the upper right hand corner of your screen and see the little newspaper icon, that'll be a one-click jump to see all the latest relative content. Here's a screenshot of my settings if you want to try and duplicate it for yourself, and a little bit of what the feed looks like for an example:1 point
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^ LOL. .that's fun. if you get something in the mail you didn't order? it's yours to keep. no harm, no foul. enjoy them!1 point
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TRIP REPORT 7/3/20 We arrived at the parking lot around 9:40am. There were no cars in front of us or behind us. We noticed a few people walking the path toward the park. We parked and took the shuttle to the front gate. (Note: They are only allowing groups with a disabled person on the shuttles to the park.) What happened next was amazing. We stepped off the bus and walked through a new tunnel/entryway. There were six people in my group and another group behind us, but all of us kept walking. No one stopped for a temperature check. No one stopped for a bag check. It was completely seamless. We all kept walking until we found ourselves in the entry plaza. Next, a park employee scanned our reservation bar code and wished us a great day. Finally, we breezed through the turnstiles with no wait (other than the time it took to scan our passes). We were off the bus and into the park in less than three minutes. We were inside the park just before 10:00am...in time to wait for rope drop. We did most of the shows and animal attractions. Right off the bat, we noticed that the animals were much more active than we have experienced before. The snakes were slithering around, not hiding. The lions were front and center (one was on top of the rocks). The cougars were not hiding, and neither were the wolves. It was nice to get a good look at the animals. They have cleared out the land for Sidewinder Safari and put up a construction fence around the area. They might have even poured some concrete footers. It's hard to tell. Other than that, not much going on. No big surprise. Here are a few of my observations (and some advice if you plan to go). 1. Shark Experience is closed, which makes sense because it's indoors. 2. Butterfly Habitat is open (according to a park employee), which is surprising since it's also indoors. 3. Mobile ordering at the restaurants is (mostly) a hit. It's very easy to do and (most of the time) very fast. We ordered food from four different places and they were all fast. The one exception was Johnny Rockets. 4. Johnny Rockets. What is it with this place? I waited about 70 minutes for two shakes. There were at least 30-40 people standing around waiting for their orders and all of them waited at least an hour. Keep in mind that park capacity is about as low as it will ever get. This place is typically slow, but I THOUGHT with mobile ordering and low capacity it would help. It didn't. If anything, it's worse. Normally, I would never wait that long for two shakes, but I had nowhere else to be (the rest of the group was at a show) and I was genuinely curious to see how long it would take. At one point, the park president and another fellow (similarly dressed) walked up to a woman near me and talked to her about an issue with her order. They said they would look into it. They disappeared into the restaurant and I didn't see them again. Bottom line: AVOID JOHNNY ROCKETS 5. No food on the bus. Maybe this was always the rule, but they never enforced it. We took our dinner to go and got on the bus. Immediately, the bus driver told us food wasn't allowed on the bus. We tried to explain that we were not going to eat on the bus and that the containers would remain closed. The bus driver was firm (and rude, in my opinion). We got off the bus and walked to the car...and arrived before the bus. 6. Show capacity can be an issue. When is the last time you were turned away from a show due to capacity limit? It's only happened to me once in seven years...and that was a very busy Saturday in July at the dolphin show. We were turned away from the tiger show today due to capacity. I think that there are two main reasons for this. The first is (obviously) social distancing. Limited capacity for the shows. The other reason is that everyone is on the same show schedule. Each show is scheduled 30-45 minutes apart with very little overlap. That means that many of the same people go from show to show because there isn't much else to do. Some of the venues have much more capacity than others. 7. The games are open. This was a nice break for us in the middle of the day. They clean all of the game equipment (balls, rings, etc.) after each use. 8. Food Court. TONS of new table umbrellas! Remember when just a handful of outside tables had shade? Now, nearly all of them do. 9. There are areas in the park where you can take a break and remove your mask. 10. There's nothing in the parks referencing Marine World or The Marine World Experience. There is one sign outside the park with The Marine World Experience logo. I thought there might be some special event merchandise. I asked several gift shops (including the main one), but there is nothing. No 1980's music in the park or anything else to reference the old park. Think of it as a typical day in the park without rides. 11. Everyone was wearing a mask, with the exception of people sitting down to eat. Social distancing was not an issue. The park was very clean and we felt totally safe. I posted some video and photos. I hope its okay to post these links. If not, please remove. https://www.facebook.com/sixflagsroadtrip https://www.instagram.com/sixflagsroadtrip/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWu05hQ_REo1TUqCDtczt0g https://www.sixflagsroadtrip.com1 point
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Back in the early 1970's it wasn't all about Florida and Disney or Corporate parks. Families with young kids could still have a great vacation closer to home at hundreds of small local parks. In the next 3 installments I will show pictures from a week long family vacation to the Lake George region of New York in 1974. This next round of pictures is from an extinct park that was located at the top of a hill. You entered the park by going inside a "spaceship" (a room that moved and had flashing lights to simulate space travel). Then you went through a tunnel or underground room that would take you to another planet. You exited atop the hill where you encountered a lot of giant plastic and fiberglass characters that were supposed to represent different eras in time from the prehistoric era to the present era of space travel. The name of the place was Time Town. Enjoy! If you want to see more of this long lost park can can visit this site: RemeberingTimeTown My sister goes back for more quality time with the park's mascot. My siblings and family friends decided to get a picture with this pecker. Next we got to hang out with Jeff Johnson. Even though there were cars way back in the '70s, we took this alternative form of transportation to the park.1 point