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^Yeah, like let's let them launch this first before we all freak out too much. At Disneyland Paris, the most expensive rooms always came with special unlimited fastpasses so I could see something for concierge guests maybe here. People don't realize JUST how busy all the parks and the resort is. The arguments about how the parks were so much better without fastpass are dumb now, cause we've seen what that's like the past year and guess what, it doesn't work anymore. Pirates has a 45min line all the time, small world is over 20, it's not these walk on's you remember from the 90's when there weren't 50k people a day in each park! The parks need some sort of line management system and I hope this works out for them.

This is for one peak-season day for a family of four at Universal. One day... Disney is charging $15 "BUT IT DOESN'T INCLUDE THE MOST POPULAR RIDES!!!!" ...oh, how terrible

This is basically a ticket increase without them saying it is, because its optional. There is now little to no advantage to pay a premium and stay at a Disney hotel now. All the on-site benefits like Magical Express, dining reservations, Extra Magic Hours and early fastpass bookings are gone and replaced with either upcharges or are only for the high end resorts (EMH). And who really thinks Caribbean Beach is worth $350 per night?

Dang, what's going on with you? If an over 18 year old car would drive next to you and lose a part, would you really blame the manufacturer of the car? Wouldn't there be other people to talk to first? You are writing that you don't know who is to blame for the defect, but start your post with "what is going on with Intamin these days?"? How can you do that if you don't know when the part was built, when it was security checked for last time, and, the most important, why it came loose? Would you really blame Intamin, Cedar Fair or a technician if the train hit a bird while descending causing the part to come loose? You don't know nothing - as much as I and the most other of us do - and go for a full rant on everybody including the argument diligence in your first post here? Cedar Fair disassembles all of their coaster trains of all their coasters every offseason to every nut and bolt. Everybody following them on socials or going to Winter Chill Out knows that. Perhaps you can explain to us how they can work even better and how you can prevent loose parts months later. The only correct thing you wrote is the fact that it should be unacceptable that guests are hurt in amusement parks. And I'm pretty sure that Intamin, Cedar Fair and the TTD technicians agree on that without a beep. I even would include the riding guests, too - which you excluded. I'm also sure that they act and think before they write. Because of this, they will make sure to exactly know why which part came loose because of which reason before they talk to the people. And even then, the involved people are the first ones to talk to. Not the ones unaffected by the accident.

I just watched this video now, because I wanted to know as little as possible before being there by myself. This video is perfect. It really shows you what to expect once you go into the undergrond station in the Berlin street. It's perfect. Go, ride it, feel it. Now. We came back yesterday from a three day trip, sleeping at Matamba (because Lindbergh has no family rooms, only rooms with two single beds). I will definitely write a long trip report in the next days. But I wanted to share asap how awesome out trip was, even if weather rained us out on parts of all three days and temperatures didn't hit 20°C at not one minute. The combination of F.L.Y. and Rookburgh is the best thing human amusement device makers made that I have seen so far (not having been to Universal or Disney yet). This experience is undescribeable. I'll share a ton of pictures soon. The crew at hotel Matamba was definitely awesome!

I don't even mind if it's not on all the rides. When we were at Disneyland last month we waited in line 45min for Space, 45min for Indy, 30min for Matterhorn, we didn't have the patience to also wait 25+min for all the 'smaller' rides. If I could wait in line for some big rides and walk on the smaller ones that would help balance the day.

Visited Holiday Park in Germany today, because its near me, for "Expedition GeForce" mainly. Man, i have ridden quiet a bit of coasters arround europe and i can say, this thing still tops all of them for me by miles. That first inversion drop with the speed into the most intense and longest air-time hill i have ever experienced and seen is enough to make you litterly launch out of your seats. As if this was not enough already, it also uses lap-bar restraints. The rest of the ride is fast paced and features standard elements and intense air-time hills too, but not so long ones as the first one. Pro tip: If you plan on riding this, definitly go for the front seat only! For some reason, i get the most of the intense air-time this way, not as much from the back seat, and on top of that you get the typical "speed wind and front view" effect.

I think it's just supposed to be 220 miles above the Earth. I'm sure when we're taking the cool space elevator they will let us know why!

Correction... Busch (Or at least SeaWorld) actually does offer $11 skip-the-line passes. They just don't tell you that or advertise it at all. If you buy an unnecessary locker at one of the coasters (you have to buy it even if you don't want it) it prompts you to buy $10 single use line skips and asks you how much. It's the dumbest system for anything that I've ever seen in a theme park. This doesn't change your point, I just wanted an excuse to broadcast this asinine thing to the world.

Day 4 - Holiday World! So, we've gotten past the one real disappointment of my trip. From here on out, while there were some...oddities and difficulties, the rest of the days and parks were good! Holiday World was the next stop...and I probably don't need to tell a lot of people that that's a good one. I went in with high expectations. Fourth part of the week and not any less excited to see coasters on the horizon there. The Voyage definitely looks impressive from back here! Coming in from the parking lot, you're reminded that you're in the presence of a legend. So...does it deserve its one-time top spot? I was here before opening, but there was already quite a crowd. There seemed to be far more people here than at Silver Dollar City by midday, despite being a smaller park and a Wednesday now. That's just 2021 though, can't predict anything. Cute entrance area with all the christmas decor. All things considered it's less weird in July when it's Holiday World. There was just no way I wasn't heading straight to Halloween though. Halloween all year round...that sounds like paradise to me. This was something of a mistake on my part, as everyone else did exactly the same thing. I could have avoided a lot of time in lines if I'd been smarter like I knew I should have, but...Halloween... Another sight I've waited so many years to see. It almost felt surreal to walk through this gate now. Nothing like the train passing right overhead to get you all excited! And...through the course...and...stopping...here...for...five minutes? I don't know what was going on with The Raven. The operations were beyond unacceptable. With two trains running they had between six and eight minute dispatches for most of the time I was in the queue. Trains sat stacked in the waiting area for five minutes at a time. From out here I couldn't tell why...but they were still running, so I stayed in the molasses line. After the dark stairway up, we're finally in the station. It's...actually sort of dingy. After SDC, I suppose I expected a bit more. At least give it a little cleaning, Holiday World. This coaster deserves more respect. These people had just spent twice as long waiting to get off the ride as they had riding it, so there was no enthusiasm left when they got back into the station. Still not keeping me from being eager to get on though! This was where the problems became clearer. The ops were checking a row, stopping to have a little chat, checking another, going back to the first row to talk to a rider, starting their checks over, getting halfway down the train then releasing restraints to let someone out to put a bag in the locker and starting over again... Once again, this was not understaffing, which I swore not to complain about given the situation this year. This was just embarrassingly bad staffing. The coaster did its best to make up for that though. Despite not being being anything like a big coaster anymore, the care the park takes of it is obvious. I can't imagine any (real, not hybrid...) wooden coaster running smoother than The Raven does. The course out to the lake is gorgeous and scenic. It's not a forceful coaster, it won't be trying to throw you out of your seat...it's a bit more like a smaller version of the Beast where it's more a high speed ride through the woods (only without the trim brakes), but with the setting this works beautifully. I wish I could have gotten in a night ride on it, but the park wasn't open late enough. Maybe next time! Unfortunately, at the end of the ride, I found out that not only were the trains being stacked for several minutes at a time...the holding track before the station was surrounded by wasp nests. I'm not sure what kind of wasps these were; they were small and apparently not aggressive, not really bothering anyone, but people were absolutely losing their minds about them. Having people swat wasps in your direction while you're locked into a ride does not make for a fun experience. Meanwhile the ops locked everyone in the train in front of us into the ride...then unlocked them all to let a kid out out and check their height, and tell them they weren't tall enough to ride, then started plodding down the train to slowly check restraints again. I don't like being critical of people, but in the space of four days I'd now seen the best ride team I can remember (Prowler!) and now the worst. I hope it was just a bad day for them... Still...The Raven? Yeah, lives up to the legend. Well...not literally, because the Legend is around the corner and it's even better...we'll get there. Across the way, Holiday World's rather nicely painted scrambler looked to be running a pretty good cycle, but that was quite a line for a flat that I'd see at basically every park during the week. Pass. Yep Much more interesting. This caught my attention on the way though and from the path it looked like the line was pretty short. The ride appeared to give good views of the coaster it ran beneath too, so...I could make time to do that first. Unfortunately, this was not really the queue. This is the queue to get into the queue in the station. It ended up being close to an hour wait. I probably would have waited anyway, since it was a decent looking flume, but I wasn't expecting it yet. The final drop passes right through the Legend's lift hill structure... And ends with a respectable splash! Out on the course, you do get some nice views of The Legend. And...some more comical graves. Well, it is Halloween land here. And then some really nice views of The Legend. Unfortunately, in the entire time I was on the flume, no trains made it out onto the track. One finally hit the lift hill just as I was climbing toward my own drop. Of course I headed right over to The Legend after that; no more delays. It was, unfortunately, running with the same kind of operations as The Raven had been, which explained how none of them had been running while I was on the flume. The Legend did, at least, have the excuse of having only one train running. Once I finally did get on though...I loved the start of the ride, at least. The first drop is still pretty spectacular, and then it's into a spiral drop that was apparently a world's first. It also found the spot where Screamin' Eagle had messed up my back and doubled down on it. I'd sorta known that was coming. I spent the rest of the ride trying to keep from making that worse, so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. The Legend is not what I'd normally call a rough coaster, definitely not something I'd normally complain about, but it was just a bit too much for my still-sore back. I sort of have to reserve my opinion of the ride then; I'm pretty sure it's one I would have absolutely loved if I were more up to it. As is, it was mostly pain and trying to avoid pain. Lunch sounded good, and after SDC I kinda thought I was going to avoid burgers at theme parks known for good food. On the other hand...the jalapeno cheese curds they had here too were just too were calling to me. One burger would be fine. The line was sloooowwww, but...jalapeno cheese curds. I ordered the deluxe cheeseburger (or whatever they called it) and took it over to a table to find I'd been given a completely plain burger with just cheese and no toppings at all. I considered going back to get that fixed, but another 20-30 minutes in line seemed less than ideal when there was a lot I still wanted to do in the park and the limited opening hours were ticking by quickly. Fortunately, despite being plain, the burger wasn't actually bad at all, and the cheese curds were awesome. I was sort of expecting them to have almost no jalapeno to appeal to everyone, but they actually had a decent bite. A little bit oversalted, but really tasty anyway. The water park was open now, and now the lines were thinning out quickly. Still, better things to do than a scrambler. Pretty nice looking Wave Swinger, but not today. Oooh, maybe Wednesday was the right day to come here after all. Noted for later. I hadn't gotten off to a great start at Holiday World, between operations and my own back (and bad decisions), but on heading back towards Thanksgiving, things turned around entirely. Heading to the back of the park, you cross a bridge past a decent looking raft ride that I figured I was going to want to get on later when it started to get really hot. ...And right under The Voyage. Even the turns at the very end of the ride before the station look impressive... ...and that first hill... Hard not to be impressed by this one. Station is sort of a letdown again. Silver Dollar City really has screwed up my standards, I guess. I was a little concerned about my back after The Legend, but I couldn't possibly come here and not get on this ride, and I'd been hearing that it was running very smooth now. That turned out to be true, fortunately. Despite the ridiculous speed the Voyage keeps up for most of its length, there's barely a bump on the track; it's running like it thinks it's an RMC this year. Sheer speed and air time are fanastic, and the far section with the low ground turns is a nice change of pace in the middle of what would have been good even as just and out-and-back. The coaster users the terrain to pull off an interesting trick and comes to an almost complete stop at what seems to be barely above ground level, where is shouldn't even be able to get going again...before deciding to haul ass once more for an entire second half of the coaster. I'm still not entirely sure how it does that. Objectively speaking...The Voyage is probably the greatest wooden coaster I've ever been on. It does everything right, it goes on seemingly forever, and I absolute love it. The part that's going to get me strange looks is that it's still not my favorite...though it's definitely way up there...but even after that, I'm still giving it to Prowler, at the very least for this trip. I know...but The Voyage, while great, is mostly paced and predictable in its elements. You have big hills with big air time at the tops of them, right where you know it's going to be. Myself, I just love the GCI style layout with the smaller, quicker movements, laterals and pops of air. Probably not going to be a common opinion though...and the Voyage is almost inarguably an amazing coaster in every respect. It definitely turned my initially questionable day at HW around instantly. I'm guessing this is where Pilgrim's Plunge / Giraffica was. I would have loved to get on that, but then, from what I hear even if I'd been there when it was standing, seeing it running wasn't likely, so... One more coaster...Thunderbird! Which I keep going to call Wildfire. Not quite. It's not a coaster I've seen a lot about, but the launch into the immelmann here is pretty good start for a coaster, especially with the seating position way off to the side. Having been on Gatekeeper and Thunderbird, I'm not sure I've entirely formed an opinion on Wing Coasters yet. They definitely seem to be mostly a gimmick more often than not...but on some elements it really does work. The launch alone, with no track anywhere near you, is...different, and pretty fun, and the twist through the barn later in the ride makes for a pretty good headchopper. I'm not sure I'd want them to exactly replace standard coasters, and definitely not a good invert or flying coaster...but I suppose they have their place. I went around for another ride in back and on the opposite side here, since there wasn't much line as there had been on the other coasters. Still fun that way, but launches are just more fun in front. Not running. Well, I suppose no great loss. Looks like Holiday World still has quite a lot of land to build on back here if they want to. Even standing practically under Thunderbird, though, it's The Voyage that you can't ignore. Looking back towards the middle of the park, it's a nice looking place even with the "hole" in the middle where their big water ride used to be. Hopefully they do something with that soon. I'd just assumed that Gobbler Getaway was the turkey themed tilt-a-whirl and the sign was just in an odd place that looked like it would be over the ride when you looked from the front of the park...which actually does work from most angles. It's not though; turns out this is another shooting gallery dark ride that I had no idea existed. Here, a slightly creepy animatronic grandma and her also slightly creepy but very content looking cat tells you the story of...well, a bunch of people going looking for turkeys trying to escape thankgiving dinner. It's not exactly high fantasy. Once inside, it's a little odd with overly bright, almost Garfield's Nightmare ish colors, and a lot of 2d props and scenes. Your cars are equipped with "turkey callers" instead of guns, and instead of actually looking like you're shooting at anything, whenever you hit a target a turkey pops out hiding behind or somewhere near it. It's a bit silly, but for a family friendly ride where they may have wanted to avoid actual guns, it's cute and works well, and unlike a lot of these every target appeared to be working, some of them with some cleverly hidden turkeys showing up. Pretty well done. It seemed like a good time for the raft ride, even though I expected a long line at this time of the day. Instead...it was closed...but just as I snapped this picture the maintenance guy came by to pick up the closed sign and gestured for me to head into the queue. Well, okay then! I'll take that sort of timing! Lots of sprayers on this one for bystanders to soak the riders with, but I figured getting on the first raft after it re-opened, I'd be able to avoid being anyone's target. (No such luck there. Some people were apparently as eager to the ride open to have targets float by again as I was to ride it!) They were still just getting ready to let people on again when I got to the station, but it was only a moment of waiting. Out of the four raft rides I'd been on over the last few days, this one was probably the most forgettable. Nothing close to Mystic River Falls, and not nearly as wet as Six Flags St Louis'. It was probably better overall than Fury of the Nile, but I at least remember the Egypitian cave from that one, where thi was fairly bland and just coursed past trees and rocks, with some prop saloon buildings at the end. Still a decent ride though, and a good way to cool off, though most of the water came from the guest-controlled geysers rather than any intense rapids. It was about to head back for the dole whip, but when I did, I caught a sign I'd not seen before. Big Red Floats WITH dole whip? I can't imagine much better than that. If you haven't had Big Red, it's a red creme soda that people frequently insist is bubble gum, but is actually lemon and orange with the vanilla (...which...does somehow end up tasting bubble gum ish). It's great stuff (though...not quite as good as the local Catawissa Red Cream you can get at Knoebels. Juuuuust sayin'). Unfortunately, despite the sign you apparently have to ask for Dole Whip in it, and the "default" if you just ask for a Big Red float is just vanilla ice cream. It still tasted great though, and their vanilla ice cream was pretty good anyway. Oh, what the hell. There was basically no line at all for Scarecrow Scrambler now, and it did look like it was running pretty fast. Not a bad way to spend ten minutes or so. Some classic, common rides are everywhere for a reason, after all. I considered trying to get on The Raven again, but after the earlier lines, it was well after 5:00 by this point and the park was only open until 6:00, so I decided to just avoid the traffic at close and head on out. Still more parks to do...and my back clearly needed some more time in bed. ...no idea what this actually is and I'm sure the reality would be disappointing anyway. I'd promised a few people from the Midwest that I was going to try Culver's while I was out there, and since I was out early, this seemed like the perfect time for it. Mushroom swiss burger. It was very good for fast food, and I can see why locals like it so much. Not quite Whataburger...but probably second only to it for fast food burgers so far! Headed off to the Red Roof Inn in Georgetown. The room was tiny and barely even had room to move around the bed...but again, comfortable and clean, and at the price, no complaints at all. Tomorrow would be Kentucky Kingdom!

Oh, there will be complaining! But not much in this update, as this place was quite good. Denver Zoo Yes, it's another hot and smoky Denver day and we're ready to walk around outside! I don't think I've ever seen or heard a lion roar at a zoo, but that's exactly what we were greeted with at what Smisty has now declared to be her second favorite zoo. This zoo has an Animal Hospital in it, and you can watch live surgeries! Wait, that's kind of weird actually. I just found out that I don't know how to spell "Rhinoceros." I can spell "flowers" though, so have a look at these flowers. No animals in this photo (I don't think?) but it is a good example of how nice this zoo can be. Of course, in my experience, most zoos are a mix of really nice new areas and older crappier-looking ones. That's just how it is. This one is mostly pretty nice. Toucan Sam is the cartoon toucan mascot for Froot Loops breakfast cereal. The character has been featured in advertising since 1963. He exhibits the ability to smell Froot Loops from great distances and invariably locates a concealed bowl of the cereal while intoning, "Follow your nose! The Denver Zoo claims to be doing away with maps due to Covid, but this is clearly a map. In other news, it's interesting how places in Denver only do things "because of Covid" that result in monetary savings. Most decent zoos have a carousel... ...and quite a few have train rides. Their website says that the train is open from 10:00am to 6:00pm daily, but does not mention anything about it shutting down from 1:30pm to 3:30pm "for lunch" as it did during our visit. This, combined with our lack of psychic powers, resulted in our not being able to ride it. So that's a shame. But, also, it's a train ride. We'll get over it. (Still qualifies as a "Denver Disappointment" though!) On the other hand, Dole Whip! The Denver Zoo features many exotic animals, such as this squirrel. Only one aviary, and it was small, but good. Actually, there's a building labeled "World of Birds" that is currently under construction/refurbishment, so maybe there's normally more...? No wonder they're endangered. Snaked-headed Crap Turtles I want the job of naming new animal species. What do I bring to the table? I don't despise animals. Whoever is doing it now is just clearly burnt out. "YOU'RE A STUPID SH*T BIRD!" Light-Green Weakass Snake Rather than show you a photo of actual sea lions, I've opted to show you this statue, with the underwater sea lion viewing area way in the background. Because I'm in charge here and you get what I give you. I've seen tiger bridges. Heck, this zoo even has one. But I've never before seen an elephant bridge. Hey man, what would it take to get you to walk over that bridge so that I can take a photo of it? Do you want a fish or something? I have been informed that elephants do not eat fish. And that also that this is probably a lady elephant. But is gender really that important? And maybe they would like fish if they tried it. In other news, I am no longer allowed at the zoo. I can still take a photo of the gift shop, though, because technically it's outside of the zoo--which I thought was interesting. No? Just me? Fine. How many zoos have we been to now? I think this makes 14 (not counting things like BGT or DAK). (Spoiler: By the end of this TR, it will be 15. Pretend to be excited!)

Hey everyone! After 2020 ruined Alex and I's trip to Disneyland, we started to put together fantasy European trips for when the pandemic ended but we realized we would probably have to settle for something in the USA for 2021. Between WDW, Gwazi, Ice Breaker, and then Velocicoaster, Florida seemed to be the unanimous destination when we could travel safely in 2021. I haven't visited Disney World since a kid in 2002, and we all love Disney, but now does not seem like the time to go. After looking at the (lack of) available parks to visit for our time frame, limited hours, no shows/fireworks, etc we just ended up putting it off for another time. I have so much to do in Orlando, haha. So then the plan became clear - Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Universal over a week. We had slight hope for Gwazi, but we know how that turned out. Ice Breaker seemed real with the employees riding, but we know how that turned out. Despite that, who cares, it'd be nice just to see a friend I hadn't seen in 2 years and go to a new theme park. Day 1 Tampa non park day. So what do you do in Tampa when there's no sporting team in town? Bar hop, I guess. I had looked into some 2 hour boat tours around the city or to see dolphins but the cost + weather risk wasn't worth it. We stayed at the brand new Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens right across from the park. and OF COURSE our window perfectly framed the closed Gwazi Even though I had blocked it from my mind months prior to the trip seeing it in person, closed, yet ready to go was infuriating. Don't worry, BGT had many more ways to piss us off. I highly recco the Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens, they were really friendly and even though they hadn't opened up the full breakfast spread they gave you as much food/drink as you asked. Rooms were clean, shuttle to the park, but honestly you could walk too and from the park. BGT is in a rough looking neighborhood but we didn't have any issues walking back after park close and getting some delicious stuffed pitas at Zeko's Mediterranean Grill. Of course this is our hotel view. We had lunch on the water at Jackson's Bistro, very solid spot for a fish sandwich and then headed over to the convenient cable car/lite rail to check out Ybor City. Tampa's TECO Street Car is free and vintage cool. For a Friday happy hour, Ybor City was absolutely dead. Probably more chickens in the street than people haha. We had some good drinks and bounced around, but the whole area seemed more industrial like. It's a big port city but whenever I visit BGT next I won't bother spending any time outside the park. Day 2 (BGT Day 1 of 2) Busch Gardens Tampa/Africa had been on my list for so long. It's got the legendary B&Ms of America! Not only that, the surplus of animals, encounters, an INSANE looking drop tower, Cheetah Hunt, Tigris, Cobra's Curse, these pretzels everyone raves about, and a beer/cocktail lounge overlooking the Serengeti! Needless today I was absolutely hyped. Of course being Florida in mid June, we knew it would be hot. We were prepared with Quick Que for both days. Right away we saw that the sky ride is down, which is a mega bummer considering the park's layout and the heat. Headed over to Cheetah Hunt first, but it was down. Cobra's Curse! Oh, it's down. But at least they had 4 employees out there giving mixed messages on if the ride would even be open the next day. Okay Montu! Hooray, it's open! Montu absolutely tore down Banshee, Afterburn, Batmen, Alpengeist, Raptor, and the rest of the inverts I've been on. Having had some of the best Banshee rides a few days before, they're just built differently. I'll gladly trade those slow barrel rolls for the original B&M invert trains. The drop had a nice whip, the loop and immelman had me seeing spots, the zero g roll is absolutely perfect, the batwing underground is taken incredibly fast and then you're treated to a mix of inversions, dips, and turns underground until the end. Amazing. Loved front and back equally. We checked out some nile crocs, lions, hyenas, and tigers on the way to Falcon's Fury. Falcon's Fury is probably the only attraction on the planet that gives me anxiety waiting in line. 1) because it's a crazy Intamin tower, it will breakdown throughout the way 2) it's way taller than I ever thought, I guess I didn't see the stats! it's 330ft!!! Holy shit Falcon's Fury was absolutely incredible. It feels like you're being shot down AND the pull out (don't be nasssssti) is super smooth. Next to DoDoDonpa, I've never experienced the sensation of fear + adrenaline + euphoria like that. It only took 2 rides for us to notice not the lack of staffing, but the lack of good staff. These ops were not happy at all. Montu's capacity should be 1,500 per hour and the ops weren't really interested in checking your restraints until a train stacked. Falcon's ops were so miserable we thought the ride broke down every cycle because they'd kinda point and look at something in the op booth or on the ride and we people would ask "did it break?" they'd just laugh, as if the ride needed a smoke break every time it ran. Even the automated voice over was mixed up. The welcome back would play as you go up, visa versa. I'm sad to say those Twisted Tails pretzels didn't live up to the hype, but with the lack of quality food in the park, I think we had those for 3/4 of our meals. They were good, not great and you had packetted mustard and cheap nacho cheese (upcharge) to pair. Disappointing. Scorpion was a fun Schwarzkopf. Stanley Falls was up next and 3 of us in 1 log got absolutely SOAKED head to toe! Thanks to the florida heat I think we dried off in an hour. We checked out the cool avian exhibit and completed a lap around the park to see if Cobra's Curse or Cheetah Hunt were open. The crappy service continued as our friend with us who needed to use a breast pump was run back and forth across the park trying to find the right nursing station, and when she finally got to the right place the quality/privacy was not good. Cheetah Hunt even with Quick Que was almost an hour wait. Stand by was 2.5. Only 1 station was being used and boyyyy were they taking their sweet time. They also didn't care to tell people not to smoke in the queue or on the ride and let people take as many on ride photos or videos as they wanted. Cheetah Hunt was a ton of fun! The front provided some great pops of air while the back gave the best experience coming off the tower. Is there supposed to be water back in the canyon section? Was there? It is a great family coaster and gets even better at night! After that long wait for Cheetah, we took some time to relax at the Serengeti bar. Apparently there's a restaurant opening on the 3rd floor ...eventually. It's a really great bar for beer or mixed drinks, you can even get a beer flight or two! Yes, multiple beer flight options! We also experienced the only employees with life here today, great bartenders. Another ride on Falcon's Fury, another pretzel, and it was time for Montu! Montu doesn't have the most impressive stats on paper, but man this thing looks huge in person up on the hill. It absolutely lives up to the hype, great intense inversions and even a dope B&M lite stengel dive into the tunnel that spits you out into the helix. BEAST! So that's two old school B&M's that have OTSRs and don't touch your ears. Sheikra blew all of the other dive coasters I've been on out of the water, especially the ones with vests. It's beautiful, feels bigger, has airtime on the inversion, man this park has amazing coasters! Alright that's enough for right now, I'll update again soon! -Zach Free booze samples and it's good booze? Sure go here if you must stay in Tampa! Mmm, good beer. It will terrify you, but you will be rewarded. Wow wadda thrill. The pop up bubble in the tiger exhibit must be visited. LOOK AT EM! Pawb. Some beautiful bird friends in the open air aviary. My favorite animal. Look at these dino-bunnies. Goofy, weird, stupid. Derpy, lazy, friggin cute. Your plumage is stunning ma'am LAZY!!! You walk into the park and are greeted with this. OPEN IT!!!!! Cheetah Hunt has a 3 hour wait! There's no ride in the area of the park too! So frustrating. What. A. BEAST! rippin' Your gradeschool science book Absolutely HAULING The train ride is incredible, but they were only running 1 train. 30 minute dispatches. Fuck. After sleeping in and most of the day with the kangaroos, Cheetah finally woke up. Thanks for scaring me, Intamin. Montu sunset rides gah, so good! After walking 12 miles in the 95* heat because the park's transport rides are broken, we were as sleeby as this yeen.

I think we all saw this coming. It is very unfortunate that the accident even happened to begin with. I'm really hoping for the best for that woman and her family. I am just going to throw this out there. What do we think the possibility of a major overhaul is? It seems like Intamin's modern LSM technology can get the train to the same max speed in that length of track (I mean, have you seen Sandy's Blastin' Bronco's launch?), not to mention being significantly more reliable and honestly, probably safer as well given it has no moving parts. I wonder if the park is considering anything along these lines - such as replacing all the track but the tower with an entirely new system if that is even possible or plausible. I can't see them just removing the coaster entirely, because it is way too iconic and popular and significant, but I also don't know if they're willing to keep dealing with all the crap this coaster brings for much longer. I wonder when enough is enough.

I think you'll be pushing it. LAS is a huge airport, so depending on what terminal you're flying through it could be anywhere from 15-45 minutes to get outside. You're also vastly underestimating the time it'll take via Uber/Lyft (getting one shouldn't be a problem, but traffic will). Sorry, I think it's doable, but paying $40 for one hour of rides (MAYBE one hour) doesn't seem like a sensible plan to me. If your first flight is delayed even a little bit your plan goes to hell.

I do not believe it is supposed to be the space station, though they share a similar distance from Earth. The ISS sits around 240 Miles. The number could come from Math though. That distance could be the sweet spot for large/heavy things to have a balance between the Earth's gravitational pull and the centrifugal movement of the object. OR! It's totally arbitrary!! LOL

Love this ride. It will be hard to top it ever!

One thing I don't think anyone mentioned is considering the psychology of the crowds when its rope drop time and a park opens. Most people are generally going to ride/experience attractions as they see them. This means that the rides at the front of the park get long lines right away and the rides at the back of the park get long lines later in the day when the crowds work their way back there one ride at a time. Now your particularly circumstances (ex. having flash pass/fast lane) or park circumstances (brand new ride in the back of the park might cause crowds to rush there first instead, unreliable ride might be worth going directly to to make sure you get a ride, etc) can change this, but it is a good and reliable rule of thumb overall.

It's not a net positive over the old system. I think it's a net positive over having no Fastpass at all. Plus, price increases are inevitable at Disney.

I was not aware of this lol, but saving it in my memory for later ......

How the mighty have fallen. 1. Maverick 2. Phoenix 3. Iron Rattler 4. Skyrush 5. Fury 325 6. Intimidator 305 7. Steel Vengeance 8. Afterburn 9. Ravine Flyer II 10. The Voyage

I'm definitely not on board with this. I totally understand that other parks have largely gone this way already. And I get the Pay 2 Play model, but I've always felt a certain level of equality existed in Disney Parks when it came to access to rides. Sure, Disney has offered loads of add-ons like the After Hours events, Dessert Parties, and extra magic hours for resort guests etc. but the core experience at the park was pretty equal. When everyone could use FastPass and FastPass+, when folks were in those lines, I knew it was something available to me. And conceptually, it was just a means to spread guests out on rides throughout the day, which was super smart in theory. Disney is already charging more to get into their parks than any other place on earth, so it's not Apples to Apples to compare this to Fast Lane. Guests may choose to visit Cedar Point or most other US parks for a single day and splurge on the Fast Lane pass. Disney is a 4-10 day trip for many people. What is already a very significant investment to the park has most certainly gotten more expensive. I get that Genie + is significantly less than those options, but it also doesn't offer nearly the same level of access (less rides, limited uses in practice). The main concerns I have are this: 1. They have priced this "affordably" for now to soften the blow, but will steadily increase the price above and beyond. And because it's a per person per day commitment, that will add up significantly. 2. If they sell too many, it will essentially become a necessity. If the lightning lane line is 25% as popular as the standby line, they would need to take equal people from both lines and the standby line would effectively double in length so that lightning lane can still be "fast." 3. If they for some reason don't sell that many, they'll just be justified in increasing the cost more because of the large advantage it will provide. 4. Unlike the previous FP system, psychologically I was always comfortable with some longer lines throughout the day because I knew I would get a few very quick lines using FP to offset that. The main advantage for Disney was this psychological aspect and also spreading out the crowds. Now, if I don't pay for the Genie+, I don't get that and I'm stuck watching people get on rides very quickly while I'm delegated to the slow way. 5. Why couldn't it just be that Genie + offered you a single tier A ride and then unlimited (within the rules of the system) tier B rides. Why do they need to offer a separate pay per ride cut the line pass? It's confusing and rude, to be honest. To pay that much and still be a class B park guest? 6. I recognize that I have the option to not pay for this, but I am absolutely getting a worse park experience without it than I would if they just existed with/without the old FP+. One caveat to all of this is that it is true that there's a relatively level playing field now for on/off resort guests if you decide to splurge on this service. So maybe you save $60/night staying off property and splurge on this adder for your family of 4. But I could still use FP+ staying off property and get most attractions with the 30 day window last time I went, so it really wasn't a problem. I know not everyone here agrees with my view on this, but thanks for hearing me out.

Probably a very unpopular opinion here, but I'm all for paying for this if it levels the playing field on when everyone can make reservations in terms of day tickets vs hotel stayers and pass holders. I know a lot of people here are regulars to the parks or can go probably more than once in a lifetime but for my wife and I, we always viewed Orlando as a once in a life-time trip. Normally we like a decent hotel, but we always figured for this trip with our son, we would have to save so much, we would just get a car rental and an airbnb for 2-3 weeks so the less spent there, the more could go on treating our son, fast-passes at the other parks, trying out Springs/Citywalk nice restaurants, and potentially trying a cruise at the end since all the ones here tend to cater to Chinese tastes and their wallets (and more gambling). Maybe we are wrong here, but with Florida's weather, we always figured pre-booking tickets too early could go wrong and it might be better to plan around weather days, and the fact fast pass+ could be booked much earlier for hotel stayers and annual pass holders and that was always in the back of our minds on how we would get the popular rides our son would surely want. Although, Robb's posts and tips about refreshing and being able to usually get a slot did make me feel better.

Before going to a new park that I don't know, I always check the park's website. In the website, I check for park hours, refurbishment schedule (meaning check which rides will be closed on the day of the visit), complete map of the park, any seasonal events taking place (like Halloween, Christmas), directions to reach the park , shows and parades, whether the park has an official app on the mobile etc. After that, I always make reservation for tickets, so I can go directly to the entrance gate once I arrive. When making reservation, I check for extras that can be added on my purchase, like paid line-jumping (Ex. Express ticket in Universal Studios, Flash Pass in Six Flags) and dining deals. Things I buy in website depends whether the park is easily reachable or takes a lot of time to arrive. If the park is easily reachable, like local theme parks, I always go for a general entry ticket with no extras. On the other hand, if the park is in foreign country or so far away, I always buy extras like VIP ticket so I can have best experience, while making reservation on hotel if I think I need an extra day. In addition, I always check for weather forecast so I don't ruin the day by the rain or inclement weather. Finally, I check for facilities in the park, like restroom, phone recharging service etc. Oh, about phone recharging service...it is the facility that my local theme parks provide. You have to drop some money to use it, but it fully recharges smartphones, so phone battery doesn't go dead in the park. On the day of the visit, arriving at the gate early is theme park survival tip 101. I always rush to the popular rides so I can ride it with less wait time, and after that I look at the map and take some time to determine next ride that I will be riding on. Due to my personality of being shy and not much being a talker, I prefer ordering food in kiosks and mobile. If there is any show or parade that I want to watch, I go to the spot early so I can get a best view. Then, I have fun until the park closing time. This is how I visit the new parks.

I think this is just putting Disney more in line with its competitors like Six Flags, Universal, and Cedar Fair. There will just be a general multi-use, skip-the-line upsell for most of the rides that use to have a general Fastpass option (with no free option). Then on top of that there will be an additional per-ride upsell for skip the line for the most popular of attractions (like Rise of the Resistance).

I'm pretty sure I like this. Yeah it's complicated and I don't even 100% understand how it works but Disney World is also complicated and obviously felt the need to do something with more steps than "buy an express pass, get in the express line". I think my favorite problem that this solves is the fact that you have to make your reservations for all rides, including big-ticket rides, the day of. As a Central Floridian, one of the biggest annoyances has always been, for example, when Avatar Flight of Passage opened, Fast Passes were booked like 2 months out and nearly impossible to get unless you refreshed your phone 100x at 3:00 in the morning like a crackhead (I literally did that once and it worked! -no crack was involved). And people were doing shady sh*t like booking a hotel reservations in order to reserve it on Fast Pass, then canceling the reservation later to "game" the system. Yeah, it was great if you were going on vacation in October and wanted to book your Fast Pass times in advance, but it was a real PITA if my boyfriend and I decided to go, say, on Friday. I'm going to Cedar Point next week and I have no idea what time I'll ride Steel Vengeance at but I'm pretty cool with that. I just made the mistake of getting sucked into a few dozen freak-out comments on a post about it on Facebook and Claire from Illinois was moaning about how this is going to ruin her entire December vacation and how "not everyone can afford to pay for these things". Relax, Claire from Illinois. It's $15 and I literally just shelled out over $900 for 3 days of Fast Lane for 2 people at a less-busy park in Ohio. And honestly, I'd rather spend $15 at Cedar Point and ride my heart out on Iron Dragon and Blue Streak and then pay an extra $12 to ride Dragster the one time it's open. Although I'm pretty sure this visit, it won't be.

On a happier note, fans of Midnight Syndicate should be excited that the masters of Halloween attraction music will be returning to HalloWeekends with an “encore performance” of their 2018 show “Conspiracy of Shadows”. It will be nice to see them again after the absence of HalloWeekends last year. (Source was Midnight Syndicate’s FB page)

Did you really sign up just to come on here and trash Intamin or did you just conveniently forget about how an RMC Raptor also had a wheel fly off and towards guests literally weeks ago? Or any number of recent incidents involving a whole slew of manufacturers?

Keep in mind the age of these rides, their environment, frequency of use, the load forces on parts, etc... It's obviously not a rollercoaster, but I run a canning line at a brewery. You'd be amazed what happens to a simple sealed bolt after a few hundred thousand actuations. Stress fracturing can often not show up until just before the part fails, rust can do some weird things internally, just friction can so some absolutely insane things. (for example, I go through 3 pairs of stainless bolts holding our keg machine ramp, these wear completely through just from vibration of 12k kegs a year) Manufacturing defect? Naw, the level most of these firms operate at isn't that. Park neglect? At best - maybe. Could be a monstrous number of factors as many of these rides have sat still for longer than usual then suddenly put back into operation by teams that may be less experienced than usual. Unless they're completely stripping and rebuilding every single one of those trains every off season, it's really hard to catch some long term wears.

The Knotts hotel overhaul was long overdue. Happy to see that! I’m sure the parks will be doing individual announcements for rides later this year as well.

Y'all go ahead and impress the SFMM management with the width and breadth of your vast knowledge. I'm sure they'll be shocked and amazed and get on changing that sign that they've had for about 45 years now right away.

I really like the idea of Sinestro, they could get really creative with marketing with the connection to Green Lantern.

Bizarro good example. People say Bizarro dumb and stupid. Then Bizarro get his own coaster, now people love Bizarro. Black Adam get coaster too, be Bizarro friend.

You'll get no argument from me on this point.

Dang, what is going on with Intamin these days? I'm pretty trusting of these roller coaster manufacturers (even if they have the downtime due to what they're doing technologically) but the thing with El Toro and now this? I've never really been worried about Intiman before and I still do trust them but parts flying off trains and into non riding guests and injuring them to this extent is pretty unacceptable. I am sure Cedar Fair is being cautious about what they say but there should be more information about what is going on with these rides. Specifically, is this a manufacturer defect or park neglect? It is quite unsettling that during year long closures parks didn't do due diligence and take advantage of downtime to maintain these rides as they should have been and honestly, they should be riding safely and better than ever.