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Showing content with the highest reputation since 02/19/2024 in all areas

  1. For the record. In the new Invision board software running here the button to ignore a user is found by hovering over a username for a second or two. A little profile preview pops up and you can ignore there - best I can tell you can't do this from a full profile page.
    7 points
  2. There's still a chance. Now coming 2025.
    4 points
  3. Was really looking forward to going to Japan next year and not being allowed to ride it.
    3 points
  4. The scaffolding has been removed. Looking state-of-the-art already. Pics by Efteling and their designer, Jeroen Verheij:
    3 points
  5. Well the people who paid to ride things can't ride anything anyway since it's all closed, so it seems only right that they should make them pay their fair share... ... I hate this place
    3 points
  6. Day 18: Tuesday, June 20th part 3 (of 3) - back to finish off the night at the fantastic Grona Lund On the way back in, stopping to snap a pic of the park map. it LOOKS way smaller than it is, because things are just piled up on top of each other. the big green area in the bottom right, is the parking lot the park announced plans in 2023 to expand into. of course, my first stop on the way in was the Carousel. . . Big Mike had other plans tho, he was missing the kiddie credit, "Tuff-Tuff Tåget" (Choo-Choo Train). So while he went to do that. . . Didier and I rode the Carousel. my happy place. his too, apparently for such a small carousel, it's just lovely, and appears hand painted. after my Carousel ride, I went over to the coaster to get proof of Big Mike riding it, in talking to the ride op - who was a total hoot! - she said it's a ride that's way more fun than it looks, as the sharp turns give a "whip" effect. She encouraged us all to ride it. sooooooo. . . (and she was right, it was way more fun that I had looked. and she let us ring the bell as we exited the station). back over to Vilda Musen for a "water free" ride, and we bumped into Hans and Matthew walking along the outside of the park, to get a different view of Twister and a crane across the lake, painted like a Giraffe. for some reason. Sweden! by going around the outside, we were gonna end up in the "haunted" section. . . and had also bumped into Andrew, sMisty, and Erik. . so we all headed that way together. that's Kvasten ahead of us, the Vekoma suspended coaster. whee. . . in the SPOOKY section now.. had to stop for a photo op, tho apparently we were boiling nothing for dinner. the flying carpet ride (not operating today) is over here for some reason. . . maybe they are tying in the Genie in the center of it with the spook/magic vibe of the area? Gotta ride Blue Train. . this thing is SO messed up. insanely silly, and with some needless nudity, and scary pop ups. . I adored it. rode this sucker at least 4 times on our trip. the name is brilliant. it's BLUE. . and it's a Train. see???? ooo. .scary! that creature has got "lady parts" !!! Scary!!!! so silly, and so much fun. every park should have a ride like this. and Grona Lund has several! the Starflyer doing it's thing from underneath Kvasten. we were in line for the very well done walk thru Haunt. I do believe that this is an upcharge attraction, but Elissa had arranged for us to all get admission (hence most of the group showing up here at a certain time). they send you thru in groups of 6-8, and said pictures were ok, as long as it didn't hold up the flow. it's got an outdoor section. . that's a group going thru the house up there on the balcony. fly, bird, fly !!!! now that bird knows what Fabio felt like, I suppose. my group's turn. . . howdy! ready to be a scared. . . nice mix of props, and live actors in here. great effect. . . choose your door carefully! he's coming to get you, Barbara. . . time for a birds eye view of the park on the starflyer. they are VERY serious about no loose objects on this ride. so only got pics from the queue, and before the ride started (with permission) it really is in the middle of everything. . surrounded by Coaster track on all sides that's Icarus doing it's thing back there. . Jetstream ,the Bobsled, AND Insane, all with cars on the tracks in one pic. that's a huge win for me, as I usually end up with no trains on the tracks hard to see in this pic, but Icarus has now tilted at the top, and the riders are hanging face down. a stage for musical performances. . . but we next headed over to the dual drop tower: Frit Fall & Tilt Hans & Matthew (and a very intense man who was wondering why I was taking his picture) chose to ride the "tilt" seated sides. while Big Mike and I (and a terrified girl), chose the stand up "Fritt Fall" side. it truly IS rather terrifying. and of course they have a camera on this side to capture it. I bought a magnet version, that came with a digital copy. glad I did it, but never again. walk around entertainment as well in this park. Not a LOT of it, but we were there on a weekday. in addition to lunch, snack, and dinner coupons, the park had gone all out and also gave us booklets of game coupons. the games were mostly hard, but there were some easier ones, and I think most everyone won some sort of prize. while they played that ping-pong game, I went into the bathroom next to it. . .and made a discovery. down a dark, bricked pathway/tunnel. . . there's this. just lovely. and when you go to wash your hands? yup. . a haunted toidy! gah! different mirrors have different creatures. . . LOL I had waited long enough, I was ready for Ikaros - the face first drop tower. again, some lovely art deco designs all around it. all the way up to the top. . . then, tilt forward. . so you will be hurtling face first towards the ground! gahhhhhhhh. . . . .it truly is a terrifying experience. and I absolutely LOVED it. we got some ERT on it at the end of the night - along with the operator making us sing ABBA and other disco songs as we ascended - and I think I rode every cycle I was able to get in on. scary, but THAT good. and you get pretty close to the ground before the seats swing back out to "normal" position even tho I know I'm a klutz, and the funhouse is a disaster waiting to happen for klutz'. . .I went ahead and did it. it's a really good funhouse. .and really ways to hurt oneself. I didn't get a pic of the entrance, but it's a "moving" ladder, that you have to climb up. . potential for injury right from the start! but it's full of whimsical, and fun obstacles. . that one really can't go around. you MUST go thru. bouncing walkways. . pitch black infinity rooms. . . truly confusing mirror mazes. . . yeah, all in one funhouse! and this is how you exit (the only option). . . you get a mat. sit on the mat, on the platform. . and the platform tilts, and shoots your ass down the slide! um.. . . . whee ? the view from the bottom. . . and yes, that IS an airtime hill at the bottom of the slide. I told you, it's trying to kill you! some of the prizes offered at the games. . . .I sucked at most of them. but lots of people won. here are some of them. and Matthew ended up gifting me that pink monkey, and he hangs out in the comic room now I used a snack coupon for this ice cream. . but I was so full from lunch still (earlier I had sushi and Chinese food from a floating barge/restaurant on the side of the park). oh remember that rooftop Himalaya across from Jetline? yup, I did go back and ride it. very loud music, and fun. with some nice, views of the Twister refurb going on. ok then. not sorry I missed THIS boat. I mentioned some rides were on floating platforms connected to the park? the octopus is one of them. Blackfisken ? LOVE that name. and it looked amazing. . very steam punk. that it "rocked" along with the waves as the pier moved made it that much more fun. Erik & sMisty, goldballs, myself, and John say "wheeee!" I think this pic is courtesy of Big Mike perhaps? but he doesn't ride spinny stuff. . so maybe Matthew? a better view of Icarus doing it's tilt thing from the side and an offride pic of Fritt Fall / Tilt heading up with folks in the standing position. and yes, we did go back for the indoor Breakdance. not the most intense cycle on one of these I've ever been on (that would be the carnival in Belgium last year). . but inside, with loud music? it sure felt intense and fun. oooo..caught a "parade". . . at least rainbow mermaid bubble cart guy looks to be having fun! and was happy to see me this isn't the star flyer, but rather the flying Carousel that was on a floating pier. (see that fun ticket booth in the background). it's a nice pic, one of my faves from the trip. the dinner was also excellent, in a restaurant built next to / into Monster - the supports for Monster go thru the restaurant and the train zooms really closeby outside. wasn't super hungry, but what I had was good. couldn't finish it tho. after dinner another couple of rides on the relaxing "Blue Train" and the Tunnel of Love. . . or "Karleks Tunneln" freaky. . I imagine this is what a camera doing a Colonoscopy sees. . . . still naked. . still blurry. . LOL. .. you'll just have to imagine! hey..I found Gene Simmons in a stairwell. I guess KISS played the park at some point in the past? as evening set in, the dancehall started filling up. I swear this seemed to have the most people anywhere in the park this evening. another bathroom with theme. . this one seems to be people who played the park. seems someone tried to peel off Marilyn Manson, tho without much success hey! I finally won something!! I found a game that was relatively easy - guns shooting corks at targets. if you got a high enough score, you won a prize. Barry, Didier, and Big Mike also trying out the cork guns. makes sense, if Bert can win this one, must be fairly easy! see? LOL. . .Didier really wanted an animal to bring home, and was having no luck, so I gifted him my bear. (I think that's why Matthew offered me his pink monkey later). . . I didn't mind tho, as I didn't really need another bear stuffie, I already had one from this trip from Tusenfryd awwww. . . Barry and his bear. (totally should be his profile pic) and then it was time to meet up for evening ERT over at Jetline. (interesting, in this pic you can see the one drop tower I didnt' go on, operating. it was the shortest of the park's offerings, so I didnt' mind skipping it, but it hadn't been running earlier when I went by it). this made me laugh - especially since the "Knight Butt" painting was "backstage" earlier. this is a lenticular, and depending on where you stood, Adam & Eve were more or less naked. yup. .just on a wall in the middle of the park. would have bought this in a second if on a magnet. but made sure to snap a pic so I could print it out and make one. ending ERT on Jetline . . got another group pic (thanks Robb).. then we headed over to Ikaros for some ERT. (since I rode so much, my phone stayed put away in my bag. . so no pics) then on the way out of the now closed park, we stopped for a group pic in front of Monster. all in all, an EXCELLENT day. I was wiped out tho, in the morning we had to get up and would be traveling all day - including a flight to Finland. so we took the short walk across the street, and I showered and crashed hard.
    3 points
  7. Wow, PLOT TWIST. I was so certain this project was dead. Good for Knott's.
    3 points
  8. Särkänniemi is a city-owned amusement park with a great location and an interesting and varied collection of attractions. Its coaster lineup is perhaps a bit lacking, though, and there aren't a whole bunch of them. Which is okay by me, but maybe left a lot of my fellow trip participants ready to move on well before I was. Which is a shame, as there are sections of this park I felt like I really had to rush through, and some areas I never even saw. 24: Born To Boom Näsinneula Observation Tower & Tornado greet us as we enter the park. Also, some really pretty benches, all at weird angles to make sitting more challenging and fun! Tornado's station is impressively dark and spooky and carved out of rock. And one of its two heartline rolls similarly sweeps under mountain. Which is cool, because when I think "Tornado," I think "underground caves." A good ride, but a bit rattly. On the other hand, I exclusively rode on the much less full train, and those on the more heavily-weighted train did not seem to agree with my 'rattly' accusation. So take that for what it's worth. Tornado intertwines with the park's log flume, Tukkijoki--which means "log nonsense" (maybe). Also, that "floating" faucet would maybe be more convincing if they, like, tried. Is it better to boom before pizza, or after? No, serious question. The park wants to know. It's hip and cool and for the trendy kids. Except that it is actually kind of cool looking. Oh, wait, if I think it's cool, then it definitely isn't, because I'm old and decidedly unhip. So I don't know what it is. It's the Park Shop. Beware of smartphone zombies. These symbols actually spell out a word! See it? All aboard the hype train! See, because, the ride is called Hype. And it has a train. Stop in the name of burger. Also, take off. Piggy Town is Pouta Pig's hometown. "Pouta" means dry weather in Finnish. And that's good weather for a candy cane. Thus, this photo. If you look closely you can not see me. Because I didn't ride it. But you can see Smusty and Goldirt. I did ride--and very much enjoyed--this seaside car ride, though. "The ride is calm, although the steep cliffs can be a bit exciting." Järvikaruselli is a beautiful old Schwarzkopf ride that's very gentle but still really fun. To stumble across it felt like finding a rare coin worth way more than the amount printed on it. MotoGee is a Zamperla straddle coaster (no, seriously...is that what we're calling them??) It was...fine, I guess? I barely remember it. Anyway, here's a photo of some random Fins acting like goons because they're about to ride it. Love when park guests treat photo ops like benches. Yeah, you're number 1, dude. Hope nobody else is here to have fun. That's pretty great for a bumper cars facade. Going up the observation tower for big time looking at stuff. Yes, here we are at the top of the Näsinneula (or, "Eye Stabber") Observation Tower. Except we're not quite at the top, because there's a ceiling above us. And above that, another floor! Looking down on the rapids ride and petting zoo kids farm area. A group of us had lunch at the Observation Tower's rotating restaurant. Here you can see Misty doing that thing where you're so focused on making every other part of the photo work that you forget to pose yourself. Culturally, full-service dining in Finland is meant to be relaxed and unrushed--even more so than in the Netherlands. So the decision to eat here (admittedly, championed largely by me) certainly contributed to my having less time to explore the rest of the park. So at least some blame on myself for that whole situation. I do not remember what this was, exactly. But I don't remember anything not being good. Except for the first drop, you can see most of Tornado's layout here--among other things. The non-amusement park we visited in the last update can be seen off to the right across the water. Särkänniemi also has an aquarium, located at the base of the Tower. Slither Fish Koskiseikkailu, which means "butt splasher." No, I'm never going to get tired of these dumb translation jokes. See? Proof that what I said was true. The Doghill Fairytale Farm area of the park. I'm not sure if I saw all of it or not, but what I saw I liked. Raatiuone means "Town Hall." No, wait, it does actually. However, I believe it was a bakery or something. Certainly, there was no lively local political debate, much to my disappointment. Okay, loaded fries. And some kind of kebab. And um.... Okay, wow. And a vegan thing. Got it. This is like a haunted indoor play structure, or something? (A rather unkind description of me, but sure, I guess so.) Oh, Mr. Fancypants Child has to be led to the haunted play structure on a horse. Lad-di-da! I don't know what's wrong with me. But thanks for wondering! Sheeeeeeep! See, it's cute. It's a fun area. This area needs a dark ride. And by "this area" I mean "this park." But I feel that way about every area and every park. Sometimes I'm on a dark ride and I think, "Hmm, you know what this dark ride needs? A dark ride." Park Score: Um, I'm not sure? There are some rides I was interested in but never made it on. I dunno. 6 or 7? Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and go with 7. Next up: The final park of the trip!
    3 points
  9. With 100 days until opening, Disney has released a huge amount of new info about Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea! https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2024/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-fantasy-springs/ What is Fantasy Springs? Located between Arabian Coast and Lost River Delta, Fantasy Springs is themed to a magical spring leading to a world of Disney fantasy. This all-new, eighth port at Tokyo DisneySea will be home to three areas inspired by Walt Disney Animation Studios films, “Frozen,” “Tangled” and “Peter Pan,” plus the all-new Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel. Frozen Kingdom Taking place after the film’s finale, you’re invited to visit the kingdom of Arendelle, where Elsa is finally able to embrace her previously hidden powers. On the attraction, Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, you’ll board a boat voyaging through the “Frozen” movie scenes and the tale of two sisters discovering true love. The story begins with Grand Pabbie, the leader of the trolls, retelling the tale we have all come to love. Soon you’ll be whisked away on a journey through Anna and Elsa’s memories, accompanied by songs from the film including, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” “For the First Time in Forever,” “Love Is an Open Door” and “Let It Go.” The story will build to Anna turning into ice in an attempt to save Elsa from Hans. In Frozen Kingdom, you will discover two dining options, the Royal Banquet of Arendelle and Oaken’s OK Foods. Anna and Elsa have opened the gates to the castle, which has been transformed into a dining area filled with books and artwork of beloved “Frozen” characters. Inside the Royal Banquet of Arendelle, you can even dine in the place of Elsa’s coronation — it’s like you’re stepping into the film! Oaken has opened his doors to hungry visitors over at Oaken’s OK Foods! You will be saying hoo-hoo for the Scandinavian specialties he’s prepared, including a fluffy, cardamom bread filled with Scandinavian-style spiced meat and lingonberry jam. Rapunzel’s Forest For those who love “Tangled,” Rapunzel’s Forest will transport you directly into the world of the Disney Animation film where Rapunzel has lived since she was a child! For the first time ever at a Disney park, the story of Rapunzel will come to life at Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival. The journey begins at Rapunzel’s tower where she’s seen singing “When Will My Life Begin,” from its window while Flynn Rider watches on. Rapunzel then escapes the tower with Flynn at her side, visiting locations you may recognize from the film. The journey will come to an end with their love blossoming at the Lantern Festival complete with “I See the Light” and countless glowing lanterns. We’ve had a dream of seeing the floating lanterns gleam and it soon will come true! There’s a very quaint place, perfect for you at Rapunzel’s Forest! Hidden among the foliage, you’ll find The Snuggly Duckling, bringing to life the tavern from the film. Here you can chow down on the “Duckling’s Dream Cheeseburger” or the “Sweet Ever After Dessert” served in, you guessed it, a frying pan! Peter Pan’s Never Land Join the fun-loving and adventurous Lost Kids on an epic adventure in Peter Pan’s Never Land, from Captain Hook’s pirate ship to Pixie Hollow. There’s not one, but two attractions in Peter Pan’s Never Land! On Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure, join Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the Lost Kids on an epic adventure to rescue John from Captain Hook and his band of pirates. Here you’ll board a boat sprinkled with fairy dust by Tinker Bell and soar into the sky while encountering Wendy, Michael, the mermaids and even Captain Hook’s moored ship, the Jolly Roger. Over in Pixie Hollow, Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies will explore the fairy valley and its changing seasons. From flowers and mushrooms to painting utensils and pieces of nibbled cheese, you’ve been shrunk down to the size of a fairy. After such a wonderful adventure, fuel up at Lookout Cookout! Made from parts of a shipwreck washed ashore in Never Land, you’ll also discover items from the Lost Kids such as pajamas and hammocks, inside their self-made hideout. The menu includes Lost Kids’ Snack Box with chicken tenders, seaweed fritters, banana chips and shrimp chips, as well as a “Pixie Dust Soda (Kiwi)” with a star that dissolves into a silver sparkling effect — just like pixie dust! And that’s not all, there’s even a new popcorn flavor at the popcorn wagon in Peter Pan’s Never Land! Available for the first time at Tokyo Disney Resort, the Roast Beef Popcorn features a robust flavor seasoned with salt and black pepper, and aromas of roasted meat and gravy. Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel Not only is Tokyo Disney Resort welcoming a new port to Tokyo DisneySea, but an all-new hotel will open too! This park-integrated hotel is located right next to Fantasy Springs and offers the unique opportunity of fully immersing yourself into the magical springs. Featuring interiors inspired by Disney Princesses, flora and fauna with motifs themed to the port, there’s also 3 dining experiences to discover: Fantasy Springs Restaurant, Grand Paradis Lounge and La Libellule. Shop and Special Merchandise You can’t go to Tokyo Disney Resort and not take a look at the special merchandise inspired by the world of Fantasy Springs and its attractions! Fantasy Springs Gifts features an interior with designs inspired by the springs and their surrounding nature and wildlife. You can also find a few more items at Springs Treasures, a quaint little cart along the pathway leading from Arabian Coast to Fantasy Springs.
    3 points
  10. I have to respectfully disagree. I really don't think the DOJ will take a merger between theme parks all the seriously and I don't think they will give it the same consideration as say merging airlines, or tech companies, or media companies. In other words they are not likely to consider the theme park industry as essential use. Also, SF/CF would have likely gotten some behind the scenes assurances that it's going to go through or they wouldn't be publicly touting it will be a done deal by summer. I could of course be totally wrong, we shall see; but I will be surprised if it is blocked.
    2 points
  11. he wasn't mentioned (or shown). . but since they are naming a ride after him (it's a Nebulaz). . .and all other "named" rides have statues of the characters in front of them (even Kid Flash). . . I'd expect we'll get a statue, and a character meet opportunity. (pic from yesterday)
    2 points
  12. I'm actually a fan of Looney Tunes and DC, and I like them more than Snoopy. Superheroes will never die.
    2 points
  13. You know... while the demolition crew is in the area, maybe let's do something about all of this???
    2 points
  14. Wow... that's a lot. Counterpoint: the reason that nobody goes to this place is that it sucks, there's no need to over-analyze it or make it a microcosm of anything greater than that. The Garden State Plaza mall is less than 15 miles away and every time I drive by it it's packed beyond packed (and often traffic spills out onto 17 and brings everything to a standstill). The major rides weren't closed because you were unlucky or because it was the offseason, the major rides were closed because you went to the American Dream mall and major rides are closed on any day of the week that ends with the letter y. They're also severely lacking in shops, they occasionally have shootings, the water park has theming elements that fall from the sky and try to kill you, their ferris wheel offers sweeping views of the Jersey Turnpike and the world's worst NFL stadium, but the promised "sweeping NYC views" can be better experienced from one of the 758 observation decks that are actually in NYC. Oh... and their ski slope catches on fire. It's the worst-run park in America by a lot and season passes (if you were to purchase one for each "season" are more expensive than they would be for any park or even chain of theme parks anywhere in America except for Disney...
    2 points
  15. I'm satisfied that one day I will have lower my expectations for the ride experience instead of lowering my expectations for being able to ride it at all.
    2 points
  16. Tear it down and risk losing our Coaster Capital of Missouri status? We'll be right back here: I hope you don't work in marketing, Steve. You're trying to send us right into the Stone Age by dipping us back into the single digits. Get out.
    2 points
  17. Day 18: Tuesday, June 20th part 2 (of 3) - Voulez-Vous; off to the ABBA museum! getting to the front of the museum, we were met with this sign. sadly a pipe had burst overnight and flooded a lot of the museum (kudos to the clever wordplay and how quickly they got the sign up. . .tho it does make me wonder if this happens a lot??). So probably 2/3rds of the Museum were closed to the public, as they did clean up and repairs. as this was our only time to visit - and as they were offering a pretty substantial discount to enter (and I really mainly wanted the gift shop access anyways), we went ahead and decided to do it. Tho with so much closed, what would have taken probably 2-3 hours, only took us about 40 minutes to do. still. . worth it for the ABBA nerd in me. one exhibit hall that was open was the whole section about the VR ABBA "the Voyage" show in England. with lots of props, and info about how they scanned the band members in for the holographic performances. yes, the fashion nerd in me (it's the gay gene) was all verklempt over these. .the sketches and the finished costumes. Then downstairs to the main museum. . tho really all that was open were the final two rooms: the "after ABBA" sections, really. the stage sign from the final tour. . . only half lit, due to the water damage issue that took out power for much of the museum. at least the B is lit. . . B is for Bert! assorted licensed ABBA merch display. and then it was onto the Post-ABBA rooms. . . starting with a photo op from the Land Rover from "Mamma Mia!". . no, really. no other option than to be Benny here. . but oh well. . . wall of gold/platinum records a wedding dress from the film. . scale model of the main film set. . Meryl Streep's ass sat here! it was roped off, but could peek into the prior room of the museum, that was all about the breakup and reason's why. then onward to the separate sections about what each of the members did once the band split. Pretty large, and interactive sections. so this was quite interesting. (tho only one minor mention of the big hit from this show "One Night in Bangkok" which was surprising to me) Agnetha's "Grammi" she won in 92 for a solo album More Mamma Mia! stuff. . including the dress in the poster. the layout of the full museum. . basically only the left 3rd of the map was open. so I didn't get the Arrival Helicopter photo op. oh well. . when I next go back to Grona Lund (and I WILL at some point, I hope), I'll do the rest of the museum. a Potty break before heading back to the park, revealed rock n roll restrooms - themed to the backstage dressing rooms. baby, I'm a STAR! heh. . covid signs.. better than singing Happy Birthday. up into the gift shop. . where I would spend way too much money! But at least could run right upstairs and drop it in the room and not have to carry around the park. not gonna lie. . I TOTALLY wanted this Mumu dress. . but it was silk, and they wanted way too much for it. dressing room, again forcing you to be Bjorn. . . and with a quick stop to the room to drop off purchases, we headed back over to Grona Lund! to be concluded.
    2 points
  18. Day 18: Tuesday, June 20th part 1 (of 3) - the magic place that is Grona Lund woke up a bit giddy today, as today was the full day we'd be spending at Grona Lund! (after seeing it every day from our hotel across the street, and getting just a taste on the night we arrived in Stockholm, with that surprise ERT on Monster). we were met before park open at the front gates by one of the park owners (a SUPER nice guy), and handed off to a couple of guides who would be with us this morning for a while, walking us to certain things to get some rides in before park open. we went in via, what I assume, was the original main gate to the park. Over in the section with the smaller family/kiddie rides, and lots of games. the original ticket booths for the park, I believe. . . just inside the main gate. classic carousel. . small, but with some lovely carved animals. seeing this pic, I realize, I never came back to ride this. . LOL. . I totally forgot it was i the park, as there are SO many other things to ride. a mini drop tower. . if we count this one? Grona Lund has a staggering FIVE drop tower rides. a flying elephant ride. . this area really is lovely. but we were headed up the stairs (a clever "bridge" that goes over a street) into the much bigger section of the park. . with all the thrill rides! and "Mexican" food.. which sadly, I didn't try. I was SO full from the snacking, and the wonderful dinner we were served, I just never got back to it. but I do love the added touch of the painted grate, so the place looks open even when it's sealed up tight. our first stop was going to be some morning rides on Monster! (we hadn't ridden it in the daytime yet, so a wonderful first stop). thru the Jetpass line, of course, even tho the park wouldn't open for a couple of hours yet. whee! I mentioned the other day, what's so amazing about Grona Lund is how the rides are all built seemingly on top of each other. there are four different coasters in this pic. . main track is Monster, the white track is Insane, the blue track is Jetline, and the yellow track at the bottom of the pic is Vilda Munsen after a few rides, I stepped out to take pics while others continued to ride. Rarrrghh. . I'm a monster Insane. . the tunnel of love ride at the park. . that ended up being SO bizarre (one of several strange and bizzare rides at the park), that I rode it multiple times today. the exit to the "it really WILL try to kill you" / "NEVER in America" funhouse. looks harmless! in this pic you can see two of the drop towers on the right, and the Starflyer on the left. and Jetline's 1st drop. Funhouse on the left, tunnel of love on the right. and Insane lurking on the upper right. play with Grona Lund's famous Woody? oh My! the Monster station is underground. . and I absolutely adore how they themed it to a subway stop. even doing some great tilework on the part of the ride the General Public can see, as the train comes back into the underground station. Morning ERT on Monster done, our guides walked us over to Insane. . . lovely scenery around this coaster. it looks like an S&S freespin on steroids (oh, it's much, much worse). I rode it twice, only. the first time I really disliked it. so rode again to make sure. . and yup, I did not like that much flipping that's not sustained. I mean, I LOVED Arashi at Nagashima Spaland (an S&S Freespin), but that's pretty consistent spinning. Insane does a lot of spinning, with a bunch of rocking back and forth in between the spins. and the forces due to the design simply weren't comfortable for me. glad I rode it, but yeah, not for me! random theming viewable from the Insane station. very pretty park! all smiles - prior to my 1st ride. stepping out to get my "land legs" back after my 1st ride.. snapped a few pics of others riding. it really IS pretty photographic are they having fun or screaming in agony? as noted, the setting for the park is just lovely. . . turning my back to the ride, and enjoying the view some rides at the park are built out onto piers - that seem to move with the water. . made for some fun ride experiences. I believe this is thanks to Elissa - edit. . it's actually from Chuck! Thanks CFC I don't appear to be in pain, and hell, it kinda looks like I'm having fun. this is my 2nd ride, and I think perhaps Jon and I are laughing because we sat together on one side, and Ryan is by himself on the other. . so we were pretty off balance the entire ride like this. HA!!! wonderful design for the old ticket booth (I guess the park used to be individually ticketed, as several rides had boarded up ticket booths by them). I believe this is Icarus - the face first (no really) drop tower. but here's where we were headed. . . Vilda Musen. (and the Starflyer starting to test behind it). we were gonna have some fun on this Gerstlauer Bobsled. . . TPR was gonna do the "water challenge" a look into a section of the park that would open a bit after the main park opened. that coaster is Kvasten (Broom). . a Vekoma suspended coaster that's themed to Witches flying brooms. That whole section was "scary" with Blue Train, and the Haunted House located there as well. before heading into the queue for the Vild Musen, I snapped a pic of the other drop tower that was across from us. this is "Frit Fall" - a STAND UP drop tower on one side, and "Tilt" a tilting drop tower (think Acrophobia at SFOG for the angle of the tilt) on the other 3 sides. again. . great theming everywhere! and no. . this Queue Line stantion is NOT why I loved Grona Lund so much. . . . but it didn't hurt. . . LOL lots of cool art in the station for the Bobsled tho you really have to be quite slim for this queue (luckily we were there before park open, so bypassed the squeeze). but I love how you can see the cars going up the lift hill via the windows in the station. sure! let's hold open glasses of water while riding this to see how much water is still in the cups after each ride. looks smooth! looks like most of them did well. . . Sarah is smiling, tho Steve looks like he's got an empty cup. looking down the entrance way from the queue. stuff to look at everywhere! I guess Jon lost. . . . not everyone chose to participate. . . tho Jere sitting behind myself and David was a poor choice! LOL. . hey, I never said I'd be good at it. end result of our ride was hella fun, despite my face.. . and every time water hit Jere I was laughing. . . (again, thanks either Elissa or perhaps Andy for this pic) ha! just realized Robb is in this pic. I think I was trying to get the ironwork design of the sign. the park was about to open, but our guides wanted to get us on one more coaster before that. So we headed over towards Jetline, the park's custom Schwarzkopf ooo. . very art deco over here. what is "Rock Jet"? Why it's a rooftop Himalaya with lots of disco lights, of course! I'd come back later for this. . . and yes, it looked AMAZING at night. retro cool Jetline entrance - thru a repurposed Diner car. the woodie in the background here is Twister - it was closed for refurb work during our visit, so I'll have to go back to ride it. Per the TPR Videos Robb has posted, it looks like a really fun coaster. shiny/glittery trains. . .loved it! (wish it showed up as sparkly in the pics) oh.. forgot to mention that Barry has rejoined us! I love the fact that even injured, he was determined (with Doctor's approval) to ride roller coasters. SO MUCH twisted track. whee! Briefly stuck on the brake run. I blame Hanz . . . this really was such a great coaster. I rode it multiple times this morning, and also in the evening when we got a bit more ERT that first drop is pretty steep, hence hanging on - tho I tend to hang on anyways. I guess I should mention, that Jetline has been closed since just after our visit last year, due to a terrible accident where some folks were injured and killed. I feel terrible for the park owners, and workers. they are all such wonderful people, and I'm sure the accident weighs very heavily on them. seeing these pics are a bit of a reminder to me to enjoy every day to it's fullest as you never know - the accident happened, I think, just 4 days after our visit. great coaster. . hope it reopens. end of ERT shot courtesy of Robb! but before we were cut loose in the park (which was now opened), our guides asked us if we were interested in a workshop tour of the Insane Maintenance bay. of COURSE most said "yes please!" so we headed back over that way. what is this??? very musical in the windows outside. is it a Rock and Roll store? Nope. . an indoor, disco Breakdance! oh yes.. would be coming back for this too. but first? behind the scenes at Insane I love going "backstage".. we get to see all the cool stuff that the park employees get to see. such as this amazing view. the maintenance bay for Insane is *under* the ride. the sections of track (with a car on them) remove and drop down into the bay so they can maintain the ride, cars, etc. very cool to see. How many TPR group members does it take to tune up an Insane train car? (the world may never know) Ha. . as noted, I love seeing behind the scenes and what the workers like to leave laying around for fun. Noted! "Nermal" in Swedish is "Niemand" ! HA! wonder where this used to be in the park? Knight butt. . . . Moana???? yes, it's time for the Tunnel of Love. . which is themed (I think???) to gnomes/fairies/witches/smurfs? living in harmony. . . or something. it's just fucking weird! and yes, I LOVED it. Hi Didier! me being sad I'm going into Tunnel of Love all alone it's a slow moving log flume, basically. . . with fairy titties. I didn't blur this on purpose. . the log seemed to speed up when I passed it. . . and then suddenly, the fairies are gone, and there are gnomes baking. for some reason. . . and then it gets a bit Greek. .. and Medieval. like I said.. it's fucking weird. see?? what was that??? let's ride again! awww. .a lil fairy house. hi Big Mike!! so we did ride again, but then Big Mike and I had something else on our agenda that we simply had to do while we were in Stockholm. yes, we stepped away from the park, crossed the street back to our Hotel, and visited the ABBA Museum (sorta). coming up next. to be continued. . . .
    2 points
  19. no way was that a wrong decision to do lunch. . it was a FANTASTIC meal. yeah, it cut into the time, but it was a fantastic meal. based on my picture I took of the menu (and i have a similar pic of that dish, so we must have had the same "Finnish Price Fixe" meal). . that was Hazlenut Ice Cream with a Celery topping over hazlenut crumble.
    2 points
  20. I still haven't gotten this email, and my membership price hasn't gone up in a year. Maybe because I have Diamond Elite VIP (which was given because I continued payments during the pandemic)? Which I'm keeping for as long as possible, because not only does it get me 50% off most merch and food, but 4 Fastpasses per visit. Can't beat that. That said, I'm not going to be surprised the day they announce memberships will be revoked, and everyone will have to go back to the seasonal AP. Honestly, I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has. I suspect the merger may finally put the nail in the coffin for this by next calendar year.
    2 points
  21. ^ It's actually going to be a new stunt show arena where the cast just rides T3 over and over for twenty minutes seven or eight times a day. Real dangerous stuff, I'm surprised OSHA is allowing it.
    2 points
  22. Abandoned fast-food drive-thrus, barren hallways, still escalators, vacant subway terminals, foggy alleyways, elevators, shadow-looming bus stops, gas station neon set against black night, parking lots, playless play-places. In 2019, there was an explosion of appreciation for the liminal space. A photo of a transitory area devoid of life, usually with a smattering of film grain, an odd shadow or two, the makings of something you might have seen at one point but can’t pull the memory enough to remember. Swing sets in the moonlight, gymnasiums, party rooms in the roller rink, empty airports. There’s a sense of unbelonging in these images, as though you’re seeing something you’re not supposed to see. There’s a magnetism to them. An addictive quality, in the same way that everyone has a little fun in a haunted house. It’s not hard to understand why these images garnered attention. At least, not when you see one, anyways. They invoke an eerie nostalgia. That is, they did. Now, random images get posted on forums meant for liminal spaces. It’s hard to understand what’s liminal about a living room. Or an arcade. Or a library. These places aren’t transitional. You don’t pass through a living room, you live in it. And so, as the internet is prone to do, it took an original idea, spammed itself through a thousand variations until, like a game of elementary school telephone, the current crop of liminal pictures are normal images of cityscapes… but with fog. Who knows where we started? Does it matter anymore? It’s been so long and I’ve seen so many that I don’t remember if the feeling that I’m feeling now is the same feeling I had then. But, this isn’t an essay about the evolution, or devolution, of the liminal picture. Believe me, I’d love to write that, but trying to capture internet history is like trying to catch the tail of a breeze, or measure distance with a kaleidoscope. No, this is an essay about theme parks. One park, in particular, but before we get to that, we have to digest the full scope of it. I had never actually been to a real theme park until I was twenty-three. That isn’t true, of course, my parents carried me through Carowinds when I was small, but since I’ve been conscious, I’ve never been to one. Then, after graduating college and meeting a girl who, after a week and a half of dating, invited me to move across the country with her and live in her camper, I got to see my first: Disneyland. Because we were shooting up the coast at a breakneck speed, we had one day, twelve hours, to see both halves of the park. Truth be told, I didn’t take much in. I enjoyed the trip, surely, but I can’t remember being struck by anything in particular. I had four brothers growing up, so there weren’t a whole lot of Disney movies on. The relationship crumbled. I know. The relationship where I moved into a fourteen foot space with a woman I had known for less than a fortnight didn’t pan out. Hold the surprise. It wasn’t until my next relationship, my lovely girlfriend of today whose apartment complex is firmly rooted to the ground, where I got the bug for amusement parks. On a whim, we drove to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and had a phenomenal time. It became our vacation idea. Instead of the beach or a ski trip, we traveled to different amusement parks. Hershey Park, Dollywood, Kings Dominion, Silver Dollar City, and finally, Universal Studios. If you delve deep enough into this hobby, you start to learn about credit hunters. These are the “try-hards” of theme park appreciation. You see, every park one visits, and every ride within these parks, counts as an individual credit. It’s a hobby of those interested in the idea to log the credits, compare the rarity, and watch as a credit becomes defunct. Mostly, it serves as a chip on the shoulder. A little sly grin as one drifts off to dreamy slumber thinking, why yes, I DID get to hit the original splash mountain. Of course, there’s an absurdity in this. It’s prescribing a competitive logic to what’s meant to convey whimsy. This is another consequence of the internet, stripping things down to the most digestible, elitist take. I don’t mean to look down on the credit hunters. I have the logride app myself, and it’s fun to see exactly how many decimal points of miles I’ve spent on roller coasters. It’s nice to have a list of parks I’ve been to, and there is a little part of me that smiles the small smile as I think of the Mach Tower in Busch Gardens crumbling to nothing, but not before I got a ride on it. It’s not what draws me to the parks, though. What draws me in is the commitment to place as a communicative idea. Painters have their canvas, directors their sets, and writers their world, but only inasmuch a reader can imagine it. Theme parks take little imagination. You want to see the world in my head? Well, bam, there it is. Unconfined. Go walk around it for a day. There’s a beauty in the staunch directness of it. Strip the imagination from the equation, paint every inch of the park in the grand direction of narrative. Of course, that’s all false, and the best park designers know that it’s the spaces between attractions that attract the most thought. A story untold just around the corner. A path undiscovered. There’s a science to this sort of thing: a science with as central a book as a religion. David Younger’s “Theme Park Design” is the titan of theme park writing. It’s a sprawling text book, at least a foot in length, and heavy enough to pull down a small tree. It goes into everything. Rides, shops, restaurants, tastes, smells, colors, paths, queues, characters, and a million other things. Its “brief” history of theme parks starts with gardens in the 19th century. It won’t only detail what a sidewalk in a theme park might look like, it will break it down into specific categories, show diagrams, explain why each path might be preferable, and then give examples of every one. It’s the kind of writing one’d expect from a real-life world designer, almost bogged down in the awful amount of considered detail. And yet, Younger writes, “Even with meaningful detail, it may sometimes be better not to provide an answer but to allow the guest to create their own [...]” There’s a fidelity to experience present in theme park design that pulls at the artist in me. Nowhere can this be better exemplified than in Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Orlando. I loved Harry Potter as a kid. I read what I could of the books, played the video games, watched the movies, and even had a themed birthday party where a bunch of 8 year olds stuck brooms between their legs and threw a tennis ball into a laundry basket. I grew up, lost the passion, though I still kept ABC on in the background when it was Harry Potter weekend, but it wasn’t until that trip to Florida, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, where all the feelings came back to me. My girlfriend had never read the books, never seen the movies, and we made it a goal to read and see them all. They’re good children’s stories. Perhaps a little over-inflated in some circles and over-hated in others, but they do one thing extraordinarily well: establishing a place. Hogwarts is adventure incarnate. It’s dripping at the core with whimsy. Reading the books got me thinking about the role a place plays in our lives. A kid needs a place. And for a while, they had them. Baseball fields, summer camps, creeks, lakes and ponds. There were skateparks and play places and treehouses and movie theaters. All of these places still exist, of course, but a drive through them will show that they aren’t brimming with youths like they once were. A lot of these places have even become templates for the foundation of liminal pictures. It’s ironic. The internet, which is a leading force in what keeps kids inside, is now romanticizing and commenting on the surreal nature of the abandoned outside. Because that’s something not-so-obvious about the idea of the liminal: it’s almost always drenched in nostalgia. None of this is better highlighted than in the hotspot for liminal spaces. The shopping mall. Logically, it’s plain to see why shopping malls are collapsing by the dozen. Online stores can offer a wider selection, a lower price, and a lack of hassle. Of course, the mall once represented a lot more than a place to buy a sweater. It was the hub. A kind of postmodern embrace of the capitalistic impulse of 80’s commercialism. Now, most of them are ghost towns, with stores barred shut and bright, sterile hallways empty. As a kid, I envied my older brothers who would put on their ripped jeans and Phitens and have our mom drop them off at the local mall to… come to think of it, I never knew what they did… but I was young and they were old and cool and out late. Malls had started dying by the time I was old enough to stay out. My friends and I messed around in an abandoned outdoor shopping center in our free time. It was built, but no shops were ever put in, besides a Dunkin, a dress store, and a few odd restaurants that came and went. Most of the buildings were vacant. It was the product of hopeful executives, who had placed all their marbles on a line that had gone up for decades, and depended on it to continue to do so. Amazon ruined all of that. This is not to bemoan the move to a virtual world. I’m not some soapless hippy pitched out in the Alaskan bush, nor am I a kid trying to fit in with the generations above me– a kind of finger wagging, scowl wearing group who loathe the pop stars, tweeting, and god forbid, electronic cars. No, this is just the unsubstantiated and gut-feeling analysis I have as a kid who lived through it. The virtual world isn’t weird anymore. My generation was born into it. Some of my dearest childhood memories involve Club Penguin. So, it feels like an oddity that the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, was opened to the public in 2019, the same year that liminal pictures started to carve their scene online. And I’m not kidding about the name. It’s called the American Dream mall. It’s enormous. Three stories with all the familiar trappings of a mall. A labyrinthine design, too many skylights, random inclusions of corporate art, you name it. I assume in an attempt to modernize the concept, the mall has embraced a priority for the paid experience rather than the object. Don’t get me wrong, there are stores, but within the walls, there’s also an ice rink, a legoland, a ski-hill, and even a waterpark. And then, tucked away in a corner of the mall is the Nickelodeon Universe indoor theme park. Winter came and my girlfriend and I shot up north for a visit. There is another indoor Nickelodeon theme park in Minnesota, but it was created in 2006, and even then it just filled in the space that was left by a Snoopy themed park. The Nickelodeon park in New Jersey was different. It wasn’t founded decades before the internet truly took off, filling in the theme for a park that already existed. No, this park was created in the midst of the move to the internet. Amazon was well established, Netflix was finding its stride, Discord was connecting people. This park launched as the interest in malls in general waned. So my girlfriend and I arrive at our hotel, the Hilton across the street from the American Dream mall, at 7:00 p.m. on a rainy winter night. We had tickets for the amusement park the following day, and because we weren’t sure how much of the mall we’d get to see, we took the five minute drive to putz around an hour before it closed. There was something immediately off about the mall. Like I said, it’s dizzyingly large, and yet most of the hallways were empty. Occasional souls littered the benches, and the food court had some traffic, but all the hallways branching out from that central point had little to no action. Shop workers looked up from their phones as we passed by, sometimes smiling, but mostly not. Corporate muzak hummed away about a fight song to no one but us. Industrially sized Christmas scenes sat vacant. It was eerie, but in its defense, I’ve worked enough jobs to know that any place gets a little wonky a half-hour to close. The workers are simultaneously restless and depleted, the only guests left are those either ignorant or apathetic to the closing time, and the hum of what is usually background noise now gets thrusted to the frontal lobe. Vacuums, air conditioning, locks clicking. It was easy for me to play devil’s advocate. It was January, a weekday no-less, school had just started, people were done Christmas shopping, they were about to close, etc. We went back to the hotel, and I was still convinced the theme park would have lots of foot traffic to deal with the following morning, and I slept well knowing that the eerie feeling of the real-life liminal wouldn’t be there to knock off my circadian rhythm. Nickelodeon Universe has twenty-eight attractions listed on the logride app. I’d argue that no more than ten of these rides could be ridden by adults without a weird glance from everyone else. That is not a criticism. It is a park themed after a kid’s television network. Of these ten, three were down for maintenance. Jimmy Neutron’s Atom Smasher, Sandy’s Blasting Bronco, and the holy grail of the park, TMNT’s Shellraiser. If there was one main appeal of the park, hell– of the entire mall, it’s Shellraiser. It’s a roller coaster that reaches speeds of 63 miles per hour, has seven inversions, lights up at night, and presents guests with the most uncanny roller coaster feature that I’ve ever seen. A 90° vertical climb that peaks right above the roof of the park, and then drops 121.5° towards the Earth. That’s mind boggling to think about. It drops beyond vertical. It’s practically upside down on the downhill. Take a second and google the Shellraiser’s drop. You’ll see what I mean. My girlfriend and I were so excited by it. It had been down for maintenance the month leading up to our trip, but opened the day before. Well, lo and behold, it was being worked on… along with the two other rides. We were bummed. That said, we’re not ones to sulk, so we pulled up our big-people-pants and tried to enjoy what was available. There’s a lot to love at that little park. The workers are kind and helpful, the rides that were open ran consistently, and they fill the expansive space with lights and colors. I contend that from the eye-line down, it’s the most well themed park on the planet. There’s dozens of sculptures, figures, and characters in wacky situations, some of them life size. There’s places for pictures and unique floor patterns and the walls are painted thematically. It’s a beautiful park, so long as you don’t look up. Of course, there’s the blimp, which has its own unique charm to it, but beyond that, it’s just… scaffolding. An inconceivable amount of it. It contorts and twists along in diagonal directions, connecting tubes to pipes to pillars to skylights, casting a web about the entire place. It stretches off until in the vague distance, one can make out the back windows. But we won’t get there yet. We arrived at the park fifteen minutes before they opened and watched as clueless guests descended the escalator, were told to turn around, and sulked their way back to the entrance. The park opened quietly, in a lazy Spring sunrise kind of way. At some point, without us noticing, a worker took down the stanchion and snuck the park open to the public. We rode down onto the floor, the great orange blimp oozing a creative green play area. There were maybe fifty people in the entire place. Our initial lap around the park showed off the impressive Shellraiser, the squealing of the Slime Streak overhead, the smell of popcorn. It had all the makings of a great day. The number one complaint against most theme parks is wait times. People hate standing in line. They’ll duck a ribbon to avoid standing still, and yet, while wandering around Nickelodeon Universe, getting on every single ride without a moment's hesitation, I couldn’t help but feel that I missed the congestion. I yearned for the dodging of walkway-blocking crowds, the spilled food, the downright concerning overheard conversations. There’s an added feature of theme parks that no one thinks about: the guests are as much of an attraction as the rides. There’s shared unity, an idea that everyone is here to enjoy. Strip that from a place, and one is left to do all the heavy lifting. There’s no awe in the air, it’s got to come from the self. We stayed at the park for a few hours, riding rides and playing in the arcade. Eventually, my girlfriend noticed a sign that had a picture of a Spongebob pin and loose instructions on finding a guest. We asked a worker, but he seemed to have no idea. Then we asked the man running the gift shop. Apparently, the workers are supposed to grab a lanyard every day that is covered with pins, and one of them, the one pictured on the sign, is a limited release. If a guest finds the worker and presents their own pin that they got in the gift shop, they’re able to trade and receive the special pin, which grants one a free-day’s access into the park. We had no interest in the free day. It was a long drive for us, but we wanted to see who had it. I’m not kidding, we probably talked to thirty workers, and only two or three even knew what we were talking about. Most didn’t even have lanyards. This is not a complaint about the place or the workers, and I’d feel mighty bad if someone took it as much, but I do think it serves as a good microcosm for the feeling of the park. It’s thoughtful, it’s full of cool ideas, but there’s just something… off about the park, especially in their off season. All the pieces are there to make a great thing, but it’s almost like a trick puzzle. Once the last piece is in place, you see it for the optical illusion it was the whole time. As the day progressed, attendance rose, but never to the point where the rides had wait times. See, the park isn’t like others. It doesn’t require a ticket to enter, only to ride the rides. The expectation, I suppose, is to bring more people into the park, but it never got close to filling up. We eventually left the park. That night, in our hotel which stared down at the American Dream mall, as my girlfriend was fast asleep, I started thinking about a conversation we had had the previous night in the mall. Walking down the vacant, fluorescent hallway, I said, “You know, when I was a kid, my brothers went to the mall to have fun. Or the movies. I never see any kids at places like that anymore. Where do they go?” “I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ve been seeing this trend on Tiktok called the ‘rot-in-bed-challenge,’ where people are trying to stay an entire twenty-four hours in their bed.” As with online trends of that nature, be it tide-pods or Bush did 9/11 jokes, it’s hard to differentiate between the sincere and the ironic. Some posts are intentionally rage-inducing, taken out of context to get an older generation angry at the younger one, a tale as old as time. No, we’re not really eating tide pods. And I can’t imagine many of us want to rot in bed, but as I stood in the back of Nickelodeon Universe, where the three attractions surrounding me were closed, and there was not a worker or guest in sight, I did feel as though a place was dying. There was a French existentialist weight in the air, a Don Delillo passage, a Modest Mouse lyric. Maybe the youths have lost their place. Maybe it was stripped from them by the internet. Maybe the conflict of generations comes from a place of guilt, not rage. A sort of, “Oh, all the things we progressed has led to something different, and we’re not sure if it’s better, and now it’s their problem, not ours.” And maybe the Nickelodeon Universe in the American Dream mall won’t last forever. It probably won’t. But here’s an idea. To a generation like mine obsessed with the idea of the liminal space and the third place. A generation intrigued by the eerie and abandoned. A group who didn’t grow up in modernity, or even post-modernity, but in whatever comes after that. The Nickelodeon Mall is, hands down, the best place to experience these weird feelings in real life. I don’t mean to embrace it in a this place sucks but let’s do it anyways type of way, I mean that the image of this park and the reality of its creation has clashed in such a way that it has created the perfect uncanny feeling. It was born into an era that was already moving away from it. It can induce and capture all those indescribable things in your chest. In a time where things are ironic or post-ironic or post-post-ironic, the Nickelodeon Universe has, unwittingly, thrown all those things into a blender and given it to the public. You can have an existential crisis next to Jimmy Neutron’s Atom Smasher… for free. You can take a lovely, quaint little ride on a train that weaves through the impossibly constructed coaster mess. You can browse the merchandise from the shows you loved as a kid, and see that they don’t only still exist, they’re keeping up with the times, cashing in on memes. During a visit, you’ll feel nostalgia stripped from you and validated, you’ll feel alone and comforted, you’ll see the death of one thing and, perhaps, the birth of another. Other parks might commit to communicating an eerie feeling with their whole heart. Jack-o-lantern’s on every corner, paid actors following you around, fog pumped into every acre of the park, but none of them can compare to the dread of isolation you’ll feel as you walk up the empty stairs to Slime Streak a fifth time. There’s a contradiction in the park, a paradox that unravels the longer you stay there. I’m not sure what it is. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but I know one thing for certain. It’s something you need to see.
    1 point
  23. Awwwww, he looks like he was having a good time. It was Steve's favorite thing he has ever done at an amusement park, lol.
    1 point
  24. It will take all summer to make it official however.
    1 point
  25. Thanks for the info. I still had not heard what that building was for. I agree on the lift hill. People were still having a blast on it. People still loved it. Guy I rode with had never been on it and loved it. I heard lots of people around the park talking about how good it was.
    1 point
  26. Tell me you don't have a young kid without telling me you don't have a young kid.
    1 point
  27. If they run a decent amount of rides, that's a super-cool announcement. Good theme park Christmas events are awesome.
    1 point
  28. and here's Swag from Grona Lund & ABBA museum Magnets from Grona Lund: Magnets from ABBA museum (and I bought sets for a friend too) stuffed monkey gift from Matthew and T-shirts from ABBA museum:
    1 point
  29. I read Darien Lake Predator is getting more Titan Track to smooth things out along its circuit. Why, oh why is the Boss not getting this treatment!!!??? I mean, come on, the Boss sucks. Fix it or tear the thing down already.
    1 point
  30. My red and blue bills wore off and something tells me I got slightly off topic. Big erase. Big giant erase.
    1 point
  31. Thank you all for the great advice. I especially appreciate the advice about hotels near Dollywood. Since I typically pay attention to reviews and don't go for the cheapest, I think I'll be ok. I'll still be a little more careful when I look for hotels there. Thanks again!
    1 point
  32. I'm just happy I'll hopefully never have to hear the stupid nickname ThighCrush ever again...
    1 point
  33. Apparently someone on Facebook SFStL Junkies found the layout for the new ride Joker. Don't know how accurate it is, but it looks plenty convincing. You can see how it fills up all the way next to Rookie Racer and supergirl. It also looks like the arcade is not part of the ride, it all enters and exits next to Supergirl ( @Danrarbc) Also I like that you can bypass the Fun house and it looks like it has multiple routes that can be taken. You can see the queue house is behind the ride also might have a fast lane/ADA entrance. Not sure what that building is that leads up to it is though. Gift shop? Fun idea maybe they will make a boardwalk behind supergirl/Pizzeria/Arcade.
    1 point
  34. Intimidator is now called Thunder Striker. I305 at KD is now Project 305.
    1 point
  35. That's a good point, and a reasonable suspicion.
    1 point
  36. 1 point
  37. Sorry, you beat me to the punch. I’m pretty sure there are only 3 bays, because I thought to myself they have no where to put the train that was running at the end of the night. When I worked Raptor eons ago, we’d never leave a train on the track in the evening and I think that’s common practice on most B&Ms to take weight off of the road wheels. You could be right on the 4 bays I just don’t recall that in all my visits. I’m giving this topic too much energy than needed but as a nerd who enjoys the history of the Busch parks, I found it interesting.
    1 point
  38. I'll piggy back that with I bet it will take a fourth of the time to construct it than it did to restore the carousel at SFSTL.
    1 point
  39. Yikes. That sounds brutal. I hope things turn around for you soon. - I totally get it though... I'm up to 4 jobs to support my bills and lifestyle, and it's not easy. It's a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot of insanely long days. I keep hoping I will wake up tomorrow and something will be different.... However that hope is starting to fade.
    1 point
  40. We ended up renting a cabin a while back when we stayed in Pigeon Forge. Made it a lot more enjoyable. Wasn't significantly more than local hotels were, either. Another option to consider depending on how much time you're looking to spend in the area.
    1 point
  41. Oops. Sorry. I already posted this Covid video on the previous page. Still funny after two years.
    1 point
  42. Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg has some real shithole looking hotels. Look for good ratings and prices that aren't insanely cheap.
    1 point
  43. One thing I'm looking forward to is more superhero themed areas at Cedar Fair parks. All of the different ride themes and very bright colored random new attraction areas are getting drab. I hate the fact that Cedar Fair doesn't cater to unsupervised teenagers more. Leave some room for more Justice League rides to vandalize. I think Maverick being renamed to The Flash would be perfect. Race for your Life Charlie Brown would be a perfect Aqua Girl addition. The newly refurbished area at King's Island could easily be renewed again with a DC thrill packed area, except for Adventure Express, which could easily be rethemed to Taz Girl's Rocky Adventure. Orion's drab colors could be changed to bright red, with the area being space themed to Super Girl's hideout. Patriot would be an easy Wonder Woman conversion. All of the river rapids rides could turn to Aqua Woman attractions. The thing I'm most looking forward to is all the updates we can expect every five to six years about restoring all of the areas the park let go in the meantime. Money will not need to be wasted on the bathrooms, and instead they can just renew the facades. Wise spending. (brought to your by Takis) If this merger doesn't go through, I'm going to be very upset. Cedar Fair parks are too corporate and generic. If we really get back into roller coasters with Eve, I'd like to hear more Taylor Swift music around the park. Advertisements with chemical hair gel displays and questionable toxic snack chips are easy to ignore. My beautiful daughter needs to know all about Skittles so we can share them as a family! Let's spice it up!
    1 point
  44. And if it had been a normal disagreement I would have found it funny and I'm extremely thick skinned after all the years of teaching middle school; so not like I can't take a joke. But frankly, you went so far beyond a reasonable disagreement, insinuating that anyone who disagreed with you was a moron simply towing the company line and was so dismissive of the reasons why some of us were ok waiting for the job to be done properly and so over the top like it was the end of the world that the carousel was non operational......................that I lost my humor on the situation a long time ago. Sorry.
    1 point
  45. ^ Lately, (the past several months) ride ops have been good. Recently, they've closed Samurai summit which means Supe and Ninja are closed (18 other rides running). Without the wind issues, other rides have been open reliably. Now I hope I didn't just jinx myself. I'll be heading back to the Mountain later this week for some rides and HIP action.
    1 point
  46. as noted, I have no issue with the prices. I DO have an issue with the surcharge added to every purchase. raise the prices if you need to, but don't insult me with that .99 surcharge bullshit.
    1 point
  47. All of the letters I sent to B&M demanding that they bring back the tilted loop must have finally payed off. Tilted loops are so back baby.
    1 point
  48. Here's a commercially-released video from 1990 showing old-school Magic Mountain... I used to love watching this as a kid. https://youtu.be/zeouf1KQLI4
    1 point
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