A.J.

So, it's like that vomit-inducing contraption that Quassy got last season. You're cool, Fun Spot, but I think I'll pass on that one.

I view most Theme Park Review content -by choice- on my computer. Any time I see Theme Park Review content on my phone it's typically through Facebook, and it's typically because it just shows up on my news feed as I scroll down. I only browse Theme Park Review by choice on my phone when A) my computer isn't available or B) when I'm keeping track of a thread.

Getting around the space restriction by using a small tower with two carriages on either side. Nice!

Don't expect walk-ons by any standard, but summer weekdays typically aren't too bad. The local schools will be out already so you won't have to worry about mass amounts of students dropping in for field trips or anything.

They have numbers for the chains as wholes, so it's safe to assume that they were provided / were able to obtain information for all of the individual parks. There are plenty of "lower-than-#25" parks that I'm curious about as well. Six Flags and Cedar Fair were respectively the 5th- and 6th-most attended park chains in the world this year, behind Disney, Merlin, Universal and OCT.

It's kind of there, the current Seattle Center is a big mixed-use area with a bunch of museums, theaters, the KeyArena (WNBA and college basketball), an outdoor athletic field, the Space Needle, and open park space scattered throughout. I guess it's generally pretty nice, but I'm not a local either.

I know they do. I did my undergraduate thesis on the urban theme park idea. I hope that I get to see (or possibly plan myself) an urban theme park here in the United States. But, the process would so complicated, and it may do more harm than good to an already-popular city (promote the bad kind of gentrification, possibly be noisy, etc).

Yeah, the I.P. in Europe's theme parks is definitely more popular on the regional level, as opposed to the kind of stuff you see Disney and DreamWorks throw around. Example, Futuroscope in France has an award-winning dark ride themed to the Rayman Raving Rabbids, as well as their own Arthur and the Minimoys 4D cinema show and a children's play area themed to the Code Lyoko cartoon. Yet, Futuroscope's business isn't totally dependent on those I.P.s, they have plenty of original attractions as well. It also helps that Arthur and the Minimoys started as a book series, it fits Europa Park's "fairy tale books come to life" motif present throughout the park.

No they won't be. See previous post. Actually, serious for a moment, wasn't it a total drag for Hersheypark to get planning permission for Skyrush, at 200 feet? I feel like they're way too close to Hershey the actual town to install a monster of a coaster, especially now that their boundaries will be even closer to the town with the relocation of Park Boulevard?

And that's totally fair. Though, I'd certainly like to see how much (if any) those smaller "near-FECs" like Fun Spot Orlando and ZDT's, as well as smaller regional parks like Knoebels, are growing. But it is owned by a giant multinational corporation From what I understand, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts operates pretty much separately from the chocolate company, even though the Trust Company owns both of them. I certainly wouldn't lump HE&R in with Cedar Fair, Disney, Six Flags, etc considering that they really only own the park, its resort hotels, a few restaurants, the zoo, a theater, the stadium and the arena. They're very localized, apart from the occasional Hershey Store I doubt you'll see them opening something along the lines of "Hershey Dubailand" anytime soon. EDIT: Does HE&R even own / manage the worldwide store locations?

I'm pulling for those smaller parks. Tivoli Gardens' and Grona Lund's continued relevance proves that "let's go for a few hours tonight" approaches to theme parks can be successful. They leverage full-day and few-hours visits so well.

Some tidbits from the report: Harry Potter has driven the Universal parks forward, with attendance to the Studios in Orlando up 16 percent. We'll see what it does for Universal Studios Hollywood, as well as what Star Wars will do for Disney's parks in the coming years. In fact, I.P. in general is keeping many major parks going. Visitation to the Orlando area has more than doubled compared to twenty years ago, 32.4 million in 1995 and 66.1 million in 2015. The SeaWorld parks haven't taken a dip overall, but they're "only" remaining steady. Parks outside of Disney / Universal / etc are beginning to realize the benefits of integrated resorts, and beginning to turn themselves into multi-day experiences. Disney's water parks continue to increase in attendance every year despite having no major additions. Latin America's struggling economy has promoted more local tourism in the region, though several parks have reported declines as well. Right now, growth in the Asia-Pacific region is driven by mainland China. Songcheng's huge growth is interesting considering that their attractions aren't exactly what we would classify as "traditional" theme park experiences. They're much more cultural. Universal Studios Japan has overtaken Tokyo DisneySea. Poor Duffy. Korea had a "bad" time this year due to a wet summer. Europe's parks are being pretty cautious about global I.P., as they've had many successful projects that don't depend on it. Europa Park, Tivoli Gardens and Efteling have basically created their own, catered toward their regional market, as opposed to a region like the UAE which wants to bring in people globally. Grona Lund has attributed its attendance growth to its evening concert lineup. FYI, the concerts are a separate admission generally but are free for annual pass holders. As if we haven't figured this out already, the UAE is becoming [kind of] the new Central Florida, as it's developing attractions specifically for global tourists - becoming first and foremost a destination.

Hey everyone! The TEA (Themed Entertainment Association) and AECOM have released the 2015 theme park attendance report! Check it out here (link fixed) - www.teaconnect.org/Resources/Theme-Index/ First, the top 25 theme parks worldwide in 2015, compared to where they were in 2014. Here's what we were looking at last year in order. Generally, things are about the same but it looks like China's influence in the theme park world is growing rapidly. If you'll notice, one Disney park is missing from the top 25 this year - the Walt Disney Studios park in Paris, which was overtaken by Songcheng's Lijiang park. Also, Chimelong's Ocean Kingdom has jumped a bunch of places this year. Finally, the top 20 theme parks in North America in 2015. Much like last year, the only park on this list that isn't owned by one of the "big" chains is Hersheypark, hanging out at #17. So, what do we think?

Weird. When I was there in August I got assigned a seat on Mystery Mine even though the train had empty seats upon dispatch.

Fahrenheit is "unpopular" because its queue moves so slowly. From what I've seen, first-time guests to Hersheypark see the long queue and say, "we'll do it later" and then inevitably forget about it for the rest of the day. Veterans know how slowly the queue moves regardless of how many people are in it, and get their Fahrenheit ride in every few visits instead of every visit.

I like both Fahrenheit and Impulse for different reasons. They're both delightfully wacky coasters. I like Fahrenheit's Norwegian loop, the quick corkscrews and that end figure-eight section. I like Impulse's quick drop, the nice "kicks" of forces throughout the ride and the roll with hang time. But despite Impulse's "kicks" it's definitely the "slightly less intense" (saying "more tame" is doing Impulse a disservice) of the two.

Knoebels: "Make new memories the old-fashioned way", or, "Waiting on parts from Europe".

Yeah, myself and the other volunteers really only repainted the exterior of the building and the railings when we did it a few years ago. Glad to see that the paint job is holding up well.

It looks at least as long as either Rock n' Roller Coaster or Paris' Space Mountain.

Start a new thread when you've done so. Locka-locka-locka-LOCKED.

To add to this, the restraint isn't typically what keeps you in the seat during the twisties, it's a car's sidewall or an area of lateral bolstering. When you ride a coaster like Twister, one side of lateral Gs is more comfortable because the entire side of your body is shoved against a cushy wall, while the other is less comfortable because your hips and waist get shoved against the seat divider but your upper body is pulled into oblivion. Racing drivers deal with insane lateral Gs, so their car seats basically wrap around their entire body. Intamin kind of does a little bit of both. The seats are bolstered a lot hear your thighs and a little bit around your upper body but their lap restraint basically wraps around your entire lower body near your waist.

I'm likely reading too far in between the lines here (as usual) but I thought that Rougarou's trains were custom-designed to match the center line of Mantis. The seats look like they're mounted higher on the chassis of the cars than, say, Hydra's.

A few months ago I scooped up a Volvo V50. 2006, currently sitting at almost 133,000 miles. Higher mileage, yes, but it was taken good care of previously, and it's the standard 5-cyl instead of the turbo. I really like it, and I consistently get above 29 MPG on road trips.

I'm not sure they could retrofit the new trains to Colossus, or the Chinese one. I know the old 8 / 9 / 10-inversion coasters look pretty darn similar to the new ones, but if I recall correctly they were designed with a different center line than they are now. It wouldn't be too big of a deal if the coasters just had loops, but with those rolls a different rider heart line could be pretty uncomfortable.

Just put the wooden tunnel on a NoLimits track and go from there. Done.