DenDen

I just watched a documentary yesterday about this. China has this odd problem of overbuilding, since most of it's government officials think it helps the economy. In reality, when housing goes up like this, it tends to become abandoned. It's crazy. There are cities like this scattered around the country. Check it out below. At about 4:14, they're trying to turn one such abandoned city into a tourist attraction, with some rides. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Kennywood had a Huss Ranger for one season back in the 80's. Nobody liked it. What's funny is Aero 360 sits in the same spot, and it's quite popular.

I did my part, and made sure I gave my opinion as a Florida resident. With the new high-speed train service coming soon from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach to Orlando, (I live 100 yards from the rail line!) we South Floridians will be flocking to Orlando with a simple train ride, and this is something everyone would visit, just to even see it! Orlando "Day Trips" will be completely possible, and this is definitely a day trip attraction! PS. this new video is epic!

I was just going to post on this topic to you. "Freebooting", or stealing videos for facebook posts is becoming a major problem, and the FB reporting procedure isn't easy, and by the time they do anything, they already got their millions of views. (They really don't care about it, it's content for them, I'm a victim a few times over.) I don't mind it, but when I see freebooting of TPR videos, should we report these as well? Dennis

Do a search on YouTube, I just saw a video trip report on this year's event. It looked pretty weird to me, nothing as expensive or intense of a production than other parks. I've never been to KW for PFN, but I'm not into the "scares", so I probably just go for the odd atmosphere it seems to have. If anything, for me, it would be a great photo-op night.

Funny side story to yet another amazing trip report from you guys... In one of your reports, you posted this picture: I instantly wanted it! So I shared it on facebook explaining that you guys saw this during your escapades in Japan, and I exclaimed "MUST. HAVE. TAKE. MONEY." or something to that effect. Low and behold, the next day, a friend of mine was riding a tour bus passing Fuji Q park, takes a picture of it and says "We're in Japan, check out this cool park. We're not stopping, but we will find that pizza cutter!" Guess what I got? Rocket Pizza Cutter AND THEN, another local friend went through a Japanese online store, was forwarded to a Chinese store, and the product was sent from Australia! We met for coffee on Sunday. Pizza cutter number 2 Thanks TPR for sharing your amazing trips! So love them! Dennis

I JUST found out we have a Yakitori restaurant here in South Florida (Boca Raton to be exact!) I must find it!

It reminds me of this history tidbit: Kennywood closed once like this in its 100+ year history in 1991. During its first full week of the season, the (new) Steel Phantom was going too fast and was shut down, (neck injuries,) the Enterprise was not in operation at all, and then a major accident on it's Raging Rapids when a raft capsized. (The second time it happened in as many years.) At the time, the park was already closed on Mondays, they decided to be closed that Tuesday to recover from a rough start to the season and lay on the PR machine quite heavily. It ended up being a record year for them once the Phantom reopened with trim breaks, and the Rapids reopened with retrofitted guide rails in the waterway. OK, I'm done with my flashbacks... OY! This really is a sad story, hope all recover quickly!

Zamperla successfully made one... a 30 seat model... [youtu_be]https://youtu.be/Y3iLp_fEnZU[/youtu_be]

The video made me laugh. Yeah, let's hope that's just a quick-rendering... I'm really not a dark-ride fanatic... I ride them, but don't go out of my way for them.

Great trip report. What a colorful park! I love it!

I use Chromecast! (I know I'm a little late in seeing this. LOL)

I think I'll jump in and add to the positive comments. You guys ROCKED it this year! Super dooper well done. As an online professional, all I could see is that you guys did everything right! I only get a jump in viewership like that about once a year, (I'm in news, so it's really based on the year's big story, and not as large as you guys!) so I know how exciting it is. Kudos and congrats!

To me, this is SUPER IMPRESSIVE, I've never seen incandescents simulated like this before. These are the types of lighting schemes I was talking about, most parks have it, and knowing that this picture is LEDs makes me feel better about them.

More and more, you see LED lighting packages being installed on rides. Mainly ferris wheels and tall rides. But on carnival midways, it seems to starting to get crazy, to the point of headache and seizure inducing. Will theme parks follow? I like them, to a point. The fantastic animated colors on the giant wheels, and even on coaster trains like RR&R at Universal, and Thunderbolt's headlights at Kennywood are super cool. I'll even give high-powered LED floods a thumbs-up on modern rides like Black Widow. But I came across the following picture of a midway with a carousel lit up in white LEDs that just looks NAUSEATING! Random image from a carnival industry facebook page... Carousel in question, too much? Could you see an entire midway lit with these? Kennywood's Bayern Kurve is quite the eye-killer as well... (IMAGE: Wikipedia) Call me old fashioned, but I love the charm of well designed incandescent lighting. I would really hate to see theme parks move away from this, especially when the themes are old-world or historic, which is a LOT of theme areas! Could you imagine a classic coaster covered in LEDs? How about an entire games midway? Me neither. What's your opinion on them? They are a great energy-saving, flexible, durable technology, but come at a price of beauty and charm. (And sometimes, headaches!) Do you want to see more, or less, or consider them a great "Accent" but not a replacement? Just really curious what everyone else thinks...