ginzo

It might deter me from going on a Carnival ship. Especially after that fun incident they had recently where the ship lost power and had to be tugged back to shore over a period of days. I bet that was a good time. Yes, the safety record for cruise ships and even Carnival is still very, very good. But I'd rather sail on a line owned by a company that doesn't hire captains this dumb or this drunk.

Great work, Carnival. Are they recruiting their captains from Exxon?

This poll needs to be updated. The answer is iSpeed.

^^That does look like a big improvement over McFunsters. I'll check it out next time I'm up there. But that's not a "fine" dining joint, which would make little sense at Cedar Point. Fine dining is something like this: http://www.alain-ducasse.com/en/restaurant/le-louis-xv-%E2%80%93-alain-ducasse

Yes, but Cedar Point claims to be a resort with hotel prices to match. When you're charging $300-$400/night for many rooms, you should feature a better restaurant than TGI McFunsters. When you're hanging around for 3-4 days, you want something better than strip mall chain restaurant fare. Stuff like this is why I just chuckle every year when Cedar Point wins the best park award yet again. Compared to some place like Europa where there is good food basically everywhere, it's a real joke. But, back to the actual topic: Things like better food is just one example of how Ouimet could improve the parks/make them more family friend/whatever without having to spend millions of capital or pulling a Shapiro and installing a bunch of crappy wild mouse coasters and Stride Gum train wraps everywhere.

^Oh, I think a "fine" dining concept would be a horrible idea at Cedar Point. But there are plenty of unstuffy places serving higher end food now. That's a general trend since most people aren't comfortable in jackets-required type places.

This is my exact reasoning: They're charging resort room prices at Breakers, but you can't even get a good meal there. The breakfast option in the hotel was particularly disgusting. I don't care what kind of restaurant they install: Spanish, French, Italian, American, etc. It doesn't matter so long as it's good. I'm thinking something along the lines of a Michelin Bib Gourmand (the rating below Michelin 1-Star) level of food, but even something below that would be a huge improvement. It's clear that CP is completely and utterly clueless about what constitutes decent food. They'd need to hire outside help. Maybe Michael Symon in Cleveland would be available to consult for them. Heck, if he could open one of his "B-Spot" hamburger restaurants, it would blow anything else at CP away.

I'd like to see things that would make me want to hang around Cedar Point for 2-3 days as a resort. Like a decent table service restaurant. Sorry, but TGI McFunsters does not cut it.

One does not go to Scandinavia to save money. Unless you have a free place to stay in Copenhagen, Stockholm, etc, these places are unlikely to be cheaper than Paris.

Son of Beast was absurdly loud, especially when you were on the lift hill.

So advertising in the Superbowl, Olympics, airplane boarding passes, billboards in Orlando, banner ads all over the web, etc. is not heavily advertising?

What security issues does it create? I've got news for you: ISPs have been redirecting DNS for years. My old employer used the following company to generate additional revenue by redirecting failed DNS queries to IPs that contained ad content: http://www.paxfire.com/ An obnoxious practice, but not a security breach.

^^^Google called. They want their facts and figures back.

TPR opened up two days of the UK/Europe Trip last year. I believe it was Thorpe Park and De Efteling. If you don't know any people on the Europe Trip next year to hang out with, then you should probably go to any trip days that TPR opens up to the public. You'll have a much better time this way because you'll get to participate in meals, ERT, perks, etc. That is, of course, if they decide to open up days of the trip. I believe nothing has been announced just yet.

If anyone should be sued, it should be the US banks for having such crappy credit card security. We should not be using crappy magnetic swipe technology from the 1960s when far more secure options (EMV chip) are readily available.

I believe he was using the Queen's English.

Chihuahuas.

I just voted. Very little changes to my ballot this year because I did not ride all that many wooden coasters. My top 10: 1) Balder - Liseberg 2) Phoenix - Knoebel's 3) Boulder Dash - Lake Compounce 4) El Toro - SFGAd 5) Colossos - Heide Park 6) Ravine Flyer II - Waldameer 7) HellCat - Timber Falls 8) Cornball Express - Indiana Beach 9) Raven - Holiday World 10) Prowler - Worlds of Fun

^I'm curious whether there were any additional incentives thrown into the deal with Apollo. He was tasked with trying to sell the shareholders on the deal. I doubt he was working for free on that (if the deal got closed).

^Dick's golden parachute was probably very large. Cheaper to just let him finish out his contract and have the time to help the new CEO get situated. Even if he was going to retire in 2012 no matter what, it seems unlikely that his contract would have been renewed if he came up with another project that he wanted to do. The failed sell out to Apollo Group could not have helped him much.

^I agree. Picasa is really nice and free.

Fix It Again, Tony!

I mentioned Marineland mostly as a joke. Hence the emoticons.

^Feed the bear Corn Pops attraction > anything at Darien Lake.

What about Marineland?