ginzo

I made the mistake of going to Kennywood on a school day a few weeks back. I think I saw more line jumping in that one day than I've seen in all my previous amusement park trips combined! It was the most surreal thing. You could see 5 line jumping attempts within 10 minutes. Park police did a pretty good job of pulling the jumpers out of line, but they left it at that. Why aren't they throwing people out of the park for this? I understand it's harder to do on a school day, but the park could let the schools know that they'll kick any line jumpers out. I even saw a young girl argue with a uniformed police officer about why she was allowed to have her friends meet her in line! She seemed to think that not knowing the rule was just cause for breaking it. I watched her leave in a huff, which was funny because you know park police could give a crap about some kid leaving a ride line. I generally don't say anything about line jumping because it's extremely hard to prove. Say you get into a shouting match, and park security shows up. Where is your proof that this person jumped line? It's your word versus theirs, and all that bad noise is far too much hassle. Ratuso's Disneyland story is especially bad because the cast member could have just asked to see the idiot kid's Fast Pass. And when the kid was unable to produce her Fast Pass, she should have been ejected from the park. Parks should not hestitate for one instant to eject line jumpers. People like that are obviously not going to spend a lot of money in your park, and they're going to piss off the people who do.

Your pictures look very nice, especially considering this is your first TR posted here. I hope BGE is as dead when I go in July. BTW, you should check out Goliath at SFOG. I don't think it'll bore you.

I think that Dueling Dragons is the winner as far as I've seen. I imagine that queue costed more than most theme park attractions, and more thought was certainly put into it than with most of the attractions out there. Honorable mention goes to Test Track. So much cool stuff in that queue. The worst is any queue that plays music too loudly. Maybe it's my age, but I don't like that at all. A ride op on Villain at Geauga Lake yelled at me last week for taking pictures in the station. But, he had to yell at me for like 5 minutes before I noticed because the music was so loud and he was on the other side of the platform.

Nah, the Tolkien estate owns that, and they're very protective of it. They haven't responded favorably to the films, and would probably dislike the idea of a theme park even more. The films were only made because the film rights had been sold years ago. I'd personally love a Middle Earth themed area, but it does seem a little bit redundant with the Harry Potter thing coming up.

Nice pictures. Oddly enough, your woodie trip report has me most excited about Storm Runner. I'm making my first trip to Hershey in over 10 years in July! I remember it being a very nice park, much nicer than Great Adventure at the time. The Dania Beach Hurricane is hard sell for me. We visit relatives frequently in Tampa. It's hard to convince people to drive almost 600 miles round trip for a single woodie when Busch Gardens, Disney, and Universal are all close by. Maybe some day.

I guess the real question is what will this do to Universal's attendance figures. Will it be enough to start to make a real dent in the large gap between Universal and Disney's attendance? And what will Disney do to respond to this significant competitive threat? Screamscape is already speculating that the response may involve both Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I think the guests are going to be the real winners in all of this.

That's nice, dear.

Personally, I'd rather see Hulk replaced with a hyper. Sit down loopers are a dime a dozen. Although Hulk is one of the better ones, it's still not as good as Kumba. Other than the launch there's nothing that special about it. Dragons, on the other hand, is a very unique ride. I'd hate to see that go.

Yeah, and the successes of Disney and Universal are not mutually exclusive. Many, many people do both when they travel to Orlando. I mean why limit yourself to one resort when you can do both? BTW, that line about Dueling Dragons giving someone a headache is priceless. Imagine how that person would respond if they rode one of the truly awful rides out there, like 90% of the corporate park woodies.

Yeah, imagine the crazy letters they got about the Maverick debacle. Though I've always wanted to get hate mail. I've contemplated starting some crazy web sites just to get some.

The Wind in the Willows was one of my favorite books as a kid, right up there with The Phantom Tollbooth. And I don't remember a thing about either now

It wont be. I dont even think it will open this year! Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. I hope that they'll at least have it ready for Phoenix Phall Phunfest.

Yeah, Dr. Seuss was a literary and creative genius. Rowling is not. This, of course, says nothing about the popularity of either. Dr. Seuss published his first children's book in 1937. It's safe to say that his work is enduring, not a whimsical fad. The long term success of Harry Potter remains to be seen.

I'm hitting Knoebels either in July or August. I really hope this is up by then!

The thing is that both the movies and the books are drawing to a close. The next book will supposedly be the last one. And that kid is getting to be way too old to play Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a youth fad, and those are notoriously fickle. Still investing in what's popular right now might not be a bad strategy if they can draw in more visitors and build off that momentum.

I share your distaste for Potter (minus the homophobic comment), but this really does make sense for them to do right now. I just question the long term viability of this Island. It seems like they're trying to build up crowds RIGHT NOW, which I guess is what Universal needs. This might wind up being really smart for them if they can snowball effect off the inevitable initial success of this new Island.

I don't care for Harry Potter, which obviously means nothing because the books are extremely popular. Re-theming the Lost Continent makes sense as they could re-use a lot of stuff. Still, I hope they don't sink too much into this because Harry Potter is not going to be that popular in 10 years.

I don't know because I'm pretty thin. My guess is that it's not too bad for that, but you might try calling the park and asking. It's a pretty fun little coaster, way better than your average spinning mouse. I do know that you might have problems with Comet's Jr. woodie train.

That was closed when I went

They moved the Kentucky Rumbler to Dollywood? Wow, Dollywood is really exploding these days.

Thanks. We lucked into a dead evening, which of course makes it better. Be aware that the park sometimes closes early. They were supposed to close at 10 PM on Saturday, but when we arrived at 6:30 PM they told us they were only open until 8:30 PM. This wouldn't have been good had we arrived at 8:00 PM like we originally planned.

Yeah, I wonder if it's going to be more like a tunnel than an open bridge. They have to build it so that it doesn't distract the drivers who go under it, which to me means they need to hide the train.

We hit 4 different parks this past weekend, and Waldameer was certainly a pleasant surprise. The park is densely foliated, which makes for an attractive but difficult to photograph park. The ride collection was balanced and fun. Sadly, there are no true stand out rides that make the park worthy of many out of town visitors. Ravine Flyer II looks like the perfect solution to this problem. I'm very happy that this awesome little park is getting the 4th Gravity Group installation. I'm sure it will turn out well. Anyway, here are the pictures. This is exactly what this place needs! 10 spots of airtime? Please, oh please use buzzbars on the train(s). This sign is better than any lame caption I could compose. Weird on-ride photo of Comet. This ride looks like it should have some airtime, but it does not. I liked this frog until I noticed he prefers Pepsi. My what big teeth you have, grandma. A campy Bill Tracey walk through fun house. Sharktums? Inside the Whacky Shack. A hilarious old Bill Tracey dark ride. Can't sleep. Clown will eat me. Waldameer is very photogenic. Liz molests a clown! So much nicer than the crummy looking sign out front. And this is about as close to a lift hill shot as you can get with this coaster. I could have tried for a better action shot, but was more interested in enjoying my very limited time. These are the cars for the Maurer spinning coaster. They're way more comfortable than garden variety wild mouse cars. How's it going, wrebbit? This is what CP fanboys do to you when you tell them Millennium Force is overrated. The Comet is not the most exciting ride, but the kids seem to like it. We skipped the cute little train because we only had two hours in the park. This is the turn around for the Comet, Waldameer's little Schmeck woodie. Ok, doesn't look like much so far.

We already have a thread for this. http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32969&highlight=harry+potter Please do a search. This was the second result when I searched topic titles only for "Harry Potter".

A 21-year-old in perfect health? Who would have thought? I'm going to have to go with McDonald's. Their fries are a lot better than BK's, and BK tends to put far too much mayo on their burgers.