ginzo

That show was seriously the highlight of the UK tour.

Yep, idiots will just make crap up and feed it to credulous reporters when ride accidents happen. Does anyone remember the "I know for a fact that it jumped the tracks" guy that came out of the woodwork when SOB had its accident in 2006?

Well, it was by far the best dry ride they had at Kentucky Kingdom. That's because the collection was pretty weak. Thunder Run reportedly can be very good, but it was in poor condition when I rode it. As much as I'd love to see Greezed Lightnin' run again, mechanical things have a service life. This ride is 35 years old. It probably could be kept going for another few years, but that would be expensive and time consuming. The effort would not likely be worth it as Hart & pals need to invest their resources into modern rides that could grow their attendance.

I just got caught up on this today. Good for Ed Hart & company. I was definitely among the skeptics that thought he wouldn't come through with the financing. Here's to hoping he can figure out the right balance between wet and dry rides without becoming essentially just a waterpark.

For those who haven't experienced Smashburger, it very closely follows the model of "Upscale Steak 'n Shake". If you are a Steak 'n Shake fan, then definitely seek out Smashburger.

I'm sure Ed Hart will beat them to that just as soon as that financing gets approved.

I think it just means if a park is willing to give them a giant rehab gig they'll happily sell them the trains in addition to getting the ride up to their standards. For my money, rehabbing other companies' rides is still GCI's sweet spot. Example: Boulder Dash.

I don't get the point of a food truck at sea. Does it drive around the ship and tweet its location? Otherwise, looks great.

I don't know what other choice they have. Without some great additions this will fall flat on its face once the novelty of the park reopening wears off and people realize it has far less than it had before. They shouldn't install B&M's entire catalog on year 1, but they definitely need rides. If I were them, I'd try to get Thunder Run into peak condition and then try to get a good, modern steel coaster because Holiday World doesn't have that. An Intamin Mega Lite would be perfect, but I doubt that's in the budget.

Here is a hard hitting expose on Carnival from America's most reliable news source.

Ebert was a fantastic, organized writer even when he completely missed the point of the movie, which happened on occasion. Ebert's public beef with Vincent Gallo was hilarious. I'll miss reading Ebert's reviews.

Me as well. Thanks for talking me into going. I was very surprised at how good that event was. I'd go every year if they still put it on.

Even during the glory days of the prior ownership, operations were never a strong point. Nor was the park always spotlessly clean. But the park had a unique charm and a ton of great rides. Plus they put on a fantastic coaster enthusiast event.

Huh? Lowered operating costs means more money for improvements. Not to mention this could mean less downtime during the operating season. How is this a bad thing???

Carnival: Experts in the field of triage.

You'd think Carnival's ship doctors would be experts in treating alcohol poisoning by now.

Editing a text file and then pasting it into an email is really easy. The hard part is trying to rank coasters you rode years ago and don't remember much about.

Falling asleep on pretty much any coaster indicates tiredness more than anything else.

Thoughts: -This looks like a fantastic addition. Star Flyers are great fun. Stockholm is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The view should be unreal. -Gröna Lund was pretty damn awesome when I visited in 2009. I love how they keep adding to it. This park dispels FOREVER the idea that any park doesn't have room for quality additions. -Sweden may be tiny, but they have two of the best parks anywhere.

You assume that Washington has any business poking their nose in here. They don't. Amusement park regulation has historically been a state matter. And the system works just fine. Congressman Markey has been trying to get DC's fangs into this for years. And no good can come of that.

You were VERY smart to visit during the off season. No French crunch! The parks are fine. They just have clientele problems when they get busy. Like hoards of guests from a certain country in the Iberian Peninsula that do not understand Fast Pass at all.

Sounds like an awesome gig. Where do I apply?

It all comes down to the overall "niceness" of the park. I can never have enough time at parks like Europa Park, Knoebels, Epcot, Liseberg, Silver Dollar City, Tivoli Gardens, etc. because they are just nice places to be. Rides are only one part of a much bigger picture. And this is why I'll continue to schedule Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks as credit runs. They're just not nice places to hang out, especially during sweltering summer days. Edible food, indoor attractions, paying attention to aesthetics, good operations, decent employees can all go a long way in making me want to stay longer than the minimum time required to lap the coasters.

Yeah, for an illustration of why people hate Six Flags so much I recall my first and only experience with SFMM. It was early 2007 back when Six Flags was trying to sell the park off for a quick, crack-like infusion of cash to save management's asses from getting blamed for financially ruining the company. The park was in deplorable condition. Yes, they had a lot of coasters and a scenic setting, but they offered nothing else. A great deal of the coasters were down for maintenance and the ones that did run were in bad condition. All the B&Ms had a terrible case of "B&M rattle", even Tatsu, which was quite new at the time. And there was a terrible lack of non-coaster attractions. Walking around SFMM in that time it felt like being a West Baltimore slum with a bunch of abandoned-looking buildings that desperately needed paint. The fact that management wasn't even paying for paint on random little buildings said how little they gave a crap about the park. At one point I walked around looking for food and noticed there was one outlet selling sushi. I thought to myself, "What depraved individual would buy sushi at a filthy Six Flags park?" I wound up getting an apple to munch on, but when I bit into it it was totally rotten inside. What a perfect metaphor for SFMM at that time. We met up with Robb & Elissa that weekend and they told us that the Herschends had looked into buying SFMM, but decided they weren't interested because the park would require ~$200 million to fix the park up to their standards. Maybe some of that money would have gone into additions, but a lot of it was just deferred maintenance. Instead of adding as many coasters as they could possibly order, management should have taken some of that money and put it back into keeping the park pretty and enjoyable to be in. It sounds like Jay Thomas was attempting to go in this direction with SFMM during his far-too-short tenure running the place.

Thanks for the current update on food quality at EPCOT.