Revolucion

Congratulations on a great looking park! My thought on the season pass pricing is that you may want to start a little lower for the first 500 passes (or some other number). This could encourage people to buy it sooner instead of waiting. It could also help gauge demand. Most parks also get to charge passholders for parking so I think your season price is fair. Another idea is to limit the hours that the season pass is honored and then make it unlimited if the restriction is no longer needed. Building the park at a mall is a great idea. It seems like a great mutually beneficial arrangement. Most malls are built to handle Christmas season parking during which the park will be closed.

I was able to snag a room at the Hilton Garden Inn by bidding $50 on Priceline.com for 3 stars in Valencia-Stevenson Ranch. It's basically at the entrance to the parking lot. It was my first try, so a lower bid might get accepted.

What a fantastic deal! Thanks for organizing this go to SFMM, TPR, & Ride World. I'm not even bothering with Solace this year. I'm ready to go: I got a $50 room at the Hilton from Priceline and paid the registration fees through Paypal.

You should expect the cost to be between $40 and $55 based on the cost of this and other events in the past. WCB 2008 was about $45. Considering what was included that was a fantastic bargain. Is anybody interested in having a pre-bash gathering Saturday evening at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour?

For those of you trying to get a reasonable room I was able to get $50 (+tax) at the Hilton Garden Inn Valencia Six Flags (3 stars) via Priceline by bidding $50 for three stars in Valencia/Stevenson Ranch. The hilton.com rate for the same night is $104 and the hotel is very close to the park (within several hundred feet of the parking lot entrance).

I agree with you 100%. If I want to see my kids ride toddler rides why drive two hours and spend $200 bucks for the day when I can drive ten minutes for Chuck E Cheese? Thomas Town probably only works as a agnet for people within 20 miles of the park. When Disneyland opened the Haunted Mansion in 1969 they broke attendance records that stood for twenty years! Several factors combined to make it such a big hit from the start: Mystery factor-the Mansion itself had stood empty for five years while curious guests waited for it to open. It wasn't intended to sit empty for so long, but it helped to build excitement. Family ride - it is a *family* ride. There are no age, height, or medical restrictions. Some kids may not *want* to ride, but they *can* ride. Magic Mountain needs more rides that families can not just ride together, but enjoy together. High hourly capacity - 2,000 people an hour with a decent crew, 1,600 with a horrible crew. Wow factor - forty years later the Haunted Mansion is still a highlight despite having relatively rudimentary animated figures that are much less sophisticated than the AA figures at Pirates.

I think the 'C' on the float stands for Camelot, not Cinderella. And the lady at the front is probably the Lady of the Lake.

Disney outsources a lot of stuff that you just don't hear about. Zamperla built Dumbo for Disneyland, for example. The one currently installed at Disneyland was intended for Euro Disneyland, but --after the original Dumbo literally fell apart in 1990-- Disneyland "stole" it since EDL/DLP wasn't due to open until April 1992. If you look at the color scheme of Dumbo you'll notice that the hues are a little richer than the rest of Fantasyland. Most of the parts are dyed rather than painted because EDL's Fantasyland used a different palette of colors. The bottom line is that unless WDI can build a superior product there is no reason to do it in-house.

Would hospital-style disposal paper booties be feasible? An argument could be made that shoes should be required for all riders in case of evacuation. Or why not have a storage pouch with a zipper ala Indy at Disneyland?

Are you kidding??? I honestly think that Wiggles World has a negative impact on attendance. NO MORE WIGGLES!!!

I'm a little surprised that Florida still has a runout brake. As I recall it was removed from Splash at DL because it made almost no operational difference but had the potential to cause severe injuries due to the rapid reduction in speed with no restraints. Splash Mountain at DL has a drop that most guest are unaware of: Drop 6, which is visited by cast members on their breaks!

This is another topic for another thread, so I'll leave it with this: It's just amazing to me that any park would take the 10,000 guests they managed to get for granted like that, when operations would suddenly be different if those 10,000 all brought a friend with them. Joey I know you're a manager, and I'm not, but it seems to me like being smart with your money is giving those 10,000 people the time of their lives so they'll come back AND bring a friend with them. Might cost a little more initially, but that money will come back if done right. Making them wait 45mins when they don't need to doesn't accomplish that goal. That's all I'm going to say in principle about that. Fortunately, it looks like Magic Mountain is at least trying to show that in some places, they're taking more of the 'give the 10,000 we have a great time' route. They're not perfect at it. There are some gaping holes still. But I hope the kind of 'invest in WOW' thinking they've been using eventually finds its way into all facets & all nooks & crannies of the park. That will be nice to see. !Aye Carrabba! Every dollar spent running more trains is money that is lost to somewhere else. *All* amusement parks need to budget carefully. If MM, for example ran three trains on Goliath that were only running half-full, that means that not only does the park have extra direct labor hours, there are also indirect costs such as extra maintenance for the track and train. I know that Pirates at Disneyland sometimes only loads the front boat when crowds are light but it only saves 2 positions and halves the capacity of the ride. So if the ride has a twenty minute wait it's probably worth it to add two positions to increase capacity by 1500+ riders per hour. At MM, however, if Collossus is already running three trains on one side capacity can only be doubled by adding a full crew to the other side. There is also a hidden cost of having lines that are too short--nausea and headaches. Maybe they should wait to run more trains until they make the Revolution OTSR's less painful!

All of the following pertain to DL: The ride opened over six months late. A promotion was planned for SoCal McDonalds Restaurants ("Splash for Cash!) and among the prizes was a trip to Disneyland to ride Splash Mountain. My recollection is that since the free tickets expired before the ride was going to be open they gave winners an extra ticket to come back that summer. Shortly after the ride opened the portion of the queue thats loops between the side of the Haunted Mansion and the post-big drop flume originally was not kid proof and a kid climbed and fell in to the flume. The rider in the next log was able to pull the child out and the kid suffered only minor injuries! The original logs (OD Hopkins?) sat 8 people but would get stuck in the curves of the back show building. The cause? I've been told the original blueprints were scaled down to reduce the cost of ride construction but that the size of the logs was not taken into account. More than 15 figures didn't come over from America Sings because there were at least 6 Sams and Ollies (and didn't one scene have 2 sets? Plus two geese went to Star Tours, the Gay 90's Pig. The original "photo review" was begun shortly after the ride opened and was staffed by an attractions cast member. The system had the ability to "block out" a portion of the photo with a brown dot or to dump the entire photo. For some reason it was designed as a passive system, and thus no authorization was required for a photo to show up. It probably would have been better to design an active system where each photo was individually authorized. Shortly after opening the belt for the big lift broke and the ride was shut down until a replacement was flown in. There is a sign at the bottom of Drop 5 that says "Drop in again sometime." Michael Jackson and his entourage broke down the ride in the mid-90's when they were adding his boat to the flume from boat storage so he wouldn't have to go through the station. Space Mountain also has this capability as I recall. When Splash Mountain opened I don;t think the snoring bear had a name next to his cave. Shortly after opening a Rufus sign was placed there, and several years ago it was replaced with "Br'er Bear" "Br'er" is a southern term for "Brother". The Brer Rabbit heads were removed in 1989 because they kept getting knocked off. They came up with a way to keep them on after a year or two. Splash Mountain was the first Disneyland ride to use such a system. Prior to that no water rides (such as Pirates) could be drained or refilled so quickly.

The carousel at Balboa Park in San Diego (outside the zoo entrance) still had a brass ring dispenser fifteen years ago. According to Wikipedia it's still there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_ring

A sunk cost should not be a factor in making a decision. That often leads to pouring good money after bad. A prime example is the gambler who won't walk away from the table after losing a lot of money; the opposite is when New Coke was developed and launched at a huge cost to the Coca-Cola Company, but basically shelved because of customer dissatisfaction. A theme park corrolation would be Windjammer at Knott's, which was scrapped shortly after being built. Time will tell if spending $10 million on X2 was worth it. If it brings in an extra million people over the next five years it will be.

Did you know... Knott's Berry Farm used to have a Tilt-A-Whirl? There are lots of bare boobies in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland? The CircleVision film "American Journeys" was supposed to have a Disneyland scene that was actually filmed but not used in the final movie.

As previous responders have noted, without knowing what the assignment was it's hard to grade the paper. Grammar and puncuation = D Your most common errors are spelling and punctuation. Use of the word "you" should be avoided in academic writing. Accuracy of Content = C- Even at Disneyland most rides lack audio-animatronic figures. The pinnacle of World's Fairs was arguably the 1939 New York World's Fair--well after the heyday of trolley parks--but I suppose a case could be made for the Columbian or Paris expositions. Don't tell Knott's or Holiday World that Disneyland was the first theme park. Walt Disney World was named after Walt in his honor, but I wouldn't describe it as "in memorium". A topic that is less rambling could be "The Birth of the Modern Theme Park". You could probably use that topic to revise what you already have, perhaps with separate paragraphs on world expositions, trolley parks, amusement parks, and early theme theme parks (KBF, HW, etc.)

Dude, why not take the free pass and sell it? It does suck that you made a drive for nothing, though.

I don't know how many times I can say this, but there is no rule governing restraints other than "they have to work." Well, technically there are specifications they have to meet, but simplifying the fine print translates into "they have to work." If SFMM were to change the restraints, the only requirements under the law would be that the state inspects it and that everyone signs off on it (SOP's ammended, engineers approve it, etc.) It's California Assembly Bill 850 and ASTM standard F24 if you want to look it up. I don't think there is anything keeping the park from *legally* removing the OTSR's, but rather safety engineering standard. But there is nothing keeping the park from making Revolution rideable by putting in new restraints. I don't get why the park is lowballing the admission price. With the money they've been pumping in I think it's a mistake to lower the anchor price. They're conditioning people to think the park is only worth $26.99.

I'm passing on this event. It sounds like it will be fun, but $50 for an hour of ERT and breakfast seems a little steep. It looks like marketing is aiming this at the general public--sort of like the SD Wild Animal Park does with the Roar & Snore. Hopefully people in the know will post something if there are extras planned for the event that aren't being advertised.

Disneyland used to publish a magazine for area hotels called "Disneyland Vacationland". I focused mostly on Disneyland, but also ran ads for other area amusements. There was also a "Walt Disney World Vacationland" magazine. The following are ads of now defunct operations from the Summer 1974 issue of Disneyland Vacationland. Anybody know the last year they did this to the Sky Tower??? The shorter tower was for the Magic Pagoda Funhouse. (Not from Vacationland Magazine) Vintage Magic Mountain Ad with trolls! Note the picture of the loving lion, not to be confused with the loving lion of Lion Country Safari. Here's another park you may remember-Knott's. Don't forget to visit the John Wayne Theatre. Gypsy Camp was on the back side of the Mine Ride. Before Windows 95 and Epcot 95 there was...Marineland 74. Marineland opened in 1954-one year *before* Disneyland. Marineland was shut down in the 80's to develop a resort that is still under construction... Sambo's was a huge restaurant chain. It was basically run out of business in the 80's but one remains in Santa Barbara, Japanese Deer Village was later purchased by Six Flags and became Enchanted Village before shutting down. Attractions included: Den of Iniquity, The Third Eye, The Touching Place. Insert Michael Jackson joke here. Lion Country Safari was a drive through safari experience. There was also a village with children's rides. Some remnants of LCS can still be seen today at Wild Rivers Water Park.

Futurama was the big hit of the fair and commonly had a wait of hours despite a high hourly capacity. The ride simulated an airplane ride over an idealized vision of the US in 1960. Visitors looked down at models of networks of interstate freeways and a prediction of what cities fould be like in the future. The last model was the "Intersection of the Future" with a pedestrian level above the street level for cars. After unloading, visitors walked into a life-size version of the intersection and there were further exhibits at each of the four corners of the intersection. My understanding of the ride system is that it was a cousin to airport luggage systems. As you can see in the picture the ride system was functionally very similar to Horizons at Epcot. The name of the entire GM pavilion was Highways & Horizons. A featurette with scenes from the ride can be found url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/39wf/futurama1.mov]here[/url] Included in the model scenes was the amusement park of 1960. Futurama was also the name of the General Motors exhibit at the 64 NY World's Fair. It was more of a Horizons-ish glimpse at where and how man would live in the future. (Mars, the Ocean, Antarctica, etc.)

Epcot Center liberally borrowed ideas from the 1939 NY World's Fair. One example is Spaceship Earth, which combined the Perisphere with Buckminster Fuller (Geodesic Structures). Futurama was sponsored by General Motors. The ride system was probably the first Omnimover type ride system...except for the Omni part. The icons of the fair were the Trylon and Perisphere. The Trylon was a 700' tall pylon. There is an untrue urban legend it that it was supposed to be 700" tall but there was a misunderstanding by the construction foremen. The Perisphere was a 180' globe which contained a model of a utopian city of the future called Democracity. Plans for WestCOT included a central spherical icon, but these plans were later changed to....wait for it...a triangular pylon. The World of Croutons featured dinosaurs looking for croutons...but there weren't any...so they went to the Exxon Pavilion to make petroleum. The intersection of the future Futurama...Welcome to the world of Tomorrow FDR's famous four freedoms speech is said to have been inspired by "The Four Freedoms" A nightly fireworks show could be seen on the Lagoon of Nations A reflecting pond with "The Four Freedoms" The Lifesaver Parachute Jump was one of the few artifacts to survive the fair. Most buildings and statues were destroyed after the fair.

You win a prize for most brilliant metaphor. It's too bad that Superman is not able to run as it was designed without breaking down. Hopefully Superman is included in the five-year plan to be able to go 100MPH again. If it can't be fixed the park would probably be better off using the tower for something else. The Gold Rusher gum pile has been around since the late 70's at least. It is revolting now, but I was sad that it was cleaned up on one of my visits in the early 80's. This seems like an easy fix to keep clean by having it scraped off each night and then pressure washed. I didn't know that SFMM added soaker guns to the log flume. I hope they have some sort of policy that turns them off at night and on cold days. My family's first trip to Islands of Adventure was almost ruined because they were running on Ripsaw Falls with an outside temperature of 50 degrees. But they can be very fun on a hot day.

Don't know about WDW, but there was a proposal in the late 80's to extend the tomorrowland side of the mountain into the lagoon to create a cave for people to walk through. The goal was to relieve walkway crowding. The Pirates bridge is a similar project that WAS completed. Some of you are too young to remember the old New Orleans Square, but it used to nothing but asphalt that sloped from the front doors of Pirates down to the river. Part of the Indy queue used to be Pirates queue.