denning

The point I was trying to make is when visiting a local park for the umpteeth with the kids there is nothing better than a base camp. Agree 100% when travelling and trying to do everything that a base camp is less than ideal. But remember KidTums is the exception. Not the rule. Most don't travel around the world with parents who made loving theme parks their profession. And who travel in a way that they can do everything with minimal lines. Most kids get to go only one local park, maybe another park a year, and disney maybe once in their entire childhood. So it is really about how the local park is set up. And going to the local park as parents can sometimes feel like a chore. Never undestimate the pain that is the stroller and moving groups of small excitable cute monsters. Base camps make them more managable. I had to grow up and accept then when I visit a themepark for the next while. There will be no ERT. There will be no new credits. I cannot ask my wife to babysit for an hour while I do a ride I have been on before. For us there will kids rides and only kids rides. And in that circumstance basecamps for the win. That is the case for the vast majority of the audience that the new coaster is being marketed too. For those who are bored with the existing kids area another option.

I am going to take the other side here. I love the nicely set up central kids areas. We have to understand that we are not the general public and we do parks differently. We plan, we strategize, we seek out credits, we travel around the world, we are knowledgable. We find a way to do everything in a park in one day even with kids. For destination parks or first time visitors I get that spreading out attracations makes sense from a "touring" prespective. But from a season pass holding local park presepctive I think the focused kids areas are the way to go. Now a park could have two large kids areas that would be more than fine. But sprinkling of kids around the park intermixed with flats and larger rides would be a parenting nightmare on a regular basis. For the majority of people the kids area at their local park is like the zoo or a musuem. It is activity for, and about, the kids. So our trips to our local park is now about them. We are a bit more selfish at parks we are experiencing for the first time. But a day at our park is about the kids and only the kids. Repacking strollers or moving them great distances around a large park is a major pain. Having everything close together lets parents spilt up easily to take a kid on a ride or get some food and regroup quickly. This is essential when you have kids of different ages. Everyone wants to eat at different times and go on different rides. Adding travel time would be awful. Also when spiltting up for greater lenngths of time, ie. older child wants a a big ride with one parent, it perfect to have a clearly available central waiting area with lots of options for flexability for the other kid and parent. Too much time can be spent trying to move the heard so to speak. It is great to know you can keep taking the kids on smaller rides without standing around waiting because you will never be more than a five minute walk from the meeting place when the other group returns. For us we try and do our kiddie swap activites for the big rides on the way to the kids area or the way home or during nap time. But truthfully the window for the kids being full of energy is low and having them get as many as ride as possible with little walking and hopefully good photo ops and characters is important. So we love a park that is as efficiently organized as possible.

My summer camp had a day there in the early 90s. Do this day I still remember seeing the loop. It burned an image in my head that made me think it was a dream. But it wasn't. I proud to leave in a world where a place like that even existed. To action park we will always remember you.

I think the Canadian reputation of politeness and cleanliness must have been made true and thus left a big impression on you. I like to think it makes a difference. I must agree on operations. Even the Great Cedar Point suffers from frequent breakdowns. Aside from Windseeker, a down ride, especially coasters, at Wonderland is very rare. They do take great care of the older coasters (that are not wooden). Hopefully we will get to keep our Togo stand-up and our Arrow suspended for years to come. The fact that they spent all of that money on leviathon supports and the world's longest breakrun just to keep a 30 year old small arrow multi-looper says all that you need to know about the park. The park is number 2 in the world for coaster count (although its quantity not quality) not by being loudly part of the coaster wars. Instead of gragging it is typically Canadian that the park is close to the record, and tied with the Point, by respecting and keeping what they got.

Surprised this on the front side. After the cable breaking during the first year (or was the second year) if I recall they stopped using the infield queue. Haven't been since 2007 so maybe the old one is back in service but otherwise I assume they will use the old queue for the drop ride. It was very cool to be inside during the Kinda Ka launches.

robbalvey wrote: Quote this post if you think that TPR should come back to CW and do another Behemoth Bash next year! (Yes, with ERT on Leviathan!) Behemoth Bash was amazing and loved every second of it. I would be there in a heartbeat, but not if joining Club TPR is mandatory, I just can't justify the cost to attend one event every five years.

Making a change in the destination the ride is going to is very common, but any major changes to the design, not so much. Mainly because those designs take MONTHS to put together. If it's a chance of elevation for the station or something like that, it's not as big of a deal, but to totally re-design a ride for a different park at short notice, that isn't as common. That's the strange part, the ride looks to be have been designed perfectly for Wonderland, with the hammerhead lining up at the grassy area in front of the main gate, and having it track the grass walkway to the park's main gate so well. At some point not that recently the decision to have the ride be at Wonderland must have been made, so it could be customized. Like almost everyone else here I have mixed feelings about the ride. Love the design, colour, and theme. The entrace to the park walkng under the ride will be amazing. Can't wait to ride it. If this ride was annouced instead of Behemoth would have been out of this world estatic. Finally, a coaster that at the time it was buildt was truly the special, the first B&M giga. Suprised it is at Wonderland when we were in need of such a different ride after Behemoth. Earlier in the thread there were complaints about Wonderland fans feeling they 'deserved' a great ride, like spoiled children. I understood those complaints and agreed. Historically, having Wonderland as your home park was downtrodden and depressing. Yes, you had great seasonal attendance, yes a great selection of rides, almost as many coasters are Magic Mountain and Cedar Point but save for Vortex 20 years ago we always got the cheapest rides possible. Famously we are the only park in the world with a regular hour plus line for a bommerang clone almost 25 years after it opened. When it came to inverted coasters, King's Dominon got Volcano, CGA got a proper B&M, we got the cheap SLC. Flying coaster time, our sister parks got Vekoma's, we got the travelling volaire. Flight of Fears, amazing launched themed coasters - not for us. XLC and Son of Besat - aggressive, painful, troubled, flat out ballsy rides, give us a generic wild mouse instead. All we could do is brag about our collection of flat rides, we also made us feel like an also-ran. So with Cedar Fair finally realizing our potential, we get two 25 million dollar plus coasters in a row. Nothing to complain about at all, but like everyone else can't help but wish it was a Dive Machine, a floorless or a proper flyer. Dominator would have been perfect at Wonderland. Don't think the giga was the best way to spend the money, but certainly better than Paramount would have spent it. Maybe one time we will learn about why the decision was made to out Behemoth - Behemoth, but I don't think it was done in the last six months, the decision had to be made earlier. All we can do is hope that we continue to get rides of the same calibre in the future. Other comments Curious about why they didn't include a water brake or water element since Leviathan is the water monster, yet they put Behmoth the land moster near the water. Also suprised they didn't make the ride just 15 feet longer to beat Dragon Mountain's 5,500 record for Canada's largest coaster.

My best guess is that they think they keep it properly maintained longer by avoiding the seasonal changes in Ohio or Michigan.

Mine would take fastpass systems to a whole new level. All rides by appointment priority. If you buy a reasonably priced admission ticket, or you will have the regular season pass, you get one guaranteed slot for each major attraction per visit, but those ride slots would be spaced out every 90 minutes to keep you busy walking around the park and spending money. Also, the standby line for each ride would be limited to deter loitering in lines. For a reasonable marginal fee you can purchase additional slots or shorter windows. All food and merchandise will be reasonably priced at levels akin to a food court or mall, hoping for retail margins of less than 20% to make money off volume. The key here is that no one feels gouged or resentful, they walk through the park spending money and shopping while going on the occasional ride. The hope is that everything will seem so reasonably priced that you keep spending and never feel resentful.

I'm not sure why everyone keeps looking at this deal from a theme park point of view. $4B is A LOT of money to spend on something that will only cause a competitor in one of their businesses to have to spend a fraction of that to re-theme one section of one of their theme parks. Not to mention the fact that if Universal does have to re-theme that island, Disney just gave them the platform to launch a new ride/marketing blitz... But the bigger picture of why Disney made this deal is what what Wes said: filling a hole in their demographics. Now they have their foot very much in the door for an extremely lucrative demographic that was previously untapped. Look no further than how all the Marvel movies have done at the box office to see why they REALLY made this deal... Except the theme parks represent 30% of the companies revenues and licensing only 7%. Even outside of our TPR bubble, Universal is the only major competitor to Disney. They compete in the same markets, Orlando, California and Japan. This may not be the only reason for the purchase, but it is certainly a very important piece. If it isn't, then this was a very poor investment.

Going to miss the character handstamps

Fact is disney has smart lawyers and likely did due diligence, their is zero way that would allow the purchase if it required them to let Universal keep its properties just down the road. Spiderman is a big draw for IOA and losing it will hurt. Therefore making Potter seem like a lateral move as opposed to an improvement. This is not like the videogames where they will take a wait and see approach, the Orlando themepark is the core of their business and the rivalry with Universal is very real. They need to protect it.

Scobby might be staying, it is not unlikely that there is a seperate license for that franchise which coincided with the buidling of the Sally rides.

If there is any provision for Disney to break the contract for the IOA license they will. The royalties cannot be enough for Disney to just allow their main competitor to continue with the proporties. I am sure that the executives hope that the embarassment of having IOA retheme it's most impressive ride, Spiderman, will offset some of the fury around during the opening of HP. Although such a stratedgy could backfire, as it may be relatievely easy to retheme Spiderman with the Transfomers theme that is being used in Hollywood, especially if the ride system is exactly the same as rumored. Should be interesting.

No big loss to the Fairly Odd Parents but the Flintstones and the themeing of the bedrock area is timeless.

I agree a sad day, the park is still hurting from removing the Surfs for the generic "kidzville". As a memeber on the verge of having my own kids, it saddens me that they will never get the joy of enjoying a blue smurf ice cream or riding in the amazing HB themed merry-go-round, shark seat was the best. And I am super afraid that will rebrand the ghoster coaster. I am hoping that the scobbydo license is seperate due to the new ride. A sad sad day.

One positive about the restraints, no evil foot guards. Is everyone forgetting that after the accident SROS, and MF got those evil uncomfortable foot guards. I would rather have the OTSR than the footguards.

Vortex at Wonderland swings wildly with a loud shaky at the end, I think it is a natural ending occurance on the suspended Arrows.

I concur

This is a great thread, and I was loving hearing about the economics, pricing model, logistics and development side of the park. It has long been my dream to own my themepark, so to see you actually do it and do it so well, you have my greatest respect. I understand that there is a lot of stuff that you may wish to keep confidential, but I am sure I speak for everyone that whatever you comfortable disclosing we are fascinated readers.

BBW cold press release six weeks before death during it's 25th year. Not a way to let a champion go.

Such a shame, to remove a classic loved coaster without a stated replacement or reason for improvement. A classic loved coaster such as the Matterhorn or BBW should never be removed due to the 'end of service life'. If Lance's comments are true that Busch is aware and expecting the negative feedback and still continued on that path, it is a sad day. I agree with the comments that Busch should have considered replacing the trains or other improvements before giving up. Disney's space mountain replacements are a great example, it made it clear that they wanted to improve yet keep the experience the same, the BBW was legendary for its theme and brilliant execution. This is not the same as losing a cookie cutter arrow corkscrew. They try to make it seem like they are heroic for giving one month's notice before close, but that is not enough. I am unable and I am sure that many are unable to get there on such short notice. Just sounds like corporate speak for taking the easy way out. If SF can keep it's classic rides so should Busch. Especially when they and market the anniversary's of their rides, they take pride in their age, they should keep them as long as they can keep fans happy. And it is clear that BBW does exactly that.

Fujiq sounds like a park that I would pay for fast pass for at almost any price.

My whole take on the choosing your seat thing is that when I am waiting in line for a ride for several hours, what is an additional 5/10 minutes for the seat of my choice. For my first ride on a coaster as a tradition I like to wait for the front row. I don't mind assigned seating one bit so long as I ask to wait for the front row, they allow that request. There are two ways to do this, either a. having the longer front section ala California Screaming or b. just holding me back to the first assigned pair in the next ride pairing. Fact is waiting several hours to have no control over where you sit is disappointing.

Personally, I think the big thing is not if the coaster is countable but how many have your ridden. You look at a database of rides from all over the world, and you think wow one day I would like to try them all. You get proud when the see the list of the ones you have riden. And you get sad when the see the ones that have been removed before you had the chance. For me I would probably count the changes as different rides, because if asked have you been on that or do you want to go on that, you answer is not yet. I went on the old version but not before the changes. It is great to see as many have on this board when you rides from all over the world, not just orlando and your homepark as the majority of public has only experienced.