robbalvey

This is exactly my thoughts. The European parks had it all figured out. They would put the VR on coasters that didn't stand on their own to breath new life into a ride that you didn't care if you rode or not during your visit. But I'm guessing at SeaWorld, you still have a high percentage of people walking through the turnstiles who have NEVER been on the coaster before. So why do you need a gimmick on it? You don't. I just really hope they can figure out the load times issues. I mean, the fact that it's optional...fine. Means if I don't care about it, I don't have to use it. But I also don't want to wait twice as long in line for something I don't care about. That's my biggest issue with all these VR coasters. The additional wait.

So I attended the press event this morning at SeaWorld Orlando. This is what we know so far about Kraken VR: - It will open Summer 2017. - It does not yet have a name. Brian Morrow referred to it as "Kraken 2.0" - It's being developed by a completely new company (NOT Mack Rides - I specifically asked.) - Age restrictions have not been finalized. - Tech has not been finalized. - According to Brian "We still don't know what is going to go in the headset. Is it a phone? Is it something else? The technology we want to put out there is unlike anything anyone has seen on a ride yet." - The VR headsets will be located in a pouch when you sit in your seat. - You do not HAVE to use the VR headsets to ride. - The VR headsets will be clipped via cable to the restraint. - They will be cleaned in between each ride. - There will be audio effects as the headset has an speaker that will fit over your ear. - There are no interactive elements. Brian "I would think shooting animals at SeaWorld would be weird, so no, we will not be shooting anything or have an interactive element." - The movie is currently being produced. - They will be widening the loading platform of Kraken so that more team members can be in the station at one time. Anything else? That's all I can think of at the moment that we were told. And I'm assuming the goggles they had to show off for us were just prototypes since we were told that the tech is still in development and they weren't sure what the final headset would look like or what technology they would contain.

Coming to @SeaWorld #Orlando in 2017! Kraken VR Coaster and a new "Dolphin Nursery!" More details coming soon!

Coming to @SeaWorld #SanDiego in 2017! Submarine Quest & Ocean Explorer Land! More details coming soon! @ClydeSeaWorldSD

Coming to @SeaWorldTexas in 2017! Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster! More details coming soon!

We have just checked in for Busch Gardens Tampa Howl-O-Scream media event! Plenty of monsters to greet us and welcome guests to the event! I have found my favorite part of Howl-O-Scream? Hot deadly girls! We just went zombie killing with friends from Attractions Magazine! Killed 36 zombies! WOW! Having way too much fun playing "murder hopscotch" in the playground! [twitter] [/twitter] Who doesn't love the "naughty nurses?" Best part of the Fiends show is #Selfiends with the Naughty Nurses and dancers! Bumper Cars with zombies might be the best idea EVER!!! The Black Spot pirate themed haunted house looked great! Lots of fun! Sexy pirates at The Black Spot haunted house? Oh, yes please! Looks like this might be the final year for Circus of Superstition. Death Water Bayou is a GREAT haunted house! So glad to see this one returned this year! The Playground scare zone was great! So much fun playing with the monsters! [twitter] [/twitter] What's more scary to you? Walking through Haunted Houses or Falcon's Fury at night? Had an absolutely amazing night @BuschGardens Tampa @HowlOScream! We come for the scares & the girls! Love 'em both!

This actually annoys me quite a bit. And the people who do this are usually the ones that don't understand the social media platform and use Twitter as an "RSS Feed" for their FB or Instagram posts. IMO, any Twitter account that is doing this regularly, unfollow that account. They just don't understand how to use Twitter.

I really hope so! As much as we may have promoted the idea of "credit whoring" in the early days of TPR, I now want to promote the opposite of that. In short... Being a credit whore is stupid. Don't be stupid. Got it? Good! Spread that!

They have made some nice changes to it (unlike some of the other social platforms that keep making changes for the worse) that have made it a bit more user friendly and less restrictive. We have certainly seen quite an uptick in Twitter followers and interactions lately.

And to those people who responded "I have an account but rarely ever use it" I'm hoping you can post more information about why? Do you find other social media platforms more interesting and engaging? Do you just not like Twitter as a platform? Not enough time to browse multiple social media pages? I'm just looking to see reasons why people signed up for it, and then stopped using it, to know if there is anything we can be doing to get those people back on the platform following us or not.

Oh, and if you don't use Twitter, may I suggest you give it a try? You can find us @themeparkreview or here:

I know we often ask a lot of questions about the use of social media to our followers but that is because social media is such a huge part of what TPR does now. Twitter has been a social media platform that has gone back and forth with their popularity over the years and at the moment, it's on an upswing again. Twitter, IMO, is still the only real social media platform in which you can have real direct contact with whatever organization you are following, and the only one that (for the most part) does not throttle the content you see. If you "like" an account, you see everything that account offers, which is important to us. So please, respond to the poll above. Add any additional comments you may have below. And thank you for helping us out! --Robb

I second that!

That's good at least. Next time, plan to stay the entire night and start with the characters and end with the parade and castle show. That gives you a lot of time in the middle to do other things and also stop for the fireworks. There is a FANTASTIC viewing area of the MNSSHP fireworks on the bridge to Tomorrowland that almost never gets busy and we traditionally show up about 10 minutes before the fireworks and never have a problem. When you aren't filling the middle of the night with the shows & parades you can take advantage of the fact that there is no one in lines for any rides! MNSSHP is still the only time I've been to the park where on Splash Mountain & Big Thunder the ride vehicles comes back in the station and they ask you "Do you want to ride again?" because no one is in line!

I feel like reading through this you have never read a report from another Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party ever, even though we have probably posted one for the past 15 years in a row! While I understand your frustration about the weather, it's not as though the park can do anything about it, but really it sounds like your impatience got the better of you because some of the BEST nights we've had at Magic Kingdom, and especially MNSSHP is when it rained and then later let up. Because it's a very rare occasion that here in Orlando that a storm will last all the way through the night and until closing. According to the weather history, looks like most of the rain stopped around 9pm and then the precipitation for the rest of the evening was next to nothing: Sounds like you guys gave up way to early, which is a shame, you guys would have had an amazing close out to the event, probably getting your pics with Jack & Sally more times than you probably ever imagined. That's the other thing that baffles me about your report is that if you knew that the Jack & Sally line was going to be long based on the first experience, why did you wait to go so late on the second night? I've only done the Jack & Sally thing once and we went right when their set was starting for the event and I think I waited maybe 20 minutes. Again, all of this could have been avoided if you would have read some trip reports. I'm pretty sure most people will tell you: - Get there early - Do as many of the characters as you can before they get bombarded with people. - Do the second parade - Do the midnight Hocus Pocus show as it starts as the event closes It's a real shame that it sounds like you wasted most of the event waiting in lines you didn't need to or seeing shows in the middle of the event that could have been saved for the end. Oh, and the characters *ALWAYS* come back out after a lightning storm. ALWAYS. I have been going to this event for 15 years and never not seen the characters at the event all the way up until closing and they will always return when they can. So if you gave up on a character after a storm and didn't go back, you can only fault yourselves for that. Hopefully this will help you out next time you go, or at least maybe help other people that are reading this report do the event a bit smarter. EDIT: Oh, and I noticed you didn't even mention anything about getting candy at the event. IMO, this is one of the main highlights! If you don't collect the amount you paid for your ticket in candy, you're doing it wrong!

I don't know what in the hell this crap is but get it off our forums or you too will find yourself banned. --Robb "F**k I hate people..." Alvey

Well, you're more than welcome to NOT post here just as much as you are welcome TO post here. So if you don't like our forum idiosyncrasies and are going to be an annoying whiny little bitch about them, feel free to pack up your bags and post somewhere else! You won't be missed. How's THAT for a welcome to the community?

you can dream of. but it is easier to put your picture with the words: I can not enter Am I the only one that has no clue what this means???

Just more incorrect data that these people try to claim. I mean, at the bottom of the index page we have a section for "birthdays" and if someone puts in their year it tells us how old they are. Most of the time, the people's birthdays are much older than what the haters claim. For example, here's todays:

To be honest, most of the long-term die-hard "TPR Haters" are actually grown adults in their 30s or 40s. Which makes it even more sad & pathetic!

I will never understand all these people who keep claiming we are "banned from parks." Where does that even come from??? In the last two weeks, we seriously have gotten media invites for haunt events from practically every major park in the country! We have had so many that we've had to turn down going to some events! This little gem was just posted to one of the anti-TPR Facebook groups: How have people not figured out yet that these parks INVITE us to come film??? And then those parks love using our footage in their social media pages. What so many of these people don't realize is that a very high percentage of roller coaster footage you see in parks TV commercials, social media channels, roller coaster TV shows, etc, is actually footage that we have shot. And we get requests *ALL THE TIME* for our footage from all sorts of different companies. It's just hilarious to me some people are so dumb that they don't realize everything we do is in conjunction with the parks! smh *sigh*

It's one of the very few attractions where if I'm with someone who decides they want to do it, I will choose to sit on a bench, and I have a better time. Ellen's Energy Adventure is another one. So it's kind of fitting that both of these attractions may soon be on the chopping block!

Damn, I saw the title of this thread and I was really hoping there was news of the park closing for good. Oh, well... I can dream, right?

This was honestly my first reaction when I watched the video! "Wow, the shirt doesn't even look barely touched after being lit of fire!"

We always really hated it as it screwed up the formatting of trip reports putting it under EVERY SINGLE PICTURE. If you want to see how many people viewed your trip report, you can see see the number of "views" on the forum index pages.