robbalvey

Yay! We have a logo for Mako now! Check it out below.. And here's a video of the new ride opening next year:

Here's a video of the very last show of Twister at Universal Studios Orlando: Thank you to budsdre for sending us the footage!

Once again, I was invited back to the Big Fat Panda show where we talk about roller coasters, Disney, the Skyplex in Orlando and so much more! Check it out here: My interview starts at about the 15:00 minute mark! Please click on the link and give us a thumbs up!

We have been to this park a number of times, most recently 2012. What's scary is that all those "closed" rides were mostly open in 2012 and the ones that were closed then were open in 2008. So this park has gone downhill FAST!

The next video in the series. I really love these!

In your own words you "grabbed someone and manhandled them." That's assault. Regardless if what I might have been doing was considered right or wrong at the park, if you had grabbed me, I would have absolutely altered security and requested that charges were pressed against you. You just can't go around and physically abuse people. You have no right to do that. I don't care what the situation is. And just so you are aware, here is the definition of assault: "Assault is sometimes defined as any intentional act that causes another person to fear that she is about to suffer physical harm. This definition recognizes that placing another person in fear of imminent bodily harm is itself an act deserving of punishment, even if the victim of the assault is not physically harmed. In common law, assault is harmful or offensive contact with a person. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal and/or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law. There is, however, an additional criminal law category of assault consisting of an attempted but unsuccessful battery. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more limited sense of a threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force." Any time you take matters into your own hands with another individual you run the risk of you yourself violating rules of conduct at a park. That includes even getting verbally abusive with another guest. The *ONLY* reaction that I feel is acceptable is to let the park staff know about the situation. And that's all you can do. If you feel the immediate park staff are not handling the situation correctly, you take note of the name or names of the staff you spoke with and you go to guest relations with your issue. If you feel the park is still not doing enough to remedy the situation, you stop going to the park. There is just no scenario which I find that it is acceptable to be abusive towards another guest, whether it's verbally, physically, or passive aggressive. You're just in the wrong as the line jumper, and quite possibly more so. A line jumper who is going about his thing meeting up with a party, while in the wrong and those actions should not be condoned by a park, is not putting other guests in danger. But you being aggressive to that person quite possibly could do so. And I feel that is just not acceptable, sorry. Two people breaking different rules doesn't make one person in the right, it means there are two idiots in the queue.

To be fair, I think physical assault is worse than line jumping. It's one thing to not like line jumpers and let the proper park staff know about it, or even to say something directly to them letting them know you're not happy with what they are doing, but you have absolutely NO RIGHT to "grab someone" just because you don't like the choices they made, right or wrong. They are not above the rules to be line jumping and you are not above the rules to be grabbing them. IMO, you are actually more in the wrong here. Sorry, but you get zero sympathy or support from me. Just a thought...you should probably also educate your son that it's "not okay" to physically assault random strangers just because you personally don't agree with the actions they are taking. Probably a good life lesson in here somewhere.

See, I even think this shouldn't be allowed. First of all, if you're a parent and you've chosen to wait in a line that is so long that your child is going to have an "emergency" and needs to run to the bathroom, you're an idiot. You either don't know your kid well enough to know their bathroom habits to know if they can withstand the length of the line, or you're making them wait some ungodly amount of time which is totally unfair to the kid. BOTH of these things can be totally avoided, especially at Disney, and if this is the case, then yes, that person is a bad parent and a complete moron. The ONLY acceptable scenario, and fair to everyone else in line to me is the entire party leaves the line, and then gets back in line and the END OF THE LINE when they are done taking care of whatever personal business they needed to attend to. And the idea of creating a special service to accommodate these stupid people, is even worse. Being able to re-join your party at the loading dock is just someone abusing the FastPass system, IMO. Every single person who comes to Disney has the option to get a FastPass. If you're not smart enough to be able to get them, I don't want to then be annoyed by you later while I'm patiently waiting in line with my kid because you're kid needs to pee. Then again, I wouldn't be because I'm smart enough to not be waiting in that stand-by line! I seriously cannot think of a single example where I feel it would be "ok" for someone to exit a line and come back. Simply because attraction queues are not designed with that in mind, and in order to leave and return to your place in line, you basically have to annoy every single person that is behind you... TWICE! And I'm honestly a little surprised that some people here would actually tolerate this, but then again, like I said before, I hate 99.9999% of humanity so I'm not tolerant at all to someone else's stupid needs for stupid reasons that could have totally been avoided in the first place.

Here ya go: http://bfy.tw/1DFL

This is my feeling as well. Zero tolerance. If you, your kids, or someone in your group needs to go to the bathroom, take care of business BEFORE you get in line. If some of your party didn't get in line with you, organize yourselves BEFORE you get in line. If you have a small bladder and you bought a drink while in line and then you all-of-a-sudden need to go, you're an idiot, you shouldn't have bought a drink. If you get out of line to go to the bathroom, you shouldn't be allowed to get back in line and annoy everyone else. This is how it should be EVERYWHERE, not just a theme parks. But again, I hate most people and this is exactly why I don't go to parks on busy days or if I have to, I always get whatever their virtual queue system is. And if a park doesn't have a virtual queue system, I don't go to that park on a busy day.

JIMMY FALLON TO GET HIS OWN RIDE AT UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT IN 2017 http://blog.universalorlando.com/whats-new/jimmy-fallon-new-ride/ I’ll never forget my first phone call from Universal Creative when I joined the company as a creative director last year. The executive producer was calling me with my first assignment. I couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say! Which blockbuster film franchise would be featured in my very first Universal project? “Jimmy Fallon,” he said. “What about him?” I asked. “He’s getting his own ride, and you guys need to figure it out,” he said. “We’re gonna do what, now?” I asked. In all seriousness, I was equally surprised and delighted. Jimmy had just taken the world by storm with the new incarnation of The Tonight Show. He was already sitting comfortably atop the ratings heap and fast becoming a viral sensation. Plus, I’ve been a late night fan my entire life. I was even lucky enough to attend tapings of The Tonight Show when the previous two hosts sat behind the fabled desk. I was in my element. But what kind of story would we tell? How could we create a compelling guest experience that emerged organically from the world of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon? That was the challenge facing the entire Universal Creative team, but considering their track record, I was pretty sure I was surrounded by the people who could crack it. Jimmy wanted a fun and hilarious adventure that was also a valentine to his hometown of New York City—and that’s exactly what you’re going to experience when “Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon” opens at Universal Studios Florida in 2017. So, what’s the attraction going to be like? I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you our team found inspiration in the outrageous celebrity races that have become one of the most popular segments of Jimmy’s Tonight Show. The source material already features a wild and crazy ride almost every week! And since Universal Studios Florida has long been famous for placing guests in the middle of their favorite movies and TV shows, we thought it was a perfect fit. Soon, you will get the full Tonight Show experience as you make your way to the fabled Studio 6B for a very special taping in which Jimmy challenges his studio audience to the ultimate race through the greatest city on earth. You’ll rocket through the streets—and skies—of New York City, from the deepest subway tunnels to the tallest skyscrapers, encountering colorful characters, famous landmarks and anything else that comes to Jimmy’s mind—and “that is some weird, wild stuff,” to quote an iconic previous host. Our Universal Creative team has had an amazing experience collaborating with Jimmy and his staff of veteran comedy writers to create an unforgettable adventure that will bring The Tonight Show and New York City to life for our guests like never before. And our creative adventure is just beginning. As you can probably imagine, Jimmy’s full of surprises and even we are never quite sure what’s going to happen next – just like on The Tonight Show! To make way for this new experience, Twister…Ride It Out will close on November 2.

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Stitch's Great Escape. OMG. I cannot stand that ride. I really think that by process of elimination, it may be the worst ride on Disney property. Between the obnoxious restraint, the burrito burp, and overall just feeling dumber when you come out of the attraction, I just can't stand it. I'm at the Disney parks probably 2-3 times per week and I don't think I've been in that attraction in about 5 or 6 years. If it closed forever tomorrow, I wouldn't miss it.

I can fully relate to this!

It's on hiatus at the moment, and we don't have any plans in the near future to bring it back, sorry!

Epcot has added a lot more "kid friendly" stuff in the last 15 years. First of all, Test Track and Soarin' both have a 40" height restriction, which I think most of the kids should be able to ride, Mission: Space is 44" which at least three of the kids should be able to ride. They've added the Nemo ride, Spaceship Earth isn't quite as "preachy" anymore, etc. There are also a lot of "Kidcot" stations around World Showcase. They also have the Agent P quests they can do around World Showcase, and while there aren't a lot of "attractions" in World Showcase, they can always do the Mexico Boat Ride and some of the movies. As far as SeaWorld goes, if you choose that route, it seems to me that with your kids heights you guys would be going mostly for the shows and exhibits, not the coasters, which there are plenty of both of those things for the kids to do.

But there is already an indoor wooden roller coaster: http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks/photo.php?pageid=25&linkid=166

I found this: http://parkvault.net/2014/12/05/part-two-of-the-wooden-coaster-train-history/ So there you have it. Sounds like it was simply a matter of Dennis Starkey (Stand Company) working on the designs of both projects, but the actual rides built by different people. Not sure why RCDB doesn't list this information, but then again, I've found that RCDB is not the be-all end-all source for roller coaster info as much as some people may think it is.

^ Megan.

That's exactly what FP+ already does. That's why I was curious why they developed a bar-code system instead of going with the already existing RFID test system that they used at WDW. The question wasn't about the functionality of what this is, the question was the medium they will use on the end product. I'm VERY curious as to why they would spend the money and development time to create a bar code reader if the end result will be RFID. And if the end result won't be RFID, that seems a little disappointing to me. With all the money they've spent on FP+ already, why would they spend more money developing a lower tech version that has less potential? I mean, it's pretty damn cool to go ride Space Mountain and without having to do ANYTHING at all, your photos just automatically appear in your app under PhotoPass.I really, REALLY hope this was just some cheap mock-up they did and didn't spend a lot of money developing it and the end result will be a super cool RFID system that can do more things that just serve as a replacement for paper FastPass tickets.

Intamin was not involved with Viper at Six Flags Great America. Stand Company was a short-lived design firm by Dennis Starkey who used to work for Summers/Dinn. He and Larry Bill worked together on a few ride designs that other construction companies built. Larry Bill later went to help form Gravity Group. Six Flags managed the project and had Gurnee based Rygiel Construction construct the ride. Intamin was not involved.

Do we know will the final version be RFID? I just ask because the initial tests even at WDW used the RFID system from the very beginning. Seems weird that they would spend the time and money to have written new software for a lower-tech version of the system for a "test" when we know they have those little RFID stickers they could just slap onto all the FastPass tickets if they were just going to test guest flow. Should be very interesting to see how this progresses...

Because people don't come to Orlando to go to Universal, to go to SeaWorld, to go to Skyplex. They come to Orlando go to to Disney, and then they do those OTHER things as well on their extra days. Disney is the tentpole in this market, always has and always will be. Disney does not even concern themselves with what Universal does (as many people would argue against that) because Disney knows that one of their parks alone gets more attendance than both of Universal's parks combined. Skyplex wouldn't be potentially taking away customers from Disney, they'd be taking it away from Universal. And that's why Disney doesn't care and Universal does.