robbalvey

I'm not much in a chatty mood tonight so I'll make this brief... Once again, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is by far my favorite Halloween event! Not just in Orlando, but PERIOD! As much as I do like traditional "horror" stuff, too, I prefer the cute, family-friendly atmosphere of this event, and I'm a Disney nerd, so yeah... Here are the event details, ticket info, etc: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/magic-kingdom/mickeys-not-so-scary-halloween-party/ If you are in Orlando between the end of August and Nov 1st, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND this event! It is well worth the upcharge amount for the party! We walked around and recorded a live stream video when we first got to the party! Watch the replay here: [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew] We are here! Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! Fun starts NOW! The event is happening NOW at Magic Kingdom and goes through November 1st on select nights! We are about to enter the party! I love how Main Street is dressed up during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! Photos: Jack Crouse We just ran into Newsies! They may just end up being our favorite costumes of the night! Fun Fact: Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is one of the ONLY times adults can dress in costumes at Walt Disney World! When we picked up our candy bags they told us "you are going to need 3 or 4 tonight!" lol! Here's a little bit of the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party merchandise! We love the candy girls at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! All the party staff make this event amazing! Three years ago we dressed up as Newsies for Not-So-Scary! Happy to see @katgrosshans and friends carrying the banner today! The irony of people dressed as social media being posted to social media... Here is the menu of event merchandise you can get exclusive to the event! Here is the special event MagicBand! When you see these signs, get your candy bags ready! Trick or treating around the Magic Kingdom is off to a good start! I already have two full bags of candy! I love this new PhotoPass op they are doing in front of Haunted Mansion! Moana is out taking pictures with guests! The Enchanted Tiki Room! Now with bonus candy! [twitter] [/twitter] Haunted Mansion brings out some bonus haunts for Mickey's Not-So-Scary! Best time of year to ride it! Madame Carlotta sits out in front of Haunted Mansion and tells some "interesting" stories! Photos: Jack Crouse Photos: Jack Crouse Get ready for Happy HalloWishes! Watch the video below or at least watch the last couple minutes for one of the best fireworks show finales ever! [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew] Trick or treating... still going awesome! Gotta love filling up multiple bags of candy! Watch the full "Boo To You" parade below! Quite possibly my favorite Disney parade! [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew] The gravediggers may want to you think they are scary, but they really are "not-so-scary!" Photos: Jack Crouse Chip is never scary! Photos: Jack Crouse The Haunted Mansion dancers are awesome! Photos: Jack Crouse Yo ho! A pirate's life for me! Photos: Jack Crouse The "Sugar Rush Racers" are my favorite recent addition to the Boo To You Parade! Photos: Jack Crouse Ralph guards all the chocolate! Photos: Jack Crouse Another reason Mickey's Not-So-Scary is awesome? Short lines for rides! Yes that says 5 minutes! We ended the night watching the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular! If you're a fan of the movie, watch the video of the show: [fbvideonew]https://www.facebook.com/themeparkreview/videos/10155690888103566/[/fbvideonew] I love how the Main Street buildings look with the fog and the Halloween lighting! Incredible! See ya real soon! Yes, because I'm going back again next week! Of course, it wouldn't be a Mickey's Not-So-Scary without the candy haul photo! I think I did pretty well tonight! Calico System.nltrack Inertiatic.nltrack Mini-Rocket.nltrack

Erik - That was the IOA that I loved! This Potter stuff doesn't appeal to me. I know I'm in the minority, but still... *sigh*

You can do a heck of a lot worse than Dollywood, even if Lightning Rod isn't running all the time. There's nothing wrong with taking a year or several off from visiting a park, but I noticed that you seem to take a lot of swipes at different parks. Don't forget to have some fun once in a while, too! Yeah, I gotta be honest, that's a pretty ignorant and stupid opinion for someone to have. I really hope they don't actually think this way and it's just a moment of dumbness on their part.

I don't like "ranking" things so I'll just list some of my favorite shows I've seen, in no particular order.... - Happily Ever After - Magic Kingdom - Illuminations - Epcot - Fantasmic - Tokyo DisneySEA - Once Upon a Time - Tokyo Disneyland - Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration - Magic Kingdom (Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party) - Boo To You Parade - Magic Kingdom (MIckey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party) - Disney Dreams - Disneyland Paris - Frozen Sing-A-Long - Disney's Hollywood Studios - Frozen Fireworks - Disney's Hollywood Studios Honorable mentions: - Beauty & The Beast show cira 1987 on the old Videopolis Stage in Disneyland. (It probably is the show responsible for me getting into Broadway musicals) - Whatever that seriously fucked up fish show we saw at Sea Paradise in Japan where they taught a whale shark to do tricks. - Raveleijn at Efteling - But only the part where they set a horse on fire! (Yes, this is TRUE!) To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of theme park "shows" and mostly the ones I like are going to be "nighttime spectaculars." It's also very very rare that I will see a show outside of a Disney park that will impress me. Most of them are garbage. I admit that I'm a musical theater snob and when it comes to theme park shows with any singing & dancing, whether it is an original show, "musical revue" type of show, or based on a movie/theatrical production, I'm usually not going to be impressed. I do not really like "nature" shows so anything involving fish, birds or animals is usually a huge turn off to me EXCEPT for in Japan where they get their animals to do some seriously messed up stuff! (or that show in China that had like a money on a unicycle balancing a bear on it's head or something. I'm remembering it wrong, but it was something really screwed up like that! lol) So yeah, in short, blow some stuff up, and I'll probably like the show!

[twitter] [/twitter]

To be fair I often end up having to apologize to many of those park management people for some of the things that are written on the forum. Since a lot of times what is written on the forums looks very much like this...

I would make the assumption that most parks do read our forum from time to time if not frequently. Especially considering the fact that we do often Tweet out links to reports made on our forum and we will regularly get back notifications like this one we just got right now:

While I admit this isn't a park we frequent very often (partially because they just haven't gotten anything new to draw us back in a while) I think it gets a worse rap than it deserves. It actually does have three decent to great coasters IMO (Superman, Jokers Jinx, Wild One) A somewhat average, but didn't hurt you (at least the last time I rode it) coaster in Roar. And a good, but short drop tower. There are also a decent amount of flat rides, which is good. IMO the following coasters are crap: Batwing & Mind Eraser. And I haven't been on Iron Wolf or the spinning mouse since they moved them there, but I'm going to assume they are no different from when they were at their previous location, which also aren't draws for me to make a return visit. Every time we've been to the park, it *looks* nice and they do a good job with landscaping and keeping it up. Sadly, it's the operations and the clientele that have also kept us away. It's the only park I've ever been to where guests have made me feel "unsafe" after threatening me for using the Flash Pass system and the operations and security who were standing right there did nothing about it. Overall, if you're there on an uncrowded day and want to get in a few laps on their four better coasters, it's not a bad stop. Just one we don't need to make that often.

I think putting VR on a Wacky Worm now wins and the most laughable thing to put VR on! lol That being said, I've always said that the VR experience makes more sense on rides that aren't high-thrill on their own and need something to make them better. Nice report & video!

It was.

My thoughts exactly!

I'm going to just quote the article here since that site was so awful and even took me like three tries to get the text as it kept auto-clicking me onto some other page and when I tried to go back I was on a different article...

I'm all for 42" - 48" thrill rides, but in my constant yelling at parks to make sure areas within a park have something for everyone, Potter Hell already has a 36" ride, a 48" ride, a few shows, a zero height restriction train ride, and this big 54" ride so honestly I was okay with that. One of my biggest issues with Universal is that if you're under 36 inches there's not much for you to do at either park. A carousel, couple of flat rides, the train, and that's about it. Sadly, that's not their target. This was an ad they ran this year basically saying "Universal is for the older kids..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KWcYtHFyLQ Of course they now say they are removing Dragons for a more "family" oriented roller coaster. So which is it, Universal? Are you targeting older kids that have "grown out" of Disney like this TV commercial implies, or are you targeting the same audience that goes to Disney? Or do you even know???

Honestly, I can't decide which is dumber... Universal removing a perfectly good roller coaster that still ranks very high on guest satisfaction... or Merlin not seeming to care that one of the world's highest rated roller coasters needs regular maintenance. I just feel like parks all over the world are making incredibly stupid decisions lately but this all just fits perfectly into society devolving into Idiocracy. And as I said above... "surprising no one..." Sad...

Surprising no one...

I'm actually locking this thread. This has made my brain hurt way too much.

Well... I gave this a try. It's not a "Top 100" its more of a "Top/Most Popular 75 Roller Coasters in North America" list. While it's not the best, it's better than the previous 2! So for anyone who is bored, and wanting something to do... Here you go: http://www.listchallenges.com/topmost-popular-75-coasters-in-north-america Why is this on the list??? Again, another fail. This is why I really think polls and lists like this are pointless and stupid. The *ONLY* poll I ever supported was the Mitch Hawker poll. The rest of them are crap.

^ Its not.

This coaster was a little bit crazy...

That coaster is WAY better than some of the rides on the original list... Oh, c'mon! Don't be "that" guy. It was just an over-sized kiddie coaster. Fun ride, yes, but doesn't belong on any worlds top 100 list.

Let's be honest here - the amount of "user error" accidents in the past couple of years is getting terrifying. We are now at the point where as maintenance crews are obviously getting dumber and less able to do their jobs without making stupid life-threatening mistakes, that ride companies are going to have to take that control away from humans and put it back into the computer, or at least having more checks & balances that make an accident like this less likely to happen. An accident like this should NOT have happened. And it's clearly user error.

It's not even that they were overseas but they were stupid, obscure, weird rides that were overseas. I mean, I've been to most of them and I have no idea why they were included on the list other than maybe the guy who made the list has some sort of bragging rights fetish. I guess I just find lists like these and polls to be mostly pointless and a waste of time anyway so I'm already going into it with a very negative outlook.

The irony of Universal making completely practical effects based rides out of a property that is 100% screen based would be amazing and a very welcome change. I'm not holding my breath though.

Oh, neat! Someone has the original Hersherypark Sidewinder sign on sale. Always a big fan of park signage like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hershey-Park-Sidewinder-Amusement-Park-Roller-Coaster-Sign-Hershey-Pennsylvania-/322659346250

Apparently you can also pick up a Chinese Knock-Off Wacky Worm on eBay! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amusment-Theme-Park-Rides-Carnival-16-Person-Rotation-Thrill-Roller-Coaster-Park-/162395479206