robbalvey

Kinda surprised no one has commented on this yet. Blackstone sells to a Chinese company. What does that say for where things are current at with SeaWorld? This development should be interesting to say the least...

Continuing on from the Countdown Party, we were right back at Tokyo Disney the next morning! We did a little bit of park hopping around over the next two days (Mostly DisneySEA though), so I'll just include that all in this one final report... While the rest of the world sleeps after an awesome New Years Eve, we are headed to Disneyland! Tokyo style! In case you were wondering, or even if you didn't care, here's the Tokyo Disney Monorail map! Walking into a park and seeing this never gets old! Really impressed with how they've solved the "running" problem they used to have at park opening. Haven't seen it at all the past 4 days! Just to show how everywhere you look in this park is a photo op, here's all 4 directions from where I'm standing! [twitter] [/twitter]Kristen is having fun collecting her crystals on her wand all over the park! Kristen collected most of the Tokyo DisneySEA 15th Anniversary crystals on her wand already! They unlock when you visit crystal locations! When you unlock them all, you can then interact with Cast Members who also have wands! Can you M-I-SEE it? If you can tell us what you can SEE-K-E-Y! And where! 2 weeks of traveling around Asia this is the first ECV I've seen. I applaud them for the lack of frivolous overuse of these! #NeverInAmerica They have smoking "rooms" at Tokyo Disney! Love this! Put the smokers in one cancer box far away from the rest of us! There are some super ominous clouds over Tower of Terror today! We LOVE Aquatopia! We don't know why... but we do!!! Both of these popcorn stands are across from each other and they are both delicious! [twitter] [/twitter]This pigeon is fearless!!! Probably because polite Japanese kids don't chase and kick them like the horrible American kids do!!! Orlando's Twilight Zone theme is so dated! Out with Rod Serling and in with Shiriki Utundu! Before a show starts, they announce to the audience to please remove headbands, don't kids on shoulders, keep cameras lower at eye height & lower any balloons down. Everyone complies without any complaint. Why can't they do this in America??? Is being courteous to the people around you really too much to ask??? One of the floats from the 15th Anniversary celebration! The characters look so good! Hanno got this great photo of the rodents! This has to be one of the best 1-2 combos you can hold FastPasses for! Someone had set up a display of Duffy characters dressed as cast members! I would also like to point out that whoever owns these dolls wasn't anywhere around. They just left them out for people to take pictures of and then will come back and collect them later. We are told people do this all the time and it's not an issue because people in Japan are not horrible and mean and won't steal them. Yes, this is in a theme park! The "Explorers Fortress" is amazing to walk around in. I always get lost, even with this map! Who can tell me what this means? Some of the merchandise featuring "The Wing of Wishes" for Tokyo DisneySEA 15th Anniversary. You know you're in an awesome park when you have an erupting volcano in the middle of it! Not only do you not see a gross overuse of ECV's in Japan, you also don't see many of those obnoxious double-wide strollers! #NeverInAmerica They have "Duffy Photo Spots" around the park so you can feature the characters in your photos! Stitch and Angel have come out to greet guests! Do we even have an Angel character at the US parks? Kristen is very happy she got to see an Ocean Sunfish this trip! WARNING! Lots of Duffy photos coming as we take a look around one of the Duffy stores! This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the Duffy merchandise! If you live Japan and don't have something Duffy related on your person at all times, you're doing it wrong! You know that giant boat you see in all the DisneySEA pics? Yes, you can go in it and explore! When the sun goes down, Tokyo DisneySEA looks even more amazing! [twitter] [/twitter]Love this Tower of Terror sign! When you purchase a bottled drink from a cart, your bottle is wiped off so your hand doesn't get wet. Amazing guest service! #NeverInAmerica We were hoping by making the planets align it would make Trump disappear. Sorry world, no luck! We tried! Because... Duffy! Easily the best looking version of Toy Story Mania! I AM GOING TO EAT YOU PEOPLE!!! OM NOM NOM!!! Toy Story Mania is like crack for the Japanese. The FastPasses sell out almost instantly and 160 minutes is an average line! These games are totally free and the Japanese play once and then let the next person waiting play. What a concept! #NeverInAmerica Now that Kristen has collected all her wand crystals she can swap colors with Cast Members! So we totally just ate Chandu's tail! Tastes like chicken! Kristen loves 20,000 Leagues! She's ridden it like five times already this trip! Not only are these toilets smarter than you, I've never walked into a public restroom in Japan that is disgusting. #NeverInAmerica Look, getting pictures of a spontaneously exploding volcano with your iPhone is not the easiest thing to do, OK? How about a few more night time photos of Tokyo DisneySEA? Popcorn cheers! Fire makes any roller coaster better! Tokyo DisneySEA at night! There is no better looking theme park in the world! Sindbad and Chandu say hello! Sexiest Disney animatronic ever made? High wind cancelled fireworks at Tokyo Disney. No one freaked out. No complaining. Just a polite understanding culture. #NeverInAmerica Once Upon A Time is a seriously amazing show! Do not miss this!!! Every Disney park should have Haunted Mansion Holiday! Here's what Haunted Mansion Holiday could look like if we had it in Orlando... Honey Popcorn is in our near future... YUM! Saving the best ride Disney has ever made to end our night on! Just a few of the many details you'll find in the Journey queue. Now it's time to say goodbye! We will miss you Tokyo Disney! Best theme parks in the world! See you again in 2018! Words to live by...

Banned. I don't know what is entertaining me more. The amazing marketing strategy behind the ride or the stupid people on our forums. I guess both are fairly equal.

Yes!!! Four wings, each themed to one of the houses. A back door onto the park like Disney's Grand Californian has. I'll take a room in Ravenclaw, please. And this is EXACTLY why ripping out Dragons and dropping a hotel there would be a brilliant idea. Even if I don't understand some of the words you said in your sentence! *Note that I have no idea if this is even in the plans at all...I'm just speculating based on nothing I've heard.

Let's not make the assumption that it will get "moved" to another park. Remember that Universal deemed Hulk at the end of it's lifecycle and Dragons is probably not too far behind it consider it has run almost every single day since 1999. That ride has probably had more cycles than most other B&Ms in existence so I'm sure if it were to get moved it may need as much of a rehab as Hulk got, or more likely it will just get scrapped. These are my thoughts exactly. I know I haven't even ridden it since they put the metal detectors in (I refuse to ride any coaster where I have to walk through a metal detector to ride) and it may have even been since 2014 that I was last on them. If they want to put a ride of equal caliber (without metal detectors) as Dragons, I'm fine with that. But any screen based ride or something that doesn't stack up, I'll honestly shake my head. Dragons has consistently been ranked one of the best roller coasters in the world and why any park would want to replace that is beyond me. But then again, I would also not be surprised as well...

As you just said, the ride looks like it will have fun elements and that is what I think the park was going for. Remember that this is the "middle ride" between Flying Aces and their crazy looking new Dynamic Attractions coaster which I will assume will open next year. Not every ride is going to be "OMFG WTF HOLY CRAP" and this replaces one of the worst drop rides I've ever been on so it's already a HUGE improvement. I personally think it's great that the park is getting 3 coasters in 3 years and I wasn't expecting all three of them to be crazy huge additions. I certainly think this ride will do well for them. It's unique and different and there's nothing wrong with that.

We did not. But I was happy enough that they let my camera ride!

Here is the POV we shot from Turbo Track the other day:

Yep, 100% agreed. And even Arthur, which IS a decent ride and a great ride system, still says "not an edgy Universal ride" to me. Which you're right, it's absolutely ironic that their most recent ad campaign is "come to the grown up parks" and their latest ride offerings are some of the weakest they've produced to date.

Two things: 1. It's not run by Tony. 2. Making posts trying to circumvent our rules and poking fun at them on top of it just got you banned.

Nope. That's some weird TPR filter w/ FB videos. You have to quote the post and the link is there. You're welcome. What's the actual video link? Never knew this was an issue as our FB videos we share work just fine. I'll check it out...

THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS!!!! If there is one reason why I feel like I've been going to Universal less and less lately is because of EXACTLY this! Back in that day when I used to go to Universal just as frequently as I would go to Disney it was because they were offering a type of attraction and atmosphere that Disney didn't have, but I was still looking for. And you're right, if I want immersive dark rides and family based attractions, I'll go to Disney. If I want something more with an edge, I'll go to Universal. Unfortunately, since I'm not into Harry Potter, and those two rides don't really appeal to me, those expansions started my download of visiting those parks less. Then add rides like Despicable Me, Kong, Fallon, and the upcoming Fast & Furious, and that just adds more attractions that I'm going to to be rushing to the park to experience. And for the attractions that I *DO* like a lot: Hulk, Dragons, Rip Ride Rockit, Mummy, Spider-Man, etc, I'm now required to dump all my crap and walk through a metal detector to ride them 3 out of 5 of them, and I can't be bothered with that. The idea that Universal would take out Dragons for (what I assume) would be more Potter-based attractions is just something that interests very little and isn't going to increase my desire to go to the park. Unless of course we're talking a Potter-themed version of Flying Dinosaur or something like that!

I'm really surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: Rumor: Universal's Dragon Challenge coaster making way for new Harry Potter dark ride? http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2017/03/21/rumor-universals-dragon-challenge-coaster-making.html This most certainly lines up with some of the we've been hearing for a while now. I really wonder what the park will be like removing two big coasters and hopefully not replacing them with screen-based rides! Thoughts on this?

You have been banned twice now for making stupid posts and each time we have told you "stop making stupid posts" yet you still continue to do so. This is your last warning. Stop making stupid posts. I'm going to guess you won't be on our forums for much longer...

Not likely in the near future, sorry!

Busch Gardens have sent us the first POV of InvadR! Tell us what you think!

Wait...what happened to Q-Bot?

Right. We knew this, but I thought it was brief, a month or so at the most? And from reviews I saw, it appeared that the exact same issues happened during the live test that we brought up here. For example, here's one guy's report: So yeah, if you had a reservation for a ride with a 45 minute wait, you weren't allowed to go on a ride that only had a 5 minute wait during that time. Your ONLY options were the wave pool, lazy, river, or the kids play area. This just seems super dumb to me. I could never see Disney saying "Oh, hey, will you wait 45 minutes for this attraction, you AREN'T ALLOWED to go on any other rides with a shorter wait." Seriously, if this is what happens at Volcano Bay, I will have zero interest in ever going there.

The only thing that annoys me more than flawed park operations is someone who back seat moderates a forum.

The Mitch Hawker poll was the best one out there. The rest are just pretty much garbage. So really until someone comes up with a version of that poll that is equally as good, there really isn't a better poll out there...

You'd think, but who knows? That's a lot of extra programming that needs to be done. I think the idea is admirable, but I'm sure as hell not willing to let my vacation be a beta test for someone's tech. He's talking about the tier system built into MDX like an Epcot: "Choose one ride from this list of rides, then choose two rides from this list of rides" so you can have multiple rides queued up at the same time. Lo-Q does not do this. But only if the system doesn't work and the struggle is real. If the system actually "works" then there really should be little to no explanation because it should all fall into place and make sense. If team members are having to overly explain things that means the system is flawed, not the guests. Look at how complex FastPass+ is, and while yes I admit there are some not-tech savvy people who have problems with it, the reality is that millions of people have used it without any flaws or having to overly explain what to do.

Huh... I realized we never posted a Kanonen video to our YouTube channel, so I've fixed that.... Personally, I loved this ride and hope it finds a new home. I realize I'm in the minority, but I found Kanonen's tight, snappy, airtime & hangtime filled layout way more impressive and interesting than Helix. I honestly don't understand what people see in Helix, but again, that's just me. I think it's probably my most "over-hyped" coaster I've ridden in the past decade. Not that Kanonen was an OMFG YOU NEED TO RIDE THIS RIDE NOW kind of ride, but I most certainly enjoyed it for what it was. Enjoy the video!

Aww, that's sad. I personally liked Kanonen much better than the wildly overrated Helix. But that's just me.

Yeah, and let's be honest here... as much as people may give Disney crap for how much money they spent, they tested that system for months to YEARS before it went public. I remember we used one of the first touch point tests at Epcot TWO YEARS before the actual system went live. And they did isolated cast member and resort testing at least 9 months, maybe a year before it all went live. And even when they did roll it out, it may have had some issues, but it was pretty rock solid for the most part, and rolling out features in phases was a very smart idea as it allowed them to tweak and adjust base features before rolling out new ones. Volcano Bay opens in 2 months. How much *REAL* Tapu Tapu testing are they really going to be able to do prior to park opening?

I'm seeing fewer and fewer of these out in the wild now. I'm guessing people realized they were actually more of a pain in the ass than just either holding your phone out with your arm or asking someone to take a photo of you.