CoasterLover

^Would much prefer that IMHO.

So, this happened today... pretty crazy storm came through the area bringing lots of localized flash flooding. Photo from "Justin Berk, Meteorologist"'s Facebook page.

Haunt name wouldn't be trademarked unless it was going to be for a year round haunt. Not necessarily true... Cedar Fair also held trademarks for "Alien Crypt 3D" and "Nightmare Manor", both of which were seasonal mazes at various Haunt events.

According to Universal's Facebook page, the Hogwarts Express is now open. To be specific, it says "boarding today" so not sure if this is just a quick soft opening today only or if it will be open regularly for the next week before the grand opening of Diagon Alley or, in true "soft opening" style, if it will be open on and off over the next week.

I'd actually start with Dragon's Challenge. If you go for Hulk first, you need to walk right under the first drop and right near the first inversions just to enter the queue. You will see the ride long before you get on it and it will lead up to ample time to talk yourself out of it. Dragon's Challenge you can don't see much of until you are just entering the queue. Plus, if you like one side, you can get off the ride and jump right on your next inverting coaster by riding the other side.

If Universal was to use the Nickelodeon characters again, I'd much rather see them do it as a full fledged, separate gate new water park. I'd love to see a crazy new waterpark like that Cartoon Network Amazone water park come to Universal and I think the Nickelodeon characters would be a perfect match for such a water park. Just my opinion though...

I really think it will only be linked for recording the commercial and even when they do that, they'll have Zoomanjaro on some sort of "manual mode" where they can hoist the gondola up and hold it there until the Kingda Ka train is in just the right position. Then hit a "release" button. I'd wager to guess Drop of Doom and Superman essentially never time up perfectly like they did for the commercial shoot.

^What you see in that second pic is about it. You have to keep in Mind that SFA doesn't get terribly long lines and they have a bunch of rides that have queue lines that are WAY bigger than they need to be and essentially NEVER get used (ROAR, Joker's Jinx, Batwing, and Apocalypse quickly come to mind). I think the amount of queue they have there will be appropriate in a year or two when the hype dies down and until then, they have some space outside the main entrance to the queue where they could easily set up a temporary overflow queue.

Something along the lines of keeping on the path and out of the landscaping (until recently, they did not have any queue rails up).

Work continues on the queue and station. I'd say it looks a fair deal better than it did last weekend..

^Would seem unusual that they wouldn't come back for this small amount of work when both Radcliff and Watson did a fair amount of work for Forbidden Journey. Not to mention, I believe they are in some of the promotional material for the new area.

Now they just need to find a way to make teleportation work so they can send you by flu powder to Potterland 3.0. Seriously though, have to wonder if they have any plans to further expand the Potter universe in Orlando with three more Potter related films coming out, or if this is it. If they knew it was going to be this successful, I wonder if they would have considered making it it's own entire park.

^There isn't one, or at least nothing complicated. It's more or less just a station platform. I'm told a canopy will be built over the station platform, but nothing more.

Rajin Cajun media day is tomorrow with season passholder previews starting Friday.

ACE has an ERT on Ragin' Cajun the morning of June 28th (before the park opens to the GP) and that was already pushed back once. The ACE ERT was intended to be a preview of the ride before it officially opened to the GP, so, given that it is already late in opening, I'd expect a public opening to possibly be later that day. There is the possibility that there could be a season passholder preview the week before, but I wouldn't expect it to open much before then. As of last weekend, there was still no queue/station platform/landscaping/entrance sign/testing.

^Not impossible... the terminal velocity of a skydiver is about 135 mph, but the terminal velocity of a baseball is only 74 mph. The gondola will have a fair amount of mass, but the car is by no means aerodynamic. That drag force accompanied by the friction of the wheels on the guide rail could result in the gondola reaching terminal velocity (for that object) at 90 mph. If that were the case, the only way to make it go faster would be to make it more aerodynamic.

Oddly, the most recent pictures I've seen for Ragin Cajun show an essentially completed ride, but no station or queue. Makes me think the station will be minimal (unless they have something prefabricated coming in in a couple larger pieces) which is a bit disappointing seeing the station the ride used to have at SFGAm. Hopefully, it all comes together in the next couple weeks. The park gets a LOT of it's business through the waterpark. Seeing a new water park attraction as the main attraction every third year or even every other year would not be unheard of. Seeing as the park just got approval to build over 200' and used a SkyScreamer as a potential reason as to why they may want to build over 200', I'd think a SkyScreamer would be right in line after two coasters in three years. If that does happen in 2015, a new water park attraction is almost certain in 2016 (a mat-racer seems the most likely). Wild One celebrates it's 100th "birthday" (since it originally opened as Giant Coaster at Paragon Park) in 2017. I've heard rumors of a Rocky Mountain treatment, but honestly, I would DESPISE that idea! Wild One is a fantastic classic wooden coaster that is running in near perfect condition. If they want to do other improvements like restoring the original turnaround or improving the blocking, that's fine, but do not add inversions and whatnot. If they want to build a new, smaller Rocky Mountain coaster (like Outlaw Run), I'd be all for that, but don't change Wild One!

Not to sound negative, because I'm one of the biggest SFA fanboys out there, but the season is still early. The park has a habit of having great operations until about Memorial Day, but once they move to daily operations, things start to decline. I hope you'll go to the park again later this season to see if the operations are the same. However, what has changed for the permanent is the park up-keep. Everything is painted, there's lots of new landscaping, a lot of the recent additions have been in areas of the park that were neglected and now, with the additions, look fantastic. I think the park is still a few years away from being "there" but I'm cautiously optimistic. A couple more years of additions in the right locations could really complete this transformation.

^Just put the top spin indoors (ala the former Tomb Raider at Kings Island). I always thought that attraction had some of the best stateside themeing outside of Orlando.

^Here it is in action... pretty amazing [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Get their early. As a non-gated park, you can take a relaxing stroll around the park while it's still quiet before things start to open. It's a great way to see the park without feeling like you're missing out on ride time. Ride the coasters either in the morning or afternoon/evening. The park typically only adds second trains if the line gets to a certain point and typically they don't hit that point until mid afternoon. Once they hit that point, with two trains, the lines fly, but if you get their at the awkward time just before they hit that point (usually around lunch), you might find yourself waiting a bit with only one train running. Hit the log flume... I think it's one of the better non-Orlando ones out there...

Hopefully a bucket ride or some other sort of transport ride from the "new" area to Midway America is planned because that's going to be a LONG walk!

Six Flags America has a park slightly to the north (Hershey) and slightly to the south (Busch Gardens) which each offer a winter event, so it isn't a matter of temperature. However, Six Flags America has little (if anything) to have open (ride wise) for a winter event and even their number of enclosed venues for shows and whatnot is highly limited. They'd really have to go all out on the lights and decorations to have something that people would come to see, but when you see what Busch Gardens does, even that would be a tough task. Not surprising to finally see SFOG extend their season. It's an easy way to keep the revenue rolling for a longer period and get the most out of the park's assets. I would love to see them do some sort of winter themed Monster Mansion.

Wonder if they could work something like this into the Volcano mountain at Kings Dominion... around the existing coaster of course...

They posted a photo on their Twitter page of guests riding the new trains... https://twitter.com/SF_newengland/status/460136764267835392/photo/1