Zero One

Thanks. It's always fun to shoot at Animal Kingdom because the animals always make it different.

Yes, Happy Earth Day Birthday! Welcome to Animal Kingdom! Special animal cutouts they encouraged you to take pictures with and #disneyanimals It's a Party! Even if it was a little overcast today... Typical lazy kangaroo Lots of birds today This was a wild one Porcupines These guys were having fun Almost time They moved the Dino-Land bird show into the bird show stadium as a pre-show. I don't know if this is a permanent change to the show but I do know I will stop saying show for the rest of this post. Show chicken ...sorry... Trumpeter Hornbill A wild Joe approaches! Where did his flag go? Ahhh... Joe was not pleased Look at that face!!!! Something you don't see every day... money back at a theme park! A bigger hornbill And he gets a snack That's Baby! Baby is very beautiful Harris Hawk Frasier... Frasier Crane Hope I'm glad they resolved that plotline and didn't leave a cliffhanger until season 2 Owl There are more than animals at Animal Kingdom But it is Earth Day so we won't dwell on the roller coasters I'm not sure raccoons live in Africa but this one found a nice home on the Gorilla Falls Trail Colobus monkey Spiny mouse Lizard & Son Bird shower Shampoo And rinse Oh sorry, I'll give you some privacy I promised more birds So get ready for more Ok last one. Timon and friend Bored or angry? Angry... ...because his blanket was stolen! These guys are pretty good They get the audience involved too Stop and watch next time you're in Africa Water horse Croc Hey! Watch where you point those things! Just... a little... further... Lot's of action on the savannah Yum What are you looking at? Ok stop looking at us As long as you stay there we'll be cool More horn fights. Time to get out of here! Thanks for reading!

Photos from this weekend. The Seven Seas Food Fest continues with the Commodores as the musical guest. Next week switches to Latin music and a new Latin booth replaces the BBQ. There is also a last look at Kraken as we knew it and the animals of the soon to be removed Sea Garden. View all the pictures on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/gp/cchard/rxsGm7

I am not sure if the CF policy has changed in the last few years but my experience is that they forbid anyone not tall enough to ride from going in the line. The reason is that a guest could simply lie and then when they get to the station the kid rides (station crew is often too busy to notice a child who is a little too short and do a second check). You can still ask. But I recommend you expect to be told No.

Rode the Fallon ride today. I agree with most people here that it's a bit of a mess and is yet another 3d movie ride. But what I really wanted to mention was the virtual queue experience. I got there around 4pm and used Express Pass to just walk right in but apparently they had run out of virtual queue times around 1pm today. So there was a constant huge crowd of people by the entrance who wanted to ride but couldn't and the team members were continuously yelling at the crowd that "This is for virtual queue and express pass only. There is no standby. Come back at 9pm if you want to try to ride." Some guests would wander away while others kept asking questions about why they were not allowed to wait. It was quite the cluster.

So the APs that already pay the most have to pay $50 more for the water park than the cheaper passes?

It's going to be really interesting to see how they launch the park - between the ticketing being bundled (at first at least) and the queue system... that's a lot of "new" to bring to market at once. Once operations start, I bet it's going to be interesting to monitor how first month policies change by the end of the year! Who knows what kinds of internal forecasts/expectations they have for the park... but I will say that if Robb is right (and obviously he probably is) about locals not being the market for Disney waterparks, I've got to assume that Universal is seeing that as their plan too... and so the bundled park/hotel guest is going to be the plan longer term. And hopefully they guest numbers just ramp as the hotel expansions come into the market, as the waterpark operations get smoother, and it all works out fine. Maybe Universal will also take a page from Disney's seasonal ticket pricing, and what Great Wolf Lodge does, and eventually just sell 1 day tickets during non-peak times. They must have some plan for tons of day guests because they've spent a ton of money redesigning the parking garages and building a new access road to VB. If the plan was to cater mostly to resort guests they could have just built a small drop off and done a shuttle bus from the current resort bus area for the few day guests who parked at the garage on non-peak days.

This isn't the Universal thread but this is an interesting topic. I think the fact they haven't said a single word about AP access to VB says a ton. I don't know if they'll avoid single day tickets entirely (at least to start) but it won't shock me if they end up trying to control attendance with high prices, packages, and no-AP admission.

I've been working on this for a couple months and just released it on Steam and the NoLimits exchange. It's my first time releasing a coaster with custom scenery but I think it turned out pretty well. Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689460399 NLE: http://nolimits-exchange.com/coaster/warbird/10016 Warbird is a B&M Dive Machine themed to the flying aces of WWII. It features TWO vertical drops with hold brakes and a dual station for high capacity. You can also run with only one station (I recommend using the left side so the ADA elevator can be used). Custom scenery includes entrance, queue, station building, control panels, gift shop and aircraft! Stats: Height: 226 ft Max Speed: 78 mph Second Drop: 144 ft Inversions: 2 Ride time: 3:15 Trains: 6 (5 operating/1 spare) Capacity: 1900/hr And a full POV if you don't have NL2:

Here is a video playthrough I found:

B&M Hyper Standing Vertical Floorless Wingrider Wood (with Mine or PTC trains) Intamin Rocket edit: Other things: Pro: Path building is good (just like roads in Cities Skylines). Scenery items included in the beta seem good. Terrain modification is easy too. Graphics good/looks pretty Cons: All coasters have fixed station lengths and 2-4 themes each. Wood coasters don't recalculate supports when you go under other tracks so it looks like you are crashing. Despite following instructions on the game's forums I still can't figure out how to add more than 1 train on a coaster.

No RMC now. Never tried TPS but I have many hours in NL1/2 and this is harder for me to use. Any time you try to change a node (like bank or angle) it moves the whole thing with your mouse so it's impossible to keep straight lines or even keep curves and hills how you set them. Been playing for 2 hours how and I still can't figure out how to make a straight line at all. Not to mention elements. I dont think the devs know how to use it either. There is only 1 pre-built inversion included and it is the worst loop I have ever seen: http://i.imgur.com/UxY6HIK.jpg That picture can hardly convey how little it looks like a loop. Also that helix is another pre-built item... yikes.

Oh boy... the coaster builder is bad. Real bad. The reason none of the previews have shown realistic looking coasters is that I don't think it's possible to make one. Played for little over an hour and gave up on an Invert after I couldn't build a loop, then gave up on an Dragster type ride because the game couldn't handle a vertical climb. Then finally got a little hyper-coaster going but still looked silly. Learning curve is worse than NoLimits 1/2 for sure.

Where did you hear that? I highly doubt that is what Disney would've done, I'm sure they would've put just as much detail into the area as Universal did. I'm pretty sure the reason Disney declined the project was because JK Rowling is freaking crazy when it comes to her precious Potter franchise. I remember something similar to this at the time. That Rowling wanted to require everyone who visited Disney's Harry Potter park to have a true-to-book experience which would have caused operational nightmares. Things like the entrance to the park being a one at a time walk through the Diagon Alley brick wall. You can still see the impact of her demands at Hogsmeade... where all the stores are realistically sized, instead of theme park sized. I swear this was a Jim Hill story, but the only good article I found was this: http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2007/06/01/why-for-today.aspx which doesn't go into detail about Disney's problem's with Rowling's ideas. BTW, that article is also good for some laughs. I'm still waiting on the flying car ride at Sinbad's theater and the Pirates makeover of Adventureland.

Pendragon, a B&M Floorless coaster featuring a double twisting "Dragonwing" element. Exchange: http://themeparkreview.com/game_exchange/track.php?id=3102

Here is my suggestion that I haven't seen yet: Give us a button (in the ride control panel) to set switch tracks to not change while in automatic mode. Mostly I want this as a way when playing with a coaster with dual stations to run in one station mode. Also this is either a question or a suggestion: Is there a way to move trains backwards out of stations into the transfer table while in blue-manual mode (for example on Kumba)? If so, I can seem to find it and if not, please add it. Trains should be able to be moved from block to block backwards or forwards as long as there are drive tires/lims and the block is clear. Real coasters can do this. Full manual mode is annoying to use in these situations.

An Intel Graphics problem is very possible and you may not have any good choices if you don't have another card in your laptop. I have heard reports that if you just let the game keep going it will eventually load those parks.

If you are getting an "Invalid call" error (or hundreds of them) when trying to load B&M tracks, I was able to fix this by forcing the game to use my Nvidia card. Just go to your Nvidia control panel and "Manage 3D Settings" Add No Limits 2 to your program list. Select the preferred graphics processor to "High-Performance NVIDIA Processor" Obviously this only works if you have a Nvidia card, but I think the problem is limited to those cards only (and possibly only the mobile versions). I also believe it is happening to B&M tracks only (happened to me on Hydra, that new Hyper, and the Dive coaster but not Tatsu and none of the other styles). I hope this helps the devs track down the issue.

8car trainer lets me move the guest entry point to a place in the middle of the map. But when it comes time to leave the peeps exit the park but then are constantly walking back and forth on the path outside the park. It seems that the exit point isn't moved. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Like most acquisitions, it seemed like a good idea at the time: The only way it could fail is if there was some perfect storm where proposed cost savings couldn't be found and/or the merging of cultures was mismanaged. Even if those two things DID happen, the parks were ALL profitable anyway and in the worst case payments could still be made on the debt. Reducing the debt payments or extending deadlines would be as simple as refinancing. It's not like the banks are going to stop lending, right? Anyway, pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong (some in the company's control and some out of their control). There was no reason to object to the purchase at the time. It seemed like a really good plan.

Has anyone else noted that negotiations with Apollo were already underway when Cedar Fair announced the end of the dividend? That announcement sent the stock crashing and really helped Apollo get a great deal.

Private equity firms, in theory, can have an advantage in that they don't have to run everything to look good for stockholders. In other words, they can try more long term strategies and not have to worry about Wall Street punishing them for a bad quarter or two. From the WSJ article: Of course this deal is all dependent on shareholder approval. Assuming the information in the article is correct, 700 million would be about 12.67 per share. Less than the 52 week high and far less than what it was way back in 2007 (and about half what I paid for it). And I hate to break it to all you people ready to kick Kinzel to the curb: new owners doesn't necessarily mean new management. This isn't a hostile takeover so part of the negotation may involve certain people getting new positions with Apollo. And since Apollo doesn't have any park experience, it would make since to keep the old management team in place. EDIT: Almost forgot, it MIGHT be a stock-for-stock transaction (since Apollo will be on the NYSE soon) but a cash only deal is also possible.

For the past few years I've felt that the coaster categories need a shakeup. For example, look at this year's steel coaster list. Every single top-10 coaster is a non-inverting hypercoaster. They are ALL very similar. Not that I don't think they are good (quite the opposite), but the fact that they are so popular makes it impossible for any other kind of coaster to make the Top 10. I'd suggest breaking up the Steel coaster category into two different subsets: 1. Best Non-Inverting Steel Coaster 2. Best Inverting Steel Coaster You could break it down even more if you wanted: Best non-inverting steel coaster under 200 ft tall, best launched coaster, best family coaster. They already do "Best Indoor Coaster" in the Ride category. Wood vs. Steel used to be a good division between the type of coaster it was. But now there are dozens (hundreds?) of varieties of steel coasters that have wildly different attributes, designs, and their own positives that make them special in their own way but not the same as the hyper coasters that always win.

IAAPA has issued an alert for H1N1: http://www.iaapa.org/safety/influenza.asp

It doesn't look like they have built a very large queue. I know the ride has a high capacity, but that little section just seems really small.