DBJ
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Posts posted by DBJ
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I remember this story about the Tower of Terror. I think it would be interesting to know whether or not a drop tower ride like TOT actually does have any health benefits to the rider.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/ailing-woman-sues-disney-for-kicking-her-off-ride/nJk2x/
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Speedy looks like a cute installation for that area of the park. I hope also they get one of those "spinning coasters" from IAPPA (great video coverage of that!), which I believe is going into Silverwood. For coaster #20, probably should be something special. For SFMM, I think if they stay focused on the coaster path, that at least gives them an identity that is different in the local marketplace. They will never be able to compete with Universal or Disney for family attractions. But it is beyond rare for Universal and Disney to build coasters, and that gives SFMM a marketable and cost effective selling point.
Generally, I actually do not want to see LA County fair style flat rides in SFMM at all. For the balancing of the park's attraction roster, instead of flats, would much rather seem them pursue Sally Corp. for an interactive dark ride, some kind of film based motion sim ride, better live entertainment, etc.
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That looks really good. I think that pretty much every park could use a coaster like this in their attractions roster.
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Oh cool! I was wondering when they were going to start. Great to see the first stages take effect. How long did Cars Land take from initial parking lot clearing ground work to opening?
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Thanks for the link! Interesting to read. The title of the film always bothered me, labeling or even suggesting that a whale is a "fish."
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If they ever were going to do the third gate for Disneyland resort, Star Wars would be their best ip anchor for a new park. Hope they announce something more concrete prior to the next movie in Dec 2015.
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A giant swing would likely not work in that location, actually would be a better companion attraction over in the "boardwalk" area, once they relocate the Scrambler and Gliders. Windseeker was an example of really making the most use of the small footprint. I would hope Knott's is looking at bringing in something unique for our region.
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I am really hoping that they are targeting to do more than 2 rides for the Avatar land. Personally, love to see a significant coaster be part of the experience. Probably too intense for the average WDW guest to do a themed B&M Flyer or Wingrider over a Pandora (Carsland/Everest) landscape. The concept art, while pretty, strikes me as 1 potentially dull float through "Small World of Pandora", and their twist of Universal's Spider-Man/Transfomers ride concept. With the movies scheduled for 2016-2018, hoping they can move a tad more quickly on the construction than some of their more recent projects. I also wonder if is not going to be developed for both Florida and China?
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My takeaway from the miceage article is at least Disney is thinking about putting in another large scale thrill ride for the land, which is always a good thing. I am not sure about Star Wars being the dominate theme for Disneyland's Tomorrowland, I think this Carsland-esque (1 land, 1 theme) concept would work better in Florida. Personally, would like to see an additional flat ride, something a bit more exciting than a simplistic spinner, using the Starcade/upper deck of Space Mountain line, or on top of the old Rocket Rods platform rather than moving Astro Orbiter. The placement of Astro Orbiter doesn't really bother me. A giant Millenium Falcon would just look crazy, and all for a Wookie photo op? The Star Wars Cantina idea sounds interesting, and I could see that maybe working as a replacement for Pizza Port.
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Thanks for the review. Checking it out next weekend, hopefully. Love the little opening bit with grabbing an audience member. That is a nice tough. Great pics! Helps with the plan of how to tackle the event.
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The pictures look great! Thanks! Very nice looking water park.
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Guests I noticed get highly confused if they are line for Mummy or for Evil Dead. They had an announcer trying to help remind people of which way to go.
Did you mean JP and Insidious, since those queues almost overlap? Evil Dead and Mummy enter in two completely different areas, and only line jumpers get them confused...
Actually saw that happen in both locations. Whe in line for Evil Dead, some "guests" took down the rope to head to the Mummy. While in line for JP briefly, saw people just step over the rope to join the Insidious line. Generally, with the lack of security at some points in these extended lines, pretty easy to do line jumping. I will say that however that it seemed like the crowd was pretty well-behaved and orderly which was great.
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I went on Saturday night. Here are my observations. The lower lot strategy first does seem to work, partially. Went straight to the lower lot. Walked onto Transformers to get a ride in. Exited Transformers and then started the walk to "Walking Dead". It is interesting that you walk quite a bit to get to the tram stop for the Walking Dead/Black Sabbath mazes. You take the special tram, and drops you off in the city backlot. It is pretty rare that toursits get a chance to walk these backlot sets, and I loved the use of them for the event. Waited 15 minutes for Walking Dead, which is effective.
After leaving the exit of Walking Dead maze, you essentially circle the perimter of that maze to reach the Black Sabbath entrance. It is here you will appreciate how massive of a crowd they are expecting, the line queque is mind boggling huge. Entered Black Sabbath maze in about 15 minutes of waiting in line. Thought the maze was disconnected from the music, and freakishly warm. Bizzarely colorful, with some instances of good use of 3D. The 3D glasses are free, which is a nice touch.
So then after another mildly long walk to get back to tram, the Walking Dead/Sabbath maze tram drops you off near-ish the back of the Mummy building, near where the Evil Dead maze exits. After rejoining the rest of the lower lot, walked onto the Mummy Coaster for a ride, zero wait. After that, went to find Insidious. Now this is quite a line. You go up and over Jurrassic Cafe, back down into the JP normal queque, and then wait for about 20 min. Not a bad wait. Thought this was the most suprising of the mazes, some good twists / scares. And man, does Universal love stenches. The last room just reeks of bowel movements.
When you exit Insidious, you are suprising distant from the park, bit of a walk to get back onto lower lot. Moved through sea of people to reach Evil Dead. Guests I noticed get highly confused if they are line for Mummy or for Evil Dead. They had an announcer trying to help remind people of which way to go. Wait wasn't too bad, took about 20 min. While I disliked the remake of the movie for it's lack of style, the theme worked well for a maze. After leaving Evil Dead maze, surpise, back at the rear of Mummy building. Not exactly a short walk to do twice. Kind of muggy out, so rode JP "in the dark", and only a 10 min wait. Thought the boat stalled out, while listening to "Welcome ot The Jungle", before the final drop, mild wetness ensued. Went back up to the uper lot. By this point, it was only 9pm. Stopped for some food from Mel's. Hmmm, not the best to say the least.
Terror Tram was a walk-on after dinner. Effectivly long, and the 2nd experience themed to Walking Dead. It was just okay and bizarrely redundant after seeing two other Walking Dead sections. Rejoined the upper lot for El Cucuy, which I enjoyed, and a 10 min wait posted, but probably more like 20. Then off to Monsters Remix, which was better than last year, and literally walked right into it with no wait.
We decided to go back to lower lot instead of wait for Bill and Ted. Had another walk-on experience with Transformers (posted wait time of 20 minutes, but actually no waiting), and did the Evil Dead maze a second time because of the 20 min wait. By this point, the Walking Dead maze, depending on what sign you looked at, was either 50 minutes or 80 minutes. Opted to skip that, and moved our way back up to upper lot. Watched a few minutes of the "Purge" skit, and called it a night.
My observation is that we didn't need the gate "A" / FOP pass. It would have been a serious waste of money for our crowd levels on Saturday night. The lower lot strategy worked well in our case. I think on a crazy busy night closer to Halloween, the VIP pass would be a better value.
And Walking Dead is the appropiate theme for the event. I don't think I have ever walked so much of Universal Studios as a tourist as I did that night.
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When is the debut date of the show? I am saving my next Carthay Circle lunch or dinner WOC combo to see this updated show. The Carthay Circle viewing area was pretty great. Nice and centered, and could walk up to it within minutes of the show starting.
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Knott's sure doesn't have much luck with rides with the name "wind" in them.
Imo, Knott's needs some kind of coherent 10 yr. plan going forward. The restoration work so far has been great, but the last several ride installations have been very questionable. Knott's aimed way to low with the boardwalk area, of all of the available family rides out there, the choices they made were uninspired. I feel that is a trap that SF and CF get into, their version of family rides tend to be so basic and visually dead. Just zipping around the LA Fair, you see flat rides with lighting packages and creative, themed out paint jobs that are better than what you find in most CF and SF parks. Then comparing to one of those amazing European fairs, it is even worse. So for the next family ride from Knott's, would like to see them aim much higher than what they did this year.
I agree that a coaster of some size is long overdue for Knott's. I don't think they need to go crazy tall, but a longer coaster experience would be great. Something like a longer version of the mummy at Universal, just so neighbors don't complain about the noise. A thrilling coaster that can cross the age brackets pretty well.
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I think I can deal with what, 4 blackout days for Fright Fest? Wonder if this year is a test to see if they can make FF a separate admission like the other parks do for their Halloween events. Nice to some focus on to keep expanding the FF experience as well. As far as the additions, very glad to see them working on Hurricane Harbor again. Are the Bonzai Pipelines being attached to a pre-existing tower/slide, or is this all new construction? A tad unusual that the coaster for kids doesn't have a name as of yet with some incredibly vague details. Interesting they now will have a kids coaster record. Always like Colossus backwards during FF, great that it is now year round. Batman backwards should be fun to try.
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One thing I would recommend doing at Fright Fest is the dinner that is offered. Similar to Knott's pre-scare, the food is okay, and you get special attention from the actors. Our group also enjoyed the musical numbers they put on. It was a highlight of our Fest experience.
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I do miss the old insulting Chucky from past years. The Purge was not a very interesting movie visually, so that is kind of bland direction to go. Carthay 2.0 will look fine, but I always hope for new attraction or ride versus retail, if it is indeed retail.
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Thanks for the pic! It puts the project in perspective nicely.
Really good to see Fox be more aggressive in the theme park space finally. I am wondering what they feel are the key ip's that will speak to the Malaysian market and surrounding tourist base. Universal has done great work with the Simpsons down in Florida. It will be interesting to see which design firms are chosen, and what they can achieve.
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I would say yes to doing Knott's both day and night. During the Haunt, the lines can get pretty long for the coasters/rides depending on the day/night. And with the various live shows which are not running during the day, you can find yourself running out of time to fit in the rides, haunt mazes, and shows into one 6/7 hour night.
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I am really looking forward to seeing what they are able to achieve with the Jungle Cruise. Two versions sounds pretty ambitious, and hopefully it serves as inspiration for the rest of the chain.
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Well, let's see.
Your assumption is correct. It is easier to get from Universal Studios to LAX on your return trip. There is no easy transportation between the parks. A car rental is probably the most convenient way to get between the parks. I would definitely look at the hotels with shuttle service to/from LAX, especially for the trip to Knotts. When I fly out of LAX, I use the shuttle services.
If you seeing HHN, there is little reason to see Universal during the day. The only things you will miss will be the backlot tour, Shrek and Waterworld. Everything else is open at night. Also recommend the express pass for Universal. The lines are insane during the event. My general gameplan for HHN is to always head towards the lower lot. That is where the best attractions are located, and a couple of mazes. Kind of work backwards.
My Knott's plan is to usually start in reverse also. I do the pre-scare dinner, ride Ghostrider first, then start hitting the mazes by Ghostrider and move through the park. The new boardwalk area is unlikely to change the traffic flow too much. Some nights it is easily possible to finish the park in the haunt hours. However, if I had the time, I would do park during the day for rides, and then come back for Haunt to do the mazes and shows especially Fri/Sat/Sun.
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It is probably time for SFMM to pay a bit more attention to Hurricane Harbor. They are the only local park in the LA area that has an attached waterpark that could be exploited. And yet, a complete lack of new attractions for the park. Maybe Hurricane Harbor has a terrible ROI or something. Be nice to see SF start to build water coasters for HH. Instead of watching SFMM dump 15 million or more into another coaster, imagine that money put towards expanding HH out into the parking lot.
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Thanks for the POV, the footage looks great.
But yeah, I hope they can get some shade and cooling installed pretty quickly. Heat wave hitting this week in so cal.
Best and Worst SoCal Parks?
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
If you are on a coaster trip, then
1.) SFMM - not sure if they will have reversed Batman by the time of your visit.
2.) DL & DCA ( 1 day parkhopper), and looks like Big Thunder is back up very shortly with some new effects.
3.) Universal
4.) Knotts
USH is only impressive if you haven't seen Despicable Me or Transformers in Florida. If you have not, then I would recommend the park because it does offer attractions not found elsewhere locally. Knott's I don't think is unique enough in it's attraction selection, outside of Halloween season, to recommend it. I would only recommend Knott's if someone is coming to CA for the Disney parks, and wants another park to visit that is close by.