milst1

I've actually given a talk at IAAPA for the last three years on exactly this topic. The only park that actually tried true DP was Slagharen, but Parques Reunidos killed the program when they took over. I work with Pricetag.nl and you can check out their video on their site. Finally, Indy Zoo is trying real DP this year. Check out their ticketing site and you'll see what it's like. I'd like to add more now but it's almost bedtime!

Larry, have you been up to Wild Bill's any time recently?

So awesome, Chuck. We were there a few years later, '09 I think. Great memories.

Closing out this report is Part II: A quick visit to get a credit at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and then we drop in at Free Gold Watch. The next segment of our San Francisco trip was to visit... SFDK in Vallejo! I actually have a Marine World Africa USA patch on my jacket, for those with interest in the park's history. And there was our target in the distance, Superman Ultimate Flight. As I mentioned in Part I, we came upon animal rights activists with protest signs at the front gate. They were nice enough to let me photograph them and I really didn't get into any discussions with them. I did wonder why the company was letting them picket on property, but I've since realized that the land is actually owned by the City of Vallejo, so it's "public property". Nobody was messing with them and they didn't get in the way of patrons coming in to the park entrance. I actually wrote a paper on radical environmentalists when I was in business school, so I do understand where they are coming from, sort of. But I don't see the end of zoos and meat-eating coming any time in the near future. Meanwhile, parks should do their best by the animals. First stop was to get our Six Flags Season Passes processed. We're hoping to hit SFGAm and SFGAdv also this year, if not more. The dolphin interaction pool looked a bit forlorn this early in the season. There's the target. On the way you can see the construction wall for the new splash battle type of attraction. I held my camera up to see over the wall. Nothing going on yet. Take that protesters! Six Flags sells carbon offsets to make your trip to the park more green! Oooooh, SNAP! Who cares more about the environment, now? Yay! Better get one of these lockers! I just had to see that substitution pop up. This was a great coaster! Well done, Premier. It's my sister Laura and Cheryl at the dippin' dots. Laura's been living in SF since the mid-90's. Nice penguins. We fed the seals and sea lions. I tried to feed the big one, but the little one kept out-swimming him and jumping out and getting my fish! Coke Freestyle! And junk food. I guess people buy this stuff. I can't do it. Refreshing. And after Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, we went to Free Gold Watch! What's Free Gold Watch? It's a print shop/arcade, whatever that means. Check this out! I love this. Classic pinball. Machine after machine after machine. They own some of them, and some of them are left here by their owners. Dirty Harry! Very San Francisco. Pinbot and Bride of Pinbot ACDC and Wizard of Oz and Attack from Mars. Wizard of Oz was the most amazing table. Roller Coaster Tycoon! Baywatch! It's a weird place. The back is a screen printing shop. I've always wanted to do this stuff. I should have asked to look at what they were doing. There are other video games, but not many. This blew me away. A real classic. And some more...Jurassic Park barely visible on the left. I'll leave you with this image from Wizard of Oz. Check this place out next time you're in the Haight. Thanks everyone!

A blast from the past...and present!

I will go back and delete that one without the pic. Here's Janfusun FancyWorld in Taiwan.

Another shirt from Taiwan, Janfusun FancyWorld.

I want the credit.

Actually, there is "bloodline" on both sides. Lori argued (if I recall the news stories correctly) that her central interest was in seeing Will Koch's children (directly blood next-gen) eventually manage the park. Those kids are 26, 23, and 20 now, adding 4 to their ages at the time of Will's death in 2010.

The Walt Disney Museum looks amazing. Thank you for sharing those pictures with us. I was wondering the same as Diamondbacker. If I was to visit Europa Park (http://rcdb.com/4870.htm), would that count as a years worth of new credits? You guys ask such good questions. I've always said "a new credit every month" but I guess what I've really meant is a minimum of one new credit every month. If we go to a new park with 3 credits, for example, then we've achieved success for that month, but there is no carry-over. We must then find a new credit when the following month rolls around. It's been exhausting, and expensive, but it gives our lives meaning, in some weird roller coaster philosophical way. Actually, TPR people know exactly what I'm talkin' about. I've just looked at the books and the truth is that I'm full of crap. I can report the following violations of this rule since May 2010, the date from which my records are most complete: Did not get a new credit in December 2010, September 2011, May 2012, October-December 2012, February 2013, and December 2013. I did visit parks in many of these months, but no new credits were to be had. It looks like I'm a big talker, because I see we've never made it through a full calendar year without breaking the rule. Streaks: 7 months in 2010 8 months in 2011 9 months in 2013 Current Streak: 3 months Maybe 2014 is the year.

Here's a 50th Anniversary Edition Silver Dollar City from the amazing TPR Middle America Tour of 2010!

I have no clue, Bill!

Loving this report!

Update on Page 2!!!! Cheryl and I have a silly little rule, and the rule is that we have to try to get at least one new credit a month. But while the rule tends to be pretty easy to follow May-ish through September-ish, it can get a bit tricky during the other 7 or so months. Take the freezing February of last month. Most of the northern hemisphere has been on general ice lock-down, and snowstorms have made it a challenge to travel. That was our fear on February 14th, when a snowstorm threatened my flight to California to meet Cheryl, who was already out west visiting family in AZ. Ha Ha, Snowstorm! You were not as bad as predicted! Next stop: wonderfully mild San Francisco! If you drive NE from SFO, you will find Pixieland in Concord, California. In 2011 we visited and found it closed when we got there, even though we had called ahead. The weather had gotten bad and they'd sent the staff home. This time, we would not be denied. We were here mainly for this. Credit for February. Check. There are some other nice things at Pixieland, like the Spider-Man themed horses on the carousel. The charming choo-choo around the park. And the little house with concrete gumdrops. Kiddie Flats. A Duck Pond. And they had good snacks, like sweet strawberries from the Central Valley, yum. But it was time to drive back to town. San Francisco gives you some amazing views, like this one. At dusk we reached the Presidio, and the Walt Disney Family Museum inside former Army barracks therein. Amazing. Walt's Oscars, including the famous Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, presented by Shirley Temple, who just passed away February 10th. There was a somber little corner for Diane Disney Miller, Walt's daughter, who passed away in November. Walt's times with his daughters helped spark the ideas for Disneyland. Here's an original poster for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Lots of amazing old Mickey merch. The famous Multiplane Camera, used on The Old Mill, Snow White, Pinnochio, Fantasia, Bambi, and Peter Pan. Demonstrations of technology used in early Disney animation, like The Skeleton Dance. I have always been fascinated by the Disney Cartoonists' Strike of 1941. It broke Walt's heart that his boys, his family, would break with him over money. Walt hated unions from that point on and turned into a lifelong Republican. Walt has been accused of being anti-Semitic, but he actually gave to Jewish charities, and it was his loathing of the union leaders, many of whom were Jewish, that was confused with anti-Semitism. That's my take after reading a bunch of biographies. In any case, one of the results of this was that the company has historically had lousy relations with organized labor, lasting pretty much to the present day. The park bench at Griffith Park in Los Angeles where early ideas for Disneyland were sparked. The actual Carolwood Pacific Railroad train, the Lilly Belle. The track and landscape layout at 355 N. Carolwood Drive. Amazing model of how Walt may have imagined Disneyland, done by an artist. Grim, Grinning, Ghosts Another view. Another view. Main Street, U.S.A. Front of the Park Animatronic frame and sculpture for Mr. Lincoln. I was too sad to take pictures of the sections covering Walt's declining health and death, just 8 months after I was born in 1966. Don't smoke, kids, it ain't worth it. So into the gift shop. Here is Chernabog, the devil in Fantasia. And Elissa-approved items, of course. We got the refrigerator magnet and these nice books. Thanks for visiting Pixieland and the Walt Disney Family Museum with us! Next Update: Radical animal activists at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom! And, Free Gold Watch!

I was thinking about how much I liked the craziness of Dodonpa because I saw the Dodonpa magnet on my fridge. So here's the Fuji-Q shirt!!!!

lol I'm headed into Manhattan today for a visit to the 9/11 Memorial plus some research at NYU and maybe Columbia too. So what's more NYC than Luna Park at Coney Island! Very psyched for their new credit!

I give you the greatest roller coaster ever conceived Prowler at Worlds of Fun

No, the taxis in Hong Kong were perfectly reasonable, except for late at night when the Peak Tram queue was super long. We hailed a cab and he asked for a huge premium because he knew that our option was waiting two hours for the tram or trying to figure out the busses. I don't remember the price, but it seemed outrageous at the time. Coming down was a fraction of the cost because we ran on the meter and our destination was an MTR station. Thanks for the love, everybody!

Here's Window on China from Taiwan!

Funworld is published by IAAPA and is good for reading about various industry trends and professionals.

My favorite is that old chestnut, mainly for wood coasters I think, that "it's better to sit in the back because it goes faster!" It's funny because of course the entire train is always traveling at the same speed as itself, but the sentiment is understandable because it is true that different parts of the train do travel over different points on the track at different speeds, e.g., the front of the train crests the lift hill slowly but the speed has clearly increased by the time the back of the train crosses the apex. Sorry if someone mentioned this already; I kinda sped through some of the posts.

Here's a shirt from Parque Warner Madrid in Spain!

I've got a few more.

I'm so sorry for not finishing up this report yet but those stupid things "my job" and "my career" have unfortunately crept into my life and have taken all of my time away from me. Add winter depression and I've really slowed down. We finally squeezed another trip in last weekend and I then realized that I hadn't finished reporting on this one, so here goes. We had another day at HK Disneyland, so we took in the Festival of Lion King. It's pretty much the same but there's no audience participation and there are a couple of animals translating the story into Chinese. There was a scene with this aerialist, and then she just kept swinging in circles. Eventually a voice announced that there were technical difficulties. Her cable wasn't reeling out, so they had to rescue her, but the show went on! We walked through Toy Story Land many times, but mainly just to get to different areas. RC Racer is there, but the parachute jump is the big draw. The land sorely needs a Toy Story Midway Mania. Fantasyland was very nice. Lots of nice theming and landscaping. It's not Tokyo, but it's an nice Pooh ride. With a nicely themed shop. It's A Small World was down for a rehab. We also caught the 3:30 parade. All of your favorite characters! And of course we hit MM a few more times until the lines got too long. One of the few still pictures I took. The "Jungle River Cruise" was bizarre. Do they have this scene in CA and FL? I don't mean to be a hater, but our guide was terrible. We waited for the English language boat but our guide wasn't super fluent. She was like, "Oh no, lion! Oh no, cannibals!" I guess sarcasm and corny jokes are hard to do in another language. But it's worth it for the big finale! The next day, we jumped on a ferry to Macau. Cheryl and I gamble a little so we wanted to check it out. In terms of gambling revenue, Macau is 7x the size of Vegas. The trip takes about an hour. Big crackdown on public smoking there. Yes, that's the Macau Tower. Did we go? No. For some reason, our hearts weren't into it. We heard the Skyjump was really expensive, and we just didn't bother. Instead, we went to the Venitian! Yes, it's the Ice World show with your favorite Dreamworks characters. We had never been to the ones at the Gaylord Palms in Florida so we decided to check it out. They give you those parkas, and you can buy other accessories for the cold. Santa! This was in January. Does the Gaylord do this too? How to Train Your Dragon Kung Fu Panda The Croods Madagascar Cheryl on the ice slide! Madagascar And of course... Shrek and Fiona Dragon Donkey and Puss The Venetian is so fucking big. We walked around their giant mall for a while. And we found a really great restaurant there. This was just so yummy. It did bug me that they had shark fin soup on the menu. We definitely have seen restaurants in Asia with "Shark Fin Free" stickers on the door, but this was not one of them. Still, this was good food. Thank you Venetian. Back to the free buses to the ferries. Another hour back to HK. Our last stop was to the Peak Tram, but it was so crowded, and late, that we said fuck it and paid an outrageous price to take a cab to the top. At the top you get your money shots like this. And your shitty selfies, like this. We were waiting in line for another cab back down, when I ran into one of my fraternity brothers from college! He was there on business. I work very near where he lives, but we never see each other. So this was cool. I even had my Columbia sweatshirt on! We finally got back to Disneyland. here's the train station at night. It's crowded when the park closes. We decided not to deal with the crowds getting onto the hotel busses, so we walked. Here's the centerpiece fountain at night. The path to the hotel is very beautiful. It's incredibly peaceful and empty at night. I think the walk to the hotel was 20 minutes max. It was gorgeous. We saw one person, a watchman, the entire walk. Thank you for visiting Hong Kong with us!!!

Need a credit in the Chicagoland area? Try Safariland in Villa Park!