disney4me2001

I second this!

This is true. In fact, I know Disney gave the USH execs a tour of Cars Land over the summer! Supposedly the purpose of the tour was to give the USH team ideas for WWOHP in terms of immersiveness and Guest control. And likewise, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if USO had given Disney a similar tour of their WWOHP when they were working on Cars Land.

Haha! I live in AZ, and I'm maybe about half an hour from Castles n Coasters. Haven't been on Desert Storm in years, but I do remember it being kind of rough the last time I was there! But then again, one nice thing about it is the fact that it's lap bars only (at least it was when I was there last). Just imagine how much more rough it would be if it had Revolution's restraint system!

My suggestion- if you can, go for West Coast Bash in September. The ERT alone will make it worthwhile! Even if you decide you don't like the service/operations, you'll at least get your fill of rides in to last you another 4-5 years!

I was just pointing out how much I liked that part of the comic. Yes, I realize that the comic was at least in part referring to the discussion going on earlier about the relevance (or rather lack thereof) of Toon Lagoon's characters.

I would love to see that- I never got to ride the one that used to be at Knott's! I suggested a different former Knott's ride to them- Hammerhead (Zamperla Rotoshake)...sure, it's obscure/obsolete, but it would still be nice to see it in the game! I liked Hammerhead much better than I like Riptide (a Huss Top Spin)! Plus the amount of detailed theming Hammerhead had was amazing considering it was a flat ride.

This is true...try saying it 10 times fast!

Love it! You have no idea how many times I've tried to correct people on the name of the area! "It's the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, not 'Harry Potter Land' or 'World of Potter'."

Ah, that would explain it then. I was wondering if it was really happening or if it was under unsecret wraps like Potter. Guess we'll find out soon enough!

Believe me, I love Transformers and I'm looking forward to HP. I'm talking about a gentle dark ride. A couple of my family members can't go on Transformers and likely won't be able to do Potter due to motion sickness from the sudden movements of the ride vehicles. Over at Disneyland, for example, they can go on the Fantasyland classics but can't handle Indy. So what I should have said was "family" dark ride. When ET was still at USH, they were able to go on that because it wasn't all that shaky, so a new ride like that would be perfect there. Sorry, I should have been more specific earlier. But going back to discussing USO/IOA and JP, that Gravity Group concept would be awesome for the expansion! From the model showing the aquarium theme, I can almost picture what it might look like with the JP overlay! I liked the picture showing the eel- imagine a raptor positioned in the dark there and then having it suddenly popping out at you! And another thing- any timeline yet as to when exactly the Springfield area for USF might open? Or even when it might be officially announced? Seems like there was quite a bit of info coming out about it and then nothing.

Saw this on the USO discussion thread. It's rumored that the JP area of IOA will be getting an expansion in time for the opening of JP4 in theaters. Getting the Discovery Center dark ride here at USH would be awesome, although I highly doubt it'll happen (due to space). But maybe we could at least get the upgraded effects and AAs on JP?

You pretty much summed up my thoughts as well- I too have never been to USO! While I am excited for the other expansion projects, I hope that this one is happening because it would be nice to see Universal embrace their own properties a bit more. Not that Transformers isn't amazing (I've been on the USH version), and I'm sure Springfield and the Potter expansion will be great, but they seem out of place to me since they're not Universal franchises. Of course, Disney puts in a fair share of franchises they don't own into their parks, but at least the ratio of Disney properties to non-Disney ones is better. Plus a JP expansion will be great to promote the new film (which I'm sure is why they're doing this in the first place). Hopefully this means that the JP area of the park will be staying for a while! On a side note, hopefully the dark ride concept could be duplicated somehow at USH. Somehow I doubt it, but seeing how Comcast is serious about investing in the Universal parks, maybe it could happen! The main issue there is space. Just wishful thinking- USH just really needs a good classic dark ride since ET was replaced by Mummy!

"I got a rock."

Awesome! Can't wait! Maybe at the SFMM Q&A we'll be able to get confirmation of the Colossus refurbishment- if they don't officially announce it before then!

Oh yeah, absolutely! Believe me, I would love it if Disney could really raise the bar with Shanghai! It will hopefully set new standards for not just the industry, but for the other Disney parks too! And thanks for posting more Tokyo Disney pictures, Hanno!

Seconded! I went to SFMM in 2009 after not having visited last since 2005. I was extremely impressed with how well everything was running (at least compared to 2005), how friendly the employees were, and how clean the park looked. Again, this was compared to 2005, but I went in with low expectations and walked out of the park at the end of the day very satisfied. I made a point to upgrade to a season pass that day because I enjoyed the park so much, and I've had a season pass each year since then. I tried to give Bonnie the benefit of the doubt when it was announced that Jay was leaving and that she was taking over, but sadly things have declined quite a bit. I'm sure she's a nice person, but just not a good park president.

I think Shanghai could give it a good run for its money, but only time will tell!

Yes please! I would love to see a full week of Tokyo Disney! Actually, that would be cool if each week were themed to some extent- maybe a week of Intamins, a week of B&Ms, Cedar Fair week, Six Flags, Disney, Universal, etc. But do keep the photos coming- they're all great!

That's hilarious! How do they react? Do they know you're joking, or do most think you're being serious?

Oh, okay. I get what you're saying now. Yeah, I think that's what the fuss was about- supposedly OSHA standards have gotten so strict to where there's almost no way to have monsters inside of a ride-through attraction anymore without it being considered "too dangerous." Obviously they pulled it off for 2012, not to mention all of the past years, so it's still possible, but it's getting much tougher to do from what I understand. Maybe someone from Knott's can shed some light on this. But we'll know soon enough what's in store for Haunt 2013!

I was going to buy a 2013 Gold pass online and process it at SFMM, but I was in Texas over the holidays and ended up processing at SFOT instead. Over there it only took 5 minutes to get not only my pass processed, but the rest of my family as well. Based on what I'm reading about SFMM, I'm glad we made that decision! But SFMM definitely needs to improve their processing center. At SFOT they had the season pass center open well over 1 hour before park opening, and they had at least 10 processing stations open (meaning 10 employees with 10 cameras ready to take photos). And considering my passes from other parks (Knott's*, USH, SWSD) take almost no time at all to process, it's crazy that it would take 90+ minutes to process a Six Flags pass! *I know Knott's can sometimes take a while to process too, but ever since they went to reusing the same card each year, all I have to do for mine is renew online and enter my season pass number and it's automatically activated (meaning I can go straight to the main gate on my first visit) once I'm done.

When I said "maze," that's what I meant- the overlay on the ride plus the monsters. And that's what was going to get cut- all of it. If I'm understanding correctly, the reasoning behind not using the Mine Ride and Log Ride as mazes (initially) was due to tougher safety regulations/issues. Since it was the 40th anniversary they eventually gave in on the Log Ride, but they did remove the monsters from Calico Mine Ride. They did decorate the Mine Ride, but it wasn't advertised as a maze since there were no monsters. I was in the front seat when I went through Evil Dead, and I actually got a couple of good scares from the monsters! Of course, what might scare me won't scare others, and vice versa, but I liked it. As I said before, it would be nice to see a maze in the Log Ride for Haunt 2013, but my gut tells me it might not happen. But they could definitely go the route of the Mine Ride and at least put up decorations, even though it wouldn't be frightening.

I haven't seen the newest episodes, but this may have been the one you saw: The Simpsons- Mapple Store: If you go to YouTube and search "simpsons mapple," you'll see that they've actually done quite a few Apple parodies! The Hulu channel on YT has high quality clips. On another note, isn't that a bit ironic? Hulu having its own YouTube channel? But I guess it's also a clever marketing scheme- draw viewers away from YouTube to watch full, high-quality episodes on Hulu!

Was that intentional? Haha! But that's good to know- I'm definitely going after mystery stockings now!

I too am just now getting around to posting...I must have received mine a couple of weeks ago, but I was out of town during the holiday season. Anyway, here it is in all it's crappy glory! Lots of crappy maps, crappy mints, and other random crap! Of course, I'm defining "crap" in this post to mean "awesome magical thingies!" Thank you for sending it to me! Look at all this glorious crap!