bigboy

I finally made my first visit of the year today with my 8 year old daughter in tow. Not much of a crowd given the fact that the weather didn't really become insufferably hot until after 4:00. We encountered mostly walk on or one cycle waits with a 15 to 20 minute wait on some of the usual suspects. Employees were pretty much on point across the board. This gave me plenty of opportunities to coax my typically cautious daughter into trying out a few new experiences: La Vibora, Pandemonium, Sky Screamer, and Judge Roy Scream in particular. Overall, a very fun day even if we didn't drink as much water as we should have. We were both dragging pretty bad by the time we made it back to the car. Got a chance to at least eyeball some of the recent changes in the park. El Diablo fits in better with its surroundings than it appears in photos. We didn't get an up close look at Harley Quinn, but from up above, it looks like it's mostly been abandoned. Not sure what the story is there. It looks like any demolition on Aquaman has stopped. You can tell some smaller components have been disassembled, most notably the lift conveyor belt is completely gone, but the bulk of the ride is still intact. Ran across the Tower actually operating and took advantage of that. That was probably my first trip up there in a decade or so. The new paint job looks nice, but would it kill them to run a pressure washer over all of the dripped paint in the queue line? Pretty tacky and sloppy looking. That gets me to one of the bigger disappointments of the trip. The walk from Tower around to the Texas section is flat out depressing. You first encounter the abandoned temporary queue and loading area for the antique cars, then the empty space where Lone Star Theater sat surrounded by a chain link fence, and last the abandoned Gold River Adventure loading area and entrance. That path has always been mostly a shortcut to get from one busy area to another for years, but the complete lack of activity at this point has a bit of an ominous look to it.

I always enjoy your reports, but I'm especially enjoying this one since I'm from Texas. Your observations about weather and trucks are spot on. I'm torn on the replacement of Globe Life Park. I'm happy for a chance to see a game indoors in mid to late summer without experiencing total swamp ass and I'm happy for a 20 minute drive to the ballpark from house that would have gone away had the Rangers moved to downtown Dallas or the suburban hinterlands. I'm afraid that the new stadium is going to lack all of the charm of the old one (yes, it has some, I've grown fond over it in the last 25 years) and that they will keep the roof closed far more than it's open. I went to a game in April where there was rain around the area that missed the ballpark and the game time temperature was 70 degrees with a steady 15 mph wind. It was awesome. In the new stadium, the threat of rain would have likely kept the roof closed. If I'm reading right, you did Dallas to Galveston to San Antonio in one day. That is some hellacious driving. Galveston is pretty touristy but still has a little grit that hasn't been whittled away by hurricanes. Port Aransas to the west near Corpus Christi is even more rough than Galveston.

Unbelievable. The building turned 50 this year. It's odd the way the flood patterns have changed over the years. When I worked there in the mid-90s, the space between the theater and Gold River was the high ground where we moved the antique cars before a heavy rain. One building is gone and the other heavily damaged because of flooding. I honestly can't recall any of the shows from the theater, but I know that building had great A/C back in the day.

They've renewed their management agreement every time the contract has been up in the past. It's unlikely they wouldn't and even more so in 2027/2028 since Six Flags has the option to buy out the ownership. Haven't seen El Diablo testing, but I saw a photo taken earlier this week from outside the park of the lighting package being tested.

He's little iffy on a couple of details. The rumor was the buzz of online communities, not the amusement industry. The Premier buyout of Six Flags may have its roots in the SFOT partners playing footsie with Premier in the summer of 1997, but Time Warner resolved the issues brought up by the limited partners by signing a new management agreement that promised a certain level of investment in the park. They did not settle the dispute by offering to sell the whole company. Premier purchased Six Flags more than 6 months later in 1998.

The guy that originally posted it has pretty much walked it back altogether. Now he's saying it was simply "discussed" at some point, but isn't happening. I'm sure there's more details that I missed. He posted his update in a 7+ minute stammering video that I didn't have the patience to sit through. Most of the comments to that post were congratulating him for stirring up discussion (which was probably the motive behind it) and declaring that the doubters just weren't open to or ready for change.

It isn't. All of the wishful thinking in the world won't make this true. Why are you using "other" in this declaration? A fanboy page reporting an unsubstantiated rumor made up by a 13 year old posting from under the covers of his bunk bed is not a media outlet.

I’m probably more alarmed than I should be that a couple of people in this thread are close to buying into it.

The price is the dead giveaway that this is just something dreamed up by a 13 year old. Premier purchased the entire chain for the inflated price of $1.86 billion. Even 21 years later, HFEC is not going to buy 3 parks for $5 billion.

Lots of chatter on Facebook today saying that the train will reopen soon. The "temporarily closed" note is gone from the depot listings on the park's website.

Video of El Diablo being delivered and fully assembled was posted to the park's Facebook page today. I tried embedding the video here, but kept striking out.

Great trip report so far. The balls hot summer weather here is a blessing and a curse. You might die of dehydration, but it tends to dilute some of the crowd on weekdays. We do love our service roads in Texas. It gives us plenty of high visibility and high traffic locations to build more Wal Marts or fast food joints or churches or gun ranges. That's pretty much their only purpose since they do nothing to alleviate traffic. I always thought the roadside setting of Shockwave was part of its novelty, both as a rider and when I worked at the park. As a rider, it offers up a nice view. As a worker, the drone of the highway noise filtered out some of the repetitive noise of the ride and every now and then you could witness a pretty cool traffic accident.

That’s hardly confirmation. What if the new improvements are just improvements to the existing ride? I’m not saying the ride isn’t a goner, but this is just more circumstantial evidence.

That certainly looks a lot more like the removal of Aquaman is inevitable. As for the other project keeping the train closed, he didn't elaborate beyond that so he either doesn't know or isn't willing to say. Someone asked if the removal of Aquaman and whatever might be replacing it could be impacting the train since the track sits adjacent to the ride and he said it was possible. Take that with the grain of salt I would anything that's not coming from official sources at the park. The guy that posted this is a pretty straight shooter that's worked at the park a long time and I would err on the side of believing that he really doesn't know what's happening.

A current train engineer from the park that has been posting updates to a Facebook group for former and current train employees posted today that the train will be closed for the entire season. He said that he was processed out for the season because he did not want to transfer to another ride. According to him, all of the repairs to the tracks are complete, the new ride is not related, and the reason for the closure is another project in the park.

Sounds like you're going a couple of weeks before the hard opening. That said, I was pretty surprised by the crowds at DL on my trip 3 years ago. We picked a random late-July Wednesday and it was about as busy as I've ever seen any park I've visited. That was a little shocking, especially when we were tricked into thinking we had hit the jackpot by relatively light crowds at DCA the day before. I can't imagine what it's like on a weekend or holiday or in the days after Galaxy's Edge opens.

That last photo looks like someone cleaning the splash pools and trough for operation, not scavenging the ride prior to removal. His "upper management" friends probably aren't upper management if they're sharing detailed information like that. Just someone speculating the same way we all are.

I'm gonna need to know whether or not he's Diamond Elite before I decide if I should believe that.

Screamscape is getting some bad information, especially on the train. The last big flood that hit the park and damaged Gold River was back in October and the train ran through Holiday in the Park in November, December, and early January. The portion of the track that is adjacent to the creek that floods and the area of the park that flooded so severely in October is highly elevated and not impacted by flooding. The part of the train track that is below grade is near the front of the park away from areas that flood. If the tracks are heavily damaged by flood water, it's high enough that the park has bigger problems than a few rides being damaged. A train engineer runs one of the park history groups on Facebook and he's reported multiple times since the season started that the train is closed because of construction for El Diablo. The area near the roundhouse is being used for construction equipment and vehicle access. The train should reopen when construction wraps up. The flooding of the park isn't a new thing. It's been going on since it opened and happens a few times a year. There was an increase in the frequency of the flooding after construction of the Rangers stadium in the early 90s changed the flow of the creek and added more parking lot runoff tot he creek, but there were a number of severe floods prior to that. The flood that recently hit Gold River was so severe because of the amount of rain the area received in such a short time. I think there was something in the neighborhood of 40 inches of rain in 10 weeks. It was the rainiest period of time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since weather records had been kept. And a couple of notes on Aquaman: the trough rails have always been rusted like that and they were when I worked at the ride 25+ years ago. You just don't normally see it because they're covered in water. And there was a photo on Facebook yesterday of mechanics working on a pump on the ride.

Or the surveying could have been for any of the hundreds of other things for which it is used. It sounds like there's a good chance the ride is on its way out, but the surveying isn't even close to confirmation. Especially when you consider that all of the surveying photos online show the crew on the pathway in front of the ride and not on the ride site itself.

From that pic and others I've seen, it looks like it's going on the space between La Vibora and one of the log flumes where the old employee entrance walkway was located. Strange spot, but I heard 3 other rumored locations at some point: the area you mentioned, the old gunfight square where the Rodeo flat ride is located, and the spot where Caddo Lake Barge (rockin' tug) sat.

This TR is a great reminder of how much fun I've had adulating at WDW. I love hitting the parks with the kid, but my wife and I had a blast on an adults only trip 2 years ago even if we did have a little guilt at first about leaving our daughter behind. Your thoughts on Magic Kingdom versus Disneyland are right on. Both are great on their own, but Disneyland just has something else to it. I have people that know I've been to both ask me which one I prefer and it's such a tough question to answer and articulate. Can't wait to see the rest of your recap!

I hung outside of the Christmas shop while the rest of my group shopped last June and watched the Muppets history show. It's great street entertainment and fits the area perfectly. Nice report. Disney seems to be in a nice groove of offering up these subtle changes that enhance the experience.

The crowds should certainly be far from unbearable. My experience with that week in August is that it's busier earlier in the day and what crowd there is will then out as the day goes on. Saturday might be a little busier. It will likely be pretty hot at that time, so be prepared.