bigboy

I'm surprised that the park is open this week with schools being in through at least Thursday and most in through Friday. Any night this week would be a great time to go, especially with the fairly nice weather we're having right now.

Using Uber from downtown Dallas shouldn't be a problem. Probably a $20-25 trip. The driver can get to the drop off area by staying in the left lane when entering the parking toll plaza area. The drop off lane breaks off just before you get to the toll plaza. The drawback is that you can get stuck sitting in traffic to get to the drop off if the park is busy and that's not unusual during HITP.

I can’t see how the boats would be beyond repair. They’re fiberglass and already sit in the water all of the time and sit out in the parking lot in the off-season. Even if they floated out of the trough I can’t see what kind of irreparable damage would happen. The ride was in pretty bad shape when I rode 2 years ago. Holes in set pieces, animatronics not working or making loud noises when they moved, animatronics greatly deteriorated - one had its nose worn off and a Bugs was holding a carrot that was falling apart. If the flooding did further damage, it might be a convenient excuse to forgo a major renovation and start over from scratch.

Nice report. You can cover a lot of ground in the park on an early Sunday morning when it's not a bring a friend day. I love looking at the old traditional maps. That one looks to be 1965 from the presence of El Sombrero and the lack of Mine Train.

Great trip report. We accidentally went on a make-up bring a friend day a few years ago and the crowd was off the chain - both in quantity and behavior. The only part of Gunslinger that came from Astroworld is the big handguns on the center of the ride and the name. The ride has been at SFOT since the '80's and was known as Texas Tornado prior to 2007 or so.

I couldn't find a topic on the park (lots of trip reports where people tacked it on to an SFOT visit), but Sandy Lake Amusement Park north of Dallas announced on Facebook yesterday that they are closing down and the property has been sold. Sandy Lake was a quaint, family-owned picnic park with a couple of kiddie coasters, some pretty cool nostalgic flat rides and kiddie rides, a dark ride, and a swimming pool. The park was noteworthy around here because anyone that was in a school band or choir in this area in junior high likely visited for their annual competition festival. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/business/2018/10/18/after-48-years-entertaining-families-carrolltons-sandy-lake-closes-gates

I had completely forgotten that Sportsdude360 is a diamond elite member. It's been at least 2 or 3 hours since he mentioned that and all of the privileges and inside information he enjoys as a result.

I haven't been as much this year, but I've heard it's much easier to get beer these days. They've added it at more locations and, at least last year, they were allowing you to take it with you and not forcing you to stay on an adjacent patio.

Anyone else laugh out loud at the forum word filter replacing the park president's name in Robb's post?

While it doesn't have the greatest capacity, it also gets long lines because it is a popular family attraction with a 42" height requirement. A somewhat thrilling attraction that parents and kids can ride together. But, hey, I'm sure the park will consult with the Texas Thrillseekers to get their opinion on the well being of the park.

Great report! Hands down, my favorite activity on any of my trips to Disney parks. I could listen to the Boo to You soundtrack all day long.

Yeah, sure, it really is too bad they were vague. Especially since they said they were going to be vague in the original post to Twitter.

I would guess it would be busy, but not necessarily insane. The park is open until 10:00 on Saturday so you have that advantage. I don't know that Fast Pass (or whatever it's called) is absolutely necessary unless there's something you can't live without riding.

That’s generally around the time they start shortening their hours before school goes back and weekend only operation resumes. I’ve never heard of the park doing fireworks outside of the days around July 4th and that’s only something they resumed in the last few years.

They had plans for the space. A small food service stand, I believe.

I've heard a rumor that the reason the ride assembly was delayed for so long was a huge mix up between the bolt patterns on the foundation and the bolt holes on the base of the ride. The bases had to be modified locally and that process was pretty time consuming. Take this with the grain of salt with which it was issued.

Do the party. You won't regret it. My one time to do it was easily my 2nd favorite day on a vacation ever (1st being a marathon day at MK for my daughter's 5th bday). You can't beat the atmosphere, the candy, the parade, and the lack of lines.

Opening day is usually pretty slow and I'm sure the cool, rainy start to the day slowed it down even more. The rain also moved out earlier in the day than expected. My daughter woke up with a fever, so we didn't make it out there today. I'm sure it was busier with the great weather. The Oil Derrick is getting painted. I've heard that this is the first time it's been painted in more than 25 years.

This month has been particularly insane. The high on Monday was close to 80 and the high today was 35. Highs should be back in the 60's for the weekend.

I'm thinking about going out for awhile on Sunday afternoon. This run of really crappy weather looks like it will end on Saturday. I've heard that the old Harley Quinn themed troika is being replaced with a food stand selling chicken tenders or some other variety of fried chicken. The arcade across from Mine Train was torn down and is being replaced with a sports bar similar to the one in the Mexico section.

It isn't run by the city's parks and rec department. It's being operated by a resort management company. "Cruise ship on land" is how they describe it on their website and that's pretty accurate. The thing is massive and looms over the area it's in. Daily admission is pretty comparable to the other local city owned water parks. They're offering a lot of seasonal options on passes and, while the year long pass looks expensive at first glance, it's a good deal when you consider that it gives you 12 months of use. The operating hours they've posted through the end of March are interesting: a lot of 10a-9p/10p days. That seems like long hours for the winter and during the school year when I would imagine they have a hard time covering all of the labor it takes to operate a park that large. I can't wait to go. We've been talking about going sometime before the crowds start to pick up.

Great report so far! I'm always torn about Animal Kingdom. There are a lot of things I love about it: Everest, Safaris, Dinosaur, the theming, the way the park looks at night, and Pandora (haven't been on FoP yet). I'm not much of a show person, but I enjoyed Festival of the Lion King and I haven't ever seen Finding Nemo. What I'm not crazy about: I work for a zoo and, while the animal exhibits are top notch, I don't think they're particularly unique or worth much of a second look. That makes it less than a full-day park for us (my wife and kid feel the same way about the park). My wife and I skipped the park entirely on our trip last summer and we did the early part of the day on our family trip in 2016. We're headed back in June and we'll probably hit AK later in the day, so they can see the park at night. I was able to do that during IAAPA in November. You made a good choice with Restaurantosaurus. It's one of the better generic quick service options at any of the parks. The only other food I've had at AK was at Flame Tree and it was great even if it wasn't exactly my favorite type of BBQ. I'm from Texas, so I come by my BBQ snobbery honestly. Keep up the reports. Can't wait to hear and see about your day at the Studios.

On our last 2 trips, we waited less than 15 minutes for Magical Express, but it was much earlier in the day. We were early enough to run and spend time in the parks and our luggage was in our room by the time we returned. My wife and I did an adult trip in August and I sprung for a preferred room at Pop Century. We were in the building next to the food court and less than a 5 minute walk from the bus stops. I'm not lazy by any means and we spend plenty of time walking while we're there, but the time savings were totally worth the small extra expense. We managed to almost completely dodge the rain on that trip. We were either indoors or en route to a park and we only donned the ponchos for about an hour one afternoon. Can't wait to hear more about your trip.

I wouldn't be surprised if they replace it with nothing and just widen the pathway leading back to all of the newer rides behind it. I'll miss it and my kid will be disappointed that it's gone.

Flat rides like that are often disassembled for rehab during the off-season. It's entirely possible that someone caught wind of that and mistook it for the ride being removed.