bigboy

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.

I would go out on a limb and say that operating rides in sub-40 degree weather can be a different experience in different parts of the country. In NJ, it's pretty likely that the temperature is going to stay cold like that without much fluctuation. In Texas, the temperatures can widely vary even at this time of year. For example, the high in Dallas yesterday was 42. A year ago yesterday, the high was 82. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had temperatures in the 70s. Preparing and maintaining rides to operate in those swings in temperatures is a challenge. In my experience working on rides at SFOT 20 years ago, rides didn't cooperate much once temperatures approached and dropped below 40 degrees, especially with lower wind chills. Pneumatic and hydraulic components did not function well in the colder weather.

The Guardians attraction isn't limited to just the old Energy building. It's taking up the entire lot containing that pink highlighted area.

Rapids rides have round boats so that they can safely navigate the trough without the need for a guide with a paddle or a rudder to keep the boat facing the right direction. It's safer because there's no human element involved and it's more efficient because you don't have to tie up an employee in every raft. If you go on a rapids ride expecting an authentic rafting experience, you're probably doing it wrong. Rapids rides are insanely popular and often feature the longest line in their park, especially Grizzly River Run. I visited DCA on a hot day when the park was not very busy and GRR had a 2 hour wait for most of the day. Just because it isn't fun for you doesn't mean it's unpopular and needs to go.

Because they're scheduled to be? I believe they are closed that Sunday because of a private event. They are open the following weekend and they begin Holiday In The Park on the 18th. When Jim Reid Anderson returned as CEO, he challenged all of the parks to find ways to increase revenue. That's why the Texas parks added days that weren't occupied by buy outs in November and whey they extended the season until January 7th.

As long as we're being serious, the Florida Disney parks are wall-to-wall packed almost year round these days. I think they're doing just fine without pennies from the "coasterheads".

Someone is good at using Google image search.

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween events, but I absolutely love the Not-So-Scary Party. We went in 2015 on our 7 day mega trip for my daughter's 5th birthday. My wife and I had experienced the short lines of the after hours event at the Very Merry Christmas Party on a trip several years ago, but the Halloween event takes the entire experience to another level. Everything about it is great: the decorations, the atmosphere, the fireworks, the energetic employees, the truckload of candy that we left with, and, most of all, the parade. I'm not into parades at all, but the Not-So-Scary parade is really enjoyable. I've been on 5 trips to WDW over the years and my best experience with Disney employees happened at the Not-So-Scary Party that year. We scouted out a spot on the curb on Main Street about an hour before the parade. The street was buzzing with employees from the shops walking around and engaging the guests. Some of them even got my (at the time) very shy daughter to get up and show off some dance moves. While we were waiting, she took a nasty spill on the sidewalk. She wasn't hurt, but she's dramatic and was very upset. Two quick thinking employees descended on us to make sure she was okay and, less than 30 seconds later, another came out of the nearby gift shop with a giant lollipop. I know I probably sound like a flippin' commercial for Disney, but it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I love your pics of the event and I'm glad there are other people with a similar appreciation.

Exactly. All it will take to rename/retheme the Troika is some paint and signage.

I haven't heard what the 2018 addition will be, but I have heard that it's going in the space between Joker and B:TR and that power was run to that spot in conjunction with Joker construction. I've also heard that the leftover shopping center space is being shored up for another project (not a catering kitchen).

The big threat to Houston and Galveston if the storm stalls and drifts that way is flooding. The winds aren't likely to still be at the level that they saw with Ike and, even if they are, this looks more like a glancing blow on Galveston than a direct hit. That being said, I wouldn't say that any part of the Texas coast is in the clear. Ike was much worse than originally predicted.

No single riders in the last loaded seat was a requirement when I worked at the park in the mid-'90's and it went away some time in the late-'90's or early '00's. It was explained to us an insurance requirement that allowed for the possibility of 2 people to see all of the loaded seats on a train in the event of an accident. The had a similar requirement for at least 2 riders on every flat ride. The rule came back after the NTAG accident.

The actual description on that history page was "dancing tamales", but you get the idea. At one time, the music track from the original ride played in the area of the tamales and burros. One of the original diesel locomotives from the ride is used as a service engine to tow the steam locomotives in and out of the roundhouse during the off season rehab.

Great pics! You made it through the park on a great day(s). The La Vibora line being contained inside the entrance is a good sign of a small crowd. The spinning tamales and the nearby rocking donkeys on the train track are recycled theming pieces from the Ferrocarril Fiesta Train. It was one of the parks original rides that ran through the general area where La Vibora is located now.

Probably just Runaway Mountain. Judge and MIne Train don't typically get much of a line.

I've always been told it was due to extreme heat and they typically only had to do it in the later part of the summer. Air Racer was a fun ride, but it was a maintenance nightmare for the park. It was very wind sensitive and that kept it down a lot in the spring. The pulleys, cables, and motors that lifted the individual planes and the hub up in the air had to work together perfectly and, quite often, they didn't.

They would probably put in a Superloop instead of a T-Rex. Nope. No Super Loop Going to SFOT. There's one too close to the park at the local flea market. Although there are plenty of similar attractions that could be built in 2018. Remember when people used to say that SFFT would never get a B&M inverted or a B:TR clone because there was one up the road at Sea World? Sure, Trader's Village is slightly closer, but I don't necessarily think that the average park goer thinks about that.

It's a school holiday that no one is having to use to make up for winter weather closings. A lot of parents will get the day off or take the day off and, at least a week out, it looks like the weather will be nice. I would say it's going to be pretty busy by almost any measure.

Well look at the picture below someone said that they barely changed it cause this morning it said they open until 9 pm according to them. I'm still wondering or saying weather wise dk. Well, it was probably weather and attendance. It was raining pretty hard until around 2:00 and that scared enough people off that it wasn't worth the expense of staying open. Plus there have been scattered storms going through the area in the last hour or so.

According to the calendar, that was their advertised hours for today.

The Thursday crowd at SFOT will likely include a lot of school groups, but it should slow down as the day goes on. The other risk you run is that it's tough for the park to staff everything on weekdays, so a few rides might be closed as a result.

The Freestyle equipment is expensive, the product is more expensive, and it is more time consuming to maintain. When you can offer the same product for a lower cost of sale than the traditional fountains, it doesn't always pay to go with the Freestyle machines.