bigboy

Unless I'm completely misunderstanding it, the express shuttle is strictly park-to-park. You're still going to have to use a regular bus from the hotels and go through security and the front gate at some point. Unless you're going from say Epcot to MK prior to MK's opening, there's still a good chance you go through the main gate and see the opening act. And the best way to get Disney to pay $15/hour? Stop taking jobs and working for less. As long as they have a steady stream of people waiting to snort pixie dust, they have no reason to raise pay rates above market.

Disney "fans" think that anything that looks remotely like it would make money is Bob Iger personally taking a piss on Walt's grave. I've never been much for hopping from park-to-park on any given day of a trip to WDW, but this would make it way more convenient by taking away the security check waits and the long walk to the bus loading area.

It's been 19 years since I left SFOT, but I had a few that I really liked: Fireman/Engineer on the train - It was the one ride that was pretty exclusive as far as who had the opportunity to work there, but it was a blast learning a true skill and getting to operate equipment that was pushing 100 years old at the time. Texas Chute Out stand up baskets - The stand up baskets went away in lieu of all chairs after my first couple of years at the park. The ride had a horrible reputation for being hot and for the constant activity, but I loved it. I was able to talk to guest the entire time and you didn't have to fiddle with the seatbelts that made the chairs such a pain. Runaway Mine Train operating with 4 trains - The ride is only run with 3 trains max these days and, back then, we only ran 4 trains on the busiest Saturdays. I loved it because you had to load and dispatch quickly to keep the trains from backing up to the lifts and the day would fly by. My least favorites: any ride in Looney Toons Land.

I have no evidence to back this up, but I feel pretty safe going out on a limb and saying that the amount of money spent on updating Hall of Presidents every 4 years is a drop in the bucket compared to the money spent on rehabbing other attractions that require it more frequently or on new attractions. I'm assuming it's seen as a small price to pay for updating a heritage attraction with mostly nostalgic appeal.

Most schools are getting out that Friday, but a handful are going for a few days into the next week (I think Dallas is one of them). The weekend and week leading up to Christmas have been pretty busy in recent years. I wouldn't worry about needing a Flash Pass on Saturday. Ten hours is a pretty long day and I would be surprised if you couldn't get on all of the coasters. Five hours on Friday might be a challenge, especially if the weather is nice.

Not only did they know he was spending money with Cedar Fair, they didn't care. But they called anyway.

Don't make any solid plans until the operating schedule comes out. They ran that second week of spring break last year because a handful of local school districts and schools in Oklahoma had a different break than most of the local districts. I don't believe that is the case in 2017 or at least not to the same degree as this year, so there's a good chance the park may only run one week. If they run 2 weeks, aim for the one that's opposite of when Arlington, Fort Worth, and Dallas are on break. I haven't been on Judge this year, but it got some attention last off season and I remember hearing that it was riding much better.

I wouldn't be so sure that this is for a new bumper cars ride for a few reasons: the permit was applied for in December 2015, issued in January of this year, and expires in December of this year. That doesn't sound like something new for next year. The old bumper cars building had been used for a haunted house and was demolished because the city would no longer permit for such use. I think it's more likely that this permit is for a new, semi-permanent building for a haunted house on the old bumper cars site and the label "Bumper Cars" is being applied purely for geography reasons. Finally, the park is listed as the general contractor. It's highly unlikely that the park would build a new ride or the structure for a new ride in-house, but they typically do the haunted house construction in-house. That's my two cents.

There's a benefit to not having a human inside of a hot costume that requires frequent breaks. That likely requires a doubling and tripling up of staff that would no longer be necessary.

It's probably worth noting that the guy behind this proposal has been turned away before for not being able to pull the money together. I would put this in the "believe it when it happens" category.

Uber would be your best bet. No public transportation to the park and a taxi would probably be a lot more expensive than Uber. You could maybe save a little by taking the Trinity Railway Express commuter train from downtown Dallas to Centreport Station and then Uber from there. You would just have to decide if it's worth it to take twice as long to get there to save 10 or 15 bucks.

That's good. They may be giving good rates to sell out their rooms this close to the event. I wouldn't recommend walking to the park unless you're south of 30 and west of 360.

The AT&T Stadium traffic tends to be worse closer in to the stadium and more of a problem on the north and west sides (away from the park). If you approach the park from the Six Flags Dr. intersections near 30 and 360, you should be okay. If there's traffic getting into the park, it will likely be because the weather is nice, the park is busy, and there's a bring-a-friend promotion. If you're going to be driving yourself, look for hotels farther out. The DFW area has no shortage of decent hotels and I would think you could get the price down if you stay farther out.

Vintage?!?! That map is from either 1990 or 1991! (has Texas Giant - opened in 1990 - and the dolphin/dive show arena - removed after 1991 season) That is a cool map. Glad you had a good day at the park. I'm betting the long operating hours, cool weather in the morning, and the fact that it was the last day of spring break made it a great day to visit.

Backstage area, but the pic was taken from a public path. If he panned up and to the left, you would see the top of Shockwave's lift. The road goes around the back of the amphitheater to the park's ice plant and eventually dumps out by the warehouse and maintenance shops.

Even with the RMC coasters, it's a unique, custom installation each time. If they build 3 a year for the same customer, the redundancy in the process between them all is going to be minimal. I can almost buy that argument with the Sally and S&S products, but you're still talking about manufacturing less than 5 in a year for the same customer. That's not bulk in my opinion and you're still looking at a scale of production where there's very little room for discount.

Just my strictly amateur opinion: You buy things in bulk that are manufactured in bulk at a relatively low cost: toilet paper, soda, ink pens, yogurt, etc. You don't buy in bulk $15-20 million dollar pieces of equipment like roller coasters that each have their own unique location, design, engineering process, and fabricated parts. They're priced according to how much they cost the seller to design, manufacture, and build. My guess is that there's very little room for "buy 2, get the next half price!" bulk discounting.

Yeah, they purchased it at least 15 years ago.

The first one was in 1985.

Are there any parks outside of Florida and California that have daily operation in April? This area generally doesn't have enough tourism business with school in to justify daily ops beyond May through August.

In 2015, they started opening daily on Thursday, May 14, with Memorial Day being on the 25th. In 2016, Memorial Day isn't until the 30th, so daily operation may not start until around the 19th or 20th.

Yeah, I think the airport is closing in on 5 inches since 3:00 yesterday afternoon. Light to moderate for sure. The rain is supposed to start clearing out late in the day on Saturday. The flooding goes away as quick as it rises, so as long as they can clean it up in a reasonable time, I wouldn't expect anything to be closed Sunday. If tonight and most of tomorrow are a rainout, Sunday crowds could be pretty heavy.

The weather has certainly been good to the park the last several weeks, but that's about to change. The rain is supposed to move out in the late afternoon on Saturday, so that night might be one of the best to enjoy Fright Fest without the shoulder to shoulder crowd.

I've heard that the city is making the park tear down the bumper cars building because of its poor condition. There's plenty of room for both new rides in that area, especially if they push into part of the parking lot area for the old shopping center.

Assuming Crazy Legs is staying put and getting rethemed where it's at, I think it's a pretty safe guess that the other 2 rides will go on the former site of Flashback and Bumper Cars. I heard months ago that the old Bumper Cars building will be demolished soon.