DirkFunk

It looks cheap as hell. I have no other way to describe it. To build a billion dollar theme park and find yourself installing 50 of these: ...does not look good. It, in fact, means that the park is literally no better than an average Sparky's location for small children, which suggests they didn't grasp their market when constructing and designing the place. Has any work been done in months? Shake Shack indicates it is closed for Summer. It is December now. All of the landscaping plants are dead there because of a lack of maintenance. It's clear that there are some failed businesses already there and a tremendous amount of "this is never happening". I was at Ferrari World every single day of the Grand Prix weekend and I can affirmatively say that Flying Aces never had more than a two train wait while running dispatches once every 5 minutes. The only ride with an actual wait caused by a significant surplus of people vs. the cycle time of the attraction was Formula Rossa, and again, that was running one train. Literally nothing at Dubai Parks ever had a wait in excess of 25 minutes this past Friday and Saturday with incredibly ideal weather. Almost everything was a complete walk-on at all times, every day. It reminded us of Universal Orlando after IOA was built except 100x deader.

Just got back from that part of the world: a birdie told me that IMG and DP&R are way behind on pay. I don't know if that's true and didn't ask anyone at either, but I can't say that I don't think it's possible. IMG has coin operated rides like you'd see outside grocery stores all over the place now and there's one of those electric powered trains that appears at sad malls rumbling around too. The Stark Steakhouse doesn't look like it's been open in months and several other food venues looked like they had been shuttered for awhile. The rides are generally running well though: I went in blind on Hulk and Avengers and was impressed with both. Velociraptor is a really stunning coaster; I'd rank it over Capitol Bullet Train or Flying Aces in a heart beat. DP&R's Riverwalk Area probably has 50% vacancy with a lot of the majors there having closed in the year since opening (Cheesecake Factory, Shake Shack, et al). However, I loved those parks and I'll try not to spoil anything forthcoming. I'll say that as far as the Lionsgate stuff goes, I didn't think any of it was that special. Coaster's fine, the tunnel attraction is meh. But the rest of the place? Well, that's a different story. Whoever it was that asked about crowds: Other than the water parks and select days at Ferrari World specifically at Formula Rossa only, you'll probably never encounter a wait greater than 10-15 minutes in the UAE.

So, did Goddard Group make the trip up or did they decide to skip because of youknowwhat?

No one spends that kind of money because it's "a little bumpy". The track being out of alignment was probably causing stress to it or the vehicle that was going to lead to much more significant issues than rider discomfort. This is the same park that ran a looping zyklon for eons, after all.

Considering that he did almost nothing for them and that the reviews on Tripadvisor suggest widespread insect infestation still, I'm gonna go with "still a dump." They only treated half the hotel for bugs, which given that every area of the hotel had bedbugs means that naturally they were going to come back in time. It was so bad I wouldn't even step foot in there again. There were bedbugs inside a claw machine on prizes. INSIDE A CLAW MACHINE!

Watching the episode from the DVR right now and guess what? Maui Sands is a disaster of epic proportion and possibly a death trap filled with roaches and bed bugs. Like, bed bugs inside the arcade machines.

All I want to say about this is if I lived where I once did (12 minutes door-to-door from LC) I wouldn't have a pass next year. My money would go to Six Flags and Quassy. That pains me to say it, but it's absolutely true.

So, a couple bargain hotels with free shuttles? Yeah, I, uhhh, don't care. If they manage to run everything around it out of business, I can't wait for the owners to speculate up the value of the land so it turns into decrepitude for that exciting bus ride up I-Drive.

I'm sure Incredicoaster appeals to someone, as does retheming the classic look of Paradise Pier to the technicolor nightmare of Pixar Place. It isn't me though. I wish they'd just save the money and plug it into the Marvel expansion.

Cruise with no kids and no ancients? Sign me up!

Nope. It's closed during the week.

I've had exactly that happen to me there before. "No picture taking on rides." I was asked to produce my Sim card after going on the train and I walked away.

I'll be staying closing weekend in Breakers because, honestly, the weather can be iffy (and sure looks like it will be Saturday) and that means I'll have somewhere to go when 3/4s of the rides are closed. That and the traffic into the park can be a nightmare on these weekends, which makes getting in and out if you're off property a non-starter.

It proves that MiA has a strong core base of visitation. What might disprove MiA as being a potential threat is that it could see increases in attendance without drawing away visitation (especially resort visitation) from CP. The last coaster that went in was 9 years ago, and that year CP drew 3.2 million guests, up from 3.12 the year prior. But if resort visits from the area that serves MiA was down (Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Chicago) they may have taken the tact that it continued growth would be indicative of them competing against themselves for the guests who provide the most income. Of course, we have no idea if that is true or not because those numbers have not and will never been made public. Even then, we'd be talking about a single data point from a decade ago. Breakers in 2018 is going to be radically different than Breakers in 2008, and the quality of the resort now likely reflects in higher revenue per night. They're improving that whole resort and making it more of an integrated multi-day destination. Maybe MiA is still competition in that context; I suppose I don't really know. But I tend to think it's moving away from that and being something more akin to the relationship of Six Flags over Georgia and Disney World. It's all a bit irrelevant though because MiA needs a lot more stuff (lights, plumbing, midways, employees) to take that next step than they do right now. Forget building huge new roller coasters: do they have the staff now to run them? It sure looks like they close down the log flume every day so the crew can get a lunch break. That suggests they don't have enough employees to do a standard position rotation.

Expanding basic infrastructure is a good thing. Better that than being Six Flags America where you can't have restrooms or full service restaurants in 1/3 of the park.

It's looking a lot like this was a bad year to open a new theme park in Catalonia. Anyone know how or if the weekend's events changed the number of people coming in the gate?

When I read Boulder Dash's description, I thought "nah, no way they did that." and then I look at the pictures and yeah, he's right. That's exactly what they did. That's 100% not the protocol for transferring a train onto the ride. Should be park on lift, E-Stop, then put the ride into manual mode, transfer the train into the station, move the transfer train back, and send the lift train around. I should have a better memory of that than their current maintenance people.

But you know what? As stupid as it sounds, that's also by far the most likely scenario.

LOL, guess that's that. Good for them.

Asking for this is probably a bit much: Oaks Park is run by a nonprofit organization. Which, I should note, is what a lot of aging park owners should do if they don't want their park to become condos or a vacant lot.

Even knowing what was happening, its definitely amazing to see that POV. The end of that ride is going to be balls to the wall. I'm hoping that with this project, Cedar Point can shift its focus elsewhere from coasters for a little bit: dark rides, flying theaters, new water attractions, etc. After this, I'd argue there won't be a bad coaster in the park (maybe Corkscrew, but the restraints don't really affect me much).

The RMC work is a hologram. Soon they will remove all the coasters from Cedar Point while we are focused on looking at it and THEN WHAT WILL WE HAVE

"The currently unnamed coaster is scheduled to open at the beginning of the 2018 season." Look, I watched a Taylor Bybee video, and it doesn't fit with the 5 year plan. Also I analyzed pictures of Twisted Colossus, and it should be ready to go in a month. This is FAKE NEWS.

I have decided that my most desired conclusion is that Tony gaslights the crowd into saying they've already been on the RMC'd Mean Streak, it met the end of its operational life, then implodes it by pushing down on a comically sized plunger. I will accept a full POV and stats for the new Mean Streak as an alternative.

As far as flat rides go, these are actually pretty fun. I think all the hate just comes from the fact that Six Flags marketed them as a coaster. If Six Flags never did that, I bet we'd have a much different opinion of them. Also this is a ride you find at a city carnival, not a world class amusement park. Buddy, Disney has 3 variations on Dumbo at WDW (not including the Astro Orbiter, which is really just a big version of that) and every carnival in the world has a copy of 'em.