DirkFunk

With this just opening, my first thought was the new employees there may have made some big boo-boos. The safety record for these attractions is supremely good because, look, carabiners and lines don't actually just fall apart. But that's speculation, and, yeah.

Already accounted for. http://rcdb.com/12395.htm

Well, there you go. Now that I've rationalized A/B's actions there I can basically just post "SMDH" about Gwazi standing for some unknown period of time because they don't have the money to knock it down.

Leaving a giant wood coaster sitting in the center of the park rotting seems like a horrible idea, but I guess if you want to look for A/B doing this sort of thing, Drachen Fire did just sit there forever before getting cut up. I still think it sounds desperate.

Exactly. They built something new opposite Transformers and part of New Fantasyland with Antarctica. It was pretty ambitious. Attendance dropped 5%. That's a flop. No matter how you want to categorize the ride or how you feel it should draw to the target audience, it did not. They could build dark rides, water attractions, different sorts of enclosures, and so on. 4.3 million people went through the gates last year. That's a lot of people. The chain just doesn't have cash. They didn't have much in reserve handed to them when spun off from Blackstone and they were saddled with a ton of debt from the money borrowed to buy them from InBev in the first place. My concern with that purchase isn't that people are going to think about SFWoA. My concern is that it is a lower capacity (even with two trains) attraction being throw into the Festa Italia section with what seems to me to be little concern about how it affects it as a whole or if it can deal with the crowds of people who will head that way. If you want to argue that they know better than me, I'd argue I can't do any worse based on their financial performance. Any of us could have been Kieran Burke or Dan Atchison.

Let me back up - if we're gonna have a serious discussion about SeaWorld's woes, then you have to recognize the issues the parks have by virtue of changing hands twice in the last five years. If they were a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch still, we might not be having this discussion at all because they'd have corporate backing with the cash willing to build the sorts of rides and attractions needed to right the ship. In fact, they may have never even been in this situation to begin with. Don't ignore the obvious - do you guys think the parks with AB owning them would allow Texas Splashdown to rot? Would they have put the handicapped platform over one of the Gwazi stations and left half the coaster to the elements? The truth is that they don't have the money to build what people are suggesting they should build. They are probably borrowing long term to construct the Blue World stuff, which if they don't do, only brings more negativity on the company. Their big capex for this year is, what, a production model Premier coaster for BGW? On top of all that, their CEO (who was a miserable failure, BTW) is getting something like $3-4 million in severance while they cut their show staff. They mismanaged their position. They knew that Diagon Alley was coming like everyone else and responded with TurtleTrek and Antarctica in Orlando. They made questionable decisions about ride purchases (Mach Tower, Falcons Fury) which led to late openings that affected their attendance. They bought a water park from Cedar Fair of suspect value with money they probably should have used for new attractions instead. If Aquatica San Diego was doing crazy business, are they just not telling us and taking Ls instead? That seems like a awful strategy.

Backing out of doing the Blue World stuff now wouldn't help. It would just bring that spectre back. If you lose 65% of your stock price and attendance is down everywhere, you need to change leadership. I don't blame them. The rides they've purchased haven't sparked attendance increases or even mitigated the losses and stabilized the parks. SeaWorld sank millions into Antarctica and attendance dropped 5% in 2013. If that isn't damning towards their creative people and upper management, I don't know what is.

If this were a Starflyer, I'd expect Ride Entertainment's twitter and Facebook to be lit up. Based on the height and that, I'm wondering if it's an ARM ride instead.

Basic question with the robot bar - does the robot make strong drinks? Because if it doesn't, then people will probably gravitate towards human bartenders who for cruise-long tipping might be willing to increase the octane of their product.

There's a million stories about ghost sighting or wacky stuff happening in the south end of Lake Compounce (area where the skyride, picnic tables, and rapids ride are). I never personally saw anything myself, but knew people who refused to go there after dark fell.

Man, the interior of the boat looks like a Celebrity ship. Which is good, BTW, because I kind of love Celebrity. Not gonna lie though, I did LOL a little at Pabst being a craft brew. I'm still pretty impressed by what they've done. It looks really sleek. (not that anyone cares about my opinion here but also if you are a couple without kids, Disney is nowhere near the best line for your buck. not even in the conversation. I don't hate it, but seriously, you can take like 3 RCCL cruises for the same price.)

I ran across this: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-end-of-suburban-cincinnatis-alpine.html?m=1 Assuming there's some truth there, a serious mold issue and shoddy original construction would probably doom it, along with general neglect faced in the years since. Seriously, some of the Tripadvisor reviews are hilarious. The one person talking about how the shuttle was a van rather than the garishly painted buses because, he was told, "the brakes finally gave out on the bus" killed me.

You can get a reasonably priced hotel on Priceline that does a lot better than 2 circles (which is abysmal) on Tripadvisor in the area. I stayed at the Hyatt Place in Mason twice for around $80 each time. The reviews online make it sound like it probably needs to be leveled.

Dorney's getting a set of flyers and a BBQ restaurant for next year. https://www.dorneypark.com/what-s-new/new-for-2015

Among the theme parks you didn't mention, there aren't that many I'd think about spending multiple days focused on and imagine I'd have a great time at. Disneyland, Cedar Point, and Silver Dollar City are the obvious picks for me. If you were to fly to John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County and focus on Disneyland Resort (two parks, have more rides than all the WDW parks combined) and Knotts, you could have a really nice week trip sans rental car, relying on Taxis or Supershuttle. Stay off property at Disneyland and you can still walk to the parks in less than 10 minutes depending on your hotel. Assuming you properly budget your food expenditures, you should be able to do it all for under $3,000. It'll be tight, but worth it IMO. The other two parks have geography that requires a rental car and significant driving time, which adds costs to the trip. Yes, Cedar Point is certainly cheaper to go to than Disneyland ticket vs. ticket, but just renting a car plus parking it will probably add $40 a day in expenses at the low end and can easily rise above that. While lodging in Anaheim near to Disneyland but off site may not look *that* appealing, it will match up well pricewise to the multitudes of roach motels in the Sandusky area and yet probably be nicer and more comfortable to stay in. Knott's is just a 15 minute cab ride away, whereas your closest amusements to Cedar Point will be Kings Island/Strickers Grove/Coney Island Cinci (4 hours or so), Columbus Zoo/Ohio State Fair (2.5 south), and Waldameer (around 2 hours), and as an experience is definitely "worth it" in my view. Silver Dollar City has similar disadvantages with regards to distance from Worlds of Fun, Six Flags St. Louis, or Magic Springs.

I might have answered this exact question last year with "Cedar Point because I can drive to it and it is cheaper." Which I think I'll still go with that even if Disney World is bigger, has far better hotels, infinitely better food, and is empirically better in most important-to-me categories than Cedar Point and even if I'm feeling a little burnt out on Cedar Point at the moment and haven't been to WDW in 3 years.

Wild Adventures tops this list for me. A lot of the other parks have a couple attractions or things about them that I really find endearing, unique, or at least attractive. Wild Adventures doesn't have any of that, and it doesn't even have a top tier ride.

There's a multitude of much larger seaside resorts in the US which are most assuredly not Anaheim or Orlando which have had increases and decreases in the number of amusement facilities throughout time. Just because Hard Rock Park didn't pan out doesn't mean a boardwalk style park near the beach (which is what Hard Rock Park most certainly wasn't) should perhaps couldn't be conceived or be successful. Pavilion was such a thing and would still be alive if not entirely for the real estate bubble pushing up prices. Again: it had nothing to do with an overserved or non-viable market, which if probably why there's a brokeass version of Pavilion in existence now and has been one for several years.

Associating Myrtle Beach with being "only a beach" is more or less a recent construct as a result of the changes seen there. HRP failed because it had a bad business plan, but let's not lump in Pavilion with that. That place ran strongly for years and was only closed down because it was perceived in those halcyon days of exponential real estate value growth that the land it sat on was worth more as condos. It was killed stupidly in much the same way Palisades, Astroworld, or Opryland were, not because of being a soft or oversaturated market.

Muskegon, MI is known to coaster enthusiasts as the home of Michigan's Adventure, a middle of the road amusement park owned and run by Cedar Fair with several roller coasters. Away from the park, most enthusiasts are totally clueless about the region it sits in and instead pass through as quickly as possible. This is ill advised; West Michigan is a major playground for not only residents of the state, but Indiana and Illinois residents as well. Of particular interest to park nerds would be a pair of "rides", losely using that term. Mac Wood's Dune Rides operates 30 minutes north of Michigan's Adventure in the town of Mears. There, you can board trucks converted to dune buggies and rumble down enormous dunes piled up by the winds off Lake Michigan, and even down to the water front. For those willing to spend more money, rentals of dune buggies, ATVs, et al can be found elsewhere in the area, and you can drive up and down the dunes at suicidal speeds. Closer to the park within Muskegon itself is Michigan Winter Sports Complex within Muskegon State Park. While the place is much more exciting in the winter (ice skating trails, cross country skiing, etc), the most obvious draw are the luge courses. The US' only summer luge track is available for public use for a pretty nominal fee. It isn't terribly long, but it is definitely much different than alpine slides. During the winter, you can head down the real ice luge track, again, for a reasonable charge.

Maybe the new Frozen ride sucks and is super cheap looking and lame. You know what? I think I'll wait to see or hear anything official before I get outwardly critical about it. Even then, I might ride it first too.

My recollection is that stress fractures appeared in the ride (maybe even specifically the inverted side) and it has been shut down for safety concerns.

There's a difference between building rides inspired by other manufacturers using your own techniques and systems and sending people to go take photos of other people's rides and vehicles so you can make duplicates of everything they did in a country where patent and trademark law is often totally ignored.

The Universal/Disney "competition" is fraudulent and has more to do with people seeking validation for choices they make as consumers. Both are really good at what they do. The argument that Frozen is a reaction to Diagon Alley is ridiculous to me, but if you've decided to have emotional stake in Universal's success for some reason, you probably feel better and empowered in some way by saying that.

LOL who knows. There will be an aural implant and they'll listen to old Tomorrowland loops as they're piped directly into their brain. Whatever gives them the fix they desire.