DirkFunk

The *current* way the system works (which, as Robb says, is RIGHT NOW) is 3 FP per day, restricted to one park. As of right now, you cannot get FP+ reservations at EPCOT and one of the other 3 parks on the same day. Whether or not it stays that way is a mystery.

The selling of stuff like those miniature models leads me to believe he's probably associated with the guy who works at the wood shop. He has a number of items like that for sale inside there and much larger stuff that he's willing to do. Someone commissioned him a couple years back to build a full replica of the Schwabinchen figure, and he used that in turn to create a mold for future resin casts.

Is there really a demand still for Steeplechase rides when we have launched versions at a bunch of parks now? If they want to buy a Motorbike Coaster, I'm cool with that too.

Lake Erie Shores and Islands has a blog that posts information about Cedar Point admission prices. Here's the link to 2013 - http://askshoresandislands.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/what-are-the-admission-prices-for-cedar-points-2013-operating-season/ I would consider the regional tourism bureau a legitimate enough source for this and say that they still offer a Starlight ticket.

They better put in a lot of tables for two in the anytime dining area, because who the fuck wants to eat family style with strangers? Please, NCL and RCCL, do not engage in a race to the bottom.

Seems to be doing OK right now. The theme park themed to Texas that was built in Texas worked too.

La Ronde is the worst SF park by miles and miles and Michigan's Adventure, mediocre as it may be, is far superior to La Ronde in most every way. The only thing that La Ronde has over it are two pretty good B&M coasters, but when you're looking at wanting to gouge your eyes out from the one train wait and unionized, no F's given operations crew, who cares?

It isn't merely that they could spend money on training employees. There's also the blunt reality that ride operators are intentionally hired as low skill employees paid low wages onto whom as little responsibility as possible is placed.

Ever since Huss started having their fabrication done at Stakotra, the quality level for new rides went through the floor. Not that it was that great during the "Land Of The Giants" phase that brought the world maintenance drains like the Giant Frisbee and Jump2 (Sledgehammer at Canada's Wonderland). They also did a terrible job of innovating new attractions or keeping up with competition like KMG when it came to the portable market. Huss can basically survive off of doing nothing but legacy parts though even if they don't produce a new attraction.

Firehawk/Nightwing offer slightly more "flying" with its extended layout, yeah, but it comes in the form of mostly straight track over unremarkable terrain and a crappy helix. Nightwing is the least horrible of the three but still isn't as good (or frankly, as intense) as any of the Superman clones. Maybe more intense than Air, but at least Air puts forth a college try and offering an actual "flying" experience, doesn't start by laying you on your back and blinding you in the midday sun, etc etc etc.

If you're going through the pretzel loops unaffected, I guess congrats on having fighter pilot like abilities to withstand G-forces. I guess then Vekoma's flying coasters would feel like something is happening by comparison with all violent shaking and 75% of the ride taking place on your back in a strange forced fetal position. Sometimes the market speaks, and man, the market hated the Flying Dutchman.

Given that we know very little intrinsically about the ride, this is naturally the intelligent course of action. Thanks for your contribution. If you read through my posts, you'll see that I rarely speculate on a ride before it opens but to me it just seems like they're cutting costs in every way possible and yes... I think this will be reflected in the final product. People keep bringing up Bombora but designing a family coaster in house and designing a 200+ foot coaster in house are two totally different things. Steel Force, Mamba and Wild Thing (all 200 foot coasters) all cost exactly the same amount of money and they were built back in the mid 1990's. I know those will probably end up with longer track lengths, but it's hard to be overly confident when it's the same price as hypercoasters built 20 years earlier and less than half the price of your average modern 200 foot coaster. Bombora and even Wicked are basically products of the same system, albeit with fabrication done in different places. Both are very good rides. Since Lagoon doesn't need to make a profit off of constructing this ride, their end costs have a great likelihood to be lower. They are in the rare situation of having a creative engineer who can design these sorts of attractions working for them, which is something the overwhelming majority of amusement and theme parks lack. As I said previously, we have very little info about what the end product is going to resemble or do other than some rumor filled posts on the internet. So to say that it is "a foregone conclusion that is going to suck" is premature at best, and at worst a product of the internet's demand to have people with shocking levels of ignorance demand to be heard in the loudest possible way.

Given that we know very little intrinsically about the ride, this is naturally the intelligent course of action. Thanks for your contribution.

Yes.

A) They had about 12 operating days of it being open B) How many TPR members go to PPP? I'd be surprised if there were a bunch of detailed breakdowns about the ride.

If I believed that his plan was really to prevent blight on the strip, I would totally be for it. I don't believe he's positioned himself politically out of an interest to serve the greater public good, or that he's bought all these properties because of some altruistic streak he has. His goal is to be *the* power in Wisconsin Dells, whether by buying the "competition" or preventing them from springing into existence, no matter how small. But I've already spent too much time on this. It's the Dells.

Me? I'm just amused at the trashiness of the photo. Look, he can do whatever he wants. If he's taking advantage of the system to basically destroy the town's independent operators and put everyone out of business, that's not something I can anything about. But he's also the theme park industry's version of a slum lord. There's nothing to cheer there unless you're part of his family or a sociopath.

Well, Nick would do the maintenance on the coasters and upgrade the hotels, but he's busy with other things... this dude really took this picture of his wife/house/car

The Vampire at Chessington with swinging cars was a ride people got geeked about. Today, it is practically forgotten because without the swinging cars, it isn't much good. Change the restraints if you want; it won't make a big difference because now the ride doesn't really do much of anything.

And he buys everything because he (essentially) controls the zoning commission and can basically vaporize anyone who doesn't sell to him. That's your core problem right there.

Central Florida is much easier for me to transit to/from and will be much more likely to get my money first over Southern California for that reason. Money and time being irrelevant in the equation, I'd spend more time in Southern California because outside of the theme parks it offers far, far more to do. I even like the weather much more.

Nice pics. RE: Mount Olympus' success - since the "old man"(Jim Laskaris, present owner Nick's dad) died, Nick's basically taken over the town. He's on the planning commission for Lake Delton township IIRC, and if he isn't, that's a recent development. A lot of the other attractions with rides on that strip have gotten zoned out of existence. There's a story about one operator buying a bunch of kiddie rides as part of an expansion, only to get zoned "industrial" or something and wind up selling those attractions to Nick at half price.

Well, then that's the point of the park. For christ sakes, they operate two absurdly garish amusement parks consisting largely of barely altered bits and pieces acquired from other failed ventures in the Central Florida area and advertise with intentionally low rent commercials. If it worries you that people might emerge from their trailer parks and head towards I-Drive for a night at Fun Spot, well, too bad? Move somewhere with fewer trailer parks than Central Florida?

No one is going to board an airplane and fly to Orlando to go to Fun Spot because it is half the price of the big themers. No one. The "lowest common denominator" types are already entering the gates of Disney/Universal/Sea World parks. Have you not seen all the scooter people at any point in the last 20 years?

And Birdmen at Fuji-Q dates before Air too. :shrug: