DirkFunk

TBH I would suggest not getting wrapped up in spending money on the upcharge restaurants on NCL. There's not a huge difference in quality between that food and the general dining room food. Hopefully you have a balcony to enjoy the scenic cruising. If not, find a place on deck and be prepared to spend time there.

I don't like dredging up old posts generally, but, uhh, Celebrity never got rid of the drink packages. Why would they? Unlimited alcohol is generally standard upmarket on the big boy lines. That's who they look to emulate within the trappings of being mass market.

For ease alone, Labadee. You don't need to take independent transportation/book a shore excursion. Since you're docking in Falmouth, you would have the benefit of not dealing with the walk of shame involved in getting back to the ship in Ocho Rios, so it isn't quite so bad. Still, easier to walk to a coaster than take a bus ride packed with fat people.

How was TDZ running this go around? Rough? Smooth? At the very least fast?

Buddy of mine on FB posted a shot of Windseeker holding people today, so it looks like its back up.

They're starting to do things to update Breakers from "sub-Super 8" category to at least "current Super 8" level comfort when it comes to the rooms. Long, long way to go though and it might very well be home to the worst park owned "official" hotel rooms in the amusement industry. I can't think of worse.

Where money and stability appear, attendance at parks increases. Funny to see that Brazil's death trap parks were able to be counteracted in Latin America by the gains in Colombia (now with 75% less kidnapping!). Heck, Parque Mundo Aventura wasn't even in the top ten in 2009, and here it is #4.

There's a couple different companies booking pieces into the IX, ahecht. The Mouse is from Amusements of America. The KMG Freakout is NAME, but actually from the Mid America Shows part of them, not the old Conklin route that runs the northeast. Most of the rides there are from Bates Bros. Bates Brothers in turn own ARM Manufacturing, who make the G-Force coaster and the Vertigo swing ride (the Starflyer style ride). Most of the pieces are theirs; they book both of their units there. The Ferris Wheel is permanent.

Just got an email from Discovery Cove letting me know that effective immediately, Discovery Cove now comes with a 14 day ticket to Aquatica AND Sea World rather than making you choose. What a deal.

A large chunk of that land probably exists across the street as well where the present day parking lot is located. That wasn't built until the summer of 2004. They also own(ed) at least two homes circa 2004, a former roller rink (which is the location of the park operations building) and a former retirement home further down the street that was converted into dormitories for internationals. There's a significant amount of wooded area that's been utilized for haunts in the past, but as far as building rides there, they'd have to effectively cannibalize their picnic grove, which is a big no-no. Not to mention that they start to get close to residential again and there's some pretty severe zoning restrictions in Agawam.

Wave Swinger was up and down Saturday and the last time I saw it that day, it was stuck about 3 feet off the ground. Probably just technical problems.

What I heard is that the bobsled coaster coaster stays, the "indoors" goes. Along with something else.

You mean like how it was before de-regulation? And you'd be just as right as those today who miss the good old days when flights within the US got meals and passengers weren't treated like chattel. There's plenty of them - go spend some time on Flyertalk. Then compare it to HOV lanes. In those, people who've chosen to carpool get to use a special lane that may not be subject to the same buildup of traffic. Is that inherently wrong because they have friends/acquaintances with which to share a route and you don't? Does the greater good somehow excuse your worsened driving experience? Once, before gated parks became the norm and POP was universal, amusement parks ran on a ticket system and were expensive to ride things at. The amount of bitching over the years I've heard about how various fairs (most big midways are independent and thus pay-per-ride), Wiener Prater, and even Coney Island cost because of the prevalence of POP is enormous, but of course those places get to afford really impressive crazy rides because of that system. Pay-Per-Ride means that people used to have to spend more money to ride more. You can argue on some level that this is what the fastpass is a return to, except of course, that everyone that pays to get in can indeed ride anything they want to, assuming they meet the safety requirements, and with time permitting. It is infinitely "fairer" for the majority than trying to ride everything at Prater or Oktoberfest and dropping $200-$250.

This also isn't an entirely new system: They did test it last year in the second half at a couple parks and so they have some experience under their belt as to how it will work. While it may indeed make the regular line longer, its worth noting that Cedar Point has a long standing policy of not closing lines early. Ultimately they take the financial hit to ensure that everyone that wants to ride can and will, should they be willing to wait.

KDCOASTERFAN, prior to the plug-n-play coasters Intamin started rolling out with Colossos, the first wood coaster I can think of with poly wheels was Pegasus (now defunct) at Efteling in the Netherlands, which ran standard PTCs and was designed by Dinn and Summers. The ride was about the quietest wood coaster ever built.

The rides are comparatively new to the park itself - only been there roughly 4-5 years give or take. There was a lot of signage on rides indicating "Action Amusements" from past pictures so it is generally assumed that they're rides owned by a showman who gave up when gas prices peaked and parked them at Ocean Beach to have a regular audience. The real show stealer there is the arcade, which is packed with classic games.

That's assuming they owned the Wacky Worm to begin with - may have been rented from a carnival company too. But it isn't like there aren't a bunch of portable coasters out there for sale. You can pull up a bunch of used Schiff and Herschells for less than $25K on any ride website that will do basically the same job this coaster did.

There's already one around Tulum, Mexico too, FWIW. Should be interesting to see how these compete with standard ziplines and stuff like Stan Checketts' new variant.

Steel coasters wear out in a different fashion than wood ones - Disney will spend the money to refurb/retrack their's because of their marquee value, but for parks like this or even Knoebels with small steel kiddie coasters, that may not be realistic or rational to do every year from now till forever. Why spend money to fix this when you can buy a used Python Pit or Wacky Worm/Big Apple for cheap?

Certainly by the 1970s Disney was in a better financial position than the 1950s and was dealing with property values significantly lower than what they are today in Southern California. There's a number of things that, to me, make it counter-intuitive for Disney to spend the kind of money necessary to acquire that land, much less develop it into a park/value resort/etc. I'm not going to argue about something theoretical like this because no one can ever really be wrong, but I just don't think its going to happen for a great many years (if ever).

I just don't see this being something that is going to happen. All those hotels across the street know the intrinsic value of their land, and more importantly, they know their location is fantastic. Better, actually, than Paradise Pier Hotel. For Disney to do a value from scratch, they'd probably have to build up given the lack of space they'd be working with, and that's a mighty expensive proposition to try and fill with cheap hotel rooms to compete with the likes of the HoJo. If it was gonna happen, Walt probably would have done it decades ago. I definitely don't see it or the "need" to do it now.

From the presser... Man, just SMDH here. They're practically begging for angry enthusiast chatter.

The hourly capacity doesn't change, no. But to the best of my knowledge, Disney doesn't cut lines off well in advance of closing, which means that anyone who wants to get in line for the ride and "follow the rules" as they are presently writen will get on the ride should they be willing to wait and it doesn't break down. No one misses a ride. This theorized new way, someone does. edit: Before someone catches it - yes, the person who previously might have been able to use an old fastpass to board 5 minutes to closing can still wait in the standby line of tomorrow, of course. What percentage of those people would wait standby? I have a feeling Disney has a better idea of the answer than me. All I know is that from my perspective, I'd probably lose out given my habits at Disney. But like Robb said, this is minutae about a system that isn't in place yet. We'll all know eventually.

I know this thread will head to a discussion of social class soon, because hey, let's be honest - this is all about Disney providing something extra at the deluxe resorts, where frankly it provided nothing precious little above and beyond its budget resorts as far as perks go. And I can afford those deluxe resorts, and I have paid for those deluxe resorts in the past. I get where there are those who see this as something that is exciting and interesting to talk about on the internet as a "industry observer," either professionally or amateur. And that's fine, really, especially if you get paid to do it. As someone who just goes to Disney World on vacation from some distance away because I like rides, does this change benefit me? Not really. I really, really don't like the idea of needing to reserve a ride time months in advance like I'm eating at a Michelin starred restaurant, even if staying further upscale in an official resort nets me more of those opportunities. The dining reservations thing was a pain to begin with once the dining plans came into effect (another Disney innovation that the merits of which can be argued for an eternity), but doing that with rides is just too regimented for my taste. For me, the Q-Bot system is ideal, where as this is...not so much. I can seem the me of 3 years from now constantly referring to my smart phone to see what the available Fastpass times are at any given ride while I juggle it in my mind with my dinner reservation at a different park that has better food (i.e. Epcot or Studios vs. MK and AK). At the same time, I'm thinking about transportation time between the two, and the reservation I set up at -fill in the blank ride- for 2 hours from now that I made 6 months ago, only knowing now that its about to rain cats and dogs and probably close it for the rest of the day. Tough luck? Maybe. But the abject lack of flexibility is a killer to me.

The obvious guess with Love Boat is that you're taking Princess Cruises. However, the only boat I'd believe you could go on would be Legend of the Seas on a 4 night cruise.