Vigil

My family is going to the Orange Bowl this year (Go Hoos!), and I was wondering what Universal looked like for New Year's Eve and Day. Can anybody give me any tips or ideas of crowds or which park to do if I could only do one? Thanks so much!

So I am going to be in Orlando tomorrow, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice about what to do for New Year's Eve. I was hoping to go to a park (either at Disney or elsewhere), but was looking for any advice anyone has about what to do. Epcot was my thought but I know it's SUPER crowded; I assume everywhere will be and that's just got to be part of the fun. I've never been to SeaWorld either so I thought there might be cool too. Thanks for any help!

I'm just sad they wouldn't be using the same music. Reflections of Earth is pretty much my favorite piece of music, period. Anyway, I'm thinking of going to EPCOT for New Year's Eve. Does anyone have any tips or ideas regarding what to do?

Does Cedar Point have a fairly liberal rider assistance program policy (I'm not sure what exactly they call it)? I'm not judging because I know not all disabilities are visible, but I have seen so many people coming up through the exit with sheets at so many rides, more than at any other park I've been to. Is that what it is or is it something else? At this point I'm just really curious.

Well why not, so I'm going. So if anyone's gonna be at the park this weekend, I'll be there!

So if I theoretically drove through the night tomorrow and camped near Cedar Point I could expect absurd crowds for Labor Day, right? I'm trying to decide if this is a good idea. I'm also trying to finagle a friend to join.

I am headed to the park tomorrow for the first time (hurray first international theme park!) and was wondering if anybody had any tips or tricks for the park. I just like having a plan of attack, and the people here know best! Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks so much!

I'm meeting my friends at the park tomorrow, and they're trying not to pay for parking. Is there a place they could park their car for the day outside so they could just pile into mine? On a different note, how is TT doing? Have they figured out the issues? I told them to get there early so we could go ride it before it gets crowded, but if it has issues opening with the park I'd go do Volcano first.

So I'm scheming to go to the park (like 98% to take my sister on Kingda Ka; it's closer than Dragster), and I was thinking opening weekend as a surprise, but I was wondering what the crowds would be like and if everything would be open and running. Any insight would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I went a few weeks ago with a few of my friends, and I thought this year's event was the strongest I've been to between BG and KD in the past five years. I thought all of the mazes were fantastic with a lot of scares in every one. Blood on the Bayou's theming is amazing and was a little low on scares the first time I went through but was great the second time. Even Tollway Terror got us several times. Zombie High was the only one that's a little tired at this point because it's been there the longest. Blackout was the highlight of our night and the group's favorite by far. We went through twice, and it was ridiculously good both times. Despite hearing middling reviews of the maze last year, my friend and I also really liked it then too. I just really appreciate it's simple concept that works really well.

Why do they need them? Is the envelope smaller than normal?

That was the weirdest thing to me. Dollywood's operations were top-notch for the most part...except on Lightning Rod, where they should be the most on top of things. There were a couple times where people didn't fit, and (partially because of their weird lapbar policy) it took forever to figure out whether they were going to be able to ride. Like they didn't have any time point where they just said "I'm sorry, we need to dispatch the train and this isn't working." They just kept going until it worked or it was very apparent it was not going to. I thought that was really weird. On a different note, does anyone know what these are coming off the track on Firechaser? They're in a few places along the ride.

I just got back from a weekend at the park, and everything was amazing. I had last been to Dollywood the year Thunderhead opened and was really excited to see how much they'd expanded since then. It is honestly the most beautiful park, I think, and it's setting really just can't be beat. It was drizzling Saturday afternoon into evening so somehow, despite being the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, crowds were almost non-existant. Crowds Sunday were heavier but we just checked out some shows and ate cinnamon bread. All the rides were great. Mystery Mine I really enjoyed despite it being a little jerky. Wild Eagle was really cool up top on the ridge, and Firechaser was a fun not-so-little family ride. Thunderhead was a little less wild and a bit rougher than I remember (13 extra years will do that though), and Tennessee Tornado was just as fun as it was. Lightning Rod was insane. I was just laughing the entire time. It was my first RMC and very, very good. It does seem to be running two trains consistently and had minimal downtime when we were there. On our last ride we had an interesting experience. They loaded the train, and then unloaded them and made people go back into the queue. It wasn't a maintenance issue but a safety one. A guy had gotten injured by a loose item that flew off the ride. (Not even two minutes after I said that if ever there was a ride to have a strict no loose article policy on, a la SFGAdv, it'd be this one.) They shut down the ride for awhile while the medical staff came and filled out paperwork. The guy was fine and walked away, but it took quite a while. They also ended up transferring that train off the tracks to inspect the body for damage. We did talk to a ride op for quite a bit, and he said he sees this happen every single day, specifically people sitting on their phones thinking they'll be fine. I'm inclined to believe him because our first ride we saw a phone fly out on the quad down. I also asked him about the strange not-pushing-down-the-bar policy, and he said it's because they could injure the rider or damage the ride. I mentioned that I had seen ops helping someone on WE, and he said that while it is the policy across Dollywood that because of Lightning Rod's extreme nature, it is the most strictly enforced there. So take that for what you will. As a final comment about the ride there is definitely quite a jerk at the bottom of the first drop that gets worse as you go further back. And regarding River Battle I am not surprised at all they are taking it out. The app never showed anything other than a 0 minute wait while we were there whereas the other water rides were pulling 25-30 minutes. I saw maybe 6 people ride it the entire time I was there. But overall I had a great two days and it definitely won't be another decade before I get back!

Thanks for the reply! I kind of figured that it was going to be more complicated than that. I suppose I'll have to wait until I nail down a few more of the specifics before moving forward, but thanks, that's at least some good stuff to keep in mind! Now fingers crossed it works out!

So I am hopefully going to be moving to Orlando soon for a job, and I was wondering if you had any advice on moving to the Orlando area. I am rather clueless and was hoping you could provide insight on things like locations or typical rents or just other "inside" information. I'd be looking for an apartment for just me, but am open to anything/anywhere right now. Any help would be much appreciated!

I'm headed to the park tomorrow for a bit on the way to a party. I'm going to guess it'll be very crowded, but I don't how Fridays stack up here. Any advice?

What is offsetting vs. the usual track construction methods?

Magnum is an Arrow hyper I just used the regular Arrow track.

And another one. I figured out a way to take NoLimits track and make a model out of it, which makes things a lot easier. Here's Magnums turnaround (sans scaffolding supports because I haven't figured the best way to do it).

Your wish is my command. (Really, I just am done with school and have time again and am bored and need to get a job.) More to come!

I'm in Minnesota visiting relatives and popped into the park tonight. I've never been before and got there about 8:30. Hopped out of my car to a massive clap of thunder which explained why I hadn't seen anything running. I got on Monster which seemed to be the only thing running, and right as I got off they started opening the lines for everything (which surprised me because there was still very visible lightning). By this point, everyone had left which made the rest of the night great with walk-ons all around. I rode Corkscrew which was one of the smoothest Arrows I've ridden. Then I went over to Wild Thing, which was a fun ride. I was really excited for Renegade. I remember thinking that it looked like a really awesome ride when it was built and followed its construction because I seem to recall it being on a show about building roller coasters. Anyway, it did not disappoint. That ride is awesome! I rode four times because nobody was there. Got on the last ride of the night in the back row. It's a great ride. After the first two rides on Renegade I walked over to Excalibur. That's a really fun ride too. And another really smooth Arrow! A great night, and I hope to stop by again tomorrow to hit up what I missed. It seems to be a nice, little park with a good mix of fun rides.

What 3D printer are you using? It looks fantastic!

I graduated today with a Master's degree in mechanical engineering! Excited to see what's next!

Thanks for the compliments on the picture! We had just pulled out to leave, and the sun broke through the clouds behind us. My friend and I just looked at each other like, "Well, of course we are taking a picture of that." It did look really nice.

I got back today from my first trip to SFGAdv, and after a bit of a rough start it turned out great. I stayed over after my friend's place in Bethesda before heading up Friday. We knew the weather wasn't great and wary of the warning that the park could close, but the drive up had some clear spots so we were hopeful. We checked Twitter about every 30 minutes just to make sure. And then we checked it as we are about to pull in... "Park closing at 1pm." Aaaaaand it was 1:06. So after a brief period of disappointment (mitigated in part by the heads up, so thanks for that.) We left and saw Guardians 2 at a mall in Pennsylvania. Saturday, however, was fantastic. I'm going to guess that the initial weather forecast of rain kept people away, because almost every single ride was a walk-on all day. Despite that it only rained for about ten minutes in the late afternoon. Overall, I was impressed with the park. It was my first Six Flag park, and I got a Hersheypark-mixed-with-Kings Dominion vibe from it a bit. We did Kingda Ka first, and I really liked it. We sat in the front, and the launch seemed a more intense than Dragster's. I know people like Dragster's launch better because it is smoother, but I kind of liked (or at least appreciated) the stepped launch. It felt like it just kept getting faster and more intense which was nice. Still a great ride. The one thing I would say is just that that type of ride lends itself so well to spectators. Having Dragster smack in the middle of the park with its station music blasting and the stands just makes it a lot more exciting. Ka lacks that which isn't quite as fun. We did Zumanjaro VR next (and the regular ride later). I agree with the earlier post. Both were cool (and this was my first VR ride too). Going up was really cool on the VR, feeling the wind on your legs while playing the game. You just don't really get a sense of how high you are. The regular ride is also cool. Not quite the most intense drop, but it does just last forever. El Toro is just amazing. Lived up to my high expectations. Not much to say outside that. The Safari was awesome! Such a unique experience at a park like this. The rest of the coasters were good too. Bizarro was a fun ride, really smooth and just plain fun. Green Lantern wasn't actually that bad. I hate standups, but it was fine. We didn't have any headbanging. Superman was also cool, my first B&M flying. Joker was interesting. It was short, and I found fairly intense. Just a lot of crazy which-direction-am-I-facing. Batman was good (my first of the clones), and Nitro was an A+ B&M hyper. Dark Knight had such a good pre-show. What a waste of a ride concept on a wild mouse. WTF even was Skull Mountain though haha? My last comment is actually about Houdini's Great Escape. This was ridiculous! I had never been on that type of ride (it's a Vekoma Funhouse, right?), and it was one of the most disorienting things I've ever seen. It made my friend super nauseous, but I loved it. It's so simple but so convincing, and I love ride concepts like that. We went back for about an hour this morning to hit up Ka and Nitro again before we left. Ka broke down immediately after we rode it. The center gondola of Zumanjaro kept getting stuck up top. The first they lowered it down slowly. The second time Ka actually launched up the tower right as it started to drop. Which I assume it isn't supposed to do, so I wonder what happened. Overall, great park, good times, go Hoos.