ZeroGravity55

^ I think as long as you have on shorts, you're gonna be alright. On a related note, anyone going Saturday, the weather forecast is starting to look bad after 3 p.m. I'm gonna chance it and hope it holds off until after close. I'm kinda hoping the potential bad weather thins out the crowd.

Yeah they're Calypso is probably going to run slower than others that are out there. They literally had no manual on how to run that ride and had to figure it out on their own. They said on their podcast that they brought some of their staff down there to ride it until they found a speed that they thought would be comfortable for everyone. I'm sure if they get enough feedback asking them to make it faster, they'll speed it up.

^ It's pretty geeky lol. B&M's have an almond shaped cutout in their footings. Learned that the Summer HW was teasing Thunderbird! I'm actually really into the engineering and design of roller coasters, so I actually do find stuff like that interesting.

Besides it being their "thing", I think GCI does the curved drop purely for the aesthetics. They have some of the most visually appealing rides out there and you can tell they put a lot of thought into that with their designs.

^ According to what I've seen the park post several times on Facebook, memorial day will be the least busiest of the three days.

Every time I see a new picture of RMC Mean Streak, I can't help but think of all the people who said it wouldn't be a good ride to convert because it had a boring or terrible layout. I almost feel like Alan Schilke read those posts and said "hold my beer".

Ehh It won't be as busy as you think it will be. The thing about Saturdays in May is that there will be no school groups and its too early for it to be vacation time for most families. Now if it's nice outside and it's hot, I would expect a lot of locals to be there for the waterpark.

Bet you can guess which two coasters I'll be taking a trip to ride this summer!

The ride was originally designed to come to a complete stop when it entered the station. It wasn't until they added the second train that it became a really hard stop on the brake-run out of necessity to keep the two trains far enough apart from tripping a sensor. I always though Legend was worse until this year. They added more brakes and programmed it to come to a smoother stop.

^Yes

^ Same family, different Owners. The part of the family that runs HW has nothing to do with ASA.

There's he really crappy Santa's Lodge that is just about a mile away. Then there's a Baymont Inn and Suites and Motel 6 in Dale which is maybe 10 minutes away. Apparently Santa's Lodge is so crappy that HW actually took them off their recommended lodging page on their website. http://www.holidayworld.com/plan-your-trip/hotels-camping/ As far as places to stay are concerned, I recommend the Days Inn in Jasper. I've never had a bad stay there and Jasper probably has the best places to choose from when it comes to restaurants. If you're looking for anything better, you'll have to go to Evansville. which is about an hour away from the park. Jasper is only about 30 mins from the park.

So I just got done catching up with HW's podcast. Just a couple things I took from it regarding next year. The park has around 100 capital improvement projects going on for next year. It's really neat to hear them talk about it, as most parks don't bother doing so. With that being said, I'm not sure if it's common for parks that many capital projects in one off-season? Anyways, the other thing I took from it, one of those projects, which is making improvements to The Alamo restaurant, involves it being turned into a Chipotle style restaurant. I've loved Chipotle the few times I've had it, so I'm pretty excited about that!

I'm excited to see them restore a classic ride and fill a dead spot in the park. As mentioned, I hope they turn that middle section into firecrackers to really help it standout as you go down the walkway. HW has an amazing painting crew (look at Thunderbird's station if you need an example) and I'm sure they're going to do an amazing job making this ride look amazing again. It also excites me to see them making a lot of infrastructure improvements. Nobody listed those, so here they are: Shade structures over Kitty’s Tea Party, Comet’s Rockets, Jungle Racer and Otorongo Track work on The Voyage and The Raven wooden roller coasters New six-story tower at Watubee family water slide Restaurant improvements to Alamo and other outlets to enhance service, allow for new menu opportunities, and increase access to free soft drinks Zinga will get a fresh coat of paint

Oh that was part of my thought, no domestic beer. Only Irish beer that will not be cheap.

I think Easter or Valentines Day will be the next themed section added at some point and I'm gonna guess it will be a section filled with more kid's rides that hit all demographics. After that, I kinda hope they step out there a bit and add a St. Patrick's Day section to the park. I've had this thought lately that they could gear it more toward adults. Think of it as the Epcot of HW. I think it would be a great opportunity to introduce alcohol to the park by building an Irish Pub or something like that. It would also be the section where they could put their next major roller coaster and it would be okay for them to build a 200+ foot ride, because it's in the adult section of the park.

^ No, but there were plenty of people who didn't bother to read the articles or listen to the news and went on social media said things like "OMG Dollywood is burning to the ground!". That's the problem with most Americans, they don't actually read anything. They make assumptions on things based on the titles of the articles and news posts they see. I did a Twitter search of Dollywood last night and followed the feed most of the night looking for some real updates. Real and legitimate updates were few and far between. The rest was assumptions people made because they didn't bother to read or listen to the news they were receiving, which ended up not being very factual either.

Statement from Dollywood:

This photo is from the far parking lots nearest to Splash Country at Dollywood around 2:00 a.m.

According to NBC Nightly News, the fire is on upper Middle Creek Ridge, which would put it close to the County Fair and Lightning Rod if I'm looking at the map right. Doing a twitter search, A guy posted photos claiming he was at the golf course on Dollywood Ln. He did say the rain was starting to fall pretty hard though. Update: Pete Owens said that no structures in the park are on fire and that firefighters are still on standby. He did confirm that fire is on Middle Creek Ridge: http://www.wbir.com/news/local/fire-close-to-dollywood-dreammore-resort-cabins-evacuated/357499792

So according to a comment on HW's FB in response to a question about what's new for 2017, the park said to watch for a video next week regarding 2017.

^ If you go back and look at the previous pics, that's actually the third element of the ride. It goes, drop, Shambhala style turnaround, and then that floater hill. So it's not like that's a return hill after a long run out.

The sound the LSM's make:

^^ He does have a point. Storm Chaser's track didn't have its paint stripped until after the lift.

If you look at the track closely, it appears the paint isn't stripped off where the wheels will be running like all the other I-Box conversions for this year were.