Hilltopper39

Glad you had a good time, sounds like it was a solid day. We went early in March during Spring Break, on a Tuesday the first week the park was open and man it was crowded. We still had a nice time but it was by far the worst day I've ever had at Dollywood. Lines were an hour plus for almost everything all day, and the wait times were all over the map as far as what was posted and what the wait was. I got in line for Lightning Rod when it was posted at 50 minutes, then in line it went from 50 to 90 to 220 and back down to 80 and I think I ended up waiting around 100. I also noticed that the TimeSaver lines were insanely busy all day long, even on rides like Big Bear and Lightning Rod where the premium Time Saver is only a single use, those rides still had timesaver lines out the building. At the platform for Lightning Rod they were loading an entire train from TimeSaver and like 2-4 seats from standby. I don't know if the new resort means double the people have TimeSaver included with their stay now or what but we really felt it slowing down the ques considerably more so than in years past. We didn't get a TimeSaver because we've been there a dozen times and have never ever needed it but lesson learned this trip. Big Bear was a new credit for me this trip as well and I thought that thing was great, just an awesome family coaster. We only got 1 ride but it was a night ride after the park closed so that was a nice way to end the trip. We still had a really nice day, just not as nice as previous trips. I still absolutely love this park and will visit every chance I get, but it shockingly busy for very early in the season.

I'm taking the wait times from these preview days with a grain of salt knowing that capacity is still probably fairly limited. Will be interesting to see what these wait look like in June or July after the park is fully open and there are resort guests with express passes and all that there. With that said Stardust being a super high capacity coaster that by all accounts is very very good is pretty exciting.

I've been around long enough to see some cool announcements never come to life but with Universal attached to this makes it a little bit more promising, so hopefully this thing actually gets built! Also I've been around long enough to see some cool concept art never come to life but hopefully whatever that wicked looking duel vertical spike thing is gets built as well!

We were just in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area for Spring Break and were interested in Skyland Ranch since it was pretty close to our cabin but we didn't end up going. We didn't even realize it was there until after we were in town and drove by it. We didn't end up going because we already had Anakeesta and Dollywood on the schedule but that mountain coater looked pretty good so might have to check it out next trip.

This is an exciting announcement. I've been to Legoland Florida a couple of times when my kids were younger. We had a lot of fun but also I don't really feel the need to go back now that my kids are a little older. My biggest gripe about the Legoland Florida was that I wish it had just a couple more bigger "family" style rides instead of everything being so focused on smaller kids. The Legoland parks over seas have the Polar Xplorer coaster and that new B&M wing coasters, I feel like rides like that would make a huge difference at the Florida park so hopefully this indoor coaster is something like that.

As soon as I saw the sideways facing seats in the concept art my first thought was about the ride system for F.L.Y. at Phantasialand. Yes I know that's a flying coaster but the seating assembly essentially just rotates 90 degrees to lock into the "flying" position when the track position changes. For the Monsters coaster it looks like they could accomplish basically the same thing but with that looks like their typical junior inverted coaster train. Load sideways, lift the train into place, then rotate to a forward position.

I don't know what Universal is cooking up as a replacement for Rockit but man something similar to Voltron sure would be an awesome addition to that park. Europa always looks amazing, cant wait to see the rest of the report.

I didn't realize they were adding that much themeing to the ride layout like the original Big Bad Wolf coaster had so that's pretty cool! Looks like a great addition, I've heard nothign but great things about Phoenix Rising at BGT so this should be a hit as well.

No I have not been to Vegas lately but that's about where I thought those attraction s would be priced, I guess the more I think about it the Universal Horror attraction isn't as expensive as it seems, especially compared to other attractions in the area, but my mindset was comparing those prices to a theme park or another stand alone haunt. I think I'd rather pay $60-$80 for Omega Mart before I'd pay $100-$150 for Horror Unleashed, and I love horror and haunted houses. Omega Mart at least has a certain uniqueness to it that you can really only get there where as Horror Unleashed might be kind of the same thing I've seen at Horror Nights and various other haunts for 20 years, but we'll see!

yeah looking at the calendar again there are some $69.00 tickets on some Mondays and Thursdays but almost every Friday, Saturday or Sunday is $89 or $99. Also something interesting that I didn't notice initially is that they're showing the attraction being closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays almost all year, even closed every Tuesday in October. I guess that could be subject to change based on popularity, or those days could be bought out for private events but kind of interesting. I'm curious to see how well staffed the attractions are with live actors. It's one thing to fully staff the houses for 30-40 days days for Horror Nights at the parks, it's another thing to fully staff them 52 weeks a year. Maybe the houses will rely more on animatronics and less on live actors but we all know the live actors are kind of what makes these things good most of the time. Should be an interesting project to follow.

So around $90-$100 for general admission and one time access to each house and about $150.00 for admission and unlimited access. I mean I love the concept, love the idea of there being some themed common areas with food and drinks around the houses themselves but man that's an expensive admission ticket to something that's not a multi experience or something that I would probably only do once every three or 4 years.

I can't wait for some review to start to leak out, Starfall Racers is a top 10 coaster/it's too rattley and the restraints are uncomfortable. Or the Wolfman Coaster is so short/it didn't spin enough/it was better than 7 dwarfs mine train. The instant knee jerk reactions from people are one of my favorite things in this fandom, can't wait lol.

I went to Aquatica on Saturday and didn't spend a dime inside the park. I still love SeaWorld and my cheap pass with all the free tickets (took 4 people to Aquatica Saturday and had a real nice time) but yeah their food prices are annoying. I will say that I've been to concerts and sporting events and stuff recently that were the same if not worse, but yeah they're bad and the surcharge on top of it all is dumb. With that said, 90% of my trips to SW these days are me showing up at park open, riding a bunch of coasters then leaving around 1 or 2 without spending any money on anything inside the park. It's still worth it to me to keep my cheap pass to show up a couple times each year to ride some coasters when we're in town, but I understand the frustrations people are starting to have with those parks.

It's a shame that Night at the Museum ride was closed, I feel like I saw some videos of that one and it looked pretty good. It's really a shame that they were never able to get those two dynamic attractions rides operating, even if they had to retheme Alien vs Predator to whatever. After the SFX coaster at Ferrari World opened I thought this one had a chance but I guess not. That park as whole is a pretty interesting place, amazing it ever opened at all honestly. Not exactly somewhere I'm looking to go out of my way to visit but I guess if I was ever in the region I'd check it out. Great report as always. Interested to see what the rest of Genting Highlands was like.

FYI Dollywood just listed their ticket prices for the upcoming season, I've been checking for a spring break trip we're planning. I don't know where ticket prices have been in the past but it looks like it's $92.00 for a single day, $122 for a 2 day and $132 for a 3 day ticket. Definitely more expensive than I remember for a single day but 2 day pricing still seems pretty reasonable relative to some other parks of it's caliber.