Jump to content
  TPR Home | Parks | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram 

Hilltopper39

Members
  • Posts

    3,919
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    11

Everything posted by Hilltopper39

  1. Yeah Aulani has always looked incredible, looks like an amazing trip. Aulani has also always made me wish that the Disney Beach resorts over here on the east coast (Vero Beach and Hilton Head) we just a little bit nicer and more of a true resort type destination like what Aulani is.
  2. They still do, and always have as long as I can remember. I haven't been on it in years but the website still says it's a free for passholders and a "nominal fee" for non-passholders. Look I don't like an upcharge but this really isn't that big of a deal to me. If anything it's just another thing to incentive you to buy a pass which seems to be a big part of their business. I'm just glad the ride is open again, if it takes $5.00 to keep it open then fine. Also if I remember correctly the line for this thing used to be awful due to it's massive popularity and somewhat lower capacity, so if it takes $5.00 for them to make a little money on the thing and keep the waits down a little I'm all for it. If people are going to complain about anything complain about $40.00 to park instead of $5.00 to go on a really cool vintage skyride attraction.
  3. I have a lot of thoughts about this project as a whole, most of them are good, there are a few things I'm a little skeptical about/curious to see how it turns out, but..... These images of the Celestial Park central hub section looks pretty amazing, way better than what I had previously envisioned for that area so that's exciting. I'm guess they're slowly going to release some more details about each of the lands and attractions in those lands over the next year, but overall pretty cool project.
  4. Yeah we were there on Saturday and I was a bit surprised how well hidden the new coaster is behind the construction walls. We had some nice views of it from on Manta and from the walk up to the SeaLion theatre but other than that it's surprisingly well tucked away. Does looks to be a fun little coaster though, we'll definitely be making another quick trip down after it opens. On Saturday Ice Breaker had about a 45 minute line both times we walked by it, I don't know how accurate the que time boards at SeaWorld are but the covered que building was mostly full. I don't think I've ever waited more than one switchback for that thing so maybe the change to 48 inches is paying off now.
  5. Honestly I didn't realize the place was still open. I've got a lot of memories from the music venue there, and the horse track, but I think I only ever went to Coney Island maybe like once? Hopefully the area gets some love with the new development but yeah losing Coney Island isn't much of a surprise.
  6. Thanks! Our hotel is like a block away from Bryant Park so I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time at that Winter Village (racclette!). Ellen's Stardust looks like a perfect spot for us so thanks for that! The girls have seen touring productions of Aladdin and Lion King, but Six would be fun if we can get tickets. Since it's the week of Christmas a lot of shows appear to have low availability (and seem to be pretty expensive) so we'll see what happens with adding a show. I have a feeling after a few days of walking they're gonna be worn out so maybe trip to American Dream wouldn't be the worst thing. Thanks for the response!
  7. We're taking the girls to NYC over Christmas for their first trip to the city and since I've followed you're adventures there over the years (decades now?) with KT thought I'd ask for a tip here. My kids are 8 and 11, we've got tickets to one show (And Juliet) and will probably try to see a second. We're going to do all the typical touristy stuff, central park, time's square, 9/11 memorial, one of the observations decks, ice skating, probably hit a museum, all of that. I've read all the travel blogs and "top 20 things to do with kids in NYC!" websites and it's kind of all the same stuff, so I was wondering if you've found anything unique and different over the years that 8 and 11 year old girls would enjoy. Any really cool kid friendly restaurants to check out? Anything to completely avoid with kids because it's just crappy over priced tourist junk? Other than tickets to And Juliet we're pretty wide open schedule wise right now with 3.5 days to fill with something to do. Also, I don't remember if you've been to American Dream yet, but if you have is it worth wasting a half a day to get there and back to shop a little and ride a couple of coasters? It's almost weird to say that my kids have never been to a real "mall" but the ones around here are kind of crappy, so we're kind of considering that.
  8. Yeah I have absolutely no idea what this is going to be but my first impression was that it would be some sort of version of the Guardians ride system.
  9. Feels like there isn't enough information yet to really have much of an opinion on this one way or the other yet, but one thought I had was how much better or worse can either of the parks really get at this point? I mean tickets and passes are relatively cheap, Fast Lane and Flash Pass are somewhat expensive, I doubt that changes that drastically. Staffing issues are still going to exist, food is still going to be expensive and mediocre. I don't know I just can't really see where either chain gets that much better or worse at this point.
  10. I'm assuming part of this ride will be where Sand Serpent was, but if I remember correctly they also removed the Phoenix singing ship ride and maybe some of the other smaller rides in that side area of Pantopia. I was looking at a map trying to figure out how it could go over the Serengeti Plain area and directly adjacent to Pantopia is a service road and then the elephant barn/habitat directly to the east and some other animal enclosures a little more to the northwest. I don't know exactly where the layout will go but there ae some options in that area, even if it's just a nice view from the lift hill.
  11. Wow, so not only is it a family suspended coaster, but it will have onboard audio and "swing" like an old school suspended coaster? This is pretty exciting addition, cool to see B&M doing some new stuff. Also it seems like this is a bit longer and faster than the previous 2 B&M family coasters in China so I wonder if that means a custom layout? Every time I'm at BGT the longest lines are almost always for Cheetah Hunt and Cobras Curse, and even Scorpion and the wild mouse used to pull some pretty decent lines. A reliable B&M family coaster with a decent capacity should be a great addition for this park.
  12. I know we've been expecting this but I still think this is a really cool concept. Should be interesting to see how they re-use the exiting building/themeing from the Antarctica ride, but no matter what they do a multi launched family coaster in that section of the park should do pretty well.
  13. New trains is an interesting wrinkle to this story, I'm assuming it's for the conversion from the LIM launch to a chain drive and the existing trains can't be salvaged or converted but should be interesting see if these are just the same RMC trains or if there's something new in the works. Isn't SFFT getting new trains for Wonder Woman? I don't remember why, but with that and the new trains for their wild mouse model maybe there will be soem changes to the "new" standard trains from RMC.
  14. I was looking at the Howl-O-Scream event page for this year and noticed this bag policy. I *think* this is a new policy but don't really remember the past couple years as I usually don't take a bag with me. I took a quick look at the HOS pages for Busch Gardens in Tampa and Williamsburg and it looks like the Williamsburg park has a similar policy but the page for Tampa doesn't seem to mention anything out of the ordinary. Anyways just a heads up for anyone attending the HOS events this year at SWO, BGT, or BGW, may want to check out the bag policy before you go. https://seaworld.com/orlando/events/howl-o-scream/faqs/
  15. Ya know with as many classic attractions that have been removed or renovated over the past couple of years it's pretty cool to see a park just completely upgrade and re-build an older classic ride. As far as the ride itself it sound like it's..... just going to be a newer better version of the old ride? I know RMC is involved but it seems like it'll be a pretty similar experience to the original ride just with better/newer/upgraded/refreshed show scenes etc. etc. I think I saw a $30 million dollar investment listed somewhere which is a lot of money, but also considering it's an entirely new coaster and a new dark ride inside of a new building $30 million maybe isn't that much money? Should interesting to see the finished product with this one but pretty cool to see a park invest in keeping a classic historical attraction alive.
  16. All of the letters I sent to B&M demanding that they bring back the tilted loop must have finally payed off. Tilted loops are so back baby.
  17. Those look great, did you cook those on just an elevated rack with a pizza stone in a ceramic komodo style grill? I've had a Green Egg for like 15 years probably but haven't done pizza on it in forever, I think you pies have inspired me to give that another try sometime.
  18. I didn't realize this was going to be a B&M, I just figured since BGW, SWT, and SWSD got Intamin motorbike coasters this would be some version of that. I was kind of looking forward to that model in Orlando but it's hard to complain about capacity and reliability with a B&M. Wonder what kind of trains this thing will have, if it's a "family" coaster I'd just assume it will be some kind of sitdown with the vest restraints but maybe they've something else new in the works similar to the new Standup with Pipeline. It's kind of interesting to think of how stagnant B&M had been for a few decades as far as innovation and now all they sudden they're doing launches, and custom standup trains, and family coasters. Now none of these things are really "new" for the industry but for a company as reputable and reliable as B&M to be doing something new to them is exciting.
  19. Two cycles through the course is a cool little touch, I kind of forgot about this project but seems like a really fun little ride.
  20. Yeah I'll say I didn't have an issue with it, nor have I on any of the other B&M vest restraint rides I've ridden, but my daughter did mentions being slightly uncomfortable mostly when sitting on the brake run. It seems like the vest thing is hit or miss for a lot of people depending on height/shape/etc. but yeah hopefully they can adjust the tension in the future if needed.
  21. Great report, really enjoyed following these updates (and the whole trip recently). This has been one of the more intriguing new parks out there for me recently because it looks so good but it feels like there hasn't been that much coverage of it. How was the Batman ride? Seems like after it opened I looked for some on ride videos for a while then eventually found a POV several months later, but even from good footage like yours it's hard to get a feel for the thing. I know it uses the same Kuka arm as forbidden journey but was the overall ride experience good compared to forbidden journey? I can't imagine that ride system is cheap so hopefully the rest of the attraction stacks up.
  22. I had a chance to get 4 rides on Pipeline this weekend with my oldest during the passholder preview and we had a really fun time. I gotta say, my expectations weren't high for this ride, or low really, but it's pretty fun. The trains bounce way more than I thought they would and it produces some really unique sensations. I thought that the layout after the inversion would be really dull but there were several unexpected pops of air time that the seats created that otherwise probably wouldn't exist. For a "gimmick" coaster it's a pretty fun little gimmick. I have no idea where this thing ranks but it's a heck of a lot of fun. Mako is still my favorite coaster at SeaWorld, but this is a really nice addition. The whole area around the ride looks great, it's very minimal on the themeing but the sand and the palm trees along the waters edge really looks great and has a nice beachy vibe to it. I did notice there was an awful lot of space on some pathways around the ride which makes me think there's some potential to really bring this area into use during the various festivals throughout the year. Lots of nice places for some food stands, and the whole plaza is goin to be a great viewing spot for the fireworks in the summer time. As far as the loading procedures I really didn't notice any issues. Granted it was a passholder preview so crowds were limited, but we had a few rides where the line filled almost all of the main switchbacks below the stairs down the launch track and it took 10 maybe 15 minutes? They did have to re-check a few restraints each train but it really didn't feel slow or anything. Also I think I saw one person get turned away for the restraints but also noticed several larger people ride with no issues. Feels like there was a lot of discussion about the restraints being restrictive for larger people early on when the ride first opened, but I think that's just a thing that people (bloggers) bring up now to have something to talk about when it's really not that big of an issue. Overall it feels like a really solid addition for the park, probably not gonna be anyone's favorite coaster ever but it's a really fun ride.
  23. I completely forgot this project was happening but it looks really good! Can't wait to see the line for the log flume be 4x as long as the line for the coaster.
  24. I'm going with a 500 Ft spike just so they can say they have a 500 Ft tall coaster even though with the swing launch the train will never go over the 350 Ft mark. A record is a record.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use https://themeparkreview.com/forum/topic/116-terms-of-service-please-read/