Hilltopper39

Quick Carowinds question for our trip this weekend. We've purchased Fastlane for the day but just curious about the merge point for Fastlane, at the major attractions atleast (Fury, Copperhead, Afterburn, Nighthawk etc.). Are there any rides like Millennium Force at CP to know about ahead of time where the merge point is where you should still expect a 20-30 minute wait even Fastlane?

We made a quick run to Busch Gardens on Saturday to celebrate my oldest daughter's 2nd grade graduation (really it was just a good excuse for me to take a trip to the park and drag her along), but we ended up have a pretty solid day. Couple comments from the day.... We were able to hit Cheetah Hunt first thing in the morning when it opened up at 10, then got on and off Cobra's Curse and Montu by around 10:40. If you can get there early and be in line for Cheetah Hunt when it opens it's worth it to grab a ride early, but if not I'd suggest heading anywhere else as everything else in the park is probably a walk on for the first hour, and if you're not in line for Cheetah Hunt in the first 10-20 minutes or so after it opens it'll be an hour plus the rest of the day so might as well spend your time somewhere else. I chatted with a supervisor at the rope drop for Cheetah Hunt for a few minutes and she mentioned some of the staffing issues the park is having like everywhere else out there. It wasn't immediately noticeable to me throughout the day as most all of the attractions were running well (except no Skyride which is a bummer), but it was pretty apparent in some areas. Scorpion and Sand Serpent and the rest of the flat rides in that area (except Falcon's Fury) didn't open until 11am, not sure if that's normal or not. Food service was AWFUL, lines for every dining location stretched out the door, and every stand seemed like it had a line 15-20 people deep. I usually don't eat a lot at parks but with an 8 year old it was a little frustrating to not be able to find a drink stand without a 15-20 minute wait. Another thing was odd was that every single on ride photo location was closed, every attraction. Not really that big of a deal even though we've got the unlimited Photo Key thing, just kind of odd to see a revenue stream like that completely unavailable at a packed park in the middle of the summer. If anyone is headed down during the Summer Nights even The Cirque Electric show was a pretty solid surprise. I wasn't expecting much, just wanted to sit down for 45 minutes inside some air conditioning, but it was really fun. Worth checking out for sure. Tigris was my fist Premier Sky Rocket clone, and man that was fun. I don't understand the comfort collars but really didn't notice them during the ride so no big deal, but that thing was a blast, really surprised me. I'd highly recommend quick que but you can still have a pretty solid day without if you get there early/stay late and manage your day well. We got on every major coaster once without quick que with a couple re-rides on Montu, Kumba, and scorpion, plus rides on the rapids, log ride, train and a show. My 8 year old went on every coaster in the park, she was a little hesitant about Sheikra but she rode it and ended up loving it, so proud coaster nerd dad here haha. We're headed to Carowinds next weekend so we'll see if she goes on Fury or not, but all around a solid day even with heat and massive crowds.

Armature Works is a really cool spot downtown, kind of the food hall type place that's all the craze these days but it's an awesome location in an old restored building with a lot of different food and drink offerings. We ate at Empamammas last time we were there and it was great, but all of the food from the other stalls everyone else had looked amazing as well. https://www.armatureworks.com/ Besides that you can't really go wrong in Ybor, and there's a trolley that runs through there into downtown. Check again on the Safari tours, when we went over spring break it was the same thing, reservations not available online, but I looked this morning for a trip tomorrow and they had reservations available for the rest of the summer so they may have just recently brought that back.

I think with Galaxy's Edge the intent all along was to have it open with both attractions, but things might have happened during construction and delayed that a bit. Rise of the Resistance was already built when SGE opened so it was only a matter of how long until it opens. The Avengers ride is most likely years away at this point, not months so it feels like a little bit of a different scenario. Similar, but different. I would guess an E-Ticket Avengers ride opens in Paris or Hong Kong before it does in California.

FYI Fun Spot is having a sale this Saturday for $23 tickets, limit of 10 per person. If anyone has a trip to Orlando scheduled this summer/fall might be worth grabbing a couple passes. I'm not this biggest fan of Fun Spot but for $23 it's worth it's worth it for a few hours of fun.

Seems like there was quote a bit of criticism towards the new ride but I think it looks fantastic for what it is. The whole land really looks great, especially some of the live entertainment they have going on. I love those little pop up shows with various super heroes and how the land is built for those shows to randomly occur throughout the day, super fun. Now lets get that Avengers attraction under construction....

I was thinking about that event when this was announced, and some of the others. I wonder if SEAS might have acquired some assests from other events in the area that didn't make it through the pandemic, set pieces, costumes, design/management talent etc. I'm sure it's possible to lease out the a haunt from a third party company so maybe there's some of that going on behind the scenes to put this on. Of all places in America Orlando is probably a pretty good market to create an event from scratch in 6ish months and have it be halfway decent.

Dye the water in the Shark Encounter red you cowards......... Also would it be that hard to do a spooky overlay for Journey To Atlantis? None of the effects work anymore anyways, just add some fog and lights and some music and it will be 100% better than it is right now.

I'm pretty excited about this, is it a budget alternative to HHN? Absolutely, but the whole event at BGT is always a lot of fun so I'm sure this should be as well. Give me some spooky atmosphere and short ques for night rides on Mako and Manta all day! Edit: just read that Friday's and Saturday's it's open until 2 AM !?! Yeah, all of the coasters will probably be complete walk ons after midnight.

In 2019 they had 6 I believe, some years before that I think it was maybe a few more, but never "way more" than that. Maybe like 7 or 8 a couple of years? But feels like the houses recently have been fewer but more scare zones.

Well that resort looks fantastic, it has a very "Disney's Wilderness Lodge" feel to it, which is a good thing! Ya know, I've never really thought about it but for as comparable as Silver Dollar City and Dollywood area (similar size and style parks, in similar vacation destination areas) it's kind of strange that Dollywood is working on their second resort in addition to the cabins they offer, but Silver Dollar City doesn't have any lodging options other than a camp ground with a few cabins. I wonder why they're willing to invest so much into resort offerings in Pigeon Forge and not in Branson?

I'll play, sometimes it will be long, sometimes it will be short. The morning of opening day will look ridiculous but by the evening it'll be somewhere around or under an hour. Am I missing anything?

In some random park related news legendary professional wrestler/aspiring Rockstar Chris Jericho's band Fozzy just released a new music video that was filmed at Holiday world. Probably not a lot of professional wrestling fans here but the video is pretty cool . Shout out to Holiday World for letting them throw a guitar off of the lift hill of The Voyage lol.

I don't really get the Jurassic Park cosplay that people have been doing at the Universal parks lately. Even the ones that are "good" and actually look like the characters, I mean if those people walked into a grocery store with those outfits on nobody would know they're in "cosplay". The costume is just a a guy or a girl in some work clothes lol.

I mean it's just an artists rendering for an expansion that's several years away, but that sure looks like one of the newer Vekoma's, like Lech Coaster. If that's the case man that's a heck of an addition to a park that's universally loved by just about everyone. Great to see this place continue to grow, this looks fantastic.

Thanks for the report! I'm planning a trip up there in a few weeks with my kids, one who is over 54" and one just over 50". I'll probably get FastLane for myself and my oldest to do Fury/Copperhead/Afterburn as many times as we want, then hopefully lines the rest of the lineup for the little one aren't that bad. Can't imagine the lines for the Boomerang or the mine train get that long even on a crowded day.

Quick Que at BGT can get up there too, it's $40 during the week in the low season but it's $100-$150 on the weekends pretty much from now until October.

Everytime I see a story like this I'm just assuming it's staged for attention on Twitter and Tik Tok or whatever. If you really lost your wig on that ride it would be in the lake or inside the secured ride area or something. I highly doubt they're out there gathering loose articles every hour so she probably just took the thing off and gave it to a team member to film him giving it back to her. I mean it gives the park something to tweet about so good for engagement and all that, just always feels fake to me.

Kondaa looks fantastic but I didn't realize it's only 165 feet tall. All of the construction pics and stuff that I'd previously seen had me thinking that it was over 200 Ft but regardless, looks like an amazing addition.

This discussion is dumb, there are a lot of people, a LOT, that go to Dollywood for the country/gospel/bluegrass music (and the shows and the crafts and the food) only, not the rides. You're trying to fix something that aint broken here.

It's been pretty interesting to watch how Universal has approached the opening of Velocicoaster compared to some other attractions in the past, at both Universal and Disney. I mean cast member and media/pass holder previews have only been going on for what 2 weeks now (?) and I feel like there are so many more reviews/posts etc. about this thing out there compared to anything previously. Seems like just about everyone who is local has already been on this thing by now, and there's another month until the opening. And as far as all of the reviews/pics/videos being out there I guess it's just a giant roller coaster where you can see every inch of track from existing guest areas so there weren't really any "surprises" to keep secret like on Hagrid or Galaxy's Edge, but still it's kind of interesting how Universal seemingly has embraced the opening and let all of that information flow this early. I know theme park social media is kind of a weird space these days, but feels like Universal has taken a really good approach to the opening of this attraction so far. I don't know when I'll get down there to ride this thing but it looks awesome, has everything I love in an attraction so I can't wait. Maybe my youngest will be 51" by the end of the summer and I'll finally have an excuse to make the trip!

The train ride is great but take a look when you get there to see if they're still loading every other row. Usually the train seats a ton of people and you only have to wait for the next train to arrive, but during Spring Break this year they were loading every other row and a small que just outside the train station building ended up being about 3 cycles due to the seating. Just a heads up, we ended wait about an hour thinking it was only going to be maybe 15 minutes.

This place is what dreams are made of, or nightmares I guess, either way it looks awesome!

Don't forget that if one of these gets installed at a FEC or waterpark or go kart place somewhere in America, most of the potential customers there probably have no idea what a Sky Coaster is. This thing will just be the new ride to them. Just because this thing is capable of a 24 passenger capacity I'd guess we're more likely to see some 6 person and 8 person installations. Wherever this thing goes I'm sure it will print money no matter how similar or different the ride experience is from something that's already out there.

Yeah pricing for those Kalahari and Great Wolf Lodges etc aren't really a fair comparison. $150 a day is steep, but a room for $300 a night which includes 2 days of access for a family of 4 isn't to bad. That's the game they're in.