Hilltopper39

For whatever it's worth I'd forego the side trip to Myrtle Beach for an extra day in Gatlinburg/Dollywood, plenty of stuff to do/see there that's not so far out of the way of the rest of the trip.

It's been a few years since I've been to Myrtle Beach but if I recall traffic getting into and or out of the place can get pretty bad certain days of the week/times of the year. May wanna look into that if you're going to be there around a weekend or holiday or some sort.

Great report as always Adam, I've got a Cedar Point trip planned for September and I'm sure this will be one of many reports I read over the summer to amp up my excitement. Interesting to hear tour take on Valravn, it "looks" like it has the best layout of the 3 north american dive machines I was surprised to say you enjoyed it the least.

The Starflyer looks great and I can't wait to check it out, was there any word on what pricing for it will be? $10? $20? 3 rides for $50? I really don't have any idea what they might charge for a standalone ride like that. The "rebranding" event looked like a lot of fun but as much as I like the complex every time I visit it feels like it's completely empty. I don't know maybe it was just my timing but I've been there during the day, on weekends, at night, doesn't seem to matter. We hit the bars and shake shack after a concert on a Saturday night once and it was just dead, we just got the food to go and went to the hotel. Cool to see the Straflyer addition but I hope it brings some more business to the place.

I have always wondered how "accurate" some of the numbers really are. With Disney for example if you have a 4 day park hopper and you go to two parks per day does that count as 8 different admissions (2 for each park) or does it count as 4 admission from the same person? In In the past I've checked the numbers Disney states in their annual reports and they're nearly if not identical to what is reported in the TEA report, so those numbers must be good enough that they're comfortable reporting them to shareholders but still I'm curious internally how they measure attendance and what those numbers are versus what is reported here.

Who wants to take bets on what the attendance increases at Disneyland and Hollywood Studios will be next year after Galaxy's edge opens? Wait that report is like 2 years away. Either way if Avatar increased Animal Kingdom's attendance by 15% (1.7 million) I wouldn't be surprised if Hollywood Studios jumps anywhere from 20-50%. It's going to be insane.

Yeah I'm sure those "bottom five" rankings were at times when it was really rough and desperately in need of retracking (and honestly I may have partially made up the bottom 5 part but I know I've seen it poorly reviewed). I also tend to not be bothered by rides some people consider rough so as long as this thing thing is reasonably comfortable I'm sure I'd really enjoy it.

The Boardwalk Bullet has always been an interesting coaster to me, I love the compact layout and placement on the pier and I've heard reviews of it ranging from top 10 to bottom 5 haha. Always wanted to get down there and ride that thing.

I love watching tv shows on the ipad/phone on a treadmill. You can usually bang out an entire season of something in like 6-10 days if you do 1-3 episodes (depending on length of the show) during a workout. I think I watched most of Breaking Bad on a treadmill in like 2-3 weeks, it was my motivation to work out haha.

Great questions... For that "Princess Gathering" you sign up ahead of time for a time and get all four princesses just waiting in line one time. For Frozen, that's a separate sign up, and you get both girls for waiting in line once. Other random characters are just listed in the schedule and you'll basically wait 20 minutes no matter what. Either get there 20min early and be first in line, or get in line once it's open and wait 20 minutes. The only exception was the Marvel Characters. They also had special signups (like the princesses), and just random schedules when you'd have to get in line earlier or wait longer. Thanks! I figured with the number of people on the ship there would always be lines but they would never be that bad so it sounds like's pretty much the case. It's nice that you can sign up for a time for the main princesses at least. We're tentatively planning a Disney Cruise for later next year (when my girls will be 4 and 7) and these trip reports are just amping up our excitement to another level.

I don't know what the cost of one of those new Vekoma family boomerang coasters is but I feel like it's probably priced such that Cedar Fair could buy one for every park in like a 2-3 year span, and I'd totally be for it.

The princess meet n greets and character interaction alone probably make a Disney Cruise worth it. You mentioned that you have to sign up in advance for the princesses, do you sign up with a specific time for each princess or are there several at the same location like in the parks? As for the rest of the characters like Pirate Mickey and Minnie and Stitch on Pirate night, just curious but how are the lines for meeting those characters on a ship?

I'm not sure the ride "needed" anything but some upgrades are always welcome, especially if it means fixing some of the existing effects. Should be interesting to see what all changes.

This expansion sounds great but it's kind of a bummer that they have to close Shamu Express and the train ride from now until 2019. Wish there was a way to work around it and keep them open for the summer season. (I'm pretty sure I read they were closing, neither ride is currently listed on the website)

I mean I've heard pretty mediocre things about the ride itself but everything around it looks pretty well done, especially if you're into cars.

I LOVE Turnstile and I can’t wait to see them this weekend. I saw the schedule for the festival you’re talking about and noticed that Queens of the Stone Age and Baroness played at the same time. I think you made the right choice seeing QOTSA, but that would have been a painful decision for me to make. Yeah there were quite a few schedule overlaps that kinda sucked. Thrice was on the same time as Turnstile, Clutch and Wolf Alice. I'm not a huge fan of any of those so on one hand it's cool the drop in for a few minutes of each band but was probably frustrating to people who are fans and had to pick one or the other.

I went to Sunday of the local rock festival and watched sets from Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Bullet for My Valentine, Wolf Alice, and Turnstile. Foo Fighters were great as expected, but Turnstile was a surprise, those guys got after it and were pretty impressive.

Yeah I can't wait to check this out, these things are so much fun but totally terrifying at the same time.

Is the Zombie themed Sky Rocket in Mexico the only one with a dual load station? A dual load station with 2 laps around the circuit seems like the way to go, wonder why more parks haven't chosen that option?

Interesting results, and like everyone has said great job by everyone putting this together. I guess the "surprises" for me are Storm Chaser being ranked so highly, then again everything RMC has built is on the list so it probably shouldn't be a surprise. Also Kumba and/or Montu not making it into the top 25 is a little bit of a surprise considering those rides seem to always be highly ranked by people and are at a park that's pretty commonly visited so I'm sure they had plenty of votes. Montu finished at 31 (93.15%) and Kumba at 34 (92.27%).I'm guessing the margin of votes between separating like 20 and 40 was pretty close, then again maybe not.

Yeah, September can't get here soon enough for me, this just looks spectacular. And it will be my first RMC, might as well just start with the best haha.

What is your favorite musical not named Hamilton? Also, since you seem to like the Hamilton questions, who would you cast for a Hamilton Movie? (and it can't be the original Broadway cast, okay maybe just a few of them...)

So Fast Lane question, I'm planning a trip in late September when the park is only open Fri, Sat, and Sun. which I guess is during the Halloween event. Are the Fast Lane passes available for purchase now for those dates just for the rides only and not any of the houses? I remember seeing various combinations of fast lane for houses and rides last year but I'm assuming the options for sale for those dates now includes rides only. Also, hate to be that guy asking about crowds, but what can I expect Fridays and Saturdays late September? I'm defiantly getting Fast Lane for Saturday no doubt about that but can't decide if it's worth it on a Friday when the park is only open for 6 hours. Not even sure about going to the park on Friday since it's only open 6-12pm but the evening tickets a cheap enough we might drop in for a few hours. Depends how we feel after Jets @ Browns the night before haha.

I can see a scenario where they build one coaster utilizing sections of both existing layout structures and demo the unused portions for future expansions. I can also see a scenario where they just demo the whole thing, we shall see.

^You're probably right, in that it requires more "structure" that isn't as accommodating to park guests as it is to guests on the cruise ship. Besides we all know if they could offer it in a park/resort setting and make money off of it there probably would have been on opened 10 years ago .