Hilltopper39

Waterparks have seen a lot of innovation over the last decade or so but it's starting to feel like every waterpark has kind of has the same "cookie cutter" selection of attractions, play structure, lazy river, wave pool, mat racer, family raft slide, drop door/body slide, tube slide complex, funnel slide, bowl etc. When Aquatica opened Roa's Rapids it seemed like such a fun and unique take on a traditional lazy river that it was kind of refreshing. Staying in Aquatica the entrance to that park has always felt really cool, where you walk up hill under a slide, over a bridge over the lazy river, past the dolphin pool, past another slide before you are in the park, it's a really dynamic entrance to the park with all of the layers and interaction that it makes the place feel "different" the second you enter it, which I love.

You're clearly not from the South.....

For whatever it's worth Maelstrom's old Wikipedia page lists the capacity at 1000 per hour. Whatever the actual capacity is it's not going to be enough to keep up with the demand on crowded days, especially while it is still new. On the bright side it looks like the standby line for Soarin and Test Track have been a lot shorter over the past week.

I'm still bitter about the Apple Fries place being closed both days on my visit a few years back, seriously we went on like a Friday/Saturday in July and it was closed both days! I want to like this Legoland park so much but it just felt like it was missing one or two major attractions when I visited. Ninjago should help but I'd love to see a few more "full size" rides like Polar X-Plorer, or Ghost, or the rapids and log flume ride at Legoland Billund. I feel like that Polar-Xplorer ride system should be at every Legoland park, theme it to whatever you want that seems like the perfect size/level of attraction for Legoland's.

Yeah, I totally understand how the Fastpass+ system can be a bit "annoying" to some people and you do have to refresh and check back periodically for some of the really high demand attractions, but generally speaking I've almost always been able to get passes for whatever I want on the days I'm going with a little bit of planning. I've even gotten 7 Dwarves Mine Train and Ana Elsa meet n greet as my 4th or 5th pass in the park the day of. I don't have a clue as to the exact formula Disney uses to distribute the passes through the system but I think they're smart enough to not dump all X number of passes per hour for every attraction 60 days in advance so that they are all gone when day guests can make their reservations, again I don't know but based on my usage experience I think they space out distributing the allocation over time even up to the day of. The last thing they want is for millions of people to absolutely hate using the system they spent a billion dollars on.

Obviously this is only based on reports, but if this is actually what's going on, it's pretty brutal. This may be one instance where FastPass Plus has turned out to be a bad idea. Don't believe everything you read on the internet, I booked Fastpasses for it within the available 30 day window this morning.

Don't get me wrong here I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Universal's approach at all, it is different than Disney's for various reasons but it is perfectly fine. Personally I do kind of enjoy picking my meals and making dining reservations and fastpass+ reservations months ahead of time, I completely understand how some people prefer the spontaneity but for me planning out the trip out in advance is kind of part of the fun. Even when I make last minute short weekend trips (which are most of my trips) honestly I've never had a problem getting fastpasses/dining reservations for anything I wanted with a few exceptions like 7 Dwarves Mine Train, Be Our Guest, Ana Elsa, TSM but honestly even those attractions I've gotten FP+ the day of many times. Heck I had a FP for Frozen Ever After even though I couldn't make it down that day. And the Fast pass+/ Express Pass comparison well there isn't a comparison because they are completely different. Next time I go to Universal (it's been a while) I'm going to stay on property and get an Express Pass because it's been so long since I've been, but it is nice at Disney to know that I can reserve 3 or 4 of my favorite attractions ahead of time anytime I want without having to drop an extra $100 a day to do so. Sure it is nice to throw some more money at Universal to have a great day, but it's also nice to have an AP to Disney where I don't have to spend extra money to get on whatever I want whenever I want to on a dozen trips per year with just a little bit effort in planning. Again I'm not knocking Universal's approach at all, I'm looking forward to staying on property and getting Express passes, just gonna have to wait a few years until my kids are taller than 40" so there are more than 3 rides I can take them on..........(that part was me throwin some shade at UO)

Those deluxe properties at Disney are pretty darn convenient, and you get to ride a monorail....... Yeah, after paying like 600 per night. I mean the Hard Rock and Portofino Bay are both in that same range. Heck I Just did a quick search for Disney and Universal on the same nights and Disney's Polynesian is less than Royal Pacific and only like $40 more than Saphire Falls. I realize some of the Universal Deluxe resorts come with the front of the line pass and all but the pricing and convenience of the higher end properties really isn't that different.

I'm guessing this will be the Secret Life of Pets project that has been rumored. Seems bold to begin developing an attraction based on a movie before the movie has been released but maybe they think the film will do well enough to justify an attraction. Say what you will about Universal and Comcast but they do seem to be aggressively expanding their park business. I think even if the movie bombs, a ride featuring cartoon animals could still end up being a great family ride. After all, USH is the same theme park that has one of the better (if not best) theme park stunt shows based on one of the biggest movie flops of all time! You watch your mouth, Waterworld is a national treasure! But yeah I get what your saying, and Universal has a lot of experience building great attractions based on mediocre movies (Men in Black, Backdraft, Transformers, Twister......) so they should be fine......

Those deluxe properties at Disney are pretty darn convenient, and you get to ride a monorail.......

I'm guessing this will be the Secret Life of Pets project that has been rumored. Seems bold to begin developing an attraction based on a movie before the movie has been released but maybe they think the film will do well enough to justify an attraction. Say what you will about Universal and Comcast but they do seem to be aggressively expanding their park business.

I wonder if extending the ride path by using the old area in between the two stations allowed them add any new boats into the operation or increase the capacity in any way. I never really had much of a feel for the capacity of the old ride because they was never much of a line for it.

They should have just kept that giant polar bear in the same spot, I'd totally believe it if Elsa had a pet polar bear hanging out in her ice castle.

The new Meet n Greet in Norway looks great, can't wait to see the rest of the area open up tomorrow.

Adventure Trail looks like a really cool "surprise", I'm not sure I was even aware that was an attraction being planned for opening day. I'd love to see something like that installed at Animal Kingdom, come on WDI it's not to late to add it into Pandora! Seems like Pirates is the consensus absolute "Must See" attraction at this park, I did watch a few spoiler vids online just because I know I'm not gonna be in Shanghai anytime soon, but holy cow that thing looks amazing. I can only imagine how great the Star Wars version of that ride will be if they use the same technology.

Yeah I saw that yesterday, which is dumb but it did lead to some funny comments by people. One lady said her husband had bad feeling about "that new ride", and didn't get on it, and now that it's closed that feeling must have been a sign from god to stay off the new rolley coaster ride...... Or it could just be a bad part identified by the manufacturer to be replaced, no divine intervention necessary.

How does Octoberfest work, like as far as ride tickets? Is there an "all day" band or something or is it like a pay per price for each ride? If so how much do each of the rides costs?

Is Dreamcatcher any good? It always looks like a pretty decent coaster with it's setting and layout but ya never hear much about it positive or negative. Also, I've always wondered why none of North American suspended coasters have ever converted to the floorless suspended trains, I know many of those rides have been taken out of service but it seems like the ones left aren't going anywhere for a while.

That is why they have the Q-Bots........

I had a theory from back in season 1 and 2 that kinda came true, but has kind of been debunked, but now might be true again I don't know. My theory back then was that Arya's sword teacher Syrio Forell was a faceless man and was Jaqen H'ghar. At that time in the story the only two people in the show from Bravos directly interacted with Arya so there was some Bravosi connection there, and obviously she ended up in the House of Black and White training with the faceless men. The other half of my theory is that Ned Stark knew what was coming and hired a faceless man protect his youngest daughter, and after Sunday's episode that might still be true somehow, I mean Jaqen let Arya go when you would think he easily could have killed here in that situation, I don't think the faceless men would willingly let someone take their secrets back out into the World but he let her walk away, or it would appear that he has at this point. Now the part about Jaqen ordering the waif to kill Arya, I don't know, maybe that was another test or something, but I feel that there is more to this story to be revealed other than Arya sails back to Westeros and all is well.

Don't forget that there is another company out there in the Industry that does wood coaster refurbishments, and apparently did a pretty good job recently with a ride that was once great but had grown rough over the years.... And with RMC, it wouldn't surprise me if they got out of the conversion business in the near future once they start producing those all steel T-Rex/Raptor track rides. No idea what their business is like internally or what kind of profit they make on those conversion but you would think they would be more interested in new rides than conversions.

I was pretty happy to see Leslie Odum Jr win for best lead in a musical, as great as that cast was he really did a great job so much that I feel like at this point some of the other characters are easier to replace tha him. Overall the show was a lot of fun and I thought they did a great job with it. James Corden is the new Neil Patrick Harris .

I mean it's not the best ride in the world and has it's flaws but it does look kinda fun.

There seems to be a bit more of a casual buzz around the show Tony's this year from "non-theatre" people, probably all because of Hamilton. I know several people that don't follow Broadway or rarely go to a shows in town but are planning to watch the Tony's which is great. Also, speaking of Hamilton, I lucked out a got tickets back in April when they released some new seats for shows in the fall/spring of 2016/17. Not the best seats in the house but they are seats in the theatre purchased at face value for a show where the resale is CRAZY. I don't know how much of the original cast will still be around in November but I'm optimistic some of them will be, probably not Lin Manuel but ya never know, this thing has had such a crazy run so far it wouldn't surprise me if some of the stars stuck around a bit longer than they normally do.

Please tell me if they assign your seat! 1 or 2-train operation? Original recipe or Extra Crispy?