Hilltopper39

This place looks awesome except for one small personal pet peeve, gigantic menus drive me crazy! Maybe I'm the only one but it seems like menus for restaurants have grow over the years so to the point that they are so big that they are cumbersome to handle at the table, This place looks awesome though, such a cool concept.

Orlando gets an exciting new attraction and Tokyo has to immediately go and trump it, I'm sure their version of the Frozen ride will be spectacular. This whole project is pretty exciting, but now I have to wait a decade to visit the resort! Oh well I'm sure it will be worth it.

Sounds like some major capital improvements are in the works for Hollywood Studios, which is a good thing. I'm gald they're removing the hat but I hope it finds a new home somewhere else because it is a pretty cool structure, just not in the middle of the park like it is. I always liked Hollywood Studios with the Chinese theater as the focal point at the end of the mains street so hopefully that stays, and hopefully the Great Movie Ride gets a nice refurbishment. I've always loved the Movie Ride but it is a bit dated and could use some scenes from a few "modern movies". I'd love to see what they could do to that experience with some modern technology and effects. I guess my ideal expansion would include a new Pixar section near the Backlot and a new Star Wars section where Indy stands now. It will be interesting to see what they do with the Indy and Lights Motors Action Shows. Indy has been rumored to be going away for a while now but it pulls good crowds and is still pretty good, and Lights Motors Action isn't that old. Would it be possible to retheme LMS to a Cars themed stunt show, or overhaul Indy into some kind of live Star Wars who some how? I know there is plenty of land for expansion in/around the studios park but seems like those two theaters are right smack in the middle of prime real estate for whatever they end up doing. Just a random idea but it would be kind of cool to see a version of a Mystic Manor style ride themed to a movie studio or prop warehouse or something that comes to life somewhere in the park, maybe between Tower and Rock n Roller Coaster. Seems like that story would be fairly easy to create and could be really cool.

Awesome report. I've been reading all of the LA area haunt reviews over on grantland.com (sports and pop culture site) and the Haunted Hay Ride has gotten the best reviews so far which is awesome for an event I've never really heard of.

Why does Japan have to be so far away? Sigh...... (awesome pictures by the way)

There was an article about the development in the Orlando Business journal last week. It mentioned a few different hotel brands that were coming to the area in addition to shopping and dining etc. but it also mentioned that Disney is involved in the development of the property some how but the details were a bit vague. I'll see if I can find the article and post some more specific information from it.

I've always thought it would be cool to see them expand Frightful Falls into some kind of indoor/outdoor haunted house dark ride log flume attraction. Seems like the plot of land after the initial tunnel on that flume ride is large enough that they could build some kind of structure and have decent sized dark ride section with some show scenes and a few indoor drops that culminates in the same final drop that exists now. If your reading this Paula, I'm full of attraction ideas and would love to contribute my creative services, for a small fee of course...... (who am I kidding I'll work for a season pass, pizza, and fudge).

I've only been on 1 wing rider and I didn't love it but didn't hate it either. The launch should make the experience more exciting and I like what they are doing with some of the near misses in the layout. I'm excited about this thing, and 99.9% of the park guest will absolutely love it. Should be a huge success for Holiday World.

So Universal Beijing is going to kind of be a mixture of all of the best attractions from the Universal Parks, I kind of like the concept. The studios park in Florida always felt like it was kind of missing something to me, maybe the Potter section has filled that but taking the best attractions from Studios and sticking them into an Islands of Adventure style park should be pretty nice.

Thunderbird looks awesome, it's so massive that it almost looks like it doesn't belong in this park. The way it towers over everything it's like a little family owned park built a gigantic major steel coaster, oh wait, that's exactly what it is! This is going to be a great addition and I'm sure it will be a huge hit for Holiday World when it opens. I really need to make a trip back to my Ole Kentucky Home next spring, this thing, Kentucky Kingdom is back open, horse racing, bourbon, ahhhhh times like these make me wish I didn't live in Florida.

Great report Chuck, looks like the seasonal parks around the country have really stepped up the quality in the haunt events over the past couple of years.

I spent the day at SeaWorld Orlando on Friday and had a few thoughts to share. First off the place was packed, I was expecting light crowds for a weekday in the "off season" but all of the shows were full, most of the rides had a wait. Manta and Kraken were 10-15 minutes when I rode but Antartica was 30-45 minutes all day. Not sure if this was because of $55 weekday tickets or not but it was nice to see the park stil drawing decent crowds. Finally got to experience Antartica, and uh yeah, it was about as average as I was expecting. I really really wanted to like the ride but it just didn't work. Couldn't follow the story, the ride vehicles are so cool but do so little, overall it was just meh. It's a shame the ride was so uneventful because the rest of the section is nice, i mean REALLY nice. The animal viewing area, the dining space, the restaurant, the themeing in the que line and rest of the section. Everything looked great but the ride was a bit disappointing. Also, I'm not one to complain very often about operations, but when were were grouped in Antarctica I was with my wife and my 2 year old and we were directed to pod 4 of the "Mild" version of the ride with another group of three and a group of 2. So our party got split up and I filled the empty single space in the front row while my wife and daughter sat in the back row, and a A 2 year old in the second row couldn't see a thing the whole ride. So yeah, for a "family" attraction seems like they could do a better job grouping the families together. Friday was also the first time I had a chance to see the new One Ocean Shamu show, it was fine but not as good as Believe used to be. Blue Horizons is still my favorite show in the park. Another note, I noticed in a few different places SeaWorld was kind of going out of their way to mention their conservation efforts and their animal rescue operations, which is fine but it almost felt forced a bit. In the pet show, I remember that they used to bring out a dog for a few tricks and mention he was a rescue and encourage the audience to rescue pets, but Friday they said that every animal in the show was a rescue. If that is true it's great but I hope it is not an embellishment of the truth for the sake of appeal. Also, they had a few miniature horses in the gardens section near the old brewery that before we could get the viewing area the attendant was telling the story of how these horses were pets that were abandoned and SeaWorld rescued them. Again, I hope that is true but either way it felt a bit forced. Do it because it's the right thing to do, not because you have to do it so you can promote yourself for doing it. Overall we had a great day, SeaWorld is still a very nice park. Kraken is still a beast of a steel coaster, Manta is a nice flyer (I forgot how nasty that pretzel loop can be), Antartica is a beautiful section with a below average ride, and the animal exhibits are still very well done. Take advantage of the $55 weekday tickets while you still can!

I think the "capacity nightmare" is the boats. Didn't the Maelstrom boats have one or two less rows than something like Pirates or Small World? So maybe a solution is to increase the number of passengers in the boat, and maybe even create a dual loading platform so they can load two boats at once like they do on Pirates and Small World. That's a good point, I was always under the impression that the reason Mine Train was so late was because they revised the scope of the Fantasyland shortly after they announced it. Wasn't there a different attraction originally announced for that section of the expansion that was later changed to 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, or am I making that up? Either way yeah Disney doesn't have to rush anything but I guess the announced time frame for the Frozen attraction to open in early 2016 is really enough time that they could do anything they want. New ride system, re-work the old ride system, we'll just have to wait and see! Whatever it is I'm sure it will be awesome. Yeah, I couldn't remember if Maelstrom dispatched boats one at a time or two at a time, but if they do re-use the existing ride system I would expect them to find a way to increase the capacity.

I've always wondered why it takes Disney so long to open some of their attractions, not to compare Universal and Disney again but Universal completed Transformers in just over a year and all of London and Diagon Alley in just over 2 years. If Disney really wanted install a totally new ride system in the given time frame they could get it done. Just seems like the capacity of the existing ride system is a disaster waiting to happen if they re-use it as is (I honestly don't know what the existing capacity is but I'm assuming it's not as significant as some of their other major attractions.). Maybe they can re-work the existing ride controls and increase capacity somehow. Call me crazy but I still love Imagination haha, I always take time to ride it whenever I'm at Epcot but yeah a complete re-do there would be welcome.

Legoland Billund looks awesome. I went to Legoland Florida for the first time this summer and was kind of underwhelmed by the place. I get that it's a kids park but it felt like a couple of true "family" attractions like Ghost or the Polar X-Plorer would have made that park much more complete. The water park in Florida was nice but other than the mouse coaster I feel like kids over the age of about 10 will be bored with that place.

^Awesome, I totally forgot that SeaWorld San Antonio does a Halloscreams event. Looks like a lot of fun.

I'm hoping for some kind of trackless vehicle ride system. Seems like the potential to choreograph the motion in the ride with the music from Frozen would make that system pretty appealing. Lance over at Screamscape had a pretty interesting post today about the concept of Epcot as a park and how Epcot has failed. It's a pretty interesting perspective and I guess it's hard not to agree with. He's not saying Epcot is a bad park, just saying the old business model of having rides and pavilions sponsored by countries and corporations is no longer working and with Norway backing out of sponsorship of the pavilion several years ago paired with the Frozen expansion is essentially the last nail in the coffin. It's worth a read....... Epcot has Failed Personally I love the idea that Disney is incorporating their movies and characters into Epcot. I'd love to see a Ratatouille ride in the France section, or some other new Disney branded attractions open in other parts of the park. Epcot is my personal favorite park at WDW and it looks like the future is bright.

A nice review of this years event was posted on Grantland.com yesterday. This author is going to a bunch of haunts in the LA area this season and writing reviews of all of them for Grantland.com. She did Hollywood Horror Nights last week and Knotts Scary Farm this week. Pretty interesting to read a detailed perspective of an event like this from someone who doesn't attend them on a regular basis and see how they compare the two events. Give it a read. L.A. Haunts: I Was Stalked by a Demon Hillbilly Bear at Knott’s Scary Farm and I Liked It

First, those ride boats look HUGE out of the water and on the back of a truck bed, I had no idea those things were that big. Second, I feel like they almost have to completely overhaul the ride system for a Frozen ride to work. I don't know what the theoretical capacity of the old system was but there's no way it's big enough to support the popularity of a Frozen attraction. When the line for the character meet and greets is over several hours the lines for the ride will be massive. If they do keep the ride system that same, they're gonna need a bigger boat........

Every year I find it interesting how differently each house is reviewed by different people. The same house that is one person's favorite of the event is someone else least favorite house in 10 years. Has there ever been a year where one single house was the absolute majority favorite? Seems like it really comes down to what you like personally.

Not entirely sure I'd agree with that seeing as how two of the parks marquee attractions are both in that area about 400 feet apart, but a new attraction is always welcome anywhere.

What about after they start using freakin drones for powder-less fireworks? Eh?

^Haha, I'm sure RMC could still make this thing into a great attraction but it might be a smaller scale "fun" ride instead of a gigantic thrill ride. Kind of like a smaller version of Wicked Cyclone.

^^Yeah good point, I forgot how awesome and ahead of the curve Japan already is. I guess with the new Apple pay system you cwill eventually be able to use your phone for the touch to pay and if Disney wanted to I'm sure they could build into the MDX app the ability to use your phone for park admission and FastPass+. As cool as the magic bands are they might not be necessary in the future.

^ DO you have any insight into the timeline of expanding MDX and Magic Bands to other resorts world wide? Seems like they could potentially sell enough accessories in Tokyo alone to finance the worldwide expansion of the system haha.