OrlandoGuy

The producers of the Hunger Games said something similar about turning those movies into rides lol...I wouldn't put too much stock into it, it's a synergy ploy. Jurassic World will have some presence in the Jurassic Park area (some aesthetic things), I feel pretty confident about that, but I would bet that we don't ever see a full-fledged JW ride at IOA.

SeaWorld, even with the drop in attendance, still gets 5-6 times more visitors each year than the average park. Ugh thank you. People act like their SeaWorld accountants for God's sake. Yeah they took a hit but they are far from going under.

^hey I found one of the fanboys you were talking about!

Not sure about authentic British beer mats but you can definitely get coasters on property of the resorts (they'll just be more theme park-y than British). I would check World of Disney (the big store at Downtown Disney) for Disney-style coasters. Also, a lot of stores that sell licensed merchandise (like how Universal licenses Star Wars merchandise) might have coasters themed to the property being licensed. Good luck on your search!

It is. It is a dark ride coaster. Nope. An indoor coaster and dark ride are two different things. A dark ride/coaster combines the two (Mummy at Universal). A dark ride has show scenes and vignettes to pass by. It's not just any old ride in a building.

So Six Flags took one of their better parks and made it one big operations nightmare. The last time I went to a SF park was a long time ago and I dont plan on going back because of this--it seems like every year each of their parks gets continually worse and worse. Its amazing to me that a hospitality-oriented company can have so little regard for the overall guest experience. What good are world class roller coasters if you cant even get on them in a reasonable amount of time, if at all? Its pretty sad that a park I once looked forward to visiting one day is now one I wont even bother with. Great business model Six Flags. Im sorry fanboys but this company just seems to really suck.

And stop the Cali hate just cause you're not here. There's no place I'd rather live! West Coast Best Coast! lolol . I take it you've never lived anywhere else then

Dude what is your problem

Great report so far! Kings Dominion is my favorite Cedar Fair park that isn't Cedar Point. Can't wait to see more updates

...In some people's opinion. I dont care one way or the other if Fury is the best ride ever or completely terrible (I wont be riding anytime soon as far as I can tell) but it's really annoying that a bunch of people don't understand the difference between opinion and fact. Every review I've read I've enjoyed and appreciated immensely, from the ones that are underwhelmed to the ones that are glowing. But one type of opinion doesn't have more merit than the other. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I'm surrounded by people in college who understand basic things like how an opinion works but I really thought most people would understand this. (PS, love the pictures Jakizle)

I got what you meant. But people who are in a place where they want to commit suicide don't have the mental capacity to think about being considerate to others--a lot of times these people have a lotttt of issues and they're so mentally/emotionally disturbed they don't comprehend that type of thing. It's very sad, and the glamorization of suicide in this society is a problem. As far as why, I heard that some source who was there said he had just gotten into a heated argument with his girlfriend right before the incident. What I dont get is why he brought the gun in the first place--there's obviously more to the story. But, as was discussed, these people in this unfortunate situation have so much going on in their minds that rationale and motive can be hard to identify.

Stick it in your pants...they only check bags.

I don't think anywhere on Disney property has a mosquito problem (maybe Fort Wilderness). From what I remember Disney has a bunch of tiny, almost invisible bugs all over the place that eat the eggs of bigger and more annoying bugs so they don't become problematic. Anyway, these bungalows look absolutely awesome! I'm gonna have to persuade the folks to lend me some points for a weekend there as soon as the next one is available. People can complain about Disney all they want but there's no denying they put their 110% into those hotels.

Oh really? So the 9,600 mile coaster isn't real? Thanks for the clarification

No, both parks aren't open for early morning every day. On peak weeks this is the case but before Spring Break it was early entry for IOA only.

I was just at the park on Saturday 3/21 and didn't have too many crowds...I am guessing the day you go will see similar conditions. Granted, not everything was a walk on but we were able to do all of the major coasters and the log flume in about 5 1/2 hours (were there from about 2-7:30) Here's what our wait times were: Falcon's Fury ~30 mins, around 2 or 3pm Kumba-two train wait Log Flume ~45 mins, this was around 4, if you go when it's not as hot I'm sure the line is more reasonable Sheikra-15 mins Cheetah Hunt -probably the longest we waited, I wanna say maybe 45-50 mins Montu-walk-on. If you're getting there at opening definitely knock out Cheetah Hunt first, then if you want to do the water rides, go to them right afterward. Around 5 or so the park will start to noticeably clear out aside from Cheetah Hunt. By mid- to late-afternoon the B&M's are typically walk-ons. Scorpion is only running one train so if you want to do that you'll probably have to wait (had a posted 60-minute wait all day last Saturday) or save it for nighttime. You should have a good time if you use the busiest parts of the day to look at animals and save some of the rides for a little later in the afternoon. All in all there will be crowds most likely but they won't be to the point where you'll have a bad trip. You should easily be able to ride everything within the park's operating hours.

^Again, like I said, no amount of advertising will make this addition more attractive than Fury or Thunderbird, for example. It would never be an addition that will attract tons and tons of people from out of town. Will they have a smaller opening day? Yeah, sure. But eventually people will obviously realize that there's a new roller coaster there and throughout the season will be a steady influx of interested people from the immediate area, at which point BGW can start promoting it. Is it perfect? No. But I refuse to believe Busch Gardens is run entirely incompetently. There has to be some logic in it somewhere. My opinion.

When you consider the position Busch is in (letting go tons of people in nearly every department, having huge losses in the last couple of years, etc.) it makes sense. They are in a unique position among major chains which is why this unique (read: unheard of) lack of marketing is likely the smartest move for them. Let's remember who's on a theme park fan site and who's getting paid to do this type of thing. I don't think they're just making a huge mistake and can only correct it by logging onto Theme Park Review EDIT: Let it be known I don't think this is the perfect/only strategy nor maybe the best way to go about handling their new addition. But if you look at the situation Busch is in I firmly believe it can be justified as weird as it is. Marketing (properly) is expensive and Busch Gardens isn't exactly in the greatest position to be making huge investments right now. They have to pick their battles. My theory is instead of going all-out on a marketing campaign that will pale in comparison to its neighbors, BGW will let the ride speak for itself the first few weeks of operation, and then play it up as word of mouth starts spreading among locals (which I assume will be the largest audience for this ride).

It's not that simple. For starters the scale of the installation at Carowinds is much bigger. Fury 325 can be promoted and accepted by the public as a signature ride. Carowinds is also generally a long way from maximizing park attendance on any particular day. The promotional and public relations routes are much more cost effective in getting the message out there versus solely advertising. A new ride like Fury 325 is going to sell a lot more incremental tickets than Tempesto no matter how Tempesto is promoted. Exactly. What you guys don't understand is that it costs a lot of money to market and advertise rides too. In the case of Tempesto, considering it was likely a cheap installation and that there's huge competition, it's probable that a successful marketing plan would cost almost as much as the ride itself. It's not cost effective to market the hell out of this thing when it doesn't stand a chance to Fury, Thunderbird, etc. What BGW is doing is smart (shocker, some posters on a fan site DON'T know more about the business than actual higher-ups in the industry!!), locals at the park will catch wind of the addition naturally and it will drive steady business throughout the season rather than a big opening hoopla with tons of crowds. Let BG do their thing...there's a reason they are in the marketing department and we aren't lol.

I really think you guys should ease up on Darien Laker. He's not hurting anybody by being optimistic. Don't talk **** over the Internet that you probably wouldnt in person.

God, get over yourself. It's a freaking game. The kid is 14. Do you not have better things to do than blast people over the Internet? CoasterGod, your head is in the right place. I like the themes you've come up with and you have a good roller coaster selection. You just need a little practice. You need wider paths, a tighter layout, more buildings, etc. Those are all things you get better at over time. I think you have a good park here in need of some tinkering, that's all. Take a look at some other parks on here and get a feel for what makes them work or not work and then try to apply some of that to Smashing Heights. Dont let the negativity get in your way.

Lmao, that's actually a circus in there. I realize that that's stupid but if the whole park was imaginary rides that didn't have RCT counterparts than the peeps would get pretty bored. But actually, there is a water ride in the mountain and the majority of it is developed! Just to clear things up, let me give you guys the list of attractions so far (I realize it's kinda boring seeing a bunch of buildings in the last picture update with no idea of what's in them): INDEPENDENCE SQUARE: -American Adventure show CIVIL WAR AREA (name tbd): -A few random rides in the Civil War Fort, a slide, boats, hall of mirrors, etc to give it a playground feel. -A 3-D show representing "Great Moments with Mr Lincoln" -A riverboat NEW ORLEANS BAY: -A dark ride based off of Mystic Manor, this time with a voodoo theme -Teacups MIDWEST PLAINS: -A motion simulator representing "Soarin" -A robotic arm dark ride themed to Captain America -Barnstormers WILD WHITE WATER WILDERNESS: -A boat ride, "Western River Expedition" -A western stunt show -A river rapids ride that goes up and down the mountain GRAND EXPOSITION: -A crooked house representing an exhibition hall -A laser battle representing "Toy Story Midway Mania" -Swings -Merry-Go-Round -Ferris Wheel -Wooden roller coaster I realize that a lot of these are stretches, but this park was more about the aesthetics and design rather than the rides. On a different note, I do need some suggestions. First of all, I'm always looking for pointers on how to get the aesthetics of the areas/time periods I'm going for represented better. Also, any American history-related ideas are a plus. But more importantly, I began working on a 1950's urban area, but the more I build it the more I think that it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the park. Some of the other ideas I tossed around was changing it to an Industrial Revolution-era town (but I'm not sure what rides could come out of that) or a New England harbor, but I have no idea what time period that would be themed to that could translate visually. Leave your ideas if you have any!

Thanks a lot!! I put quite a bit of thought into it so I'm glad someone likes how it came out.

Here's my take on the whole rebooting attractions thing... I think that, for starters, the original Kong didn't ever lose popularity, it was just an unreliable and expensive ride that was eating up money and suffering severe downtime. So while its removal was justified, there was still at least some demand for Kong, which helped motivate the construction of this new Kong ride. But I think the biggest motivating factor was Kong 360's success in Hollywood. Had the original King Kong encounter on the tram tour not burned down and was never replaced, I dont think Orlando Kong would exist. Kong 360 was an easy fix with a guaranteed ROI because it existed as a component to the ever-changing tram tour rather than as a standalone attraction, but I think Hollywood got a lot more attention for it than they had expected. Basically, a quick fix t replace a classic scene on a major attraction ended up proving the popularity and relevance of an older franchise. Thats why Orlando's jumping on it IMO. Will we ever get another Jaws? Only if the demand can be proven. But there are few instances where it's possible to prove a market without breaking the bank first. Maybe if the Jaws scene on the tram tour gets an update and it proves successful then we could see a revival over here. But other than a scenario like that, I personally don't see it. The only other instance I can think of for an old ride coming back is if a remake of an old movie comes out and proves popular (for example, a popular Ghostbusters remake inspiring the return of a Ghostbusters show). Whatever the reason for it, though, this is a very interesting move by the park and one that took me and a lot of others by surprise I think.

^I had heard Boyhood was boring but I think I'll give it a shot. As for Birdman, I actually really enjoyed it, thought it was very entertaining. The cast was incredible, Edward Norton gave one of my favorite performances ever in what I thought was a great, great character. Keaton and Stone were also incredible. The one-shot gimmick also worked very well I thought, and gave the movie a certain life to it that I thought was unique. The biggest problem with it, to me, was how it was a little ham-fisted in its message (Emma Stone's pretty unrealistic rant for instance) and the fact that its Oscar campaign is hypocritical considering the message of the movie. But other than that I really enjoyed it. On my list of best movies, I put it under Silence of the Lambs and above American Beauty.