BlahBlahson

That's almost better than a totally new coaster! Noreaster was definitely in the bottom 10 coasters I've ever been on and worst SLC overall, even with those restraints. Hope it becomes rideable!

OMG! I just won! I hope they build something awesome next year when I visit around the end of July. LOL.

I'm fine with some construction delays and especially technical delays that prevent a coaster opening (stuff happens), but I'm really not enamored with the park building a second coaster around the headliner during peak operations causing neither to be open for the entire operating season they were announced for. This was poorly planned.

This coaster was actually built by a guy who runs a Lego shop right near Weeki Watchee springs (The Brick University). It uses an older model Coasterdynamix track and was first shown at the Brickfair exhibition in Virginia two weeks ago. I was actually there when he was first testing it out a while back. Just shows the possibilities of this stuff. It's in slowmo. And here's a (non-working?) model of the American Eagle.

Most Underrated: International: Walibi Holland. Totally beautiful park with Goliath and Lost Gravity. The haunted Swing is really fun and they have some extra quality to their flats and family rides. It's a great family park that got a big Six Flags boost in their coaster collection. Honorable Mention: Lotte World. I thought this place was architecturally wondrous and had really fun themed rides in 2011, and they've added like 8 new rides since then so it's gotten even better. Domestic: Seaworld Orlando's Christmas Celebration. Seaworld at Christmas might be the most magical thing in Orlando. The Polar Express ride and North Pole are big upgrades from the usual Wild Arctic, the christmas village has a firepit and carolers, the coasters are actually open for night rides, everything is super-cheesy and nostalgic, the lighting sections in the park are gorgeous, and the shows are the best (and cheeeesiest) the park puts on all year. It's the park at its best and it beats everything Christmas from Universal and Disney and Busch IMO. Honorable Mention: Great Adventure. Best Six Flags park hands down. It's actually pretty there, and they have El Toro, Nitro and Ka. And a freaking Safari!

As much as I loooove Cedar Point, they could use a few "atmosphere and character" touches to round it up a bit. Almost all of their coasters have non-existent theming (and make no cohesive sense together), and the park has no dark or enclosed attractions, which is unparalleled by similar-sized parks. Plus they took out a crap-ton of different buildings, rides and trees in the front of the park for the B&Ms. Honestly MOST carnival rides have more theming/lighting packages than Cedar Point rides. Their waterpark is also really really really behind the times. Soak City is a total waste of time. The quality of their total coaster collection though...no one comes close. Properly rated.

Magic Kingdom is definitely the most overrated. The crowds are massive and the park is usually a chore to plan for. The best rides are always an hour standby wait or more every day of the year, it's really expensive to get in or buy annual passes to, and almost every ride is for children 10 or under. Food is overall very positive but if you hit some of the quick services at the wrong time, you're going to get an extremely overcrowded experience, which is just more planning you have to deal with. If you want to eat table service, you have to plan it, book reservations, or hope for open availability, which is another thing to deal with. Parade viewing is something to plan for, fireworks viewing is something to plan for, etc. That said, the theming in places there is really great (so is the merchandise!) and there are always magical moments at the park. But if you don't plan what you're doing before going or end up with the wrong group of people there are just so many crowd-related issues that can put dampers on your day compared to most other parks in the world. Plus, at say Disneyland you also get seasonal overlays, Indiana Jones, Star Tours, Roger Rabbit, Old Fantasyland rides, DCA right next door on the rides side. At Europa you get 10+ adult coasters with the same quality of food and theming and operations (basically the park's Peers all have huge bonuses compared to MK). Oh and Knoebels is also properly rated. EVERYTHING there is just pure fun.

Don't know if this is allowed on TPR, my mistake if not, but a sort of guess/map has been leaked on FB. Nine houses! Cobweb assumed being Tomb of the Ancients... Also I noticed all pass prices jumped 9-11 dollars this year, except express versions which EXPLODED and jumped up 100+ dollars each. Could effect waiting and queues at HHN this year, as MOST people who go through the house lines in past years entered through express or RIP. And for the first time since I've been here there's an "Every night" pass. Regardless, every night will still be busy.

Wow! TPR visited Knoebels the day after I was there. Would have been funny seeing you guys and having no idea you were coming! Phoenix is the most amazing ride. 70 years old and still a top 10 wooden coaster. Cedar Fair can suck it with their seat-belts on everything.

I just visited Knoebels for the first time ever after 20 years of bucket-listing it from the web. Holy God, you guys are not wrong, that was the most fun park ever. And Phoenix actually made it to my top 5 wooden (Probably 3rd after Voyage and T-Express, the minimalist restraint is ridiculous). Almost everything in the park lived up to expectations. Even the Alamo had delicious food, Birch beer was delicious, Cesari's was delicious, waffle ice cream sandwiches were delicious. Flying turns was well worth the years of testing and Impulse is perfect as a modern coaster for this park. I'm the biggest realist/pessimist ever but Knoebels just lived up to all of the hype. Probably my third or 4th favorite park in the world after Europa and IOA, right up there with Cedar Point and Holiday World and Lotte World and Epcot. The Haunted House was just ok, not as good as the Ocean City Maryland one. And the flyer snapping wasn't as crazy as I thought it might be, And Fascination is definitely better and cheaper at the Wildwood boardwalk, but all of those things were fun and worthwhile and unique. There just aren't any stains on this park. If you are thinking of going please do. It's better than any Six Flags or Hershey or most chain parks. Oh and it wasn't too too busy for a Tuesday. One train on Phoenix, Twister, and Impulse, longest wait was 30 for Flying Turns or Impulse but I single-rider-ed the second. Impulse definitely could have used a second train and the grouping for it was just ok.

The beast did this type of coaster (terrain wooden) better 35ish years ago. 16 years ago the same park put in a 7000 foot 200 tall wooden coaster with a loop. The same park also put in the world's biggest invert and a universal-quality themed flat ride. So this ride is just a meh from me. Reliable, slightly above average wooden coaster in a park that already has several coasters that fit into this category. It seems like they wanted a family addition that grew into a really good family addition, but it doesn't wow me in context of their Other rides or past history.

Well this is disappointing. I'll put these two (3 as I won't make the trip) in the "just missed" category this year along with Lightning Rod and SFMM Green Lantern/New Revolution. I wish they didn't announce it as new for 2016 when they might miss the entire business season. Maybe I'll make a 4th straight trip to Wildwood Ultimate next year.

Are there any updates on the coasters? I will be there next weekend and I'm hoping for at least 2/3. The facebook page says nothing really.

Light up the night is the best and cheesiest of the current shamu shows, but you wouldn't get a mako night ride due to the park closing at the same time. But it's much better than one ocean, which is also the worst show at SeaWorld. I'd recommend it over that. Blue horizons, even currently running without the high divers, is one of the top shows in Orlando. And yes iceploration at Busch really sucks. They should run their Christmas ice skating show year round.

^Papa Clyde's Ice Cream in Spring Hill near Weeki Wachee is crazy legit. They have every flavor and they make everything and it's very very good.

If the max wait for the best ride in this kind of park is 30-40 minutes, fuck fastpass and virtual queue. If i wanted to visit Epcot today, I'd have to choose between 2 hours for Frozen, 40 Minutes for Soarin' or 1 hour for Test Track to get on those rides or do them when the app says I can wait 10-15 minutes for one of them in a one hour window. Or at Universal 2 hours for Rockit and and 2 hours for Minion Mayhem (It's impressive how short the waits for Forbidden Journey and Gringott's usually are, I wonder why). Without virtual queuing those lines would probably all be under an hour. At Magic Kingdom I bet everything would also easily be under an hour wait and things like Buzz lightyear would be 10-20 minutes. Not having virtual queuing and therefore having short, manageable waits for everything, where I can pick and choose what ride I want to do next without having to plan out everything or pay 100 extra dollars for VIP privileges , that sounds pretty freaking great to me. I love what Europa is doing, and on my lone visit in 2011 I rode every coaster and dark ride plus the monorail and a few re-rides in one day. Go them.

Not that I'm supporting the OP's idea, but Skytower at Seaworld is down for maintenance/high winds/whatever for what seems like half the year, it was down on both my visits last week in fact. So I could see the park doing something different with it. But they really don't need to convert it into a drop tower, the park really needs a stellar all-demographics attraction now that Mako has opened. Antarctica, Turtle Trek, and Wild Arctic are all just okay, hopefully the Sea Rescue attraction happens and hopefully it's actually really great. That and something flashy for the Waterpark to retain those non-disney guests who will probably choose Volcano Bay over Aquatica soon.

I feel like nothing shows Six Flag's incompetence better than the way they've lessened the experience and butchered operations on the possible #1 coaster in the world over the last 8 years. They could have done nothing this entire time and had a better customer experience.

Holy hell, I'm actually kind of scared of that thing, it looks very very very punchy over those twists. Could be totally awesome or could be insane-premier spaghetti bowl OTSRs-vekoma hang and bang-levels of rough.

Ain't that the truth. I remember going to the Magic Kingdom for the first time and being so anticipointed after doing Europa Park the year before. If Europa could match what Disney does with Fireworks and nighttime spectaculars, then they really would have everything. Europa is like if Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and Port Aventura were literally smashed together into one park, that also had the fastest operations in the world. Ya'll are going to have so much fun and as usual I'm super jealous and desperate to go back!

There are pieces of a large Tannish/Brown slide already installed inside the Volcano at the park. I'm surprised the usual suspects aren't blogging much about it's construction. The Taiwana (sp) racers are already installed as are all the slides on the backside of the Volcano. It's shaping up but the park most certainly looks a year away at least. This park definitely looks like it will take the crown for Orlando Water parks mostly by having all of the major points in one park (convenience, employees, theming, atmosphere, slide quality). I'm very excited to hear that there's some ride reservation tests going on at Wet N Wild, I only hope there is some elevator system inside that volcano to raise people up 200 feet to the top!

I would suggest getting to HHN early, and ride Minions as the first thing. It will have a shorter wait than it has during the day. I was at Universal during the first week of October 2 years ago, but we had express. Most rides were between 20-30 Minutes during the days. Don't do this if you don't have express. The house lines will be as short as walking right in at opening, and 90 minutes two hours later. Only do houses when you start the event. HHN is a crowd sandwich and the middle of the event is extremely packed.

^^Daytime crowds for both are pretty light, because it's not the busy season. At night during HHN Rip Ride Rockit gets completely swamped, and Simpsons usually has a line of 30+ minutes. Minion mayhem had a pretty good line when they had it opened but it wasn't available last year. You should be skipping all the of the regular attractions in order to do Houses and shows, however, ESPECIALLY in the first and last hour of the event. Regardless of season the best way to start a day at the park is by doing Minion Mayhem, then Rockit first thing in the morning. Or if in IOA, start with Potter (But skip Dueling Dragons for later), then work Counter-clockwise (though Kong may now be the best attraction to hit first).

Excellent photos! I already want to go back and re-ride it after reading that report. I wonder how busy it actually will be tomorrow and if they'll use the overflow queue. Even without the 8th or 9th row the ride just pumps through people like any B&M Hyper.

Having vastly cheaper non-Disney hotels within walking distance of the park is a massive advantage to visiting Disneyland.. We got the similarly priced Courtyard Marriot Anaheim across the street only because of points, and it was an incredible hotel with 2 showers per room. Having an option like that in walking distance without spending extra money was such a luxury. I don't think I could just drop 400+ dollars a night on a hotel room ever, too many better uses of money out there.