prospekt88

I think it’s because that’s what the whole country grows up drinking. Beer isn’t that accessible to Americans in their teenage years. So when given an opportunity they go with the 30 pack of light beers for $20. Not the 6 pack craft assortment from the local microbrewery for $20. Some people “grow up” in their own minds and move on from the “piss water”. But for the most part people just stick with what they’re used to.

^Lets be real...if you really wanna follow those guidelines you wouldn’t even be going to amusement parks.

Sucks to see another bad review of the current state of the park. It was such a gem of a park when I used to go regularly 10-15 years ago. Has there been any noticeable decline in attendance? How do the locals keep going to this place it sounds completely miserable.

Looks like Chris was spot on with the Venus SlydeTrap. Good to see this park making some positive moves forward.

^To be fair, normal elevator operating systems don't work too well after something like a conference lets out either. Agreed though, this new addition looks amazing. I hope it stays as a moderate priced resort. The prices for the new Riviera are scary high so good to see something new but more reasonable.

Looks great. Love the drop on Storm Runner and this looks like it could be even better.

October opening or not this looks really great. Tourists in NYC are either too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer and there's no indoor experience like this in the area. I think it'll be very successful. Glad that even though it took forever the final product looks to be quality.

This looks like a great addition. Will be interesting to see the crowd difference between this and Skyrush. The few times I've been there since Skyrush was added it hasn't had a line out of the station by the afternoon. I expect this will be a lot more popular. As far as Wildcat, I think it's a fine ride but it's still the third best wood coaster at the park by a wide margin. Even if it was retracked it would probably still hold that position, so don't really see a need for that. RMC it if anything.

Looks fun and there's no doubt it'll be very popular and successful. Still insane to think they just bulldozed two perfectly good B&M inverts though. Speaks to how much of a cash cow Potter really is for them. One question, is there no pre-show or backstory in the queue? I really thought this ride was going to tell a story. But you only see Hagrid, I assume in his hut, for 5 seconds? I'm not a Potter fan but I do like a ride that tells a good story.

Was hoping to finally read some good news when I opened the thread but sounds like it's just more of the same. They clearly are incapable of operating this park, hopefully it gets out of their hands before it deteriorates beyond repair. I enjoyed going to this place just as much, if not more, than Hershey and Great Adventure when I was a kid. I don't understand how this level of incompetence finds its way to the forefront with some of these parks. It's a shame.

Went to the park last Wednesday for the first time in almost 15 years, only repeat rides I did from that trip were X2 and Viper. The park has changed quite a bit... The good: -Tatsu was great, best flying coaster by a mile that I've been on. Same goes for Riddler regarding stand up coasters. -X2 is as great as I remember. I feel like it gets some hate in the community. I get it doesn't have airtime or laterals or whatever people are looking for, but it's some good old messed up fun. One of my favorite coasters anywhere. -Battle of Metropolis blows away any expectations I had for a Six Flags attraction. First one I've done and I'm glad they are popping up all over. -Twisted Colossus was my first RMC and I completely understand the hype. By far the most rerideable coaster in the park in terms of not getting boring and not beating you up. As much as I love coasters there aren't many I get back in line for same day, especially a 90 degree day. This was an exception, pure fun especially when the dueling lined up. -Full Throttle Sports Bar was a nice surprise. Didn't try the food but great spot to grab a beer and watch some games in the AC to get out of the heat. The okay: -Goliath was a letdown. The way it was envisioned in my head from 15 years ago to the way it actually is was disappointing. Just kind of a mediocre ride. -Not too many issues with ride operations. Really had no problems with regard to the amount of trains on each coaster, they were all operating pretty efficiently except Superman with only one side going. Ninja was closed, Scream may have been closed but we didn't look too far into it...and are Apocaplypse and Green Lantern both STBNO? Last time I was here it was DeJa Vu and Flashback, now these two. Guess it's a Magic Mountain staple to have coasters as decoration. The ugly: -Security and lunch lines were both 45 minutes. These are so frustrating because they're so easily fixable. Would take one night of work to rearrange security so it's not such a clusterf*ck. Overall was a great day, the park seems to be going in a positive direction.

This is sad and pathetic. Something tells me that the bolded part above is the only reason this plan fell through.

I think you could save 4-5 hours in the car if you changed your route to a loop around Lake Eerie and Ontario; Detroit->Niagara->Toronto->Montreal->Lake George->Rochester->Waldameer->Detroit. I get you probably don't wanna do Wonderland on a weekend but a Sunday/Monday shouldn't be terrible. Do something like: Friday: Drive to Niagara through Ontario Saturday: Marineland/Niagara Falls Sunday: Canada's Wonderland Monday: Canada's Wonderland Tuesday: Drive/Montreal/La Ronde Wednesday: La Ronde Thursday: Great Escape Friday: Seabreeze/Darien Lake Saturday: Waldameer Sunday: Cedar Point The way you currently have it you're going to basically drive right past Seabreeze and Darien Lake on your ride from Great Escape to Waldameer having already done those two parks. This route could be a more leisurely pace except for the one crowded Sunday at Canada's Wonderland. Just something to consider!

As you said they don't provide this data, so all I'm saying is anecdotal evidence is all there is for me to go off of. And in my case that evidence would prove your assumption isn't safe to say. Don't think that's completely ridiculous of me.

When you say something like "I don't have any data but I doubt anyone is only going to DCA..." what the hell are you expecting someone to come back with except for anecdotal evidence haha. That's a really good point in terms of multi day tickets, hotels, and increased AP prices. And Carsland was a huge success no denying that. But nothing else has been. The Little Mermaid and Paradise Pier particularly, but even GotG. Attendance has not been growing every year since Carsland that just isn't true. It has been completely stagnant for 3 years now from 2015-2017, and there's no good reason to believe 2018 was better when the only changes made was turning the entire Paradise Pier and Bugsland into a construction site.

DCA isn't competing against Disneyland, though. If that 2:1 figure is because everyone who was going to get a 2-day ticket to Disneyland is now getting a 3-day ticket and spending the additional day at DCA, I'd think they would be pretty happy about that. Obviously I don't have granular data like that, but I think it's safe to say that no one is going to DCA and not to Disneyland. So the expectation should be that DCA will have a fraction of the attendance Disneyland does. The way to get that closer to parity is by pushing Park Hopper and Maxpass and thereby encouraging people to treat the two parks more like a single park. They're not competing against each other of course. But some people do actually do what you've said and go to DCA and not Disneyland, but the number isn't too large because of the difference in quality and fame of the two parks. I've had a number of people come visit me out here that want to go to Disney for a day but are not spending $200 on a park hopper so they choose one park. Most have chosen Disneyland but there was one group who wanted to do DCA, and that was only because they were running a promotion. That makes zero sense from an accounting or capacity planning point of view. The number you would get from measuring attendance like that would be pretty close to useless. But who knows. You would measure it up against other parks in the company, or at least parks with similar expenditures. The operating expenses at Disney parks are sky high compared to a local Six Flags. You can't just say since they are getting more people than another park that they are doing better financially. I think that's pretty fair to say, right? I mean DCA had lower attendance than Hollywood Studios in 2017 for example, which is the most recent year with attendance info. With Toy Story Land in 2018 and Star Wars Land this year that gap is going to widen even more. The next lowest park among the US Disney parks is EPCOT, which has Ratatouille and GotG coming. DCA will be the lowest attended US Disney Park for the foreseeable future, and that's hard to explain because it's 100 yards from the second most popular park in the world. They can't be happy with that gap.

I didn't make any reference to opening only one ride. Of course they shouldn't have the entire land sitting vacant. The fact that DCA is the 13th busiest park doesn't prove its success. Obviously different parks have different expectations. Every other US Disney park is in the top 10. Disneyland has twice the annual attendance as DCA. ^Good point about the Marvel expansion tho, that should hopefully help.

Disney's primary mission isn't to make sure you can leisurely stroll through an empty Star Wars land. It's to maximize the wealth of their shareholders. That's accomplished by building this sort of thing, thereby sending the value of the brand as well as ticket sales, merch sales, hotel occupancy and more through the roof. The rest is little more than adhering to various building and safety codes, demands of scary lawyers, and the terms of very expensive insurance policies. Yeah I understand how a public company operates, thanks. My point isn't that I want to be able to have Star Wars Land to myself. I just think that for the long term benefit of the resort I think it would've been better to take their time with building the land in California. I don't know why they decided to get it done at Disneyland Park first, or even at Disneyland Park at all. I think they are making a log jam of a park into an even bigger log jam, and that has the potential of really hurting the public's perception of the park in the long run. They already hit capacity pretty regularly despite huge blackout periods for season ticket holders, while the park across the plaza is struggling after a billion dollar renovation.

I agree it's gonna be really interesting how this plays out. I can't understand why they thought this was a necessary move. Not only do I not see the need for this to be in Disneyland Park, I don't know why it needed to be the first one to open, adding even more to the hype. Maybe since it's such an iconic expansion they wanted it in the most iconic park, and they wanted it there first. But Disneyland really already walks a fine line between being the "happiest place on earth" and "most stressful clusterf*ck" on earth". Like people said above that starts before you even enter the property with the surrounding traffic. If I was them I would be pretty worried that the quality of the product is going to be overshadowed by the maddening crowds surrounding it. For me, no matter how impressive the land looks I can't get excited about actually going there. I'm really excited to read detailed reports and reviews from afar, but even as a SoCal resident for the next year I don't plan on getting over there myself in that time frame. In Orlando on the other hand at least they were able to build an entire land in Grand Avenue to queue the masses. They added a skyliner, new bus stops, tram stations, baggage check, etc. They even built a new E-ticket in Mickey and Minnie's Railway to absorb some of the crowds. I'm sure it'll still be madness in Orlando but I think they should've let it play out there for a couple years before opening the flood gates at Disneyland. I really don't see how this addition doesn't negatively impact the rest of the Disneyland park experience over the next couple of years. And I don't care at all that they're messing with "Walt's park", that isn't my point.

All of these parks look great, but it seems like they're always empty. Does it seem like there's any concern over how successful these parks might be long term?

Completely agree about Universal. Hopefully it catches up with them eventually and they're forced to be a little more creative.

I've been living out in LA now for a few months but haven't really considered going to Knott's until this report. Thanks for the inspiration! The fact that Ghost Rider is riding so well is great news.

One piece of advice I would give is that they don't serve alcohol anywhere inside Disneyland. So you might want to spend at least part of the afternoon/evening at California Adventure if you're trying to get a buzz. Should be a great day!

Nice to hear a positive review of this resort. Don't hear too many good things about it. It does look like a great place to spend a day and a half. Looking forward to more!

Okay that makes sense that they would do that. It's a good way to differentiate their versions of the Marvel rides from the Universal ones as well.