allenhuffman

Mark this one up to "good help is hard to find." They were indeed doing this on opening day when I was there (10:38 from my photo time stamp) -- me and a guy in line (both there by ourselves) got to cut through the last part of the line and board early. I'd still prefer a single rider line to fill those empty seats more efficiently !!!!! Oh man. So close, then denied. That sucks. Are you local?

On its third Saturday open, The Monster continues to evolve. As this original trip report mentioned, there was no place to put your stuff (other than on the floor) while you ride. The Amazon boxes that were stacked up there that first week contained the storage bins, and those were installed by the time I went back on 6/11. Monster storage bins By the second Saturday (I wasn't there during the week so not sure when), they had put up an exit sign, and by the third Saturday they had a rules sign at the entrance. They have had a worker at the exit every time I have been by, since they do not have the exit turn style installed yet. Monster Exit sign Monster rules sign My photos from opening day (6/4) may be found here: Monster opening day photos And here is a second version of my "multicam" Monster video, recorded Saturday night (6/18/2016). I still can't quite get all the shots I need to make the video flow better, and there are still gaps where I had no coverage. I'll figure it out, eventually. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] Even in its incomplete state, the light programming sure is pretty. Oh, the frozen Monster alcohol drink: Monster "tasty frozen adult beverage"

The castle rockwork and "Monster" name doesn't really match the "Iowa Farm" section of the park, but what can ya do. They did far worse with Knott's Berry Farm I was almost expecting it to follow the weather-related theming of the nearby area ... Tornado (a big deal in Iowa) and Storm Chaser (same). I can't think of any Iowa native monsters they could have named it after.

The park is staffed mostly by very young kids, and retired folks who are traveling around in their RVs and "work camping" at the park while living at the Adventureland campground next door. Last week I met two that have YouTube channels where they post videos about life in an RV. One of them posted a video commenting on this accident and mentioned at the time they hadn't been told about it by the park (same comments in a Facebook group for the work campers). I can imagine it is a shocking thing to everyone there and they probably have nothing in the books on how to handle something like this. (I can't think of anything like this in the past 21 years I've lived here.)

There are 137 track mounted lights and 46 ground mounted lights in the plan. I believe not all the ground lights ended up being installed due to some construction logistics. The ground lights are made up of two panels which can be tilted separately. They hadn't yet aimed all of them, and the light show being used is still being worked on. I was in the park the day they installed new LED lights on their Space Shot, and I got to meet the guy from the company doing it. He showed me a video of the first test of the Monster lights and I was blown away. With all the ground lights now installed, it's not quite as dramatic since it doesn't have the same dark/light contrast, but that's something software could tweak if they ever wanted to. I had to wait weeks to see it in person since the park was closing before dark until last Saturday.

With 2 or 3 cars running, it dispatches about every 58 seconds with an 8 passenger car. The park says 500 per hour. When they first began testing it, I was timing it out and rounding to a minute per car and estimating 480 per hour, but at 58 seconds per car that's 496 so yeah, somewhere between 480-500 if they aren't delayed. They have a third car, but even when it was on the track the dispatch was still every 58 seconds. On opening day, the line (missing the zig zag queue they haven't installed yet) went down the fence line, and it took about 25 minutes to get to the load area all three times we rode it that day. It moves fast.

Here is video I recorded on the first night it was open past dusk. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] It is edited from 11 different recordings. There is another one I posted before this one that is just one camera all the way through. They are not done with the light programming yet, and it will have multiple programs available for them to select (think: red, white and blue for July 4th weekend and things like that). I am returning this Saturday night to redo the video, now that I know more about what I need to get recorded. And, once they are finished with the light show, I'll do a third version.

And here is the edited version, using clips from ten or so recordings, edited together like a multicam recording. I had never used Multicam in Final Cut Pro, so it was a learning experience. I now know what I will do better the next time. (ANd this is not the final light program. They are still working on it.) [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Last night was the first time the park was open past daylight, so I took my camcorder in to record the lights on The a monster. I wandered around and found spots to set up and record a cycle, and I plan to edit them all together later today. Here is one of the runs with some descriptions of things the light program does. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Monster, Sour Apple Pucker, Melon Pucker and Vodka.

Vodka... And something else which I forgot so that's why I dodge it in my description

Greetings. Checking in from Des Moines per an invite by Jack D from the "Adventureland Iowa Fans" page I set up last month. When riding The Monster opening morning, I noticed that braking right before the loop, too, and wondered if it was something they had to do to slow it down, or if it was some kind of intentional dick-move by the designers to make the loop hang you much longer than it would have otherwise After riding it multiple times, I'm still not sure - ha. I wanted to ask the company guy but kept forgetting every time I ran in to him. I have been taking regular photos of the public construction (since the park opened this season), and am in touch with the guy from the company doing the lighting. I saw the hardware it uses. Great, simple stuff. They've come a long way (this would have been a huge undertaking 10 years ago). I moved to Iowa in 1995 and have been taking digital photos at the park since 1996 for my website. I have over 3300 photos from this year so far (I hadn't been able to afford to go since 2010 so I have much catching up to do). They've been quite busy the last six years, it seems! My background: Back around 96, there was only one other website online that had any coverage of Adventureland. I think I had the very first videos from the park on YouTube. I also created the Wikipedia page about ten years ago (you can go to the Disney Adventureland page and look at the Talk page and see the initial question I had about starting a page and how it should be set up). Things have come a long way!