kenban

No by Cedar Fair's logic they will give Kings Island a record breaking gigacoaster and then give nothing to the other parks. This is from last year and taken directly from the Cedar Fair website. Find your parks slice of the pie and compare it to the rest. That should give you a pretty good idea as to why certain parks get big attractions more frequently. Cedar Fair is planning on spending around $150 million in capital investment this year which was announced a few months ago. Assuming this is a giga from B&M, King's Island is looking at getting $30 - $40 million of that while the rest of the chain will still get over $100 million in new investments. There is still a lot of money being invested in other parks.

The Green could mark the larger trees which the company did not want to take. There were already some trees which had been removed and it is possible all of the ones which had blue markings are already gone.

Very little markings on trees. I saw several Large trees which were marked with Green spray paint which another guest told me is done so that those trees can be removed to be sold for lumber before bringing in the heavy equipment. The only pink ribbon on trees appeared to be on a branch above a stake in the ground which also had a pink ribbon on it. Basically just so you could see markers from farther away.

They are pink.

I went to Kings Island on Saturday and took several trips on the train. I am pretty convinced that the park is getting a Coaster. Which will likely be a Giga from B&M. There are survey markers which appear to follow straight paths which lead to the clearing in Rivertown. But I think people who are linking the clearing of brush near the fort and the clearing in Rivertown are wrong. First there are no survey markers in that direction at all. Second it really does not make much sense for the path of a coaster. Why follow the path of the train? Why build over everything in that direction when it is safer to build into the woods? I have heard reports of survey markers near the turn around on Diamondback as well. Which again makes sense to me for a path of the coaster. I took a screenshot from Google Maps and drew my best guess at the path for the coaster. Blue line is the lift hill and is where I know there are survey markers with the brown line my guess at where the rest of the ride will be going. There is a pretty good drop off after the train track next to the train shed. It would be possible to get an extra 30-50 feet on the drop if I am correct on the location of the lift hill. The loop around the water is to get back to the station and so that the brake run is not above a ride or the water. I also put a cut out of Fury 325 at the same scale on the side. Gives you are good idea of size and length.

I think it is interesting looking at how this story is being covered by CNN, since they produced Blackfish. Yup that makes sense, Blackfish has completely destroyed Seaworld so they will only charge $21 for a ticket. At least that is what the article seems to say. At least they point out that CNNFilms produced Blackfish. In reality the ticket is $79 which is $21 cheaper then the average of their competition which the park had listed the average ticket price of the competition at $100.

Same principles of ignorance and self-gratification can be seen in how people think Sea World's enlarging of the killer whale habitats is a direct reaction to Blackfish. It's the same thing. People are too dumb to realize these projects spend months/years in the planning stage before the announcements are made. Yet somehow people think some executive sees Blackfish or Universal or whatever, does a spit take with their coffee, grabs the nearest phone and demand these new projects begin immediately. I guess all the plans and such just magically materialize? I just don't know how they think it's even possible for it to work that way. I agree that it is just ridiculous to consider this a reaction to Diagon Alley. This feels to me like nothing more then an attempt to shove a hot property in the park as quickly and cheaply as possible. But it was recently proven that it is possible for theme parks in Orlando to work VERY quickly when they have enough motivation. Transformers over at Universal Studios. The decision to build the ride was made almost overnight due to the success of the ride in California. Nothing about the ride was ready when it was green lit and demolition started. The location was supposed to be used for Halloween Horror Nights and a construction permit had already been issued which ended up being for the same day the demolition permit started. Members of Art and Design do interviews around HHN every year and someone asked about this not long ago. Basically they said someone went into the building with the blueprints for the house and a few minutes later a bobcat drives by which was there to start tearing out the interior of the building. Universal started destroying the buildings without blueprints for the new ride, everything was done extremely quickly at a pace never seen before. Disney has the money and the ride design and construction background to build a ride on a similar timeline. I doubt that this ride will be very complicated. I suspect it will still be a boat ride and that Disney is going to mostly just re-theme the ride and make some changes to the layout so they can either make the turn around faster or just remove the backwards sections to increase capacity.

At an event as part of HHN I got to talk to one of the designers of HHN who also works on other projects around the park. As part of our discussion we talked about the limitations which the park is under because of Seuss landing, and the Harry Potter section. Basically they are not allowed to do a thing in either one. Even if the section to themed to London if its Harry Potter at all I can't see how it can be touched by HHN or any other event without permission. Something else that was interesting we talked about was Strong Arm which became Forbidden Journey. He said that the studio where that work was done was being used by a new ride technology which he said the first we might hear anything about would be 2013. I have seen several people talk about the land behind Jaws which I assume they are talking about the cleared land you see on Google maps behind jaws, MIB etc. This was sold to a developer maybe 2+ years ago. It has apartments on it now thelandmarkatuniversal.com/ which might place some limitations on what the replacement could be. If anyone here went to HHN they even made a joke about the apartments during the opening of Bill and Ted. I am really torn on the whole Harry Potter being a possible replacement. I want to see what else Universal can do with Harry Potter. What they have built so far is pretty amazing. But I was pretty set on it being the replacement for the rest lost continent. It just seems odd to put it in both parks. But I have to wonder if JK Rowling would even let them build Diagon alley next to Hogsmeade. That is the one factor I think a lot of people ignore she has to agree to anything Universal builds.

Its funny the one thing that could save the park no one is talking about. Its easy go to the park and spend money there. A better bottom line is the ONLY reason to keep the park. I would be amazed if more then 1% of the people who live near the park moved there because of the park if anything closing the park is going to INCREASE land values. A lot of people do not want to live near a park and they easily outnumber the people who do. Six Flags has a huge debt of around 2.4 billion dollars. Here's the problem the debt service on that amount of money is HUGE and the worse your debt the higher your interest rate. If banks think you can't pay it off your interest rate goes up even higher. I have no idea what the companies rate is but even if its only 5% that's 120 million a year and your not paying down any of the debt. (I actually think that because of the poor debt rating Six Flags has the rate is higher then that) I think the real reason Six Flags actually NEEDS to get rid of the park is because selling the park will pay off so much of the debt that the decrease in interest is larger then the amount the park makes in a year. Even if its not in the long run its better for the company to sell the park and pay down the debt some now then how little the park makes compared to how much it is worth. NO ONE in the business world cares about the history of a park. I really don't think this is about the parks image either maybe he says that but I really think this is nothing more then the need to get rid of some of the companies debt. Important note the company as a whole is worth a NEGATIVE amount of money. That's right they owe more then the company is worth. I think selling SFMM might be very important to the overall health of the company. I hope a company steps up and buys it to continue to operate the park so that it does not end up being destroyed for more housing but I do think Six Flags needs to get rid of it.

Ok I have been thinking about this for a while and its something that could be built except for the HUGE problem of cash. I estimate that it would be 150 to 200 million to build the whole thing. So in the end Disney is the only company that could do it yet I could never see this putting a ride like this into the park. First it would be an Indy theme. Its based off the mine cars from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It would be a set of several wooden coasters that would run through tunnels each others track etc. All the trains would be either LIM motor driven or using tires similar to the Hulk so there is no need for lift hills. The ride would also travel through several show rooms complete with fire effects animatronics etc. The trains brakes and LIM's would be computer controlled to create near miss events and to time trains so they go through show rooms at the same time. Although all the trains should visit there own unique show rooms so that with 4 seperate tracks you would have to ride all 4 trains to see everything plus even then a well done ride would have random events so it seems differant every time. Sometimes maybe a rooms lights would not be on at all and the effects would not be running where the next train everything is going with fire pots etc. The problems here are that your going to end up with around 4 or 5 seperate tracks each being a full wooden coaster thats going to require a lot of maintence. It would also run best with only 2 cars per a train so pretty much the most you are going to get is 8 people per a train for the best effect. The show building or buildings are going to end up needing to be huge and would end up being the largest structure at the parks. On the good side it would not actually have to be that fast of a ride you would create that effect by being in a tight space it would only end up being around 30 to 40 miles an hour at the fastest. Also a good thing is with 4 seperate tracks you can shut down one track or two tracks for maintence while the rest of the ride operates.