ESRLoop

Come on now, I though it was going to be something else. I know about software! I have 2 families still working there and on occasion one work's X2. She is a Engineer major and knows all the in's & out's of X2. She did a paper on it and mechanics of this beast and is very knowledgeable. I don't even bring it up because she will talk me down! I don't know the operation/mechanical side of X2 at all. From all accounts it addressed the major issues with X and the trains are very well designed. X's front end/HMI was Windows based. The back end was a dual Allen Bradley SLC PLC setup. I don't think a light weight messaging/logging system being run by a windows application is uncommon in industrial controls (Disney has been using a Windows-based messaging system for years successfully, Riddler used one in the electrical equip room when I worked there). What was unusual was the amount of control the operators and maintenance were expected to do through X's front end system. When it crashed (and that's when, not if) you were sort of flying blind and couldn't do much. When it finally came back up and sync'd it wouldn't always accurately reflect the true ride status, especially in terms of occupied blocks. We knew we were in trouble when we started having to manually force bits on/off in the PLC (mostly to reset blocks the ride control system refused to acknowledge were not occupied and would not reset through the HMI). Forcing bits in a PLC is something you expect to do early in testing on a coaster but is generally a major no-no for an operating coaster. Even without the HMI issues the ride control system had just very obviously not been through enough test and adjust. On the mechanical side, the trains were a whole other bag of problems... to give an idea of one of the challenges with the original trains, SFMM installed on their own a proximity sensor on each side of the train at the brake run at the end of the ride along the cat walks. The purpose of these sensors two-fold - verify each fork (support arm holding the seats) was present and that it was in the correct position (not bent). So why SFMM add them? Let's just say they weren't added as an abundance of caution or as a "what-if/just in case" sort of thing.

I was basically able to confirm my initial thoughts with my former co-workers over there... there is just a general "concern" over pulling crowds to DCA over the next few summers and this was the quickest solution, for better or worse. Fireworks will always be under the domain of DL (not that a Pixar show is or isn't appropriate at DL...) but the parade puzzles me a little. I'm thinking it's a placeholder while Soundsational gets turned into whatever the next permanent parade is.

I don't doubt a lot of kids will like aspects of the overlay. And that's not a bad thing! Disney is just capable of so much more and pulled the trigger too early on this one. It's not like it's going to be a failure - I'm sure it will rate higher than the current PP. It's just not on the level Disney can/should be.

To be honest, I'd like it the other way around---pitchers hitting produces some awesome and hilarious moments. Love it when a pitcher comes up with a clutch RBI or home run, and also love seeing them flail away like they barely even know how to use a baseball bat. Especially if Shohei Otani makes it to MLB and lives up to the hype. At the very least, I'd like them to adopt the college rule where a pitcher can be designated as P/DH and hit and subbed out as one or the other as needed. I agree... I grew up in little league and the fan of an NL team so I always was brought up under the "Everyone hits" philosophy, even when that can produce some hilarious results. On the flip side it can produce some very interesting strategy discussions not often brought up in the MLB anymore. Sadly I believe MLB will go the other direction on the long run because of the potential excitement of offense.

I have no clue regarding X2 at all - for all I know it's an absolute saint of a ride. I haven't been to SFMM since X was converted to X2. And X was absolutely revolutionary. That being said, X was a very scary coaster. There were a lot of things I saw from X, particularly when I transferred to the maintenance side, that to this day haunt me. Kind of the worst of two worlds - a desperate coaster manufacturer forcing something they weren't ready to with a shoe-string budgeted park that believed it needed to debut X ASAP... to not the best result. Again - I fully concede X2 is a different coaster. But X is for very good reason gone.

I agree - I think overall this will be a good addition for KBF, if not solely because it replaced an aging Boomerang.

I hope it ends up being better than it looks and I'm sure the designers are going to do the best they can with the project. But given the timeline and the lackluster roll out I recognize this for what it is from TDA having seen it before. I mean DLR has done temporary overlays with a better timeline for design and roll out than this. It almost would have been better to just focus one thing for now and do a larger makeover later if that's what they feel the Pier needs, instead they are spreading their resources too thin for the budget and time frame. I think Disney has done great in recent years with large scale projects. But smaller quick projects have been hit or miss, even under Iger (Innoventions "replacement," Starrcade/Star Trader... really anything recent in Tomorrowland except Star Tours would be great examples of this). Like I said I hope it turns out better than it looks... I've just seen how this goes before (and how TDA gets here).

It's nice to know that nothing has really changed since I left there over 10 years ago!

This reeks of "what can we do cheap and quick with an IP to drive attendance." I would guess they are getting a little panicked over spreading crowds and made a knee jerk decision to do this overlay.

I'll let others comment on saving money but I will say two days is probably more than sufficient for both parks. The drive from the Santa Clarita Valley to Buena Park can be brutal so if you decided to do that I'd stay in Buena Park for the days you go to Knotts (as opposed to trying to drive back and forth). It's roughly ~60 miles but can take hours depending on the time of day.

Buena Park Building Division requires permits to construct or modify a building or structure. Upgrading ladders and catwalks likely qualifies as modification ("upgrading" catwalks at DL always did for Anaheim). The only except for a catwalk is if it's less than 30" off the ground.

GRR is far too popular to be on the chopping block. And the purpose of attractions like GRR isn't to completely replicate reality.

The week after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the better times to visit in terms of crowds with the holiday decor up. Of course who knows by 2019 what it will be like...

While you'd have to put in a new cartridge to use the prongs/deployment, you can "drive stun" a TASER without a cartridge for pain compliance and to create that distinctive loud arcing sound commonly associated with electronic immobilization devices. Reading a few news stories on the incident, it looks like the suspects used a lot of strong-arm tactics, which would make the drive stun method more likely if they were in-fact TASERs. It is common for the media to inaccurately report any electronic immobilization device as a "TASER" but it is possible the suspects used TASERs without cartridges.

And their CA Resort where they finally become a contender!

They purchased the majority of the property in 2012. Arcturus specializes in "economically" challenged properties - aka cheap properties with high potential. The property was purchased in 2012 from the bank owning the debt but I still can't find any record the land and parking facilities were fully turned over (but, again, based on Anaheim's recent statements and the dissolution of the RDA, I'd be surprised if Anaheim owned any of it now).

Agreed - parking structures are expensive and even Disney asked for financial help with their's. And the logistics of moving most of their backstage operations off site would be incredible.

Oops, I re-read my post and you're right. Even in 2010 when the site was up for auction Anaheim didn't really own GardenWalk, just some of the land and a share of the parking facility. They had originally acquired it as part of the "Pointe Anaheim" project and they did sell off a portion of the land prior to the original developer, Anaheim GW, developing it into GardenWalk in exchange for the city gaining greater control of the parking facility (specifically, they sold the parcel at Disney Way and Clementine, north of the fire station), but maintained some land ownership and a stake in the parking facility through the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency (now Anaheim Community and Economic Development) and tight control of the development through the Conditional Use Permit and District Development Plan. That said GardenWalk was really always owned by entities other than the city. Since the Redevelopment Agency was forced to liquidate a significant portion of their holdings when AB 26 passed, I suppose GardenWalk related holdings could have been part of it. I texted my former co-worker in Planning/Integration at Disney about the current status of the property and he wasn't sure. He said the property hasn't really been on their radar since the 2010 auction made it clear, through the Conditional Use Permit and Anaheim's interest in the parking facility, that Disney would have had to maintain GardenWalk as a retail/hotel district with little control over it's development. From what I recall when I worked on the team studying the property, the bank that had control of it's assets wanted $200+ million for it as well but Disney wasn't willing to offer even a quarter of that (I think the best offer from *anyone* ended up being $70 million, which was rejected, but don't quote me on the numbers). After we were asked to study the hotel portion of the property to try and make a partial offer to build a hotel, but before we even finished we were told to move on other projects. It sounded like that was done because of a last minute request from the City but there was never a lot of interest in developing a hotel there, particularly at that time. Disney was even asked to manage one of the hotels (the Marriot parcel, which I believe is the north east parcel) to try and spur development/bids. It's amazing how much the economy has changed since then... Because I'm bored and still more curious about this than I should be, I looked up the most recent Conditional Use Permit for GardenWalk, the zoning document that killed Disney's interest in the property in 2010. It's still extremely restrictive, although it has changed in 2017 to allow more "entertainment" venues in place of some retail. It still requires hotel development, still gives Anaheim a lot of control over the parking facility, and still requires a sizable retail operation. I can't find any info on land transfers/sales in the south east portion of the property (where Anaheim used to own parcels) but the Community and Economic Development agency implies they don't have commercial/industrial land holdings anymore.

Here you go.

I haven't been to Fright Fest in 15 years and I'm not a huge haunt person anyway, but man has Fright Fest changed a lot. The last time I went there were 3 mazes and they were pretty much unchanged for years, a bad hanging rip-off, some motorcycles in a globe, and a hypnotist. The highlight for me was Colossus backwards. Oh yeah and there were some coasters in the dark. Had to make sure several coaster area lights didn't turn on. Your review seems spot on with the right attitude to take with Fright Fest. It's never been a serious contender and SFMM knows that. So, kind of like how they manage their park as a whole, it's more about value than quality and that's not necessarily always a bad thing.

Yeah we had mechanics waiting in the storage area that first season doing their best NASCAR pit crew impersonation, just trying to swap wheels as fast as possible to keep the thing running. It was a crazy first year for a ride that wasn't really technologically advanced or anything!

Disney actually had an opportunity to purchase Garden Walk years ago when the thing first opened and flopped. We were initially surprised by the decision to not purchase given the property continuity it could have created, but there were strings attached to the purchase (must construct the planned-but-never-built hotel, must keep Katella facing tenant plan intact, must allow Convention Center to use parking lot, etc.) since the city didn't want yet another dirt lot/parking lot/abandoned lot in the Resort area. At that time Disney was going through its own cuts and wanted it for the land, not the shopping center, so they passed. Anaheim is the current owner so I doubt any purchase overture from Disney would be met with a lot of friendliness.

Disney paid $32 million because there is no real estate available across the street from the park. All businesses on harbor will see a drop in revenue if Disney succeeds in drawing the majority of its guests to enter on the other side of the property. ^This. Disney, after trying the nice way, is flexing with both the businesses and the city. It's no coincidence this coincides with Disney cancelling race events in Anaheim and Disney cancelling their multi-million dollar subsidizing of ARTIC.

Road wheels? That was the standard name we used for the wheels that ran on top of the rails at SFMM coasters. Goliath's opening year had a lot of issues with "blown out" road wheels (what we called it when the polyurethane had worn to the point of exposing the metal of the road wheel). To avoid damage to the track and wheel we wouldn't run a train in that condition. While normal wear was expected, the level of wear was far beyond SFMM or Giovanola's estimates and our road wheel supplier, Uremet, couldn't keep up. So opening year there were several nights when, down to one train, we were *praying* the road wheels would hold up long enough to cycle out our 2+ hour queue. Sorry... wayyyy more information than originally requested.

I couldn't tell you for certain if any of those were on it when it opened, but I highly doubt it. During the 2001/2002 off seasons SFMM added a lot of them as a "side project" of their welders at the request of the ride mechanics. Every few weeks a few more would pop up and I remember at least one Friday private party the ride being unavailable due to that work. In 2003 Vortex at PGA did not have them (to be fair Vortex did open ~5 years prior to Riddler...).