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As Chris mentioned, Knott's have never done their announcements in line with other Cedar Fair parks. Haunt has always rightfully been the main focus of all their marketing from August-November.

Escape room in the mystery house sounds awesome!

Fun fact: this will be the 3rd version of the maze to be featured at HHN in hollywood! The first version came in 2000 when the film was first supposed to come out (but Universal later backed off releasing d/t the gore), the 2010 3D version, and now this version.

Vanity Ball reminds me of the Beverly Hills portion of the movie Escape from LA. As a kid, I absolutely LOVED the "thrilling chilling world of Rob Zombie" maze Hollywood did for HHN that was based on the Hellbilly Deluxe album. Excited to see that sort of come back to life again!

The hyper has been a figment of enthusiast imaginations for almost 20 years now.

As I am sure you all know, I'd be the first one to call out SFMM for anything...but it's not like they planned for it to be down during summer season. Since a lot of roller coaster parts are expensive and specialized, no park keeps an inventory of EVERYTHING they need. They will keep a stock of all the commonly used items and some of the other items that they feel might need replacement, but not much else. If the part that is now broken is expensive and was expected to last longer, I don't fault the park at all. It would be a dumb business decision for any park to sit on millions of dollars in parts inventory that has very little chance of being needed before its mandated to be replaced.

I give it until the start of 2020 to go back to 5 nights a week. Every time Cirque has ventured into a 7-night schedule or adding matinee performances it only lasts a few months. With MGM in the midst of their cost cutting moves, I doubt they would have decided to go to 7 nights if it wasn't a profitable endeavor.

Two things: O is going daily at the Bellagio! And you can buy speed now! https://www.nellisauction.com/auction/3575/item/contents-of-yard-scrap-metal-for-skyvue-observation-wheel-read-clerk-comments-1873454/

The most intriguing thing for me in the announcement is the size of the plot they're working with. Lots of space to work with and grow!

That's awesome (and not the least bit surprising) Europa did their own barrel selection.

Psyclone mysteriously had trim brakes added to it after the earthquake and as the article also states, the hillside on which Jet Stream and Ninja sit had to have a retaining wall added. From the firsthand accounts I heard from maintenance people who worked there in 1994, there was most definitely concern about the footers on the hill and it was after the earthquake they discovered the Psyclone structure was in worse shape than they thought. While I suppose you can argue Psyclone's damage was from the heavy trains and the hillside doesn't count as direct damage to Ninja, it's not like a park is going to admit "yeah, the rides we say are built to sustain earthquakes actually had damage!"

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing what is in store!

I didn’t realize they are keeping this in the moderate category! Looks amazing for that price range!

The moral of the story is Mother Nature and earth have the ability to kill us all, so freak out when that happens. Otherwise, relax. I didn’t even stop eating dinner at the restaurant I was at when the quake it since it was a tiny roll in Los Angeles...

I was wondering how this announcement would impact attendance...I suspect more people from surrounding areas like Bay Area, SD, and Vegas share your sentiments.

Of course they do. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm just saying a healthy theme park business is not based solely on attendance. I am sure that Disneyland has to be experiencing the highest per cap spending in the history of the park and I would also guess that their guest satisfaction is pretty high as well. Would not be surprised at all in the next Disney earnings call to hear theme park revenue is through the roof. Well clearly Cedar Fair has figured something out if they have squeezed 3% more money out of the same amount of guests. They need those cheap season pass holders spending money too, or otherwise the quarterly release would probably say "attendance up, revenue down." Obviously more people=more chances to make extra money, so people look at attendance as a "holy grail" for theme parks. But high attendance without high per cap spending can be awful for a park, since in theory you still have to staff the park to the higher attendance level without the cash those people should be bringing in...

Their primary base is passholders on cheap passes whom I would guess for the most part just come to the park to hang out and don't spend that much money. As long as they have a store (Savi's Workshop) generating $3,000 in revenue every 30 minutes, I'm guessing the TDA suits aren't freaking out TOO much. It's obvious they aren't hitting their attendance goals, but I would guess they are fine from a revenue standpoint. The cheapest hotel for next Saturday is Paradise Pier @ $412/night. If they were truly hurting, I would guess the rates would be far lower than that... But anyways, back to the topic. Attendance, IMO, is a lazy way to look at results. Parks can easily inflate that number through promotions and comps. How much a guest spends in total is what matters most.

MaxPass is fantastic. I actually prefer it to Fastpass+, since this one is a upcharge that clearly people don't all pay for...makes it super easy to get what you want since it's an upcharge and only works when you are at the park (no advance reservations). I hope Disney World can do something like this as an upcharge to Fastpass+ so I can gladly pay for that too!

In case you guys were wondering if Disney is freaking out about what appears to be lower attendance post Star Wars...here is your answer why they are probably not freaking out too much. Creating revenue inside (and outside if you own hotels) is what matters most. Ticket revenue isn't really a profit driver except for premium products like front of line and VIP tours. 10 years ago Cedar Fair was WAY behind on this, now they appear to have caught up!

That was a question on a leads test many years ago! What to do if you were at log jammer and it fell into it! There was also a question on what to do if a train was in the brakes at B:TR and the other train still went over the lift.... The thing to remember about earthquakes and rides are two fold: 1. is the ground underneath them still stable? 2. many parts on a ride are still subject to wear and tear AND human error/inspections. No telling what could potentially happen if a bolt is one ratchet too loose, too worn down, etc.

I would say that Dino play and the raptor encounter were big upgrades. Dino play added a whole second level and more activities and they also added a baby raptor puppet+triceratops to the “encounters.” The triceratops (previously only seen at USJ) is really cool.

Who pays the bills again? I have no problem admitting that Universal's previous screen efforts were pretty bad. If you are going to use a screen, it should at least be done in a way that is passable like this and doesn't require 3D glasses. A whole ride based on that though? That wouldn't fly at all. I don't mind it as one piece of an attraction. The screens we should be talking about are the ones used after Parasaurus all the way up to the top of the lift. Those are bad when spaced between everything else.

The media looks fine. It just shouldn't be there and it's not needed. And while I know you can never quite judge a ride by a video, I can 100% guarantee, based on all those screen rides I've been on all over the world, my reaction from actually riding it wouldn't be any different from watching that video... I guess I'm more open minded about screens on rides with how fast media technology has evolved. Loved Flight of the Passage and I thought this got the job done as a faux aquarium featuring a giant swimming dino. I think the problem here is with how it doesn't have the same emotional impact as the previous one---no question it doesn't match the previous epic reveal and the audio doesn't do much to set it up. There's no explanation that I can remember hearing for why the aquarium is connected to the herbivore area by a cave either (logic would say another door should be there...), so the storytelling falls way short.

I don't think the videos do the ride justice (the media looks fine IMO), but I also agree with Robb that the old ride established itself WAY WAY WAY better. The gates opening into Ultrasaur lagoon set the tone of "hey, I'm really in Jurassic Park!" The new audio doesn't do anything to make it dramatic you're entering the aquarium to start your tour of JW, so it's not really an entry statement at all. The show building scene is MUCH improved IMO. The dinos that returned (stegasaurus, Parasaurus) look brand new and have more movement. The biggest problem that really kills any positive momentum is that nothing really happens between Parasaurus and the top of the lift.

Another note on HHN: They have made official that the park will now feature 10 mazes! Four have been announced: Walking Dead (year round haunt), Universal Monsters: Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, Stranger Things, and Holidayz in Hell.