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There is a difference between reading the comments and being given the ability to make change from them. There are a lot of fantastic people in management at SFMM, but they will never be given the resources to enact real change. For example, lets say you write a compliant about a terrible employee. Said employee may get fired. But when you pay minimum wage with no real benefits besides free tickets to the park, you are just being forced to replace him with someone who probably cares less than the previous guy!

^ Give it a few more years and I am sure the Jags will be asking for a new stadium or threatening to move... It is on my bucket list to check out the pools there and at the D-backs stadium.

^Granted this study was from 2011, but it appears it provides a 5% bump: http://www.sbnation.com/2011/1/19/1940438/home-field-advantage-sports-stats-data I think my biggest gripe (and why I much prefer college) is that all these new modern stadiums are not in any way, shape, or form designed for the common fan to do what you would expect at a sporting event: stand, cheer, high 5, etc. Basically, they've morphed from stadiums to broadway theaters with the focus being on premium seating. I enjoy the amenities, but I do also like not being 5 miles away from the action and among fans also having a good time when I can't afford those amenities. ^^I might have done that on purpose.

It doesn't necessarily have to be 30ft. See my previous post. 25% of the park can exceed 30ft and should stay below 60ft, but it would be up to the coastal commission to make the final decision.

^Of course. It's a birthday gift to myself! And also a perfect transition to my next TR: the Pac-12 championship game at Levi Stadium. It's basically met life stadium with open corners. I can't imagine it being a great home field advantage. Very corporate, with the best fan amenity being that they were nice enough to build all the suites on one side so the upper deck isn't in a different stratosphere. Oh, and really good WiFi. Security checkpoints were also ridiculously slow moving, so the stadium was half empty at kick off. There is at least a VTA train stop too, so we parked for free and took the train. ...Here's the aforementioned suite tower from the outside. Every level of it had a corporate sponsor. ...It felt like every seating section also had a sponsorship View of the stadium from our section. Stanford fans don't really care about football, so they were ridiculously cheap on stub hub The suite tower from the inside. The stadium did have great video boards on both sides Plazas on each open corner. The escalators had historical photos above them. That was kind of cool.

The crazy thing is that Cleveland and Ohio as a whole has such a massive selection of craft beers that it would be so easy to have a great offering of beer at the park. I'm going guess there is Goose Island at the park, considering Busch now owns them. Unfortunately for beer loving theme park fans, it is likely Busch owns the distributor that sells beer to Cedar Point.

It's not their money, so I imagine that if this actually gets built it will end up as the best Six Flags park.

Even though they get the money up front, they can't bank it for accounting purposes until it is redeemed. It is a liability until spent.

To clarify, I don't think it looks bad by any means. It looks fantastic and is most definitely a HUGE improvement over the disjointed area Downtown Disney used to be. I think I just expected more of the brick, old-timey architecture throughout since I haven't followed the project super close and just assumed the rest of property would match what I saw when I visited in November. I LOVE that look. I just didn't realize that the Town Center portion didn't follow that, so I can't say I was blown away the same way I was in November. But then again, it's hard to judge from photos, so I am sure the final version in person is awesome. BUT, and this is the important thing...what REALLY matters to me is all the great new places it adds to the Disney lineup. I feel like on any future visits, I could end every single night at Disney Springs and not be bored---plenty of bars and restaurants to chose from now! If there was one area that you could criticize WDW for in terms of being an all encompassing resort, it was definitely the nightlife scene and "celebrity chefs/hip restaurants" (which seems to be an it thing to do right now in all the major tourist cities). This fills that void and then some!

The architecture doesn't appear to be anything mind blowing, but what I love is that Orlando seemed to be really devoid of "foodie" celebrity chef type places...Until now! Love that they brought in so many outside people to really liven up the dining options at Disney World. Really turns Disney Springs into THE place to end your night instead of your hotel restaurant or bar.

Yes. I'm guessing Samsung payed for Six Flags to add these headsets....

Never understood why anyone would want "Disney dollars." I always thought of them as a supplement to the gift of a Disney trip. So a birthday card could contain Disney dollars and say "surprise, you're going to Disney!"

Wisdom makes a variation of this concept: http://www.wisdomrides.com/viewnew/33

They just instantly doubled in value...

I believe it was Okinawa prefecture government that contacted them and most likely gave them great financial incentive to do so...but then Comcast stepped in and gave them a great financial incentive to take full ownership of the park!

Interesting that scramblers can run backward even though the manufacturer reccomends against it. Wonder why that is. Probably just a result of the drive system they use technically being able to do it.

I think that would depend on who you ask. The contract is on file with the SEC, so if you want to be an internet lawyer feel free to find it and try to dissect it. There are some articles out there that have attempted to do just that. From what you can easily google, it appears that there is still a restriction an entire "marvel universe" being built west of the Mississippi river and the name "marvel" can't be used to promote (hence why so far everything has been branded as "super hero.") anything on the west coast as well. So Ross appears to be correct.

Count me in as someone interested too! Oddly enough, Viking River Cruises are based in my current city of Woodland Hills. Nowhere near any of their routes.

Truthfully, it looks like they overdid the projections. They are used beautifully in the transitions, but also for a lot of the action. However, I can't tell from the video whether or not the projections are the "hologram" (musion) style or just normal projections. If all the projections are "hologram" style with actual depth, then I imagine the final product still looks amazing and realistic.

One thing to note about their "best first quarter ever": They still lost $46.9 million for the quarter. Cedar Fair lost $48, so I guess in that regard Six Flags wins! To be fair though, they are in much better shape than they were prior to the bankruptcy. They are growing attendance and revenue while the economy is doing good and the entire industry (well, except for maybe Sea World) is growing. My only concern with that would be that they are still growing it the same way that got them into trouble last time: cheap tickets/passes and lots of capital investment.

^Where did you see the 2015 attendance report? It's not on their website yet. In any case, your initial post stated that the OC Register reported 5.5 million guests for KBF alone. That's all this discussion started from. No one really questioned whether or not KBF had a successful year. The earnings conference call already confirmed that KBF led the way for the company. KBF's efforts to go back to their roots so to speak and the increasing costs of Disney and USH no doubt allowed them to recapture market share. I simply doubted whether that growth would record shattering for the entire industry.

^My comment wasn't meant to be a USH vs. KBF comparison. Just meant to be another example of how such a huge gain would be unheard of in the industry, as it showed that even some of the largest gains reported weren't even close to the 52% gain. The gain is still sure to be one of the larger ones for 2015, assuming Soak City pulled in 500-600k (2014 reported attendance was 326k, so assuming a gain for them).

See my edit above. The 4Q earnings conference call confirms it was both Soak City and KBF.

I did the math wrong (put in the wrong number when looking at all the older TEA reports). Regardless...I still don't buy it. Knott's has always been much cheaper than Disney and always had discounts tied to restaurants. I have no doubt KBF had a record year for them, but I highly doubt their growth was also so large that it would also be the largest single % gain ever recorded since those attendance reports started being published in 2007. Another example: back in 2010, you could get the buy a day get the year free pass at USH for something like $70-80 (which was cheaper than a KBF pass at the time if I remember correctly) or the premium with no blackouts and free parking for $120ish. USH aggressively marketed Kong and still "only" managed a 26% gain that year. Late edit: Cedar Fair's Q4 2015 earnings call confirms it was the park and Soak City. "Knott's Berry Farm, along with its adjacent water parks Soak City, led the growth this year, entertaining more than five million guests."

^The article in the OC Register most certainly strongly implies that the 5.5 million figure is just the park, but I didn't see anything that outright confirms it. I have a hard time believing that the number doesn't include Soak City....a 65% increase in attendance is unheard of in the industry. For Reference, if you look at the TEA report from 2007 and then look at 2015, even the Disney parks have only grown by 2-3million guests over that entire 8 year time span. Some key openings: Diagon Alley only increased UO attendance by 17% according to the TEA. The original WWoHP was reported as creating a 30% gain for IoA. Carsland did 22% for DCA. So 65% for Iron Reef, a new (admittedly awesome) food festival, and refurbished classic rides? Not buying it.