Jew

It wasn't just a top coaster in Florida, it was one of the best woodies in the world. Top 20 IMO. Fun ride. I have a feeling this shopping center will never end up being fully developed and still end up being a black eye for the city. I don't recall the area being that desirable, so 1,000 residential units seems a bit odd...

My limited knowledge/experience with Six Flags engineering has led me to believe this will have lots of downtime if it really is a in house design. The most recent example is Lex Luthor: though they worked with Intamin, Tim Burkhart was pretty proud of the engineering Six Flags did....but I've seen/heard some pretty crazy things from my time working there and people who used to work as mechanics/electricians at SFMM too. I believe Gerstlauer may have ended up the owner of the original designs as well, so I wouldn't count them out despite the lawsuit. Taking the drawings/parts you already own and having a new vendor fabricate based off of that is not as simple a process as it sounds. Will it work? Sure. How reliably? We will potentially see....

I guess Merlin has a thing for building parks kind of close to major cities.

They're being designed in-house and having a 3rd party manufacture them. For a classic coaster such as Revolution, probably was their only option without employing too many safety features like what some manufacturers would of wanted to install. I wouldn't trust Six Flags engineering... My guess is they bought the same Gerstlauer trains made for SooperDooperLooper.

Coastal Commission is the real problem. Developing next to the ocean in California is a HUGE process. The hippie San Diego politician that hated Sea World is retired.

There is a separate restaurant for takeout (appropriately named Chicken Dinner Express). The restaurant opens earlier and stays open later than the park.

Much better use of the Clydesdale barn! Good that they'll have a signature attraction at the front now too.

I'll just leave it at this: I consider it to be nitpicking because you are ASSUMING it's a cost cutting move when you actually have no idea it is. If you were the contractor and knew for a fact they decided to do this because it was the lower bid vs. keeping the existing set up, then you would have a point. You don't even know how the final landscape design will look, so it's a little premature to bash them at this point. "Drought resistant" landscaping can look fantastic or terrible and cheap. Wait until you see the final product before assuming. I'm also not trying to take anything away from their marketing plan. It works. Can't fault them. But if the discussion is going to be about them being cheap, it is worth noting that it is YEARS of being cheap that led to the ride needing a major refurbishment in the first place. Six Flags tried so hard to spin them not taking care of Revolution to the point where Tim Burkhart flat out lied about it being a state regulation as to the reason they couldn't modify the ride.

It sounds like a great family event as long as your family is into the whole holiday thing. X-mas lights, X-mas themed shows, characters...

The fact that is recycled is why this doesn't make much sense. I doubt the park is doing this to save water, since it barely uses water. As for PR, I doubt a park full of water rides and a full size water park is going to get bad PR for having a fountain, or good PR for removing it. The general cost of running and maintaining an existing water feature probably doesn't cost much, but replacing the system might be. Chances are the pumps were extremely old and everything needed replaced and just dumping dirty and flowers in it is cheaper. My parents received a quote for 12k to re-do just their front lawn. Landscaping isn't cheap. Again, if you lived in CA, you would see how pretty much every where you go there is a sign about water conservation, a press release about "going green," or some way to let the world know "we're doing our part." It obviously won't be the selling point of the new ride, but I guarantee the PR team will know to have it ready as a talking point. "Our new landscaping is going to reduce the water amount needed for plants...blah blah blah...." Complaining about landscaping is complaining for the sake of complaining. If you want to complain about cost cutting, you should be complaining that they are marketing a long overdue ride refurbishment as their big new addition for 2016. But because everyone is excited to have the OTSR's removed and that doesn't fit the narrative that Six Flags sucks, we have to resort to nitpicking about landscaping...

The ride still doesn't excite me (though It will still get me back to SWO), but that lead car looks very sleek.

They'll just bring back elecTRONica now... Seriously though, this might be another reflection that their passholder pricing is working: they no longer need this event (very much catered to AP's who show up after work/school) to drive attendance and food/booze sales...

Seeing as you guys are not from California, you probably don't understand how much hype there is behind being "drought friendly" right now in CA. Pretty much every city, corporation, and homeowner that can afford it is doing it because things are very bad and there's free PR to be had. You also probably don't understand how expensive going drought friendly really is without any rebates (a good looking drought friendly re-model of a small front yard is at least 10K), so Six Flags is probably paying more to re-landscape than to have just left it as is... The water is recycled anyways, so I highly doubt the cost of maintaining/operating the old stream through the queue was that high to begin with... Look, I hate SFMM as much as the next person, but you guys are getting ridiculous with the nitpicking. The SFMM thread is hundreds and hundreds of pages long, and I highly doubt there is a single mention of how nice the queue was. It's all about how terrible the ride was with OTSR's. You get the removal of the OTSR's and now you're complaining about removing a water feature you probably didn't even notice?!?!?

There is not.

Hotwire has the major companies on their site. I searched a random weekend in April and the cheapest car came out to be a fullsize from budget.

FYI: the land did NOT open today. I would cautious if planning to visit before April 7th and expecting the land to be open.

I wasn't impressed with it last time it ran in CA. It felt more like "uhh...we need to use all these empty food venues somehow. Lets add a few things to the menu, create some pricey special events, and call it our version of food and wine." I really hope this time around it can be a park wide thing...there's definitely lots of potential with DCA 2.0 to have food offerings that match all the sections.

Having done the castle tour in Florida and been through the gate a line in Hollywood, I think that is a safe assumption. They are identical.

Bud Hurlburt founded Castle Park. Back then, Knott's had independent vendors operating rides...so they were moved to Castle Park after Knott's used the land for other things. The antique cars were from KBF too.

No castle tour. Kids can wait in line with their family and split off in the child switch room right before boarding.

Good thing Southern California is one of the most populated regions in the country filled with a majority of people who have not yet been to Orlando (and many who never will)...

With glasses.

You may be right about that. However, I also think that a lot of the season passes in the last year expired yesterday.

Doubtful. Universal will have tons of pass holders blacked out.

It opened at 3 and the rides closed at 5:45. Shops and butterbeer carts stayed open longer. I wouldn't start planning any trips to USH just yet, since it is tech rehearsals...