Shavethewhales

Yeah, that video shows the TYPE of ride that is rumored, not the layout. Still could be something different anyway. Once you see the spread of the footers and the shear elevation changes, especially with the station, you'll understand how huge this thing is going to be. Speaking of new things in Branson though, I included a pic of the new drop tower in the last update, but there's also the new mountain coaster which is already half way constructed. I didn't go to the landing so I'm not sure what the new dark ride looks like yet, but I'll stop by sometime this summer to check all of it out.

Here's the update from the weekend. You can see what looks like two entrance doors forming. They've been framing so fast and they're already working on the roof over the que area on the TNT side. Most of the footers look to be completed at this point, but there's a ton of huge concrete block footers still being constructed down in the gully. Lots and lots of footers close together. This thing will be tightly wound through itself. Some of the footers are almost touching Thunderation.

I just got back from the park today. I saw the posts about the blueberry soft serve and had to try it out. Its great, but my favorite ice cream at the park is still the cookies and cream at the old ice cream parlor on the square. Its like half oreo/cake half ice cream. The station is coming along super quick as always. Its nearly framed in now and you can see where the entrance will be and where the coaster will go. We'll have to make some glorious MS paint art soon to guess at where everything will go. Outlaw Run no longer has steel wheels. Much quieter now, still crazy fast and smooth. Powderkeg seems to have even more problems lately due to the restraints acting up.

In any case a new REIT usually means fresh investment. They have incentive to increase the value of the parks through whatever means. That is why CNL added coasters to just about every park early on, though they were small models. CNL gets some great credit for doing a lot of grunt work behind the scenes to fix up these parks. I know Magic Springs and Frontier City got a lot of infrastructure work, new roofs, etc. and I'm sure Darien did too. With that out of the way, the clear path to adding value to the parks is with new rides!

Bluegrass & BBQ is my second favorite time of the year. A lot of people like myself are there for the bluegrass. It's actually one of the best bluegrass festivals anywhere, though it's very spread out for better or worse. They bring in groups from all over, but Missouri has some of the best in the world. Not that much BBQ to be found though, but there are usually some great rib specials where you can get a huge plate of ribs in Red Gold Hall. Graduations that weekend and the next will also help ease the ride-focused crowds.

The deal was already announced, but closing has now actually happened. So CNL is now out of the picture from this moment on.

I'm sure there will be another flood of updates in a week and a half when the new festival of wonder starts. I plan on being there so I'll have some photos to share as well. It is nuts how big this project is going to be, going by all indications that the park has given - but it's tough to excite people who aren't close until the actual track starts showing up.

Beautiful. Fantastic layout with lots of interesting interactions, and the indoor section will be spectacular when it is filled in with thematics. This is a model for everyone else to follow. Perfectly executed.

The mountain coaster was announced last month I believe, and the company behind it is actually bringing three other new attractions to Branson at the same time: a mirror maze, an arcade, and most importantly a "7D" dark ride experience which will be located at Branson Landing. More info: http://www.hometowndailynews.com/2017/02/15/two-new-branson-attractions-totaling-over-5million-announced/ It's hard to get terribly excited for mountain coasters, but perhaps the competition from this one will help keep prices down at the other, IMO probably better, one we already have. Also: the new drop tower is vertical and rising. It appears that it is going to be an Intamin tower similar to the recent SF versions that were added to coaster towers. It's almost like there's an entire extra amusement park that's been added to Branson over the last couple of years, but this time you have to drive to each ride and pay a separate fee.

I agree with you JT325. I love classic rides and parks even if they are dealing with hard times and poor ownership. I'd travel to ride a classic John Allen coaster even if it was stuck in the middle of some walmart parking lot in Terre Haute. Belmont is a great example. I'm sure if it were in the same situation these days you'd see "enthusiasts" rush to post about how much it sucks and should be torn down. It shows that there's always hope that someone can bring new life to classic attractions, but a new approach is often warranted. If they take out most of the rides at Lakemont except the few classics worth saving and fill the voids with more standard park amenities, that will be a win-win for everyone. Expanding the water park would also be a good idea.

Wow, so the park is so unprofitable that the setup and take down for the Christmas lights is more important than the entire summer season... And it sounds like they are going to downsize the amusement park aspect somewhat... But this sounds a really good step in the right direction for them. It sounds like the new amenities will help keep the space more alive and viable as a municipal space. As long as they keep the classic wooden coasters around, I will plan on visiting in 2018. I was originally planning a cross-Pennsylvania road trip for this summer, but this is yet another omen that I need to put it off for a year...

Isn't that every weekend at SDC? We ended up there during a gospel festival a year or so ago and didn't really see an appreciable difference in crowd levels until Sunday morning. We were expecting it to be pretty dead until after church, but didn't realize that a huge church service was going on at sunrise at the park. Still not terrible though. To be clear, the Southern Gospel fest and Young Christians Weekend are two very different things. YCW is a one weekend extravaganza that every church youth group within a two hour radius tries to attend. Each year they test the capacity of the park, and unlike most days at SDC almost everyone is there for the rides (as well as the big name christian performers). So 90% of the capacity-level crowd is going to be preteen kids with little adult supervision. Just think about that.... The Southern Gospel Picnic is a small festival that caters to the older crowds just after the school season starts. It's a great time to go if you want to focus on rides.

It will be massively crowded. That is typically the only day of the year where Wildfire uses it's entire indoor queue and then some. Try to reschedule if at all possible.

Excellent photos ytterbiumanalyst Looks like they are focusing on the station since the park has opened. Some of that framing on the walls is new since opening day. I wonder if they'll wait until August to bring track to the site...

I'd be so happy if this ride turned out to be something completely different than the thing people are expecting just because that's the popular rumor. Remember, coaster rumors are mostly assumptions, and when you assume you make an ass out of you and me... but mostly you in this case. What we know so far: It's one of a kind It's big The name Wild Mountain seems to have something to do with it The Mack launched spinner rumor is mostly a popular hunch based on the fact that there aren't many other big, one-of-a-kind possibilities that seem obvious at the moment. It very well could be a spot-on rumor, but I wouldn't get my heart set on anything yet. In any case, I expect it to be a highly customized version of whatever it is.

There's something about this track style and the concept of a "simple" custom looping coaster that really gets me excited these days. I would absolutely love to see Vekoma make a huge resurgence in the U.S. to bring back the standard looping coaster. Of course Mack, Gerstauler, S&S and even Premier are already in the space with seemingly more cost-effective concepts. I'm not sure what marketing edge they have with this model, but perhaps it will simply be a good ride. Can't wait to hear the reviews.

"Time Traveler", "Wild Mountain", and "Mountain Wings" are the only unused coaster names that HFEC has registered right now, that I know of. Top Dog is a different trademark that is going to be used in the FL area I think. I think Time Traveler is the name. Could surprise us at the last minute, but we are only a few months away from the grand reveal. They do like to change their minds regardless though, so who knows.

Sounds kinda generic, but I'm sure the final concept will be more focused. I hope they go with farming - lots of fun theming options there. The question is, are they talking about a new area, or a re-do of county fair? I'd assume the former, but you never know sometimes. I'm still thinking the train loop is a long ways away to build a new area in. Maybe they're looking to squeeze something in north of the gate?

Well, they plant a few new trees anyway... it's a far cry from the old way of doing things where the park stayed in the woods. Even Outlaw Run's area is mostly open concrete. Not sure why it's being used as a good example. Grand Expo had some trees grow in too, but it still doesn't feel the same either. At least that was a parking lot originally. I mean, it's still better than other parks, but the whole "city in the trees" concept is dead and being phased out with each project. It's just not economically worth saving when you are building for many times the guests that the original park was intended for. I don't like it either, but I try to counter my enthusiasm with reality, otherwise I'd get depressed about a lot of the changes that have been made recently. Only more of it coming, but a lot of good stuff will make up for it. Lots of little (and some large) changes throughout the park this year, or so I've been told. Tree house is gone, new entrance for TNT, and changes around the entrance area, among other things. The employees have been working hardcore the last couple of weeks to get everything ready. Park opens in 6 days!

The construction site on this thing continues to grow and change rapidly. They have dug some huge pits that seemingly have footers going into them. Could be a huge drop or tunnel involved. The concept pitches made a big deal about a "plunge", now the question is how big and how steep. The park opens next week. I'll be there next weekend to grab some photos, along with numerous others I suspect. I hope we can keep a consistent stream of photo updates, because this could be the most exciting project of 2018. Except Wildfire isn't actually themed after a fire. It's themed after a crazy inventor's flying contraption of some sort that runs off a new fuel which is dubbed "Wildfire". Trees and coasters are hard to mix. Obviously you can't have branches come anywhere near the track, nor can they hang over, nor can they be so close that they even have a chance of growing too close. The only way to mix the two is to build tall, which would be super expensive just to save a few trees. Everyone will complain about the view being ruined, but no one comes for the trees anymore...

Outlaw Run had problems, but I don't remember it being anywhere near so bad that it had problems every single day in 2013. I visited several times that year and I think it was only down once temporarily for me. It may have had more problems early in the season... Lightning Rod is the worst case of extended downtime I've ever seen in a new coaster. It's almost unprecedented. I can think of several other coasters that had a lot of problems in their opening years, but the vast majority get fixed by the later part of the season at least. Count me in as also very curious to see how well it will run this year. And I think the barn doesn't look that bad - it's mostly awkward because of the concrete walls on either end. Maybe they'll be able to cut them down a bit at some point. It looks like a huge improvement to the area though. Really brings out the country fair vibe better than a cramped kiddie coaster.

So I decided to blow off a little steam in Houston/Galveston over the weekend, and I started things off by driving up to New Caney to check out the progress on this thing that I've heard so much about. This place is only about a 15 minute drive from the airport with easy traffic and highway access. Right off the bat it's easy to tell that a ton of work has been done if you know anything about infrastructure. There's been obvious sewer, storm, and water line improvements all over the area, with at least a couple of new lift stations noticeable just from the road. They've probably spent in the ten's of millions range already just on preparing the land for development. And of course the clearings are huge. There were a few people and a bulldozer out there working on this drizzly Saturday morning. I stopped by the RV park. To my surprise, it was about more than half filled on this cold wet early march weekend. A lot of it could be construction workers, but who knows. The lady in the office told me that the water park has broken ground, but won't open until 2018. She said they hoped to open the theme park in 2020. Going by the typical trend here, we can expect it to actually open in 2024. I think there's going to be an explosion of vertical construction this summer with the water park and several of the pad sites starting construction. That will really bring the area to life. We'll just have to wait and see how the water park turns out to see if the theme park will ever become a reality. These people are serious, but they are land developers, not a theme park company.

I've been getting frustrated lately along with seeming everyone down in the Houston area that knows about this project, so I'm glad to get another little bone of news. No more infrastructure excuses at this point - everything seems to be in place and they've done a massive amount of clearing. A ton of the plots have been sold off to my amazement. I've speculated that this whole thing was really just a plot to sell land at higher prices. If they get a water park built, then that's something, but I'm starting to wonder how serious they ever were about the theme park and outlet mall. They keep saying they'll do one thing after another, but then they turn around and perpetually delay the start. On the other hand though, there are plenty of good excuses and there always have been signs of progress all along. Let's just hope they do get the water park open this year and a lot of the criticism will die down.

Yeah, the station is like 5 stories tall and they haven't even got to the roof line yet. Looks like everything is consolidated into a small footprint due to the topography. There's speculation that the maintenance area will be directly under the station. I don't know how they're going to fit a queue in there, but maybe they'll build a separate two story building closer to the path just to wind the queue through.

Cinnamon bread has been at SDC for as long as I can remember. It is probably original to SDC, as most things shared between the parks are. There is a difference between SDC and DW's recipies though. DW's has more loose brown sugar on top whereas SDC uses more cinnamon and white sugar. As always, DW gets the publicity because it is simply in a better location to be accessible by most enthusiasts/reviewers/etc. That's also why they got the resort first. Same thing happens every year with the Christmas festivals too. People rant on and on about how good DW's is, and they always get the award, but SDC's is arguably better and just never gets a chance to be compared properly. Most people are surprised to find that SDC even has one. Location, Location, Location. At least Branson has an airport now...