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The travel channel's Xtreme Water Parks is the free video download of the week at Starbucks. You can go to your local starbucks to pick up a card with a free 1-time code to use on iTunes. I have a few extra cards, so if you can't make it to a store this week send me a PM and I can give you a code.

Oops, I didn't search before starting a new thread. I moved this to http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/posting.php?mode=edit&f=2&p=1627887 Mods, feel free to delete this.

If you mean the ship didn't burn up, then yes. But it burned for a long time and spread to a much larger area than what the cruise line will have you believe. It burned for an hour and a half. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/tourism-cruises/article28293175.html Some reports claim it was from nearly the bottom deck to the top deck. I don't care for this guy, but it seems to have the most accurate information on this fire. ie.: http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2015/07/articles/fraud/the-royal-caribbean-small-fire-hoax/ Several more articles at http://www.cruiselawnews.com Scary stuff. Jim Walker may have the truth, but he never has the whole truth. Saying that "it was from nearly the bottom deck to the top deck" is misleading, as te fire didn't burn all the decks. It started in the engine room at the bottom of the ship and the exhaust stacks, which are very heavily insulated and fireproofed from the rest of the ship, carried the hot air and sparks up and out of the belly of the ship without letting it spread to the passenger decks, exactly as they are designed to. As the hot sparks exited the exhaust stacks at the top, they started a second fire in the chapel above the Viking Crown on deck 15. No damage was done between the engine room and the Viking Crown. You can see the captain's full explanation in the video below:

Yeah, those ropes looked super sketchy, even on the crappy 240p video. I'm frankly surprised that no one was hurt -- a cable under that much tension could've easily severed one of the ride operator's limbs if it had whipped around, and things really wouldn't have ended well if it snapped after the capsule was released.

How quickly they forget the Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift dancing cars on sticks.

Being able to have such a large open space in the middle of the ship requires a higher gross tonnage. I'm not sure why you'd say that. Gross tonnage is essentially a measure of enclosed volume, not of displacement or anything like that. The open spaces of Oasis don't make it any heavier, so they don't increase the number of engines or support machinery. The only potential increase "required" would be for additional ballast tanks because the ship is taller, but I don't see that increasing the gross tonnage by 45,000 (which is roughly equivalent to 5,000,000 cubic feet).

The Carnival Magic is part of the Dream class, and is about 34 GT/passenger. The Disney Magic is 35 GT/passenger. These new ships are 27 GT/passenger. The open-air Boardwalk and Central park on the Oasis-class aren't included in the calculation of gross tonnage. Gross tonnage only includes areas not exposed to weather.

As was stated above, gross tonnage is a measure of the enclosed volume of the ship. I admit that it's possible that the LNG engines take up a lot less space, allowing for more passenger areas, but I doubt it. Either there is a lot less passenger space or there is a lot less space for the crew and behind the scenes operations. AIDA, because they don't have as many waiters and because the crew is allowed to use the passenger recreation and dining facilities, needs less behind-the-scenes space, but it's not going to make up the ~50,000 gross tonne difference. AIDA ships also tend to have huge spa/fitness centers, which would take up a lot of space. Also, don't forget that only two of the four ships are for AIDA.

Looks like Carnival is planning to build the most crowded cruise ships in the world. They signed a deal with Meyer Werft to build four ships, two for AIDA and two for another Carnival brand, that will be 180,000 gross tons and hold 6,600 people. By comparison, Oasis and Allure of the Seas are 225,000 gross tons and hold 6,300 people. Two of the ships will be built at Meyer Werft in Papenburg (where Quantum and Anthem of the Seas were built) and the other two will be built at Meyer Turku (which used to be STX Turku, where the Voyager-class, Freedom-class, and first two Oasis-class ships were built). http://www.meyerwerft.de/en/meyerwerft_de/medien/presseticker/pressemitteilung_detail_20303.jsp The cool thing about these ships is that they will be entirely powered by LNG instead of the bunker fuel that most ships use, which means that they won't be spewing plumes of black soot like other ships.

The drive isn't terrible on a weekend, but on a weekday morning you'd probably get traffic both leaving Boston and driving through Springfield. In either case, if you plan to get there when the park opens I'd highly suggest getting a hotel nearby (plus you'll get a LOT more for your money than you would in the Boston area, Boston hotels are ridiculous). Don't get a hotel in Springfield -- there are a bunch of very affordable hotels in Enfield, CT that are less than 10 minutes from the park and are close to tons of stores and restaurants. We live in the Boston area, but we still usually stay in either the Model 6 or the Hampton Inn in Enfield (depending on how much we want to splurge) when we go to the park.

And Explorer of the Seas is getting one next year: http://www.mobimar.com/news-voyager_class_flowrider_refurbishment

Thunderbolt at SFNE. 70ft of awesome.

I would, of course, rank Epcot at the top. After that would be the PA parks (Knobles, Dorney, and Hersheypark), Holiday World, and the fried chicken restaurant outside Knott's.

For some reason, that image comes out very blurry on my phone. Here's a better version:

No, I would not. Cyclone hasn't had even a decent layout since 2001.

Wait, you're saying it's one ride with two lift hills?

^^Robb, the video shows at 1:20 that the end of the blue side leads directly to the green side of the lift hill, complete with the track changing colors. Frankly I'm disappointed that they are combining two 4300ft tracks and only getting a "nearly 5000ft" coaster out of it. The extra 700 feet aren't worth killing the pacing with a second lift hill.

Tubular steel prices today are 2.5 times what they were in 2002, and warehouses with over 40ft ceiling heights are significantly more than $20/sqft (in 2012 my company was quoted almost $200/sqft for a climate-controlled 50ft high-bay, and this building will probably have to be more like 60ft).

Please tell me those protesters were some sort of viral marketing campaign by Six Flags and not actually serious. Colossus hasn't been a good coaster since the 80s.

My guess would be that it's because sfneonline requires registration in order to view images.

^^If HE&R is strapped for cash and can't pay out bonuses, how do you expect them to pay millions extra for a custom layout that 99% of their guests would never notice? From a non-coaster-nerd standpoint, how is a custom layout on an unthemed coaster "better" for their 13th coaster than a custom theme on a "canned or cloned" coaster? Don't forget that Dorney has an off-the-shelf Maurer mouse as well. The fact that they wouldn't spend millions to enclose and theme it shows how Hershey is willing to go the extra mile. It's not 14 million for paint -- the ride itself probably costs 5-6 million (Undertow was 5.5 million in 2012), the 5-story-tall 11,000-sq-ft building probably costs another 5-6 million (any warehouse-like building over 40ft gets expensive fast, and being in an area that regularly floods just adds to the site prep costs), so the added theming is probably a couple million at most.

^^^Hersheypark is spending their own money here. They aren't going to waste it out of laziness. If spending extra money for a custom designed coaster, instead of spending that money on theming, site improvements, the enclosure building, drainage, etc., would've provided a better return on investment, then they would've done that. If the "off the shelf" design cost 14 million, a custom design probably exceeded the budget and resulted in nothing new for 2015 at all. Yes, a custom layout might have been nice for us coaster nerds, but I'm fine with a custom theme instead. A themed enclosed coaster will definitely stand out more to the GP than another bare steel outdoor coaster.

You really think that the average Hersheypark guest cares at all about whether the layout of the coaster is the same as a coaster at another park 5 hours away? Joker's Jinx and Flight of Fear at Six Flags America and King's Dominion are only an hour and a half from each other, and I'd guarantee that 99% of people at one park have no clue that the other ride has the same layout. Designing a custom layout would've been a waste of money.

It's inside a building attached to a generator, I wouldn't expect it to be visible.

LSM with the flywheel attached to an electric generator.