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I think it has more to do with the fact that Voyage fanboys are more likely to make the trek out to HWN. I was at HWN in 2010 and thought that the Voyage was too rough and downright brutal to be enjoyable.

I disagree on the dining plan being a great deal. Although you save money over paying for those meals individually, you end up paying way more and eating way more food that you would've otherwise. As an example, on my 10-day trip we ate breakfast in our hotel room most days to save time (bagels, cream cheese, lox, and PB&J that we brought with us), had 7 Table Service meals, 16 Counter Service meals, and about 6 snacks. We brought granola bars from home and we never purchased sodas (water is free and caffeine leads to dehydration in that sort of heat), although we did buy alcoholic drinks on 3 occasions. Including the price of the breakfast food and granola bars we purchased in advance, we spent about $30/person each day including tips. There is a thread of money-saving Disney dining advice at http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1947248 The "Quick Service Dining Plan" would've been $35/person each day but we would've had to skip the Table Service meals and alcohol or pay for them out of pocket. The Regular dining plan would've been $46+tips/person each day (probably around $51/person each day with tips) plus the price of alcohol. Either one would've been more expensive. Also, don't forget that there really is no such thing as "free dining", as you have to pay full price for the room and tickets to get it. Given that there are regularly 30% off codes offered for rooms (especially if you're willing to sign up for AAA, which will pay for itself in this case) and discounted tickets available, the difference in price between getting "Free" dining and not getting it can often be more than the price of just paying for the dining plan out of pocket.

I ranked it #3, or at least I would've if I had remembered to changed the "n"s in the first column to "y"s.

It's all the whiny "inTRIMidator" haters voting up the other rides.

Yes, and bring a camelpak or other hydration pak and drink plenty of water (and avoid caffeine -- it's a diuretic). Staying hydrated makes all the difference in that kind of heat.

^That's not true at all. Crowds can be quite manageable in late summer, especially if you get to the parks when they open and avoid days with Extra Magic Hours. Plus, I still have FAST Passes from my August trip that I collected at around 5pm and never used because the standby lines were short enough. If you're really worried about crowds, I would suggest signing up with TouringPlans.com (it's about $7.50 with coupon code AEN8223W). They have very detailed crowd predictions to help you plan which park to go to on which day, and they have plans that tell you what order to hit the rides in order to minimize wait times. Using one of their plans, I was able to hit up EVERY major ride in the Magic Kingdom, in early August, in a single day. However, the main rules are to avoid parks that have extra magic hours or special events, be at the gate 30-40 minutes before the official opening, gets lots of fastpasses early (you can use them after they "expire" as long as it's the same day), and hit the big rides early.

It depends on what you define as "best". If you are looking for lower crowds or cheaper rooms, I would suggest going after August 14th, which is the beginning of "value season" (when WDW expects lower crowds and therefore charges less for hotels). However, late August can be the hottest and muggiest part of the summer, so make sure that you are prepared for that. I did a trip from 8/8/08-8/18/08 (Value season started August 3rd that year), and although it was very hot, we managed by going back to the hotel during the hottest part of the afternoon and by bringing camelpaks to make sure that we stayed hydrated.

They probably meant 17 tight turns, and have never actually used a hairpin. 17 sounds about right for total turns: 90° turn at bottom of lift 90° turn at top of lift 180° turn #1 180° turn #2 180° turn #3 180° turn #4 180° turn #5 180° turn #6 270° descending turn 90° turn at end of straightaway 90° turn into large drop 90° turn out of large drop 90° turn into s-curve S-curve into bunny hills 90° turn out of bunny hills 90° turn into brakes 90° turn out of brakes

If Universal did design Spiderman's roving motion base in-house (and I don't know whether or not they did), that doesn't mean that another company couldn't have designed a similar system for Busch. For example, I know that the 3D "squinched" ride film for Spiderman was done by Kleizer-Walczak, while Super 78 did Darkastle.

I wouldn't be so sure. In my work as an engineer, I am almost always working under contracts that have defined requirements for reliability, lifetime, performance, and frequency of maintenance. You would be surprised how long and detailed contracts can be for prototype-level engineering. I worked on a project last year where the appendix to the contract that listed the specifications we had to meet was over 120 pages. If the coaster, when running at the speed specified in the contract, was chucking wheels daily, then that could violate a maintenance frequency clause. If (and this is speculation) the trains were showing more wear after a set period of time than they should have, that could also be a contract violation. Slowing down the ride was a temporary solution, but if (and again, speculation) the contract specified a minimum top speed, that would also violate the contract. Depending on the wording of the contract, and I'm not sure what is standard in the amusement industry, Intamin could easily be on the hook for the entire cost of getting the ride to perform to the levels specified in the contract.

The TPR twitter feed still says they're in the USA, but I doubt that that's a clue.

In case this hasn't been listed, the second two "not mine" pictures Robb poster are: Denver Airport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Denver_International_Airport_terminal.jpg Reef Girls: http://www.surfersvillage.com/surfing/20084/news.htm

Hmm, the LAX website didn't list the McDonalds in terminal 7

It can't be LAX because LAX doesn't have a McDonalds in the lsame terminal as Wolfgang Puck.

There is plenty of open space on that side of the park for them to expand their water park without removing the Corkscrew. If they removed it it would be to save on the operating costs, not for space. Corkscrew rarely has a more than 5 minute line, even when there are 45 minute waits for Yankee Canonball or the S&S tower. The maintenance costs may no longer be worth it.

The Eurofighter will be a nice addition to the park, but I was still really hoping that they'd save up for a Mega-Lite. They have the land for it, and the capacity would've been a perfect fit for the park. A Eurofighter costs around $6mil while a Megalite is around $9mil, so it wouldn't have been impossible. I can always hope, right?

Wow, I'm surprised no on mentioned the OTSR straps on Superman in the video.

It was exactly five years ago today that this thread was started after Knoebels announced Flying Turns at PPP '05. I just wanted to wish Flying Turns a happy 5th pre-birthday. I would like to think that the ride will open before the sixth anniversary of this thread starting, but I'm getting less and less optimistic.

Obviously not your quote, but why wouldn't they just roll this out to every single seat of every car, would that be too expensive? I would think the cost would be justified for customer satisfaction, and of course not having to wait longer for a "special car" to come around on top of what the queue already is. But hey, at least larger folks (probably me) don't have to worry about three clicks anymore. Manufacturing and installing these things takes time. I'm sure that Universal wanted to get these in service as soon as possible instead of waiting for all the ride vehicles to be ready. According to screamscape they should eventually be on every car.

I've ridden rides that are more "aggressive" that the Voyage that aren't as rough. Yes, the Voyage has lots of sudden changes in direction and high g forces, but so do other intense rides such as untrimmed i305, X, and El Toro. However, on The Voyage those tight turns are also just plain old bumpy. There's a definite vibration on The Voyage that just kills my neck, back, and head that the other rides I listed don't have.

They've updated the article and changed 4 out of the 5 mentions of "roller coaster" to "ride". There's still one left, however.

Finally, Disneyland has a website that doesn't automatically start playing music when you load it! This is the best redo of the site in years! Was Wes involved with this one?

It still looks cheap, and no amount of plywood flats can fix that. Even Six Flags has better theming on their Dark Knight wild mice. Maybe if they enclosed it, added a dark ride section, and themed it to Finding Nemo (which would fit with Little Mermaid next door) it would be better, but I honestly don't see how repainting the billboards and adding cloud cutouts improves anything.

Isn't that the goal of the $1.2 Billion DCA refurbishment? To get people to spend the whole day in the park? Seems like it's worked so far.

So the reason that he feels that it's not worth visiting is that Universal didn't hire 100 Streetmosphere characters?