PeoplemoverMatt

Marvel Super Hero Island is not the eye-popping "WOW!!" level of theme that can be found these days, including in Universal with the Harry Potter areas. The area is due for a re-theme. The only real question is when. Spider-Man is a great ride, but those plywood cutouts hanging about the midways IMO look rather hideous and subpar. The Hulk theme can be replaced rather easily since there isn't a whole lot of it to begin with. To me it looks more like one of those cases where both Disney and Universal can up their games a great deal by agreeing to release the use of Marvel to Disney. That way Disney can fully use the Marvel IPs to their standards (which is not going on in Marvel Super Hero Island), and Universal is free to build up something like Nintendo to the levels recently seen with Potter, Springfield, new Kong, etc. The Nintendo theme can absolutely be applied to thrilling rides such as Hulk Coaster and Spider-Man. The whole idea of Nintendo being kids-only is a misconception similar to the idea that Walt Disney World is kids-only. There's no reason at all why one of Nintendo's franchises wouldn't do as a replacement theme for Hulk.

Alright folks. My wallet's a bit lighter after sending matching donations to the following awesome people: Chuck - $20 Nick - $10 Craig - $20 Dustin - $10 Mark - $5 Adam - $20 Nathan - $15 Ryan - $20 Thanks for all your support! Let's keep it going Team TPR!!

Well they can't really quit dueling since it's one long strip of track. The only real question is to what extent the ride staff will actively try to maximize capacity or ensure that the trains run together without too much interruption. Has anybody checked to see if the ride requires the train about to climb green side to stop and wait for the freshly loaded train to arrive on blue side so they can climb together? I just wonder how stacking has been integrated into the ride design, if at all, since we know it's going to happen. Hopefully stacking at load/unload won't completely kill off the capacity for trains to run together, or require mid-ride stacking where a train has to sit and wait before climbing green side. Sadly I don't really see it where one of these won't happen.

Email sent! Hope we made it in in time!

Well the 24 hour "Throwback Thursday" window is over and all I can say is WOW!!! Thanks to Chuck, Nick, Craig, Dustin, Mark, Adam, Nathan, Ryan and others for your donations! Thanks to all your amazing generosity, I have $120 to match... twice! How awesome is that? I'm blown away by all your support, and will get on all those matching donations later this evening. Thank you all!!! Knott's team now in 4-digit territory! Go Team TPR! EDIT: Looks like my bank's website has gone down for maintenance tonight but don't worry. Those matching donations will go out soon!

Hey everybody! Since it's "Throwback Thursday" I'm encouraging everybody out there to "throw back" a little of your pocket change in the form of a donation. For every $5-$20 anybody throws back in the form of a donation during the next 24 hours, I will MATCH it! If any of my fellow Coasting for Kids riders want to throw some back on my page, not only will I match it on my page but I will match it on YOUR donation page as well! Triple donation action! So if you've got $5-$20 doing nothing, throw it back! Go without Starbucks for a day. These kids will certainly appreciate it, and I will match it so the kids win even more! Come on, do it for the kids! Make me poor today! Throw some back on Throwback Thursday!!!

Looks like there's going to be a ton of interest in WCB this year. Makes me happy to be a Club TPR member.

If ever there was a year to be in for both SFMM & KBF, this is it. I'm in for both days!

Thanks Dustin!!!

This is what I am hopeful for but I'm not holding my breath. As much as we'd like to see parking at DLR expanded within a relatively short distance for ease of access, so much more money can be made by putting hotels and the like closer to the park, with parking in more remote areas serviced by relatively-cheap shuttles. That also saves having to build elaborate and expensive car and foot access to/from the parking area over/under/around Harbor.

The old Colossus light show lamps are still there from the looks of it. Perhaps they will be put back into service as a finishing touch once all the work is done? That would be a nice tie-in of old and new Colossus.

The $20 showed up on my donation page. Thanks a bunch Joey! Just sent $20 back your way!

Knott's team is at $956! Only $44 away from reaching $1000! Anyone want to help us over the threshold?

You're not really going to complain about that, are you?? I mean, given how relatively cheap SFMM Season Passes are and how everybody complains about how the park never spends money on anything. An extra bit of money for something like ERT on Twisted Colossus would be worth every penny the park asked for. That's the exact kind of thing the SFMM fans should support and hopefully encourage the park do more of! Really, to think you should get free ERT because Season Passholder just comes off as entitled...

Am I insane, or does that Indominus Rex toy look a LOT like Carnotarus from Animal Kingdom's Dinosaur ride, just without the red color?

Well I spent about 4000 fertilizer to upgrade the research center clear to level 11, and it's not maxed out yet. If I keep spending fertilizer to upgrade, it won't matter how much faster I'm making fertilizer since it'll all just go into the research center anyway. At least there's a new character to unlock with enough DNA.

Okay, if I compare my rate of acquiring fertilizer to the overall countdown, that would put me on pace to unlock the Farmer's Market in time. That is, of course, assuming there is no reason to cash in fertilizer in this "Act 2" that's going to go live in about 10 hours.

Most likely they wouldn't be able to confirm until the night after when the maintenance team has a real chance to look at it. Then the park would need to decide what statement it wants to make, if any.

Ugh. That's right. God wants the orcas to be free so they can most likely die because they can't find food for themselves or be accepted by other wild orcas. He would also love it if no kid could see a live orca unless their family traveled to a far away place and paid a bunch of money on the hope that part of an orca could be seen through binoculars. Because, y'know, those sorts of real connections are what really inspire kids to grow up to be marine biologists and take an interest in marine life and preservation. Not SeaWorld. SeaWorld's just a greedy, evil corporation that seeks to enslave animals and forces them to do tricks against their will. Idiots.

There's a Tomorrowland Sneak Peek going on at Disneyland as well. Notice what's at the bottom of the posters there. Well...maybe not as "only at Disneyland" as that says...

There's a lot of stupidity and rash judgments going around with SeaWorld these days. People think there's something wrong with SeaWorld just because their attendance dropped while most every other park in the top 10 in attendance saw rises in attendance. Wrong. They attribute that drop solely and exclusively to Blackfish. Wrong. They think the announcement about the enlarged orca enclosures was a direct response to Blackfish. Wrong. Now they think this coaster is being built to distract away from Blackfish and mitigate the damage. Again, wrong. I think for me the worst part about all of this is that it's giving Blackfish way too much credit than it could ever deserve. The propagandists who made that steaming pile of ignorant and fraudulent crap ought not to have their ego's stroked in this way. They do not have the power to pull SeaWorld under, nor did they ever have such power. Whatever "power" they have comes directly from lies, misinformation, and exploiting the stupidity in a public that can't know everything. It's really something when you consider that if the idiots who made and supported Blackfish actually got their way and SeaWorld did go under, it would be the marine life itself and the global marine conservation effort as a whole that would suffer the most. These so-called "activists" wouldn't accomplish anything besides a more at risk ocean, and a more ignorant public because SeaWorld wasn't there to show these animals to the kids for them to really see and make a connection that just isn't possible with books, the internet, or even whale watching. Of course the morons don't see it that way, but they've never once used an ounce of reasoning from the start. Hooray for a new roller coaster for SeaWorld, but it seems to me to be simply their way of competing in the Orlando theme park market. They can't always build an Antarctica. Sometimes a park has to build an "-est" ride because that's a relatively easy way to keep up with the competition. SeaWorld has to compete, and has to maintain a presence in this market, especially when their attendance is down. Hopefully this new coaster accomplishes that goal.

It has also been yet another extremely dry winter/spring here. We should be coming out of our "rainy season" in the next couple of weeks, and I can count how many times it has rained on one hand.

If Riptide gets fixed and reopens, people are gonna flip.

As a first-timer, I'm a bit fearful of what 5.5hrs on Jaguar is going to do to me physically. Are there rules/guidelines for bringing pillows or other forms of cushion for this?

This update started with a 40 day countdown clock, and it really is coming off as something to endure instead of being fun and engaging. Crafting the Farmers Market seems to be the biggest goal but it costs 15,250 fertilizer and 4600 corn. I'm not quite sure how that is ever going to happen when upgrading the Monsarno Research takes almost all of whatever fertilizer I have, and a "prize" is a whopping 200 fertilizer. 7 days 10 hours left to acquire 15,250 fertilizer ain't happening at this rate.