PeoplemoverMatt

New colors isn't going to change how Scream rides, but at least it looks less faded.

No it's not an undisputable fact. Starting out calling my post a "fallacy" and then calling your opinion an undisputable fact is unnecessarily adversarial. It also doesn't sound like you have much familiarity with different kinds of systems. Have you only experienced CF's Fast Lane? Have you used a system like Disneyland's FastPass or WDW's FastPass+? As I said in my earlier post, there is a huge difference between ride reservation-style FastPass systems and upcharge skip-the-line passes. What I was referring to in my post was what effect a ride reservation system has on a stand-by queue compared to a queue with no ride reservation or skip-the-line system. It doesn't put people in two places at once, nor does it inflate anybody's wait time. Do you believe people who choose to wait for a table without a reservation at a major restaurant that accepts reservations are being somehow forced to wait longer than if the restaurant didn't accept reservations? No it would be about the same wait, only the waiting area would be crammed with people who have no choice but to be stuck there waiting. With reservations, the room is much less crammed, and in some cases people without reservations actually end up waiting even less when reservations are missed. Same goes with ride reservation-style FastPass systems.

This doesn't exactly help the cause... To be fair the pictured use - alone in what appears to be a library - I would say is fine if that's what you really want to do. But when it becomes the "cool" thing to do, especially since the "cool President" is doing it obviously in an effort to look cool himself, more people are going to try to look "cool" in a public place like a theme park with these. Ughh.

You're forgetting that without FastPass, those 100 users would have been in line with the other 900 users. It's not like the 100 FP users would not exist if FP didn't exist. So the wait time for non-FP users is really is not affected at all. In fact, since not every FP ticket or time slot is used, it actually means the 900 non-FP users might actually wait slightly less at any one given point in time during the day. People forget that for a ride reservation system, like FastPass, which is very different than a paid skip-the-line pass, those with reserved times have actually waited MUCH longer than those who randomly decide to drop into a stand-by queue. With the old FP system, it used to be hours. Now with FP+ that wait can be days, weeks, even months longer than the stand-by crowd. The biggest difference is the FP+ users' wait was not spent stuck in a stuffy queue with no escape. This is something I am very grateful for.

It doesn't really disrupt the park as a whole since that area is pretty isolated. Before Frozen showed up, the worst would be that families who wanted to ride Monsters Inc. or see MuppetVision towards the end of the night might be disturbed. Let's face it, there weren't that many of them during the time of night that Mad T Party was going on. If Mad T Party can take an otherwise completely dead and wasted area of a park and turn it into a place where a few thousand AP's will now spend enough to reach the park's desired guest spending per capita numbers, it's going to continue until something else can do that better than Mad T can. Personally, I want nothing to do with Mad T Party, and I have no problem at all avoiding that corner of the park. I'll happily get to Tower of Terror through Bug's Land or Cars Land.

Ask and you shall receive! Valentine's Day decorations just appeared. Trees, topiaries and such.

Well the new support structure for the new bunny hill had to go in there. I'd surmise the paving was a finishing touch of sorts to the construction.

Animatronics not working correctly, AND in view of guests?!!???!?! This will NOT stand! Think of all the childhoods and expensive vacations that were just instantly ruined!! We must go to the internet quickly and sound the alarms of the imminent collapse of the entire Walt Disney Company while we can still take credit for even the tiniest unrelated change made while this catastrophe is still fresh in people's minds!

Stonecutters are back for those who weren't playing previously, like me. Day Care Center and wall are offered for cash rather than donuts, and a couple of costumes have been offered free. Would be nice if the Stonecutters Lodge was offered for something other than donuts but can't get everything you want in life...

There's no excuse for using stock photos like that anymore. How hard would it be to just take some digital pictures? I mean, come on. Digital cameras and photo editing have been mainstream for, what, 15 years now? That's downright embarrassing to be claiming those images are of coasters in that very park that they obviously are not. Every time they take seemingly take a step forward, they take a step back...

I think it's important to understand that there's a HUGE difference between ride reservation systems and upcharge automatic front-of-the-line whenever you want. This is missed by just about everybody, including many enthusiasts, and I don't think enough attention is given to the difference. It's a big difference because of the making people wait longer complaint that often comes up. With ride reservations, those going through the FP queue have already been waiting for their ride far longer than those in the stand-by queue have. It used to be hours but now with FP+, it can be days, weeks, even months. So the people in the stand-by queue have no reason at all to complain about their wait time. Zero. None. Just like those who go to a highly popular restaurant and complain that it's 2 hours to wait for a table because they couldn't be bothered to make reservations. Sorry pal. Those with reservations all been waiting much longer than you who just showed up. This isn't making the stand-by queue longer or slower. It's allowing those who've already waited a long time to not have to wait again upon arrival. If the merge is managed properly, there is actually little to no increase in stand-by wait times over how long they would wait if there were no reservations also being accepted. Contrast that with paid front-of-the-line passes. Are they evil? Not at all. Not unless you also think theatres are evil for charging more for seats closer to the stage, or airlines are evil for offering First Class seats, Economy Plus, etc. That said, I probably would complain if I saw an airline do something like have its seats be 90% first class and only 10% economy, and the economy seats were gone in 0.84 seconds of going on sale. Fortunately that doesn't really happen in parks, but when a guest is in the hot FL sun queuing for hours while Rich Uncle Pennybags strolls merrily by with his obvious upcharge pass swinging to & fro from his lanyard, I can see how people can get a bit peeved at the sight of that. But really, a feeling of envy shouldn't be viewed as degrading their experience. They chose to be in that line at that time in that park during that time of year. There's a LOT of individual personal choice involved to get through before you can really pin the blame on the park for that moment of envy. Personally I don't really care which one of these a park offers since I can see the value in both types. I'll stand by what I said before that a lot of what people perceive as what they can & can't buy is ultimately a product of their personal outlook and everyday spending habits much moreso than the pricing structure of any park. If you want to avoid waiting in queues, there are tons of ways to do that that don't directly cost a dime. But if none of them are an option and you still want to avoid the lines, at least the parks make it possible with the upcharge passes and/or the reservation system. As a whole I think theme park guests are much, MUCH better off with them than had they never been invented.

It's no more or less misleading than all the other "rides" that have been a part of the Studio Tour. If anything, I've seen more marketing that has said F&F is part of the Studio Tour than I saw with the new Kong, War of the Worlds set, Earthquake or anything else that's been a part of the tour. No one's ever really complained. Though I do remember many years ago on our first trip to Universal Orlando in the early 90s, my father was rather upset upon learning that he had to wait in line for Jaws, Earthquake, Kong etc individually rather than riding them all in one shot on a Tour.

It's bound to be more than just *The Hatbox Ghost* since that's basically what next to everyone is expecting.

Just made it official earlier today - I'll be taking my first trip to Hawaii this coming April, including a 3-night stay at Aulani! Excited!!

When it comes to drawing a line between rich & poor, that's a load of nonsense IMO. If there are things in your life that you "can't" buy because of your income or social standing, going to a theme park probably isn't the best way to spend your money period. It isn't the park's fault that your income is seemingly too low to buy anything beyond admission to the park. If your day is going to be somehow ruined because you don't have the funds to buy all that you want beyond admission, be it souvenirs, food, or the paid front-of-line passes, either keep saving your money until you can or don't go. Anyone who would spend the money taking themselves & their family to a park only to turn around and blame that park about rich people having a better time because they can pay for extras is completely nuts, and not someone I would ever want to go to a park with. There are so many ways to save money when going to theme parks that even "rich" people should do because otherwise they're wasting money. This would include including not staying at the $500/night hotel when the $100 or less/night hotel nearby is just fine, bringing outside food/snacks instead of paying $18 for a cheeseburger/fries inside the park (depending on park rules), researching the best legitimate means to purchase discount admission, going on less crowded days so the upcharge front-of-the-line pass has little to no value, finding the best cost/value ratio amongst available souvenirs (i.e. buying an $8 pin that lasts forever instead of a $20 plushie that the dog eats or a $25 t-shirt that kid outgrows), etc. This is how financially responsible people of any income level can visit parks, have a great time, and minimize the financial impact the day(s) at the park will have. Don't blame the park for dangling all the upcharges in your face. The park exists to make money. Those upcharge options do exactly that. The park is not forcing guests to buy them, or a guest's day will be somehow ruined. They're optional conveniences that are 100% OUR CHOICE whether to buy them or not. That same choice-making goes all the way down to exactly what day a guest decided to visit the park on. Didn't know that summer Saturday was going to be really busy? That's already showing an alarming level of ignorance about the place you're about to blow a ton of money visiting. Be as knowledgeable as possible about the park you're about to visit and you'll be able to make the best choices possible money-wise. In this age of information, there really is no excuse other than laziness to not do that.

You're right in that for an October release, principle photography should be completed by now. But have we heard of ANY park having recently been used as a location for Wally World for a Vacation reboot/sequel? The movie had better include the family actually getting to Wally World eventually.

Since the deconstruction of the hat isn't exactly something they can hide, my guess is they elect not to "trash it" because that would be pretty bad show. It's one thing to shed a tear over a former icon being taken down piece by piece. It's quite another to mercilessly take it out with a wrecking ball in plain sight.

I think the better question would be, "Does our presence help the park to succeed as a business, help spread the word about how awesome parks are and what a great time we have at them, etc ...or does it just make more work for the park, detract from the other guests' experience by being generally obnoxious/entitled, and overall not who a park would go out of their way to invite or look forward to being there?" We should collectively strive to be the former, despite how some bad apples out there seem determined to be the latter.

Wow...so much for that whole "no loose articles, no filming/photography while on rides" thing. You'd think some people have never visited a park before to know the rules.

Since I only started this game just before Halloween, I haven't seen much of my current Springfield in anything but the wintry wonderland. This is... different.

Before going into Haunt, Knott's security will perform a non-invasive pat down and waive a metal detector wand on all guests. This has never happened to me at SFMM. I've not seen a metal detector wand or a metal detector arch at Disneyland, despite how that park often has bigger crowds than Knott's and SFMM combined. Different parks simply have different security measures.

Yay I get the island now thanks to the extension, for all the good it'll do.

Holy crap! I have to get to Calgary and do this at some point in my life!

Looks like I'm going to come up just a bit short on the island as well. No big deal.

As with any business, capital budgeting is more a function of proper timing rather than simple wants and needs. There's a huge decision-making process behind that timing, all during which plans can/will be changed. The poler coaster idea is a neat idea, but more wishful thinking than anything. There would have to be a ton of structural modification done that could send the idea into cost-prohibitive land real quick. At this point it would probably take an outside company agreeing to sponsor the Sky Tower and cover the costs of restoring & maintaining it for it to be open regularly.