Chroniq

I'm totally speculating, but it's beautiful weather on the east coast today with low winds as well. Could Skyrush be topped out today?? Edit: Maybe not today, but HersheyParks twitter account is saying sometime this week "Kathleen Burrows @HersheyparkPR Reply Retweet Favorite · Open Sun is shining. Hope to have Skyrush Top Hat installed this week."

Will this be the end of Carnival? NFW From a liability standpoint, Their insurance deductibles are between 90 and 100 million (This entire incident could cost the insurers up to 10 times that) From a PR standpoint- The US media (the country the majority of cruisers come from) isn't really covering the fact that this is essentially a Carnival ship. I bet if you asked a friend, that happened to be a casual cruiser, they wouldn't even know Carnival was involved (or for that matter what other companies Carnival owns) From a booking standpoint, this is the "wave season", The busiest time of year for cruise bookings. From the anecdotal evidence I've read, bookings remain very similiar to last years levels, but with less discounting. -chris "if the gulf oil spill didn't kill BP, this certainly won't kill Carnival" con

via the captain- "I'd hit it" ( He meant the girl, not the rocks)

I have to say. Even though I'll be riding Leviathan this year, it wasn't a coaster that excited me as much as some of the other new coasters I'll be riding. These photo updates have changed my mind a bit. It really looks to be an awesome ride.

"That SLC was such a smooth ride" and "I wish Cedar Point has more trashcans"

I've never been on Carnival, but they are certainly targeting a specific market via their onboard activities, advertising, and pricing structure as compared to other cruise lines. Are they ghetto? Probably more so than nearly all of the other cruise lines operating out of the US. I think the only way to settle this is TPR going on a Carnival cruise and sharing the outcome of it with us here. -chris "thats a trip report I'd read" connolly

Is that watermark thread still live on here? I want to see it again too. I loled often while reading that thread . edit: found it http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=57999 A lot of lessons can be learned from that thread. I have to give respect to the original poster though. I believe in the end, everything worked out and he is a still a TPR member .

^Thats the thing. Whether you think megaupload has a place in the legitimacy of the internet, or you don't; There are already enough safe guards in place to stop possible rogue sites without another law that might censor the fundamentals of the internet. Chris "has used megaupload in a legitimate , non copyright infringing way" Connolly or Chris "clearly sites that actually infringe on copyright can be taken down with our current laws" Connolly or Chris " the last thing we need are more laws " Connolly

FWIW- Megaupload is a site that probably should have been taken down. "Safeharbor" is if you do your best to stop piracy. The reason I started this thread was to educate people on how draconian the government can be. It wasn't to codone piracy in any way. Support Megaupload? Read this. http://www.florianpoullin.fr/sites/florianpoullin.fr/files/investigate.pdf

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/videogallery/63991344/live/LIVE-VIDEO-President-Obama-on-boosting-the-economy-through-tourism-industry Here is the live stream. I suspect it won't be anything more than propaganda. Edit: The talking points were expanding the countries that are allowed to travel to the US without Visas, expanding the global entry programs through customs (they allow you to get through customs quicker) , and I'm pretty sure at some point Obama said he wanted more Brazilian tour groups. I wonder what fast passes he picked up this morning before the speech?

No matter what side you stand on regarding this issue, it does appear that the protests were successful. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/pipa-support-collapses-with-13-new-opponents-in-senate.ars

^You can also just use google's cache service if you need wikipedia on a regular computer (I have today a few times). Today has been honestly annoying as so many sites I use on the regular have been down. Hopefully it gets the point across to the people that aren't familiar with the issue as it has been an inconveinence for the ones that are against it. -chris "would love see an anti sopa link on the main page of tpr for a couple hours" connolly

Top 10 sites by traffic in the USA according to Alexa.com - The ones who are actively protesting SOPA on their site- 1- Most Visited site in the United States-Google- 187.1 million daily unique visitors (blacked out logo) 3- -Youtube- owned by google- (links to google black out) 5- Amazon- Posts a prominent link to SOPA protests on their home page 6- Wikipedia- full blackout 9- Craiglist - Blackout 10-Blogspot/Blogger- Another google company __________________________________________ The Ones that aren't 2-Facebook- Has actively lobbied against it 4- Yahoo - Has actively lobbied against it 7-Ebay- Has actively lobbied against it 8- Twitter- Has actively lobbied against it http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US

^They are both looking to go public this year (which requires a HUGE amount of governmental redtape) so they probably don't want to rock the boat (or lose the huge revenue stream for even a day) . They have both actively lobbied the government to stop both bills though. via twitter's CEO - "Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," - Though they have spent lots of time and money standing against it. It would have been nice to see either one of them just change their logo for the day, but they probably aren't set up to do that like google is.

^this

Since today is the official day to protest SOPA, I thought it might be important to bump this thread with something a friend just shared with me. It makes me think about all of the user generated content I spend time reading here and on other sites. Via the www.cynicalbrit.com (no link as he is blacked out today) -via Ian.

Since Lo-Q is teaming up with mastercard for their newest system (a hybrid version of the current paypass) it looks like it would be tied directly into a credit or debit card with out the need to preload it as the current paypass from mastercard doesn't require preloading. I thought I read somewhere that their older system required preloading of funds?. I think a combination of both choices is the best way for parks that are a one day destination. The younger crowd ,who might not have a debit/credit card, (and those against cards in general) will then also be able to use the system as well.

This is really cool as Splish Splash is an awesome water park. It used to be ranked number 3 on the travel channel's 10 best (it may still be) . It's a park with mainly proslides, built in the middle of trees so it puts off a bit of an Animal Kingdom vibe more than any other water park I've been to. I was surprised to see that there has never been a trip report from there and it isn't even on TPR's park index. I need to get over there with the camera next summer. Anyone else been there?

Tripped and Fell into the lifeboat? Sounds legit. lol http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9022170/Costa-Concordia-captain-says-he-tripped-and-fell-into-lifeboat.html

As you mentioned, TNTornadox posted a video of this happening in 2010 a few pages back. Here is his link http://video.corriere.it/nave-concordia-al-giglio-/9dfa5ea6-3e9b-11e1-8b52-5f77182bc574

After listening to Eric's link; Respect to the post authority for telling the captain with such vigilance to get the eff back on the ship. The port authority is the clear hero to me, even if the captain never got back on.

^ http://memegenerator.net/Sunk-Cruise-Ship

^What they said. Again. The captain has a staff that he trusts to actually drive the ship. It sucks that end of the day if one of them fails, it's his head.

^You have to remember though. On most ships the captain isn't expected to be on the bridge that late. He might be at a welcoming party for past cruisers or even introducing the broadway show going on in the theater. Captains wear a number of hats on modern cruise ships.

Smart money says the captain was off the bridge during those hours as, based on his quotes, he wasn't even sure what went wrong. That is standard operating procedure when the ship isn't leaving port or it's that late at night. Based upon the informative article that ahrecht shared; Stuff can go wrong if you follow the computers that are supposed to tell you what to do. It does require a huge amount of other factors to make this happen though. Either way; Your next cruise will be safer than driving to the terminal. Hopefully the captain isn't made out to be a scape goat in this situation. -chris "is booking his next cruise in the upcoming days to save money" connolly