It's a fun question to ponder. California has a ton of coasters, yet none seem to ever break into the top of the polls - or even close, really. There's tons of Californian industry website coverage online, plenty of parks, lots of coasters, and a dense population with lots of fans - but why don't the rankings reflect all this?
That's what the Funland Blog set out to look into, and if you read the article you may even see a certain special someone quoted in it...
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran an interesting article yesterday about the ad agency side of the amusement park business.
They focus mainly on the Yellow Submarine Marketing Communications company, which produces many of the ads for Cedar Fair parks. The article mentions that the company has a $30 million or so account for marketing with the park operator spends each year.
The article also features some comments from Kennywood regarding their ad tactics. It's really a pretty interesting article. Click here to have a read.
KTAR is reporting that plans are being formed for another theme park in Arizona, this one to be named Coyote Canyon Theme Park. This comes in addition to the planned Decades theme park that's slowly crawling into existence as well.
The $600 million Coyote Canyon park would be western themed and have plenty of thrill rides, 300 ft. and 250 ft. drops on coasters are already being mentioned in the article. The park hopes to start building this fall and open in 2010.
I hope this park, and Decades for that matter do open, but I'm still not holding my breath. I would imagine it would be hard to get one park open in the state, let alone two. If I'm wrong though, how awesome would that be for those living in Arizona?
And that image at the top is the Arizona state flag, cause I couldn't find anything else interesting to use. Ha.
User DerekRx on the ThemeParkReview boards took some photos of Fahrenheit at Hershey Park this weekend and posted them. The ride looks like it's only got half the cobra roll left to go before it's complete. That Norwegian Loop in insane. Can you imagine the hang time when you're at the top of it!
I was (again) playing with Windows Live Local today and noticed that if you 'approach' the site of Six Flags AstroWorld from certain directions you can now get a view of the fully bulldozed site. Here's a comparison shot:
That stinks, eh? How long till we can do this with Geauga Lake?
RollerCoasterPro has a new update featuring current photos of what's going on at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, which has been open for 2008 for a few weeks now.
Tony Hawk's Big Spin isn't really even under construction at this point, I guess it's still being shipped from Europe. But there's plenty of other stuff that's new or changed for 2008 that makes the photos worth checking out.
With major construction done on Voodoo, I waited a bit longer to snap some photos of what's happening at the ride site. These photos are from today, March 29th.
A close up of the station and launch track area. Those fake metal flags that went up on the front of the station are now pink! A very bright pink... Also looks like the covers for the launch track have been painted to match the ride supports.
General view of the whole ride, taking advantage of the early spring blue sky.
Another view of the station. It looks like the front of the station was also finished being painted orange. Still no sign of the train on the track that I could see, unless it's behind the electrical room.
A nice view of those pink flags. Yes, I copied the same pink color of the flags for the NewsPlusNotes logo in this one.
Time to take another look over at IOACentral's continuous updates for The Simpsons Ride. I can't believe how much they've 'plussed' the former Back to the Future building and totally changed it's looks.
Really they've just added new paint and lots of decorations, but the overall change is quite dramatic. IOA Central has some photos of the ride at night, too, which looks very nice also.
The 2007 Annual Report for Cedar Fair Entertainment Company is now available for download from their official website. I like the design this year, I much prefer it over last year's report.
There isn't anything super amazing in there at first glance, though I haven't read the whole thing yet. There is a new Behemoth logo:
... which has some weird monster behind it. That guy really reminds me of a monster you'd see in Where the Wild Things Are. Did you know they're making that book into a Movie next year? What isn't being made into a movie these days though...
Back on track, the report does feature all the parks and other stuff Cedar Fair has to do with, like licensed properties. They even have a little blurb about the Hanna Barbara characters so I guess they're not ditching them too soon.
Silverwood Theme Park has announced the new name for their new roller coaster for the 2008 season: Aftershock.
Cool name, much better than many that are being used today (Flight Deck, ha). Silverwood just put up some official construction photos on their website if you'd like to check them out.
Roller Coaster Alley, an unofficial Silverwood website, also has some information on the winner of the contest that was held to choose the name for the ride, which as a reminder is coming from Six Flags Great America where it was DejaVu.
I wonder if the ride will be painted for its new home at Silverwood?
The Funland Blog from the L.A. Times has been able to confirm that It's A Small World at Disneyland will be adding popular Disney characters to the attraction when it reopens later this year.
The addition of the characters has sparked some serious anger and debate among Disneyland fans. TMZ, of all places, recently had a poll where something like 90% of voters were against the addition of the newer characters.
Personally, I'm not sure I mind the addition. I'm not a Disney purist, though, but I do believe that if Walt were alive he'd be open to these types of changes. I doubt he'd ever want his park to be a museum.
And, that picture up top is one I took of the attraction at Disney World, not Disneyland.
Gilroy Dispatch is reporting that Gilroy Gardens Theme Park, managed by Cedar Fair, has lost two of it's long time board members. The President of the board and park founder Michael Bonfante have both resigned for personal reasons, and what sounds like on good terms.
The park was the dream of Michael Bonfante, and now he says he's moving on to work on his other dreams. Gilroy Gardens was recently purchased by the city of Gilroy for $13.2 million.
Sure, this isn't really the biggest news, but I really liked the photo of the park from the air!
Check out the "107 ft. Inverted Loop with Dive In!" It looks rounder to me than the one on Speed Monster at TusenFryd. But maybe it's just me?
I can't wait to check this ride out this summer. I'll have to go early though to avoid Fahrenheit's nine hour long line. Haha, just kidding. No I'm not.
Thanks to a reader for making me aware of this - it looks like Kings Island has already started work for their rumored 2009 B&M hyper coaster.
As seen in the photos in this gallery, it looks like a lot of land moving type work has already started in the area of the pond in the above aerial photo. The pictures aren't super quality, but you can make out plenty of land markers that give away the location of the work.
For instance, in one pic you can see that it was taken from the seats of the outdoor arena in the very bottom of the above aerial - also the Ital...err the Backlot Stunt Coaster is visible in one pic as well. I'm no construction expert, but to me it looks like they are removing the pond from existence.
The land looks like it's being flattened out, and in one shot you can see that there are parts for underground water/sewage lines - those big concrete things they put under there - laying around the site. I don't know if this pond was man-made or not, but if it was fed by a stream or something that network of underground piping would take care of that. That's what they did with the small stream that ran through Dorney's lower section back in 2000.
Once they would have this land flattened and ready to go - it'd certainly make a perfect location for a coaster station, queue, etc. I'm sure there will be plenty to see in this area of the park all summer long.
Wild West World, the failed theme park in Kansas, has been purchased with the intent to reopen the property later this year.
As Kansas.com is reporting, Murphy Brothers Exposition has singed a $2 million contract to purchase the park. The company operates several carnival rides at fairs held around the state.
The purchase cost, along with $4.2 million to get the rides back open, will be financed through state industrial bonds. The sale closes the end of May, other potential buyers have until May 8th to make a better offer.
It's very nice that this park may actually have another chance at life. As of now I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet, but things are certainly looking up. If the park reopens, and has decent weather perhaps they'll make it work. They didn't really have a fair shot the first time around...
Speaking of their official website, it's suddenly now changed to wildwaterfun.com. I actually give them props for removing Geauga Lake from the web address. Now just get ride of it from the park's name and I'll be even happier.
Outside The Berm recently posted an amazing article on a classic dark ride with plenty of information I've never seen before. Knott's Bear-y Tales (1975) was the dark ride that was changed into Kingdom of the Dinosaurs (1987) before closing for good a few years ago at Knott's Berry Farm.
Coaster Dimension has a new photo update from Disney's California Adventure. The photo above clears up the debate about whether or not California's Midway Mania would be called ... well Midway Mania. Press for the rides in both Florida and California have called the ride Toy Story Mania thus far, but it was rumored that only the California version would stick to the Toy Story Midway Mania name.
It's a small difference but it makes sense because California's version is located on a boardwalk, so the Midway aspect works. I mean there's even midway games next to the ride! It's small steps like this that will help bring a coherent theme back to California Adventure.
It's that time of year... lots of photo reports of new rides and attractions to look at! Dollywood opened recently as well and had their new attraction River Battle ready to go. Here's a ton of photos of the new wet ride from Theme Park Review.
The ride looks great, the theming is quite cute. The photos are really great quality as well, so props go out to both the photographer and Dollywood.
It looks like Kings Dominion had a really beautiful day to start their 2008 season. Over on KD Connection there are two photo reports from the park's opening day, with more Dominator photos than you can shake a stick at. I love that expression.
Kings Dominion has new signs and stuff all over the place. They really did totally phase out the Paramount stuff for this season. It all looks pretty good though, except that Drop Tower sign which just looks cheap to me. It was rumored that the Italian Job rides would have their cars changed, but they look the exact same to me.
And so long as they plant grass under Dominator it'll look really great!
It would be hard to argue against the massive impact that Hercules had on the development and future of Dorney Park when it opened on May 4th, 1989. It was big, fast, intense, and a gave a wild ride that was hard to find on other coasters of the era. Now only a piece of Dorney Park history, I wanted to try to slap together some details of the attraction's past to bring the ride's memory full circle. That said, here we go.
As with so many Dorney Park attractions, Hercules did not follow the typical amusement park ride building pattern: Announce, Build, Open. Hercules had drama, the type of drama that almost didn't allow the ride to be built.
Dorney Park hired Curtis Summers to design the coaster, and hired Charles Dinn and his crew to build the massive ride in late '87 or early '88. The coaster was laid out over an empty hill at the edge of the park's property, and was to be the anchor of the new park area that replaced the former speedway which ran at the park for many years.
Building such a massive ride was a huge project for Dorney Park. The six million dollar attraction had several names considered, such as Thunderhawk and Barbarian, but in the end Hercules was the winner. A ride so big also needed a huge announcement, which takes us back to the middle of July, 1988, when the park sent out a press release touting an announcement to be made on the 15th of that month.
"The purpose of the news conference is to formally unveil plans for a major attraction set for Dorney Park for its 1989 season. The attraction promises to be Dorney's greatest achievement, setting it apart from the remaining amusement world."
Although the name for the ride was not announced at the press conference, Harris Weinstein did present a group of press and coaster buffs with a drawing and some statistics at the conference on the 15th. The ride was to be gigantic, and the crowd was excited.
Here's where the 'typical' Dorney Park ride approval stuff started; only a few days after the announcement the South Whitehall Township started listing aspects of the coaster they were bothered by - it's height, location in a flood plain, how close it was to the park's electric substation.
Curtis Summers actually came to one of the planning meetings to assure the ride would be safe and provide additional information on the supports that would be in the park's lower lake. Other issues were also addressed, and something must have pleased the zoning board because zoning approval was given to the ride.
The planning commission gave a conditional approval for the ride at the end of July 1988, but wanted to see what their engineer had to say about the plans before making it final. The last piece of the approval puzzle would come from the Board of Commissioners, but the park missed their monthly August meeting, and at the September meeting Weinstein started the fireworks.
The commissioner meeting was filled with raging debate over the ride's footings in a flood plain, and how high it should be over the lake. It looked like the commissioners wanted to delay their decision another week, so Harris Weinstein announced that he would have to abort plans for the ride if the park did not get approval right then and there. He said they needed to get started on the ride to get it open for the 1989 season, and that the designer and builder had other projects scheduled that would conflict with the Dorney project should it be delayed too long.
At the next meeting, in the middle of September, the commissioners forced the park to agree to a resolution that the ride would not generate noise above 85 decibels, an agreement that appeared to finally clear the way for the park to begin work on the ride. Another week went by, and suddenly the commissioners decided to appeal the approval given for the ride by the zoning board, almost two months earlier.
This was both a surprise to the park as well as a slap in the face. The appeal allowed the township to file a court order for the park to stop work on the ride, however, not much was really going on at the site at that point. Dorney Park officials said that if the commissioners went forward with their appeal they would be met with a "multimillion dollar lawsuit" from the park.
The lawsuit wasn't filed, but the park and the commissioners did have their day in court. In the middle of October both parties met in the Lehigh County Court to discuss the matter. Finally, an agreement was made: both the park and the township would hire a sound expert to decide what would be an acceptable amount of noise for the ride to make. If, when the ride opened, the Township felt it was going above the 85 decibel limit, they would be able to go back to court to argue their case once more.
Considering that many parks start big coaster projects the summer before they are to open, and in some cases even earlier, the final approval coming in the middle of October for Hercules was frustrating, but at least final approval had been granted.
By April of 1989 the ride had been named Hercules and construction was well underway. The coaster was built from both ends inward, meaning the 157 ft., 49 degree, 65 m.p.h. drop was built later in the construction. When the 4,000+ feet of track were finished, and testing was completed, the ride opened for a glitzy media day on May 4th, 1989. There were people dressed in Greek armor, and the park played 'Chariots of Fire' for the opening. They really knew how the cheese it up back then...
The following Saturday the ride opened to the public, and it was a hit. ACE held their annual conference at the park that June, where the ride received plenty more rave reviews. Even though Hercules was open, the drama did continue. Dorney Park got into quite the squabble with Six Flags Over Texas about who had the biggest wooden coaster, and the noise issues stemming from the ride lasted for years.
The ride was modified several times after its opening state. Actually, the top of the "triple-up" was lowered a few feet before the public opening to keep the train going as the ride broke in. The real changes came when Cedar Fair purchased the park in 1992. By 1993 trim brakes were added to the ride's first drop, which itself was reprofiled some, heavy work was done to the lake turn, the "triple-up" was lowered significantly, and new trains were purchased for the ride. The coaster needed work several times more; RCCA did some work, Martin & Vleminckx took a turn, and I've even heard that Great Coasters International tried to help Hercules.
The above comparison shot really shows the changes made to the "triple-up" hill. On the left is the original hill, the right the lowered version. You can see that we're not talking a difference of a few feet here, it was rather substantial. You can, and could until the ride was removed, see were the old hill was 'attached' to the lift hill supports; that's clearly visible in the above photos.
The trim brakes added to the first drop slowed the ride down by what some people estimated to be upward of 10 m.p.h., though I certainly can't confirm it was that much. Whatever the amount was, the ride never was the same - or even close. The ride ran so slowly that it barely made it over several of the ride's hills and turns. Since the ride was designed for the train to be moving at a much faster pace the vibrating and 'bouncing' became much worse. Watch this and you'll see what I mean:
Sadly, over the years the ride got so rough that it's popularity sank. Everyone looked back to the "first four years," meaning 1989-1992 - as the best time to have ridden Hercules. By the time the new millennium rolled around, ridership was low and the ride was still painfully rough. Though the ride was no longer popular, it's enormous yearly maintenance budget was really the final nail in its coffin.
Early September 2003 the news broke: Hercules was being removed for a new floorless coaster to debut in 2005. The ride did not open that fall and would be removed shortly after the park closed for the season. Well, the rest of this story we all know - Hydra the Revenge opened in 2005 using most of the space that Hercules did. Perhaps that plot of land is cursed or something, though, as Hydra has never really been the hit the park intended.
In all, Hercules gave 15 seasons of wild rides to those who decided to take a spin. Some people loved it, some hated it, but it's easy to agree that the ride's impact on Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom lives on today.
Oh and hey, if you enjoyed this article or anything you see on NewsPlusNotes - please feel free to thank me through that Paypal or Amazon box in the margin there. I appreciate it!
User pufferfish on the Theme Park Review boards has posted a photo report from Carowinds' opening day of the 2008 season.
It doesn't look like the park was quite as prepared with new signs and such as California's Great America was. As you can see above Nighthawk has a new sign up, but Drop Tower and Afterburn do not. Also, the Borg theming was removed from Nighthawk - that big orb is there no more. Still, from the pictures it looks like the park had a decent crowd and the weather certainly looked nice... go check out all the photos!
The Morning Call had an article about The Haunt at Dorney Park today. There's some good details in there about the new stuff that's coming to the park. There's also some stuff that doesn't make sense, like how Club Blood's entrance will be at White Water Landing's exit and that's a move to help spread out the Halloween attractions and crowds.
Unless it's just me that area of the park was very crowded in past years. Doctor Doom, and the Cedar Freak Cannonball were right there, and the midway toward Thunder Canyon was busy because of trick-or-treat street.
Then again if Cedar Freak Cannonball isn't coming back then that'll free up some midway space I suppose.
Also, the park is going to the South Whitehall planning people tonight for Club Blood's building, here's what is described on their website:
HAUNTED HOUSE BUILDING 2008 DORNEY PARK AND WILDWATER KINGDOM MAJOR SUBDIVISION 2008-103 REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY/FINAL PLAN APPROVAL
The application by Cedar Fair, L.P. to further develop the property known as “Dorney Park/Wildwater Kingdom”, located at 3830 Dorney Park Road. The plan proposes to remove a portion of a concrete and gravel maintenance area and partial removal of a landscaping berm along the midway and the installation of a one-story, 3,200-square foot “Haunted House”, queuing area and landscaping. The project area would affect approximately 0.9648 acres of the 187-acre property. The subject properties are zoned CR Commercial Recreation.
Sounds just like the pre-fab buildings that went into some of the other Cedar Fair parks late last summer for their new Haunts. Sounds great!
The new residents of Busch Gardens Africa's new Jungala area of the park have been moving into their new habitats recently. Seen above, the area's Tigers are in their new home, and that viewing box is pretty cool if you ask me.
The Jungala area of the park is scheduled to open April 5th.
Phew. That's good. Judging from the above logo, it seems that Universal intends for the new coaster to mostly just go by the name "Rockit." Which is good! It's a nice play on the word rocket, it's catchy, and not seven syllables long like the full name.
Yay for big coaster announcements! Universal Studios Orlando has announced their new roller coaster for 2009: Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit. Another really weird coaster name! Really weird coaster names are so hot right now...
Hard statistics are not really available, but we do know it'll be 167 ft. high and is being built by MaurerSohne. The ride, positioned between Jimmy Neutron and the Blue Man theater, will use "high-energy video displays in the waiting line; high-intensity, color-changing LED lighting and digital audio and video effects during the ride; and various engineering innovations." The ride looks to have inversions, and will also travel out into the CityWalk area at one point.
This is sure to change the 'feel' of the Universal Studios park, but I think in a good way. Hopefully more details will leak out soon! Here's the official press release as well.
Colliers Int., the company handling the Geauga Lake land sale, has put out a new flyer for the property, and there are some slight differences from the original one.
The time period for submitting bids has been extended to May 23rd, instead of the end of this month as previously announced. To me, that means they haven't had much in the way of bidding going on.
If you look at the image above, the left map is from the original brochure. The right, is from the current one. You can see that they flushed out the area of land that is not for sale, now including all the way up to Raging Wolf Bobs, and extending the area to include the rest of the former Sea World property at the other end.
Perhaps this is just a clarification, or perhaps Cedar Fair decided to keep more land ... I'm not sure which. You can find links to the pdf. files that these images come from through this link.
Also, Norton Auctioneers has listedGeauga Lake as a location for one of their auctions in June. That means that anything left at the site will be for sale by auction, not just rides but objects for scrap and really anything laying around that's worth anything - at least that's how it's gone at other closed parks, such as AstroWorld.
Sad situation, I wish some sort of news would break about the wooden coasters for sale, at least Big Dipper. More waiting I suppose...
Six Flags has announced that they will have an official Cheerleading Squad for the company this summer, the Six Flags Thrilleaders. No, this is not a joke. That's what I first thought, anyway. The professional squad will travel to Six Flags parks as "Ambassadors of Thrill," as well as perform at charity and corporate events.
What a weird idea! I guess it could work though ... reminds me of Thrillville a lot though ... me mashing all the buttons to make that cheerleader cheer correctly to a MileyCirus song.
Regardless, if you want to be a Thrilleaderyou can try out in New York City in mid April.
It looks like they're up to the mid-course brakes, which means the loop and cobra roll are in. They've got most of the supports painted, and some track pieces are now a bright orange color. It also looks like they've built a new station for the ride, or maybe it's just the same one but uncovered from how it was at Geauga Lake.
CoasterCrew also has pictures of some other changes in the park like the removal of Hypersonic - which is now totally gone from the park.
Here's a link to a photo trip report over on Theme Park Review from user CoasterFreak24 that's from Hard Rock Park's VIP Tour preview thing they have going on.
The park looks really great!
Also, as of yesterday Midnight Rider (the Vekoma Mine Train coaster) has been renamed Eagles Life in the Fast Lane. The Eagles will be providing the soundtrack for this coaster, but sorry, I think that's a silly name. Why not Midnight Rider: Life in the Fast Lane or something.
Here's another photo gallery from California's Great America's opening weekend. These photos are really great - great high quality shots showing great detail and wonderful colors, hats off to the photographer.
You'll have to head to Steven's Flickr gallery to see the high res version, but the picture above shows plenty of interesting work going on at Firefall. I can't wait to see the finished product. Go check out the photos! He even got a picture of the main logo/sign for Flight Deck and I like it even more than before...
The Haunt at ValleyScare will be expanding again this fall, and there's a twist! The new Haunted attraction is being described as slaughter-house themed:
Within the depths of the slaughterhouse, innocent mortals will witness a gruesome massacre as murderous butchers and maniacal plant workers lacerate the tender flesh of their human victims.“Slice and dice” will take on a whole new meaning inside this brutal meatpacking plant.
Pretty cool. The best part is, they're having a contest to name this new attraction. The winner will receive admission and food tickets to the scare's opening night, as well as front of the line passes.
California's Great America opened for its 2008 season yesterday. I was anxious to see photos of the park, with the name changes and all. There's a photo trip report over on Theme Park Review that has some photos, like the one above.
I actually like the Flight Deck logo, but the sign for Drop Tower is bad and looks flimsy IMO. Firefall looks like it has quite a bit of work left to go before it can open.
Kings Dominion's 2008 Park Map has been Cedar Fairized! It's not bad though, but would it have been horrible to have drawn in a tree or two?
Drop Zone is listed as Drop Tower, Backlot Stunt Coaster and Crypt are there, Bubba's is Outer Hanks, Dominator looks good, Hypersonic is gone baby gone, and Happy Day is the Juke Box Diner.
Kings Dominion opens this coming Saturday. Oh, and California's Great America opened today, anyone got a photo report?
Tis the year for voting, and although it's not November yet it's time to Rock the Vote. Coaster 101 is now accepting nominations for The Attraction Awards.
The set up is simple, nominate whatever you want and give a reason why for one (or more) of five categories: Best Park, Best Steel, Best Wood, Best Water, and Best Dark.
In the Coaster Realm boards user vekoma6382 posted some new photos of Knott's Berry Farm's new Pony Express coaster - and the track is already complete!
Just last week there appeared to be a lot left to do at the Coaster Solace event, and now it's already finished. The ride looks pretty fun! It's a very simple elongated figure 8 layout, but it looks like there is potential for some nice airtime and some good twists and turns as well.
Also, it was said at the Solace event that the ride will have a tunnel! I noticed some extra supports by the track in the pictures - in the area before the final turn-around - perhaps they are for the tunnel?
Over on YouTube user Nuance84 captured some awesome video of Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland doing test runs.
The ride looks amazing! It doesn't look like any of the trims are on, and let's hope it stays that way. The ride really moves over those hills, and that hammerhead turn around looks fantastic. I want to go to Canada this summer!
Yesterday started some in-park sneak peeks of the new Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach. The entrance area and shops are open to visitors on a daily basis now. For $20 visitors can take a VIP tour of two of the park's areas, both of which are still under construction. If people like what they see, most of that $20 fee can go toward a season pass.
If you go to this article from Myrtle Beach Online you can view a whole slideshow photo gallery of shots from inside the park. It looks pretty great!
^ From the concept art I never fully understood what that 'growth' was on the building for Midnight Rider - now I know that it's giant scary tree hands! Cool!
Full park preview 'soft opening' days start about a month from now!
Voodoo is done! It was finished at the end of this past week.
I had to use my 'bad camera' today so I sorta hate these pictures - but here's one that shows off the complete Voodoo coaster.
Similar photo, taken from lower than the previous one.
A nice shot of how the ride fits in with the park's other towering rides. It stands out, a lot - a whole lot. When you are driving on 222 past the park it's like BAM there it is. I was sitting at a traffic light across from the park and the peeps in the cars on both sides of me were pointing at it!
Taken from outside the park's entrance road.
I know this isn't a great shot (p.o.s. camera) but from far away you can see Dominator, Talon, Steel Force, and now Voodoo's towers sticking up out of the valley the park is in.
My favorite 'pic of the litter' today - I know that Laser looks colorful in some of these photos, but that's because I played with the photos cause they turned out so poor. There's no new paint on it yet that I can tell.
Remember when Knott's Berry Farm did cool themed attractions like this? Well, okay, the art was cool at least. Windjammer Surf Racers was junk metal by the time I visited the park, so I never had a ride, but everyone said it was pretty horrible.
Still it's a part of the park's colorful history so I'd rather celebrate it then pretend it didn't happen!
Here are two pictures of the ride I've had saved on my computer for years now. I don't remember where I found these but they're not mine! If they are yours and you want them gone let me know!
Windjammer had a Hydra/Dragster/Voodoo station, too!
The 2007 TEA/ERA Amusement/Theme Park Attendance Report is now available to be downloaded from the TEA's website. Here is a direct link to the .pdf.
When Amusement Business closed down shop a couple years ago TEA and the ERA picked up the slack when it came to reporting annual park attendance figures. Last year was the first publication, and I must say the report feels more comprehensive in its 2nd year.
I always scan past the Disney/Universal/Busch parks when looking at the North America section. Largely, they hover in the same area and are always at the top. I'm not against that, but seeing if the Disney Parks are at the top of the list is like checking to make sure Google is the most popular search site each day.
Anyway ... the first park then noticed is Knott's Berry Farm at #13 in North America. Then, almost directly after (BGW messes it up) we have Canada's Wonderland, Cedar Point, and Kings Island. Hershey Park came in at #18 at just under 3 million visitors this past seasn. That's really an amazing level of growth over the past decade. Two Six Flags Parks, Great Adventure and Great America, round out the top 20.
For statistical fun, the Magic Kingdom in Florida is the most visited park in the world, and with just over 17 million visitors this past year that averages around 46,500 people per day. Anyone with any regional park experience know that that is a fairly blockbuster day for most parks!
Reading over the past few months about all the ride removals from Six Flags parks this year has made me want to get a list together. I love lists. Here is what I've come up with as far as the removals go - it's probably incomplete so if you have info please share!
Great Adventure: Chiller Movietown Water Effect Musik Express closed Autobahn closed Fantasy Fling Space Shuttle Houdini (not on website)
Georgia: Deja Vu
New England: Rodeo Double Trouble Bumper Buggies
Great Escape: Rainbow Nightmare (closed for '07)
St. Louis: Kiddie Coaster 3 Kiddie Rides
Great America: Space Shuttle simulator Deja Vu Splashwater Falls
Phew, that was a lot. Some of those listed, like at Great Adventure and Kentucky Kingdom, are for now just closed for the year... removal is not confirmed. I also can't find anything for the Mexico park - mostly cause no one really talks about it online.
The official website for Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America went live last night. The site doesn't fully work for me, but it's a clean design and I like it.
It took a while to figure it out but if you can get to each ride's page you can find some interesting artwork the park did, like those scattered in this post.
The park officially opens this Saturday, March 15th. The ceremony will features some Nick stars, like Miranda Cosgrove and the Wolff brothers. Also attending will be Ashlee Simpson (bleeeech) - but to each their own!
Here a press release the park recently put out that covers the opening festivities, and provides a breakdown of what the new park offers in the way of rides and attractions.
New Voodoo at Dorney Park photos from today, March 12th, 2008.
They've added the 'extra' supports on the twist tower and attached track to it as well. Looks like there are about only two more pieces of track to go up.
Impressive, very impressive. They put the covers on the 'wire box' that runs along the holding brake tower and it's catching quite a glare in this photo.
Here you can see the last track piece (or two already together) next to the tower ready to go up. Perhaps they even put it adding it off a day or so to do a little media thing for the "topping" of the ride.
Close up of the station for the ride. I can't be 100% but it looks like the train pieces are starting to lay around in the station. Also, there's some new light poles in the parking lot there that I'm assuming are for the ride.
POW! BANG! CRASH! <--- If that looks crazy to you then you're too young to have seen the older Batman comics. (and show, for that matter) In no particular order, U.S. Batmans!
Six Flags Great America
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Over Georgia
Six Flags Over Texas
Six Flags St. Louis
Sorry Six Flags Great Adventure - the Live Local aerials were too poor to be included!
Thunderhawk at Michigan's Adventure looks to be almost complete, at least judging from the new photos posted to the official website.
That top picture really helps show the ride's placement in the park and how impressive it is. It sorta stinks to lose some of the lake, but with things turning out like this it was worth it.
With the track and supports almost all up it also looks like they are also focusing on working on the station for the ride.
I sorta missed this one, but Kennywood's sale to ParquesReunidos isn't quite as final as it was presented a couple months back.
According to this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the potential buyer of the property is still assessing the park's books, and the 76 owners of the park are quite divided on whether or not they want to sell at all.
Apparently there was a lot of confusion back in December when owners voted on the sale, and that confusion leaked out to the press and the story was presented as if the sale was final.
The owners must vote and reach a "super majority" which is considerably more than 50% in order for the sale to be official on Kennywood's end.
So, perhaps this long time family tradition will remain just that?
Two new attractions are about to officially debut at Disney's California Adventure theme park, next to Disneyland in California.
The Pixar Play Parade (above) and the Playhouse Disney Live on Stage! show are both going to be officially open to guests in the coming days. The Pixar parade looks pretty neat, although some may see it as California Adventure heading deeper into Pixar territory with new attractions.
The Playhouse Disney show has been revamped and now features characters from shows that are currently on the Disney channel.
IOACentral, as I've said before my fav. Universal site, has some new photos of some drastic changes going on in front of the Simpsons Ride building at Universal Studios Orlando.
There's some circus tents and a huge Krusty the Clown head going up in front of the attraction. I would guess that the entrance to the ride will be through Krusty's mouth, akin to some entrances of classic amusement piers and the like.
I just noticed that Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom (still dislike the name) has started to put some new stuff on their official website.
Like above, we have some sort of new logo for the park that's brought Snoopy back into the picture. I'm not sure if that's just something they threw together of it is really is a new logo, though.
Also ... they have a pdf. up of a brochure they've created for birthday parties at the park. Still no general brochure, but this one is up. You can find it on their page here.
The results for the 2007 Steel Coaster Poll have been published, and Superman Ride of Steel at Six Flags New England has once again topped the chart.
Expedition GeForce came in second; the poll points out this is the 7th year these two rides have been the top two steel coasters.
Eagle's Fortress at Everland is 3rd, Cedar Point's Millennium Force 4th, followed by B&M Inverts Katun and Nemesis in 5th and 6th.
The Goliaths ranked 7th and 8th, that is the ones at Six Flags Over Georgia and Walibi World. Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure came in 9th, and rounding out the top 10 we have Maverick at Cedar Point.
According to this article from the Santa Monica Daily Press, Pacific Park is now for sale by its current owners. This isn't some huge shock though, as the current investment group always planned to sell the property to make a return on their money when the time was right.
They also clearly point out that they intend for the new owners to keep the park operating similar to how it is now, so we have no fears of the place closing it looks.
I wish I had a ton of money - what a great purchase Pacific Park would be! Sigh ... daydreaming is fun though.
Here are some photos taken yesterday, the 7th of March. This past week vertical construction started on the twist tower.
Progress has been made on the station area as well. The bigger version of this photos (click it) shows a lot of details. The station roof is going on, and you can actually see into the station in this photo.
Here's a closer pic of the twist tower. The track for the tower is laying on the ground ready to go up. You can see the final piece with the 'stopper' on it laying there.
A view from the entrance road. I hope cars don't get distracted when they enter the park this year!
First up, the Asbury Park Press has a neat article about Six Flags Great Adventure's Dark Knight coaster. These rides have really be scoring a lot of press lately, which means many kudos to Six Flags in general for getting the word about their new rides out there.
As seen in the above photo, Great Adventure's version is now being walled in - still no sign of the ride's track going up though. The article mentions a May opening.
Next, we have Six Flags New England's troubled version of the ride. Construction has been stopped on this one as we know due to the park not having the proper permits to be building the ride.
Well now to add insult to injury two owners of a property near the park have filed an appeal against the height permit the park was granted for the ride's structure. They appeal claims "the structure is not appropriate for the location and would adversely affect traffic, safety and property values in the neighborhood."
This is crazy. They're building a 70 ft. tall structure is someone is trying to make that claim? That's nuts in my opinion. The ride is located in the lower part of the park by the river, and on top of that it's only 70 feet!
The worst part is that now this may or may not hold the park from starting back up construction for a longer period of time. What a bummer!
Evel Knievel has been making a ton of progress at Six Flags St. Louis lately. There's a whole bunch of photos on the official site, and even more from the Great Coasters International Interns website.
This ride is destined to be a hit for Six Flags St. Louis - and I can only hope that means that Six Flags will start signing more contracts for wooden coasters like this at their parks. Think of the possibilities...
California's Great America has added their 2008 park map to their website. I'm kinda bummed that the former Paramount Parks are not having their park maps redone like the current Cedar Fair style ones. Maybe next year...
Not too much exciting to see on here, though, Firefall is there and shows water under the ride but not theming - anyone else see anything worth mentioning?
Coasterimage recently celebrated their 5th year on the web. I've been visiting this site for pretty much all of those five years I believe ... I've always really loved their photography.
To celebrate their 5th anniversary, they added 5 new photo galleries. Included in these new photos are Worlds of Fun (which caught my attention), Alabama Adventures, Route 66 Carousel Park, Six Flags St. Louis, and Southern Adventures.
As always, the pictures are beautiful and worth checking out!
The Daily Press ran an article today about an expansion to Busch Gardens Europe that the park has submitted to local authorities for approval.
The plans are vague at this point, and only really say that they want to build 5 buildings and "various guest attractions and theming." The one and a half acre area is to the left of the main entrance, between Escape from Pompeii and the Skyride entrance in England.
The article brings up the important fact that Busch Entertainment did say that they want to expand the use of Sesame Street characters into all their parks. So perhaps this is what the expansion will be?
If not that then I'd expect something similar to Jungala at Busch Gardens Africa - at least in concept. I mean, a new area of the park that features things for the whole family to do, not just one big ride that appeals to a specific demographic. The Busch Gardens parks do tend to follow each other with their expansions...
As always, time will tell! At least we know an expansion is coming.
Here's a link to a gigantic photo gallery of Nickelodeon Universe photos taken 3.1.08. The park is making a ton of progress in its conversion from Camp Snoopy to Nickelodeon Universe - new signs are going up, tons of rides are painted, and the new attractions are testing and getting ready to open.
The park has turned out really colorful and looks pretty good! See for yourself in the photos.
Right on the heels of Busch Entertainment's huge announcement of their Worlds of Discovery Dubai project Six Flags has announced a "Strategic Alliance" with Tatweer to bring Six Flags parks to the "Arab World" as well.
The first development is Six Flags Dubailand, though the park's opening would be aimed for 2015 or so. It seems that Six Flags will really only oversee the park's concept and master plan, and not really own the property. The park is described as thrill-based, and will feature many of the licensed properties the company uses, like Tony Hawk, in the U.S. parks.
Mr. Shapiro says that "Through this partnership with Tatweer, we now have the opportunity to create a world-class theme park destination that will allow guests from around the globe to experience Six Flags' unique combination of thrills and entertainment."
So now we have Busch's project, Universal's park, a Dreamworks park, a Marvel park, a Paramount licensed park, and I'm probably forgetting one in the Dubai area development. This is crazy! While I do hope they all come into reality, I have my doubts. I'll happily be wrong, though!
Here's a cool article about the Six Flags Magic Mountain museum that is being created at the top of the park's Sky Tower.
Called the Magic on the Mountain Museum, the development was the idea of a park employee, Brandon Bruce. It will feature tons of memorabilia from the park's past, including ride parts, concept art, old maps, and lots more.
This is a fantastic idea. I've wanted a museum like this at Dorney - and many other parks - for ages now. Three cheers to Magic Mountain for going foward with this!
Here the official news release that has higher quality video and some images, like above, of the renderings of the new Dark Knight coasters.
The release has just a few new facts, like that "The attraction will introduce new, customized footage featuring District Attorney Harvey Dent (as portrayed by Aaron Eckhart), produced and shot specifically for The Dark Knight Coaster. The ride will also incorporate audio and visual elements from the film. The opening of The Dark Knight Coaster will be perfectly timed to coincide with the debut of The Dark Knight which opens July 18th."
Darkbeer has a new update from Knott's Berry Farm from this past weekend that features lots of photos of the new Pony Express roller coaster. They've started to put up steel for the station, lots of supports are up, and they look to be finishing up the footers for the ride.
User pkdcoaster over on the ThemeParkReview boards has some great photos of the Dominator construction at Kings Dominion. As you can see, the lift is completed, and while pkdcoaster was taking photos they added a huge section of the first drop. They're making great progress!
The Daily Herald has a short article today about Six Flags Great America's new Dark Knight coaster. Along with that, they have the first Six Flags promo video released thus far.
It's short, and very flashy - like a movie preview, but still pretty cool. It looks like it was done by Virtual Image Productions, but no confirmation thus far.
Through this thread at Coasterbuzz, it's been confirmed via communication with Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom that a section of that park will be closed in 2008.
This comes just after learning that a section of Six Flags Great Adventure will be closed in 2008 as well.
Twisted Twins, Mile High Falls, and a flat ride called the Zeppelin will be closed this season at Kentucky Kingdom. Its been said that the drag racing ride has already been removed. Will they come back in the future or are these rides being scrapped? Who knows.
One thing is for sure, the new Six Flags guys sure aren't afraid of making some changes ... but these changes also save money. We probably won't see what these closings really mean until a couple years from now.
This month I asked readers to vote for their favorite U.S. Great Coasters International wooden roller coaster. After 334 votes the winner came out as Lightning Racer at Hershey Park.
I can't say I'm surprised, Lightning Racer is a really great ride that in my opinion has held up pretty well over the years. Close behind Lightning Racer was Thunderhead at Dollywood.
The top two rides battled the whole month, and it ended up being a close finish. Third we have Renegade, Valleyfair!'s new for 2007 wooden coaster. It sure seemed to be a hit with coaster fans as well as the general public.
The fourth most votes went to Wildcat at Hershey Park. This was GCI's first ride, and it still delivers all these years later - and I really mean delivers, it's quite a while ride.
Kentucky Rumbler and Gwazi came in 5th and 6th with vote totals very close to each other. I think that Busch Gardens Tampa's operating policies of the past few years might have hurt the popularity of this ride, and Rumbler's vote total is probably suffering from it not being in a huge park.
Ozark Wildcat at Celebration City and the two Roar clones at Six Flags America and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom came in at the bottom of the heap.
I went to take some Voodoo construction photos today, but there really isn't anything new to see. I did get the above photo which really gives some nice perspective to Dorney Park's new skyline. Enjoy!
Hersheypark has finally added a webcam so we can watch the construction of Fahrenheit. They have the first drop in place, and man that looks pretty wild.
Lots of supports are up too, they're pretty far along all things considered.
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Today the LA Times' Funland Blog takes a look at why California roller coasters rank so low in various online polls.
