© 2008 DLMountainFan
I know that it's only the last day of May - but a fan of Halloween like me always has the fall on my mind...
The official Halloween Horror Nights website has been updated, and tickets for the Orlando event are already on sale.
The online puzzles and such that Universal is famous for have not started yet, and there are no apparent hints as to this year's theme online yet - that I can see anyway.
They do have a general HHN video up on the event overview page for Orlando which is nice to see just because it makes me pumped for the fall!
And just for fun, my favorite host, The Caretaker....
Steel Hawg has finally started major vertical construction at Indiana Beach amusement park. The official Indiana Beach blog has a couple more photos of the ride in its current state.
The ride probably won't be operating until July or so, guessing from the state of construction at this point.
This video from YouTube is a rendering of Manta, the new B&M Flyer coming to Sea World Florida in 2009.
No one seems to be able to verify if it's legit or not, but if this really is the layout of the ride then I really like its design. That first sorta half pretzel followed by a big fan turn that inverts the train looks interesting...
© 2008 IOACentral
© 2008 Coasterdom
If you do have that sorta cash laying around, you can buy Laser from Dorney Park. After much debate in the past over whether certain used ride listings were Laser or not, we now can be sure.
UsedRides has a listing up for the ride, complete with pictures from CoasterGallery and everything.
I guess it's pretty important to get in your rides on Laser this summer! Then again, look at Demon Drop at Cedar Point - that's been for sale for years and is still operating.
Regardless, things don't look too good for Laser being at Dorney Park too much longer...
© America Coasters 2008
© 2008 Sea World Florida
Blue Sky Disney recently did a Blue Sky Buzz for Disney World in Florida, and the big news the site is reporting is that the Magic Kingdom will finally see another E-Ticket attraction in the form of the Little Mermaid ride going into Disney's California Adventure at the end of this decade (or so).
The site doesn't list a timetable for the Florida ride, but it's pretty exciting news. I'm guessing this is the attraction that will finally take most of the place of the former Submarine ride in Fantasyland.
From what I've read elsewhere the ride's design keeps getting more involved and detailed, so the ride sure sounds promising. I know some people don't like when rides are cloned but I don't mind, it's more probable for me to ride it in FL than in CA!
The land that used to be Geauga Lake amusement park has received 4 bids from real estate developers according to this article from the Plain Dealer.
More and more Six Flags amusement parks are announcing lower admission prices to stimulate guests to take a visit. Like several who have already made announcements, a bunch more are now making it more affordable for a family to spend a day at the parks.
Six Flags New England, Six Flags America, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Six Flags Great Adventure, and Six Flags St. Louis all cut their admission prices by $10 recently.
I wonder if this is because they already are feeling lower attendance, or if it's just an attempt to have a surge in park guests. Hopefully all the ads in the park, etc, can make up for the lower per caps the company will see this summer.
© 2008 TGE Source
Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom opened for the season yesterday. The water park also finally received a new website, you can see that here.
Now that they have up the map for just the water park it seems really ... small. A couple reports from yesterday's opening said that there were very, very few people at the park. I have no idea if it was cold, though, obviously water parks really depend on nice weather.
Were those lakeside pavilions there last year, or did they move a couple over from the Geauga side?
Six Flags Great Adventure has debuted their new night parade, the Glow in the Park Parade.
AmusementPics has tons of photos of the parade from its first performance. It looks like they did a great job with this!
Using Gary Goddard Entertainment to product the parade was a smart move on Six Flags' part.
Click here to check out the photos!
Robbie Knievel completed his jump of 24 Coke Zero trucks in the parking lot at Kings Island yesterday.
According to Robbie, he needed to hit 95 m.p.h. before starting the 200 ft. jump in order to land it.
CNN has video of the jump if you want to check it out.
Special events like this are awesome for parks to have ... they bring massive interest to the property and tons of free press. Good job to Kings Island for hosting this event.
SFAFans has a nice gallery of Six Flags America's new water slide for 2008, Tony Hawk's Halfpipe.
While the ride structure is just like all other Water Fun Sidewinder slides, the park did add some nice Tony Hawk decorations to the slide tower, etc.
SFFT Online has some really stunning photos of Fiesta Texas' new coaster, Goliath. The ride has a really strong paint job, but it really works for the coaster. Also, I had no idea that the park did such a nice job with the ride's entrance area and queue - I really like it! Check out the photos.
Six Flags Magic Mountain is reopening X2 this weekend, and of course enthusiasts and media got to ride early: here's more photos of the 'new' ride than you can shake a stick at.
This week was so full of media days, even 30 year old coasters had them! The Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens Europe recently turned 30 and had a media event to celebrate! See photos here.
The GCI Intern website recently posted some shots of the trains for Evel Knievel at Six Flags St. Louis. What a stylin' paint job! The ride is supposed to be on track for an opening in late June.
RCPro has pictures of the area around Pony Express at Knott's Berry Farm, as well as pics of the ride. They show how the ride interacts with that section of the park, which I haven't seen online yet. Also has great photos of the ride's tunnel under construction.
On a final note, Six Flags has gone crazy with their online ads. I was just on Dictionary.com and saw an ad! That's it for now, I have a very wonderful wedding to attend today!
PointBuzz has this new Cedar Point commercial posted on their YouTube page. What a departure from the type of advertising the park has used in the past!
And I totally think the song is catchy. Ha.
Pony Express opened for the media and coaster enthusiasts yesterday, and will open for the public this weekend. (I'm a little tired of typing that sentence after all these media days!)
The OCRegister has a nice photo gallery of the ride in action, along with a video of the ride. I think it's pretty awesome that Knott's Berry Farm had a bunch of mail carriers on hand to take a spin!
Well, someone decided to be a turd again and vote for Six Flags about 200 times today in the May Poll: Which Amusement Park Company Has the Brightest Future?
So let's remove the immature-nothing-better-to-do-than-mess-with-polls bunch of votes and since I closed the poll early look at the results now:
The percentages changed very little since mid-month, just more votes came in. I used the data from a day or so ago when there were a total of 407 votes.
As you can see, Cedar Fair was the winner. I don't agree with this, but I clearly cover CF quite a bit so I can't say I'm surprised.
Happily, Busch Entertainment came in 2nd, and with it's wide variety of parks, nice theming, stand out rides and attractions, animal features, etc, well - they clearly have their stuff together.
Six Flags came in third, and honestly this company is in such a transition period that I can't say where their future will lead them...
Herschend Family Entertainment came in last ... but I sorta think they should have come in first. I guess we can check back in 5 years and see if my vote (yes I voted for them) was true.
© 2008 Mark Rosenzweig
Holy Media Days Batman!
© Theme Park Village 2008
Sad news, Thrill-Ville USA, outside Salem, OR, has closed it gates, possibly forever. The small amusement park closed due to a number of factors, from increased insurance costs, higher prices for fuel and food, even to the state's higher than average minimum wage.
The final fate of the park is not yet decided, but for this summer the property will remain closed. What a bummer.
© 2008 The Morning Call / Monica Cabrera
Here's an article about Dominator at Kings Dominion that has some nice video of the ride, the above and below shots are from that video. I love the B&M roar that you can hear, being around Dorney's B&Ms so much makes me almost forget that sound...
And here's a nice article about the Dark Knight at Six Flags Great America. This one has a really nice slideshow of photos of the construction of the ride and it's opening. Many of the photos were on the park's website but these are much higher quality and allow a peak inside the ride building.
It looks like the summer 'slow' season is upon us as the last batch of rides open and industry news slows down. I'll still dig around for stuff for the blog, though!
© pkdcoaster 2008
© mcjaco 2008
This week Theme Park Village posted the topic of what movie would you like to see turned into a movie. Without a doubt, The Goonies!
If you've never seen this movie, well, go rent it first. The flick came out in '85 and was based on a story concept by Steven Spielberg, and it's awesome.
A bunch of kids find a map in their attic that leads them on an adventure to find hidden pirate treasure, which they need to save their house from developers. Of course, there's bad guys after them at every turn, and their journey takes them past plenty of traps and puzzles as they navigate caves and secret passages.
It would make a fantastic dark ride ... to say the least. Plus it has dead pirates which are all the rage right now! A dark ride is just one idea, too, you could go several different directions with that movie - I mean they literally have water slides in the film!
It's never gonna happen, but man, it'd be awesome if it did!
© 2008 Theme Park Village
Kings Island Central has photos from this weekend of the 2009 coaster construction. Forget my doubts before, this hyper coaster definitely looks to have a water splash as a finale! That's pretty sweet if you ask me.
Ezeiza's Flickr account has some beautiful photos of FireFall at California's Great America operating. The ride finally opened this weekend. I really like the job that Cedar Fair did with theming and landscaping the ride - it looks very well done.
The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Florida has it's grand opening this past week. IOACentral has tons of photos and video from the event.
Alabama Adventure amusement park (formerly Visionland) was purchased last week by Adrenaline Family Entertainment, the company started by a couple former Six Flags execs that purchased Clementon Amusement Park last year. This is good news for the park, as the new owners have more expansion plans for the property.
Tony Hawk's Big Spin at Six Flags Over Texas had it's media day recently, user cedarpointfangirl has a photo trip report of the event on ThemeParkReview. Here's another link to a news report that has video of the ride in action. The ride officially opened yesterday for the general public.
So I took a chance and stopped by the park today hoping that Voodoo might open. Lucky for me, it did.
I got there early and noticed that a full ride crew was at Voodoo cleaning, and the management types were milling around. Cleaning queue rails only means one thing in my Cedar Fair experience, and that is that a ride is going to open soon.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, they were doing some work on Laser, it almost looking like they were sanding or something on the tracks. One train was at the very end of the brake run.
Also, there's a new little SnoCone stand right at the entrance of Voodoo. I can't help but wonder if this is new or used-Geauga - which if true would be funny considering it's at Voodoo.
So they started testing Voodoo a few times with the water dummies, did the full runs and the not full test runs, etc. - and then they emptied the water out of the dummies and removed them.
After a while, and much more cleaning of the ride's train, people started to gather at the entrance to the ride and a big line started to form.
And then it opened! I was lucky to get a ride on the first public train, and it was pretty great. It was pretty much what I expected, but in a good way. The launch is fun, and I also actually really enjoyed the holding brake.
The park handled the crowd very well (no Canada's Wonderland Behemoth stampedes) and the dispatches on Voodoo were fantastic. Props to the park for both of those.
It was a perfect blue sky this morning, then by the time the ride opened I had this not-so-great sky as a background for photos.
Important park people and very happy riders of Voodoo. The crowds really seemed to love the ride.
It's a great ride to watch from the midway, too.
On a final note, here's a nice shot of the Ferris Wheel (new logo on the middle panel).
Congrats on your ride opening, Dorney!
Michigan's Adventure had their opening ceremonies for the park's new coaster on Wednesday. The first riders were the winning bidders in the first to ride auction for Thunderhawk, which raised over $2,500 for the Red Cross.
The article that the above and below screen grabs came from has a video of the ride that includes a POV. I really like how they landscaped the area around and under the ride. Reminds me of Talon at Dorney, only ThunderHawk sits on a lake.
And I hate to say it, but, the McDonalds color scheme has grown on me! Eek! 
Halfway through the month means we're halfway through May's poll. Here is where we stand as of today:
Herschend currently has 10% of the vote.
Six Flags has 13% of the total votes.
Busch Entertainment (who does not really have their own logo, boo) has 37% of the votes.
And Cedar Fair has 40%.
Now happy with those results so far? Well if you haven't voted yet, then get to it! This is a democracy, after all and every vote counts!
© 2008 GADVOnline
Here are links to two press releases about the Six Flags and Marvel Theme Parks going in to Dubailand.
The Six Flags article is pretty much fluff, here's the link if you want to read that one. The Six Flags park, with 30 rides and attractions, will break ground in 2009 and open in 2011.
The Marvel park, however, has plenty of new information available from its release. The park will be split into three areas, City Centrum, the HUB, and The Marvel Academy. They also say that three of the park's rides - Flying With Spidey, Fantasticar, and X-Men: Danger Room - are already testing offsite.
The park will have 17 rides and attractions, and will open at the very end of 2012. Interestingly, that means though the Six Flags and Marvel parks will break ground at the same time, roughly, they will open a year (or more, depending) apart from one another. We know what that means for the Six Flags park - but hopefully that means that the Marvel one will be detailed and require that much extra time.
Check out this POV video of the Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer Park from ErieTube.com. The ride looks great!
Make sure to check out the view of Lake Erie from the top of the lift in the caps below. That's amazing! The park is also auctioning off the first seats on the first train for charity. You can check out the page for bidding here.
I hope somewhere down the line some corporate parks get involved in building rides by The Gravity Group.
Thanks to one of our readers, Steve, now I know where the OOC MotoCoaster at Darien Lake is located! Steve left a comment on the last Daily Spin post and informed us that the coaster is located where the pool used to be for resort guests. (seen above)
That's a nice location for the ride, I hope that they continue to 'fill in' the area around that lake, the Boomerang and Top Spin were always sorta out there by themselves.
Now my next question, how do you get to the ride with the antique cars running all along there? Did they do a bridge over them?
I was reading this interesting discussion on CoasterBuzz about the possibility of Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom turning into a water park only property, a la what Cedar Fair did to Geauga Lake.
© jacketscu11 2008
The above photo is from a gallery of pictures of what's changed for this year, which doesn't make the park look too appealing these days. It's an interesting conspiracy theory, though, as perhaps the property would work better if it gave up on the rides and focused on water attractions.
Did the Superman accident really hurt the park that much? Who knows, but people seem to be very confident that Twisted Twins are done for, and will be coming down sooner than later. I can't wait to see what happens to the park to be honest. Six Flags may need to make some more drastic moves to keep things afloat - they were certainly serious about cutting costs with all the removed rides and closed areas this year at their parks.
I have such ride envy of most of the attractions at Disneyland Paris, one of the ones I have it the worst for is their Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
The ride just looks amazing, it's fantastic how it's placed on an island and you pass under the river in order to get to the 'mountain.' And the ending! The train has some nice speed as it twists under the river in a long, dark tunnel...
Sigh, I need to hit the lottery.
According to the Funland Blog, Firefall at California's Great America will finally open this Saturday, May 17th.
The ride was to have opened at the end of April, but needed a part from the manufacturer in Europe. The winners of the first rider auction that was held will go first this weekend, then the public will get their rides.
I'm looking forward to some video of the water and fire effects in action!
The group that wants to purchase and reopen Jazzland (Six Flags New Orleans) is allowing visitors to its web site to help pick what water slides to build for their 2009 reopening.
Southern Star Amusements is allowing visitors to review the slides here, and then you can vote on what you like on their forums.
The whole deal is weird, but if it's legit then it's pretty cool. I've just never seen a group of people put photoshopped alien pics onto ride photos and let strangers help pick out their rides. Maybe it's just a different, less corporate, approach to the whole plan? I dunno.
The Contra Costa Times has a nice article on what it takes to get a new coaster like Tony Hawk's Big Spin at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom up and running. The park compares the construction of the ride to building a giant Erector Set.
Even though it's a smaller version of the other Tony Hawk coasters, the Discovery Kingdom version looks like a lot of fun. The ride is scheduled to open on May 23rd.
Here's a link to an interview with Cedar Fair CEO Richard Kinzel about the company, it's parks, and some hints about the future.
There's some interesting stuff in this one (these type of articles seem to crop up every so often), Kinzel was in a pretty frank mood the day he was interviewed. Thankfully, he does admit how tight the company's balance sheet is right now, and that it's limiting them in terms of new park expansion as well as hotel expansion.
Like I like to say, it's worth a read!
Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!
It looks like a lot of Cedar Fair parks are having a deal where season pass holders can buy a ticket for Mom for around ten bucks. That'd be a nice treat for good ole' Mom!
© ValleyFairZone 2008
I'm starting the "Daily Spin" for little news items that don't really need a whole post, many blogs do this so I think it'll fit in well on NewsPlusNotes. I probably won't publish one each day, though, so please excuse the hypocrisy of the name!
I made a twitter page for NewsPlusNotes ... that way I can publish little stuff that doesn't deserve a whole post on NPN. Here's the link, please feel free to follow me!
The return of swan lake? KICentral has posted some new photos from Kings Island showing concrete forms being placed in the former area of swan lake. The concrete forms are clearly curving like those that are poured around a water feature, with a large concrete bock going in the middle. Fans are speculating some sorts of Sheikra/Griffon water splash, but I'm not sure.
If you haven't had your fix of Hard Rock Park photos yet, then check out this gallery on CoasterForce. It's got everything!
Voodoo at Dorney Park did some low-power testing this morning, here's a short video of that via Flickr.
Not sure why, but Universal Studios Japan has always fascinated me. Westcoaster has a great photo tour of the park that shows off all it has to offer.
Flyin' Phil has another great set of aerial shots of the Dark Knight at Six Flags Great Adventure taken at the end of April. Helped me put the ride into perspective with the rest of the park.
Cedar Point opened today for the 2008 season. Since they keep awesome web cams I wanted to check out how opening day looked:
They had a pretty nice turnout! The weather looks beautiful as well...
Webcam link.
Water Country U.S.A., Busch Gardens Europe's close by water park, has opened it's new set of attractions for 2008, Rock'n'Roll island.
The area features three enclosed body slides with classic dance names, such as the Hully Gully, and is surrounded by a 700 ft. long lazy river. There is also a smaller slide for kids, and a pool area that's set aside for, well, swimming - which is actually not that common in many water parks.
There's some video and pictures in this press release, and also from this article by the Daily Press.
Okay I know I just did a Pony Express update really recently, but there's more stuff to see that's totally worthwhile.
First, Knott's Berry Farm has updated their official website with a little Pony Express page that features an awesome animation of the ride. Totally looks like another great VIP animation. (VIP, please update your site so we know what's yours!) It has on-ride and off-ride footage of the coaster in action. Here are some stills:
Above and below you can see that a tunnel is supposed to go up on the final turn around on the ride that takes place over by the edge of the park.
Also worth checking out is this photo update that can be found on Coaster Realm Network. Thankfully, the park is putting Boot Hill back to how it was ... well minus the big coaster supports in the middle of it.
© 2008 Roller Coaster Alley
© 2008 IOACentral.com
About.com has a nice little article with the CEO of Hard Rock Park about the property's future.
According to the article the park recently purchased 55 acres of land adjacent to them that they want to use for a Hard Rock Hotel, shopping, and entertainment district, which would turn the destination into a resort.
In the closer future, the park plans on having a Halloween event as well as holiday festivities this winter. The article also makes mention of other plans the park has in store for the future.
The park's grand opening celebration starts June 2nd with a big lineup of festivities and big name music acts.
This is pretty cool - now if reading the Holiblog to know what Holiday World is up to isn't enough you can be even more in the know by reading their Twitter page!
You can find out all sorts of cool stuff, from new toilet solicitations to when the park needs extras for their commercial shoots.
Check it out and be sure to "follow" what the park is up to.
© 2008 Westcoaster
Well, I said that we'd probably see more parks cutting admissions prices this summer, and so here's another one already. Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom has slimmed down their gate price - but you have to buy the tickets online before you go to get the lower price. The discount makes the admission just $24.99, which is really a pretty cheap ticket for a park these days.
The IndyStar has an article about the changes in which a park spokesperson says that the closed section of the park was done so that they can explore future rides for that area. That sounds like general b.s. to me, but what do I know.
I was going through some old stuff recently and found these pictures I took back in 1996 when Skull Mountain opened at Six Flags Great Adventure.
When the ride first opened it had an elaborately themed queue that wound around to the back left of the ride along the lake. It was removed a few years later for a Chinese food restaurant.
They had lots of tribal looking huts and even a huge pot that things (people?) were cooked in.
Along with the huts were explorer type tents. I don't know if there was a cohesive story for the queue, but it obviously was a natvies/explorer type deal.
There was a cool crashed jeep in the queue that you passed as well, and the area was blocked off from the rest of the park with the tall timber fence they created.
Again with the explorer theme with this excavation site. The queue was really pretty cool, it's too bad that it was all removed.
Anyway know if any of this stuff was ever reused anywhere - whether at Great Adventure or another park?
Today Tatweer and Merlin Entertainment group announced plans to build a Legoland theme park in Dubailand along with the nine thousand other parks already slated to go in there.
Okay, not nine thousand, but it feels that way. Tatweer has already lined up Universal Stuidios, Dreamworks Studios, Six Flags, Marvel, and more to build theme parks in Dubai.
The Legoland park will feature over 40 rides and attractions for families that have children ages 2 to 12. No opening date was specified in the press release.
I want all these parks to open, I really do, but it just seems like there are too many! Can they all really exist next to each other?
Two articles that caught my attention today. The first is from the Sandusky Register and is about the hard lesson that Cedar Fair had to learn regarding season passes and the former Paramount Parks.
The article is pretty good, but then it misquotes (at least I hope it is a misquote) Dennis Speigel as saying that Kings Island saw a drop in attendance of 2 million last year due to changes in the park's season pass program.
It's worth a read anyway.
The second article is an interesting one that's sorta an interview with Six Flag's CIO, Michael Israel. It sounds like Six Flags had some serious catch up to do with wiring their parks for today's IT requirements. (ahem ... Cedar Fair, you too)
Oh, and the article also says that it can cost $600,000 in electricity to power a roller coaster for a season. Weird... is that a launched one or no?
Anyway, here's that link.
Here is a link to a local news channel out of the Pittsburgh area that has a neat video of Kennywood Park's new Ghostwood Estate dark ride.
Seeing the trackless ride in action makes it even more impressive looking. I hope Holloween Productions Inc. gets many more contracts for dark rides after other parks check out Ghostwood Estate.
© 2008 GAInsider.com
Kennywood Park had their media day for their new haunted house, Ghostwood Estate, and Kennywood Connection has some great photos of the ride.
The dark ride turned out really great! The theming is very high quality, and the ride looks like a lot of fun with all the targets. It also looks like the ride has some special effects that are not normally seen outside of the big themers.
Congrats to Kennywood on what looks like a great new attraction for 2008.
It looks like Star Trek The Experience in Las Vegas really is going to be closed by the end of the year. The attraction, at the Las Vegas Hilton, is currently owned and operated by Cedar Fair, which ended up with the attraction when they purchased the former Paramount Parks.
This article from TrekMovie says that a Cedar Fair spokesperson said that they have no plans to renew their contract with CBS for the attraction when it expires in the end of 2008. Since they would be responsible for clearing out the rides, they'd probably close it in the fall to have enough time.
Looks like the on way it could be saved is if Cedar Fair sold the whole thing and the new owner negotiated a new contract to keep it open. Go visit it while you can if you've ever wanted to check it out!
Oh, and for the conspiracy theorists out there, the GM of Star Trek The Experience is Dick Kinzel's (Cedar Fair's CEO) son!
Here is the 2nd part of my Dorney Park opening day photos. This section is pretty much all Voodoo shots.
This way to Voodoo! All the sign posts have been updated.
Let's start with the ride's entrance sign. It's awesome. It totally clashes with the bright (somewhat unappealing) orange of the station, but the sign itself is fantastic.
The logo is only somewhat 3D, but features those awesome fake melted candles at the base of it. Dorney really does have an eye for detail with this stuff, like Hydra's smoking dragon head on its sign, even the meteor rocks they created for around Meteor.
The view as you approach Voodoo on the park's lower midway. This pic is one of many, many shots I could take that make me wonder why Dorney is still mocked for having too few trees!
Getting closer... the ride really towers over the park.
This one was taken from the bridge that passes over the creek.
Here's the new Voodoo plaza, if you will. The station and queue sit pretty much right on the midway, and on ground level unlike Steel Force, Talon, and Hydra, so you can get up real close to the ride. That makes it's presence very different from previous coasters at the park.
The station from the opposite side.
They made an area where you can get really close to the launch section, which will be great for watching riders once the ride is operating.
Here are some closer shots of the trains. Here are cars one and two. Again, the seats are purple, like Dominator's and Thunderhawk's (no not Dorney's rides ... at Kings Dominion and Michigan's Adventure - which makes me realize Cedar Fair copied a lot of Dorney names for stuff...).
Here you can see the end of car 4 which is the last of the 'new' part of the train. Starting with car 5 you can see that the train is the old style from Geauga Lake.
Here's the bulk of the queue for the ride. I'm really surprised that it doesn't have any shade covers. If they do not add them that's going to be really horrible in the summer.
Then the queue wraps around the supports for the holding-brake tower in this little area.
... and then heads back to the station. The emergency exit for the ride empties into the seating area for Monster Grille as seen above.
Here are some close up shots. We have the holding-brake tower, the actual holding brakes, and the stopper at the top of that same tower.
Taking a look at Voodoo's area, or plaza, or whatever, some work was done here as well. Above is the basketball game that was relocated for Voodoo, it's now where Laser's sign used to be.
Here's a mega picture of stuff. At the top of Possessions, a new store that has a ton of Voodoo merchandise, and plenty of other ride related items as well. There's a second version of the sign for the store in the lower left which is awesome, the games by Voodoo are now officially the Voodoo Games (used to be Laser games) - And Voodoo has it's own flags flying around the ride as seen on the right. That was a really horrible run-on sentence.
I'll finish with some photos that show Voodoo from all over, here's one of Laser with Voodoo's towers behind it.
Here is the twist tower from across the creek.
And here's a nice one that was taken over the creek by the Zephyr station area. This is another one that makes me wonder why people say the park has no trees...
Okay that'll do it for me! That was a lot of resizing and editing and posting for one day. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks to Dorney for a good time!
Today was Dorney Park's opening day for the 2008 season. The weather wasn't that great, but I made it out to the park to take some pictures, enjoy some rides, and see what's new this year.
As we know, Voodoo is not opening until late May. They have some new banners up in the park featuring Voodoo.
They've just started construction for the building that will hold Club Blood this fall. They took out some of the hill that was here and put a construction wall up.
View from the other side. When on Hydra I could see that they have cleared out the area for the building, but it looks like construction is still in the early stages.
99.9 The Hawk was at the park for opening day, they had a spinning wheel that guests could try to win a prize at - not sure what they would have won, though.
The Peanuts characters are the only entertainment in the park until Memorial Day weekend.
Hydra was open, along with all the other coasters except Voodoo and Laser. I took a spin on Hydra and the rattle was really bad today. Aside from that it's still a fun ride.
Very little difference, but this island finally got a little fence around it - I always hated seeing people tromping through it during the summer when it's full of flowers.
Just needed to stop and take a pic to show how Voodoo looks from across the park.
This deal is back again this year, if you're going to visit often and like to drink a lot, well, I guess it makes sense!
Just wanted to take these shots because I can with my new camera!
I took notice of these little guys and had to snap a picture, they're so cute! Too bad they grow up to be pretty mean birds...
Not sure exactly what the deal was with this, but it made me feel like I was in Disney with people trying to sell me a timeshare. It's probably something along those lines ... but I was going to let them give me the speech in order to find out for sure.
The Whip got a fantastic new sign! I really like the design. But that's not all the love that the ride got...
The entire attraction has a new wood floor this year. They were also able to make an exit from the ride platform that helps better control crowds. Three cheers to Dorney for not only keeping this classic, but actually spending a good deal of cash to give it the attention it needs!
Laser's sign was moved when it was displaced by a basketball game. For the record, the ride has no new paint and no visible changes that I could tell.
Solomon's Snacks has turned into Icee Mix It Up. I hope they have a hose nearby to clean the place up during the summer! Looks fun though, really - not very popular today because it was so cold!
I was taking a break and realized just how much the trees and stuff has grown in around Camp Snoopy over the years. Now that the trees are so big the Camp aspect sure fits better!
They're pushing Season Passes in a lot of ads around the park, also making note that pass holders get in free to The Haunt this fall - something that all Cedar Fair parks seems to be marketing this year.
Sorry for the glares - here's a couple new posters that are on the side of the Arcade, one for The Haunt and a nice Voodoo poster.
Part 2 will be all the Voodoo photos I took - there are many. That part will be up soon!
Sorry for the lack of cool updates today, it's been very busy in NewsPlusNotes' part of the world lately... but tomorrow Dorney opens so we'll have a huge update for that!
But as for this post, Michigan's Adventure has posted some new photos of Thunderhawk. I really like the finishing touches they are adding to the ride. And they even planted more trees in the ride's 'infield!' I think the train colors are cool too, Cedar Fair P&D must have had purple on the mind last year (see Dominator's trains).
Here's the pics.
© 2008 ThemeParkVillage
In April we had 429 votes in our monthly poll, a rather nice turnout. The question was: What is the Best Operating North American Schwarzkopf Custom Coaster? (phew, that was a mouth full, but yeah I'm specific)
So SuperDooperLooper at Hershey Park came in tops with 30% of the total vote. This ride and Revolution at Magic Mountain were trading places constantly during the month, but toward the end SuperDooperLooper squeaked ahead by 10 votes. Of its many attributes, I must say that SuperDooperLooper's tunnel is awesome, it has that perfect musty old smell!
In second, as previously mentioned, is Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain. The ride had a respectable 28% of the total vote, which is somewhat kind considering the ride's menacing over the shoulder restraints.
However, the ride has a lot of colorful history, and obviously has a soft spot in the hearts of many of our readers.
Third: Mindbender at Six Flags Over Georgia with 19% of the total votes. The green machine makes use of the park's terrain and while I haven't been on it, it certainly looks like a fun ride.
Rouding out the pack we have Six Flags Great America's Whizzer with 15% of the vote in 4th place, and Shockwave at Six Flags Over Texas with 7%. Both of these are surprising, considering Whizzer's last minute save from the junk yard when Superman was going in due to fan 'revolt' and well, Shockwave just looks awesome. What do I know though!
Thanks to all for voting, the new poll will be up momentarily.
The results for the Coaster101 Attraction Awards are in!
Click here to check out the winners.
Disney has launched a pretty cool website for Hong Kong Disneyland's Small World ride. On the website they have pictures and descriptions of each and every Disney character that is featured in the ride.
You can click through and see if you like the Small World Disney stylized characters, which after doing just that I can firmly say that I do like them. They also have info on all the ride's other dolls, the artistic design of the ride, even wallpapers for your computer.
Here's the link.
