Weekly Rewind 5.22.10

Next stop, Thomas Town! Six Flags America has announced that their new Thomas Town section will open on June 5th. The park's largest expansion in a decade will feature 8 rides and attractions. Celebrations on the 5th include a birthday party for Thomas as well.

Some of the cast from the Harry Potter series visited Islands of Adventure to get a preview of the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter. For more photos and videos of the cast's visit, check out this link.

GoErie has a really fantastic look at Waldameer's Whacky Shack dark ride, which is celebrating it's 40th birthday this year. The classic dark ride is a Bill Tracy design, and deserves every ounce of credit it receives. Read the story here.

KPConnection has come through with an excellent photo update of the recently completed Sky Rocket at Kennywood. I must say the ride adds to the park's skyline nicely, and the ride itself looks like it will be fast and intense!

Nighttime fun abounds at Busch Gardens Tampa this summer. The park will debut Kinetix, which features "live musicians, singers, dancers and artists from around the world for an original, non-stop 30-minute contemporary rock experience that delivers awesome lighting effects, modern music and high-energy performances." Many of the park's rides will also have special effects added at night also. Additional shows, in park DJs and more add to the fun.

Old Coney Island Luna Park meets new Luna Park. In celebration of the rebirth of Luna Park the Coney Island History Project will open an exhibit taking a look back at the original on May 29th. The exhibition can be viewed free of charge in the Project's center located under the Cyclone coaster.

Quick progress continues to be made on the building structure for Knoebel's Black Diamond coaster/dark ride. In new photos posted to the park's Facebook we can see that the third level of the structure is now going in. I can't wait for this ride to open next year!

Wild Adventures Theme Park is opening a new show this weekend, named Country Rocks Live! The show is actually a collaboration between the park and Valdosta State University's Theater Department. What a great idea to work with educators - talk about gaining real life experience! Check out the new show's schedule at the park's website for more information.

Holiday World's online auction of their staff to raise funds for the Nashville area flood victims was a huge success. The park raised over $12,000 for the efforts, matching the total bid on the employees when all was said and done.

Dollywood is doing their part to help flood victims as well. A portion of all proceeds from the park's admission tickets this weekend will go toward the relief effort. It's wonderful to see parks stepping up and helping out!

Surprise! Sea World Texas has added two new bowl style water slides to one of their existing slide towers without much news beforehand. I hadn't heard of the addition anywhere, but the park is now tweeting photos of the completed slides.

Closer and closer to it's grand opening, SplashTown at Darien Lake looks to be having finishing touches applied. The park deserves credit for using some unique colors on the new slides!