Sea World Orlando and actually Sea World Entertainment in general has been on a tear lately with introducing new coasters across all of their parks and Orlando is getting another one with Icebreaker.
Icebreaker will be a Premier Rides coaster and will feature forwards and reverse launches riders 52mph on a 90 second adventure through a course that is 2,750 feet.
Another Sea World owned park in Florida got an announcement as well. The RMC transformed Gwazi will be opening at Busch Gardens Tampa next year (a year after Tigris another coaster opened). The new Gwazi will be 206 feet tall and go 76 mph with inversions and a vertical drop of 91 degrees.
Concept art of Gwazi
So what do you think of these new Florida additions? Comment your thoughts below and if you would like to donate to the blog then that would be much appreciated and thank you very much!
Hello everyone! Sorry it has been awhile, I have been busy this week with work and other things, but I am back now and ready to continue to put out articles every few days. About ten days ago I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain with my family and while at the park I wanted to document everything the park can do to improve and become a quality theme park such as Disney and Universal. I also filmed a West Coast Racers update which can be viewed here.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING
With anything, a first impression is very important because it sets the tone for the day. At Disney you park and come down the escalators to Disney music playing and a beautifully themed parking area. Here at Six Flags it is very different…
The parking area has no signage whatsoever
When you first enter the Magic Mountain (MM) parking lot it is very wide and open, yet there is no signage to the buses or even where the park is. They just go with the “Look all the roller-coasters are over there so that’s must be where I walk” thought process. Also when MM opens up the extended overflow lot, it is just a dirt lot which is not very attractive to park your car on or look at.
I suggest MM should build a parking structure on the dirt lot to add parking spaces, but also open up space for Hurricane Harbor expansion on the existing surface parking lot. They also need to add signage directing guests to the buses and parks.
Two buses not operational
When I went to the park, it was a very busy day with most people heading to Hurricane Harbor. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture above, Six Flags decided not to run all the available buses and a huge line formed in the parking lot as a result.
There was no shade by the way in that line and it was at least 95 degrees outside. So my family and I made the roughly 10-15 min walk to the entrance gates (no shade the whole way) and on the way I saw this multiple times throughout the lot.
Open trash cans filled to the brim EWWWWW
This is absolutely shameful and disgusting. Disney nor Universal first off do not have these kinds of trash cans and second they would not leave them so full that trash is spilling on to the floor. This is absolutely disgusting and again ruins that first impression a guest has when they are new to this park.
Luckily, inside the park that trash cans are closed, but just because this is the parking lot does not mean they should treat this area differently. Now it is time to move inside the park.
Cobwebs in the queue
The main gripe I have with inside the park are the operations and maintenance of things. For example in the Viper queue there are tons of cobwebs hanging on the ceiling as if it is Fright Fest 365 days a year in there or something. Most of the older rides queues are in horrible shape and vastly need to be improved.
The newer rides such as Drop of Doom have a nice clean and indoor queue which is shockingly good for Six Flags standards. Then we come to the operations and dispatches which are so incredibly slow it is insane. Six Flags coasters have mostly just two trains on the track but they are so slow in releasing each train it causes the other train to wait on the block brake for a minute or two until the train in the station leaves.
The wait times for rides were not that long, but can be vastly improved by speedier operations. Also signage that indicates the wait time in front of the rides would really help as I only noticed this on two rides the entire time I was there. Another thing Six Flags should add and promote is the Single Rider lines. When we were in line for Scream (which was only running one train) the train came through the station multiple times and left with at least 5-8 single seats open every time. A single rider line could really help to fill those remaining seats and because they were not filled, our wait time was increased by at least 20 min.
We left the park at about 9 pm and I had fun documenting all the things that Six Flags can improve in all of their parks. What do you think Six Flags should improve? Comment below!
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Lots of brand new details of Epcot’s transformation were confirmed today at D23 and I am going to break it all down right here in this article.
New Festival Center
Festival Center Concept Art
Part of the transformation of Epcot includes a brand new three story festival center and nighttime spectacular viewing area. Personally, I think this looks fantastic and will be a great addition to the park and add some lovely greenery and open spaces to the park. This coupled with the addition of the Moana water gardens will be amazing to walk through.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
Guardians of the Galaxy Concept Art
It was revealed that Epcot will be home to a Xandarian Outpost that will home to the Guardians of the Galaxy. In Cosmic Rewind riders will be able to experience the first ever reverse launch in a Disney coaster! This will be a story telling coaster in which each car will rotate to show you all the show scenes as you travel throughout the ride.
World Showcase
A few new things are coming to the World Showcase. A new CircleVision film will be coming to the Canada Pavilion. Ratatouille Remy’s Adventure will be coming to the France Pavilion as well as a new crepery.
Remy’s Concept Art
A new Mary Poppins “Highly Immersive” ride will be coming to the U.K Pavilion in time for Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.
New Epcot Neighborhoods
At the end of the presentation it was announced that Epcot will be rezoned into four distinct neighborhoods that better suit the new theme and direction that the park is going in. Also Spaceship Earth will go through an extensive refurb that will change every single scene except the Industrial Revolution. Lastly, the restaurant next to Mission Space will be called Space 220.
So what do you guys think of all the Epcot announcements? Comment your thoughts below! Also if you would like to subscribe or leave a donation it really helps out this blog so thank you very much!
As part of a slew of announcements last night, Bob Chapek revealed more concept art and an official name for the Star Wars hotel being built next to Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. Not much new info is known besides the rumored price of $3,300 for two nights for a single person and $7,000 for multiple people. Stay tuned as this story will be updated on Sunday with more information as soon as it is provided!
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In a bit of unexpected surprising news and the first of many stories about Epcot, a Moana themed attraction is on its way to the park. According to Disney this attraction will, “Let guests interact with magical living water in a beautiful and inspiring setting.”
Above is a model of the attraction which looks very spacious and tropical. Depending on how interactive this is, I think it will be a nice thing for families to do (especially at night) and it will add to a growing list of attractions at Epcot which is a great thing.
What do you think of this new attraction? Comment your thoughts below!
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Full Avengers Campus Concept Art photo courtesy of OC Register
Tonight during the D23 media preview, Bob Iger revealed that the official name of Marvel Land will be Avengers Campus and there was some concept art that finally reveals the entire land in one piece.
The name Avengers Campus is not too much of a surprise because Jim Hill actually leaked that name over a year ago on his podcast. Unfortunately, Disney did not choose one of the cooler names that DSNY Newscast leaked a few weeks ago.
Breaking down this concept art piece by piece, we see that the Spider-man attraction is featured prominently with more detail still including the swinging Spider-man and crane feature that I think will host a stunt show of some sort. In the middle we see the Avengers “A” as a sort of central gathering point in the middle of the land. It is widely assumed that the microbrewery will be located to the left of the plaza and the Avengers gift shop will be located just above the plaza. That means the Doctor Strange show will be located to the bottom right of the plaza and that looks like just the right amount of space for a Jedi Training Academy type show. If we get any more details on Avengers Campus Sunday I will update them here so stay tuned!
UPDATE: NEW SPIDER MAN CONCEPT ART AND AVENGERS E TICKET RIDE ART
So the Parks Panel just finished up and we got some great new concept art and details about the Spider man ride and Avengers ride. Starting off with the Spider man ride it seems like the backstory is that the W.E.B is hosting an open house and we guests get to test out their new vehicles in their facility. Along the way we will be fighting spiderbots they have gotten loose within the facility. Guests will be using webslingers to capture the bots using augmented reality.
Concept art for Spiderman Attraction
Next up we have the Avengers ride coming to the Timon lot at California Adventure,
Concept art for Avengers E Ticket
Very little details were given about this ride so far except that, “Guests will be flying alongside the quinjet to Wakanda to help the Avengers defeat one of their most powerful foes.” To me that sounds like we will be going through the final battle of Wakanda from Infinity War. Disney has stated that Imagineers are coming up with an innovative new ride system for this attraction which is good because at first it seemed like a simulator, but hopefully it will be an innovative new coaster.
What are your thoughts on the name Avengers Campus, Avengers ride, Spiderman ride and the concept art in general? Let’s discuss below!
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Well Disney has finally listened to my suggestion of moving the entrance to the Sunset Showcase theater off of Hollywood Blvd so that it can be easily accessible and visible to guests. When Mickey’s Philharmagic opened a few months ago, not many guests were venturing in to see the new show and that is something that continues to be true to this day. The two times I saw the show the theater had a maximum of fifteen to twenty people inside.
One of the reasons that I was thinking had to do with the very low attendance is that guests simply did not know the show had existed and they could not find the entrance to the Sunset Showcase Theater. The theater is tucked away in the back-lot of Hollywood Land and guests really only see it if they are venturing out to go ride Monsters Inc. As for Philharmagic itself, there was absolutely no advertising by Disney in places such as the Esplanade or even in Hollywood Land itself to let people know that there was a new show back there.
Luckily, this summer Disney has been correcting this problem by re-configuring the Award Wieners seating area and queue for Sunset Showcase to have a direct entrance off of the main thoroughfare in Hollywood Land which is Hollywood Blvd.
New Sunset Showcase entrance, All photos courtesy of WDWNT
So what do you think of the new marquee and entrance? Will you now be going to see Mickey’s Philharmagic? Did you know the show or theater existed before this article? Comment your thoughts below!
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So today some rather breaking and shocking news came out regarding Sony and Disney’s Spiderman deal. It was widely being reported that Sony and Disney were renegotiating the Spiderman deal and that Disney wanted a 50/50 partnership for future Spiderman movies compared to the 5% they get now per movie.
Spiderman is Sony’s biggest and arguably only franchise so it would make sense that Sony would want to keep most of the financial gain from Spiderman to keep the studio afloat. With that in mind, Sony quickly rejected Disney’s initial offer and is currently negotiating a new deal or is threatening to take back full control of Spiderman putting the future of the MCU as it is right now at risk. It is also putting Marvel Land at risk because the headlining attraction is of course the Spiderman ride.
Lets say the deal falls flat and Sony gets back Spiderman, let’s talk about the potential implications of Marvel Land. So let’s say that Sony says that Spiderman cannot be a part of any attractions in Marvel Land, what will Disney do? Well for one I can definitely tell you the ride will be delayed by a few months to possibly a year because Disney will have to change it to a new Marvel character (I vote Captain America or Doctor Strange) as well as re-film all of the scenes and change out psychical sets to match the new story of the attraction. That would be quite the blow to California Adventure as it definitely needs continued investment and rather quickly. It would also be a blow to the Disneyland Parks Panel at D23 because the main announcement for Disneyland is Marvel Land as well as a model showing the land.
So what do you think about this developing story and how it will impact the theme parks? Comment below your thoughts I would love to know them!
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Welcome! Today am I going to list my top 5 rides at the Disneyland Resort! I would love for you to comment below whether you agree or disagree with this list. This top 5 is from both Disneyland and California Adventure so let’s get started right now!
5. Hyperspace Mountain
I absolutely love this version of Space Mountain. It is my favorite version that is offered at the Disneyland Resort and it takes you on the same track as the classic Space Mountain, but with special effects and music themed to Star Wars. This version is currently being offered at Disneyland right now and an end date is not known at this time.
4. Radiator Springs Racers
Arguably the best themed attraction Disney ever made is 4th on my list because the other three rides ahead of it are more thrilling, but mark my words this is a MUST DO attraction while your at the Disneyland Resort. This attraction and Cars Land itself are a reason to get a park hopper ticket alone. This masterpiece of a ride is half dark ride (with incredibly impressive animontronics with mouths that move on some of them) and half thrill ride implementing a Test Track like system that propels the vehicles on a racing track to the finish line. Not only is the ride amazing, but its showbuidling is among the best out there. Cadillac Range is so beautiful you forget you are at Disneyland and think you are in the deserts of Arizona.
3. Incredicoaster
This thing is an absolute thrill machine for Disney standards and I absolutely love it! Blasting off from 0-55 mph in 4.2 seconds is such an amazing feeling and going up and down through drops and twists and turns is exhilarating. Then of course there is the iconic loop over the Pixar Pier logo that can be nauseating at first if you suffer from motion sickness, but riding it again and again eases it considerably. In terms of theming, I feel Disney could have done a lot better inserting the Incredibles theming in there and I feel they went cheap with all static figures and Jack Jack hanging on a stick. If you are a thrill seeker, then definitely ride this when you visit California Adventure.
2. Splash Mountain
Personally, I think Splash Mountain is better here at Disneyland than at the Magic Kingdom because I like our style of the music and the style of logs more over at Disneyland. I also love that our indoor drop is a roller coaster style “U shaped” drop. Splash Mountain is so iconic because of its theming, songs, animatronics, and family fun atmosphere. This is really a ride you can take the entire family on and pose for the picture at the end.
Number One: Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout!
Here we go the absolute best Disney ride in the world in my opinion. Yes, people will probably completely disagree with me and hate me for it, but I really love the ride system of this drop tower whether it is Tower of Terror or Mission Breakout. Mission Breakout is definitely more thrilling and I love the selection of songs they chose for the ride. It is even more exciting that it will be anchoring an entire Marvel Themed land next year so it won’t look so out of place in the future.
Well that is my list of top 5 rides, what’s yours? List them in the comment section below and lets compare and contrast!
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Finally! Those of you who have been following my Youtube channel and Twitter for a while know that I have been waiting for this moment to happen for months! It was heavily rumored months ago that as part of Project Stardust that the massive French Fry rocks would be coming down at the entrance to Tomorrowland.
Then it was pushed back until sometime after Galaxy’s Edge opened because of expected crowds that never showed up. Now it is almost Fall and the project is under construction in full force. It is actually a two part project, one part deals with lowering the curbs on the East side of the hub, and the other part deals with bringing the rocks down. Below is a current view of what it looks like inside the construction walls.
Tomorrowland marquee is gone and to the left the rocks are ready to be demolished. All images courtesy of MiceChat.
Image courtesy of Micechat
Here are some photos of the curb lowering portion of the project and again all images are courtesy of fellow blog Micechat.
I am very excited to see this project finally happen. It will take a couple months for both sides of the rocks to come down, but when they do we will have a grand wide open entrance to Tomorrowland. It is unclear if the Tomorrowland marquee is coming back in its current form or not, but I would personally like to see an arched version like the one at Walt Disney World come to our Tomorrowland.
This project along with rumors heating up of a complete Tomorrowland revamp (potentially to be announced this weekend at D23) have me super excited that we could be getting a brand new Tomorrowland within the next few years possibly beginning constrcution as early as next year! If you would like to hear the latest Disneylan rumor update regarding the future of Tomorrowland click here!
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If you are planning to visit the Disneyland Resort this weekend for D23 or in the next few weeks for the Halloween festivities then save some money with my special ticket deal via travel partner GET AWAY TODAY! Find exclusive offers and all kinds of discounts at this link and use the code: TPW for discounts off packages!
That’s it for today’s Disneyland update, what do you think of the curb and rocks projects? Are you excited for a potential new Tomrrowland? What would you put in a new Tomorrowland? Comment your thoughts below!
Theme Park Universe 