Tuesday 13 January 2015

Theme Park News Update - 13th January 2015

Here is a quick round up of the last week in theme parks!

I told you in last weeks update to follow TDR Explorer, and those that followed my instructions would have seen why when they posted the best photos of 2014 at Tokyo Disney last week. They also delivered us a year in review for 2014. The Tokyo Disney resort is truly a beautiful resort, and some of those pictures are just magical. I must admit that seeing one of my family members visiting DisneySea this week, made me incredibly jealous. One day I'll get there!!

Something that I will never probably even attempt, let alone achieve is riding every WDW attraction in 24 hours. Sounds impossible? Well, followers of Parkeology know that it isn't, and now they have released a video of their extraordinary WDW46 challenge victory. Well worth checking out!!

Staying in the States, there were two very different articles that peaked my interest this week. One from our good friends at Theme Park Insider, where they are viewing the legal changes to make Gay Marriage Legal in Florida, through the prism of how it will be good for the Florida Theme Parks (particularly WDW). On the other end of the spectrum we have an Theme Park Review post with a Twisted Colossus Construction Update. The Twisted Colossus conversion is one of the more interesting roller coaster changes in progress at the moment, and I'm intrigued to see how the final product turns out.

I thought I would put in here my favorite tweet that I saw last week. Check out this WDW tech treat from Ian Brennan (@nannerb):

The major Disney construction news of the week was the closing of Condor Flats at Disney California Adventure. While Soarin' (the only attraction in this land) gets an upgrade, it sounds like a subtle re-themeing of the land into Grizzly Peak Airfield will take place. I wouldn't hold your breathe for anything amazing, but worth keeping an eye on it.

In Europe, Gardaland have named their up coming B&M Dive Coaster - Oblivion - The Black Hole. You've got to give them points for style at least.

In Australian Park News, the Gold Coast Bulletin has reported what seems to be a very honest account of how our Sea World protects its animals in the face of criticism that it is an "aquaprison". It's a very revealing article, and there is a clear push for Sea World to distance itself from the troubled US SeaWorld chain. I highly recommend giving it a read.

Sister park Movie World announced on it's facebook page today that it is running a film festival called the Stage One Film Festival hosted in the Roxy Theatre. Tickets are available here.


For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next week, Cheers!

2 comments:

  1. I saw that Sea World article and shamefully had no idea America stole the name and about the space between the words to differentiate. After watching black fish I definitely lumped both parks in the same basket. Even though the article was quite uplifting, I didn't realise that animals in captivity don't get released back into the wild. I was thinking zoos kept animals for rehabilitation and then released them. Ahh tricky subjects, I for one love going to zoos and I can see that the animals in zoos raised awareness and money for other important plights - so it's definitely not a black and white issue. *end rant* :) :)

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  2. Definitely a tricky subject! There are definitely some animal rehab programs associated with Zoos and Theme Parks, but they definitely aren't the norm. They are about entertainment more than anything else. I think the market has shifted in the past 20 years. Now these parks have to work hard at being conservationists, or they suffer. It wasn't that long ago that Animal-based Circus' were common place. They still exist now, but they aren't anywhere near as popular. Zoos and Theme Parks from early on tried to show they were better than that. Having said that the SeaWorld chain in the States has been the only major chain with no growth in revenue in the last (I think) 3 years, so maybe the tide is turning on them too.

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