Thursday 19 January 2017

News Update 19th January 2017

It's been a fairly quiet week for theme parks this week, so let's get started on a quick Theme Park News Update!

Starting in Universal Orlando, the Jimmy Fallon Race Through New York ride, that we mentioned last week, has been announced as opening April 6th. More interestingly though, it was also announced it was going to utilize a virtual queue. However, they aren't going to be the first ride to use this Virtual Queuing system, as Universal quietly debuted this system for the Minion Mayhem ride this week.

At Epcot, the Festival of the Arts opened this week, the latest in an increasingly long list of festivals at WDW (particularly at Epcot). This event combines the Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Culinary Arts together, with displays and showcases of each around world showcase it. It did give us a chance to see some Art themed food, and who wouldn't like a bit more of that in their lives.

Disneyland resort announced the MaxPass which is a paid version of FastPass+ with a photopass thrown in. Interesting priced at $10 a day, the pass, is $29 cheaper than just getting a photopass, and gives great option to reserve ride times. It was always going to be interesting how FP+ translated to Disneyland, that has a much higher proportion of local visitors that WDW, however to charge for the privilege is a new one for Disney. Not surprising though, since there is money to be made!

Both Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood have announced their plans for the Lunar New Year celebrations (which in Australia we still call Chinese New Year). They are celebrating with Kung Fu and Chinese food, so I'm not sure who is kidding who at this point. Looking forward to wishing you all a Happy Year of the Rooster!

Quick question, what do ZZ Top, Lynard Skynard and the Village People have in common? They are all headlining the new Seven Seas Food Festival at SeaWorld Orlando, running from February through to May. This is very likely to be the only post ever on this blog that ever mentions ZZ Top, so you enjoy that!

At home, Dreamworld reopened one of their icon rides, the Tower of Terror, last Thursday, and Hot Wheels Sidewinder just a few days ago. They are on track to have everything back open in the next month.

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

1 comment:

  1. Be interesting to see how Dreamworld goes over the next year, if people's confidence becomes restored :)

    ReplyDelete