It's a new year! In a effort to increase my chances of getting blogs completed I'm moving the weekly news updates to Thursdays! Let's hope this year will give me more time. I'm also hoping to turn these weekly posts into vlogs. You'll hear more on that in the coming weeks.
Let's start by looking at theme park news in the last few weeks.
At Knott's Berry Farm this week we saw the family ride Sky Cabin get stuck with 21 people on board for 8 hours. Apparently after 3 hours attempting to lower the ride using normal evacuation procedures, the fire department was called in. After detailed investigation the riders were individual lowered by rope from the ride.
This week saw the last running of the Hollywood Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure at Disneyland Resort. A hard ticket event was run on January 1st to celebrate the ride that opened in DCA in 2004. The ride building has already started it's conversion to a Guardians of the Galaxy ride using the same ride system. Thankfully the original version of this ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando is not being changed at this stage. And it better not!
A new coaster has been announced this week for SeaWorld San Diego; the Electric Eel. This third coaster for the struggling west coast park is due to open in 2018.
It's been a busy few weeks at the major parks on the west coast with record attendance at Universal Studios Hollywood and Disneyland reaching capacity yesterday.
In Australia, at Movie World on the Gold Coast we saw the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster reopen after scheduled maintenance in a rather bizarre state on Boxing Day. The dark ride section of the ride had been completely gutted and temporary fences put around the track path. After a few days operating like this, temporary signs were added to explain that it was in the middle of a make over. It's been suggested that the down time of the new Doomsday Destroyer had severely impacted capacity in the park, so Scooby was rushed into operation half baked just for the school holidays peak.
For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!
Oooh vlogging very cool!! The scooby doo rushed operation definitely sound bizarre! I guess school holidays are crazy. I too vote they keep at least one tower of terror original!
ReplyDeleteI think my beautiful wife would go nuts if they changed the Tower of Terror in Orlando. Scooby doo is really weird but they must have needed the capacity. The vlogging is something I've wanted to do for a while, just hard to get organised!
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