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!

News Update - 12th January 2017

Its been another big week, so let's get into another theme park news update!

Earlier this week, SeaWorld Orlando announced the death of its largest and most infamous Orca Tillikum at the age of 36. Tillikum became well known after the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010 and the subsequent movie Blackfish about the tragedy in 2013. Since SeaWorld is no longer breeding or capturing Orcas, this generation of these marine mammals will be their last.

Following Tillikum's passing, SeaWorld San Diego announced it was going to end Orca shows this weekend. The Orca enclosure is getting a revamp, and trainers will still have demonstrations of behaviors however they won't be part of a show.

Staying in the U.S., Panasonic named projection partner for the two U.S. Disney resorts. While traditionally Disney has used less screens than competitor Universal, projection is a bIig deal for parks these days. In other news, Theme Park Insider pointed out that for the first time in 2 years Disneyland is just Disneyland. It's a funny state of affairs when nothing happening is news.

More details have surfaced about the new Jimmy Fallon ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. While flying around New York, you'll be able to enjoy the smell of pizza and get wet from a plunge in the East River.  Sounds vaguely interesting in what is shaping to be the year of the flying theatre attraction.

Screamscape has done a rough estimate of the throughput of Flight of Passage in Avatarland at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is Disney's next flying theatre. It is estimate to take 1800 guests per hour (around what Star Tours can support) which a huge boost for park capacity.

At Movie World, 20 guests were inconvenienced yesterday when they were forced to evacuate the Arkham Asylum ride which stopped due to a mechanical fault. While it's news here, there was really nothing dangerous or unusual about this incident. It was only big news because of the recent tragedy at Dreamworld.

Speaking of Dreamworld, the park has reported that their revenue since reopening on December 10th until the end of December was down 63% compared to the same period in 2015. It is worth noting that a number of the key rides were closed for this period and the iconic Tower of Terror and Giant Drop rides still remain closed. This means that the park has lost around $15 million in expected earnings in November and December of 2016.

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

News Update - 5th January 2017

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!

2016 Year in Review

This year has been a massive year for theme parks both good and bad. To be honest, I've been watching most of it from the sidelines as, in real life, our son was born in May and we've hardly slept since. However 2017 is a new year, and I'm already working on how to get a bit more blogging done in the new year. Without any further ado, here is a 2016 theme park round up!

In short, internationally it's been a year of massive openings. In Australia it's been a year of tragedy and closures.

Let's start overseas.

Any year that a Magic Kingdom opens is automatically a big year in theme parks. In 2016 it was Shanghai Disneyland. The second Disney park in China after Hong Kong, this is the biggest Disney build since Tokyo DisneySea.  The park is anchored by a handleful of new or reimagined attractions most notably a brand new Pirates of the Caribbean and the TRON Lightcycle Power Run. This is a great park but we probably have to wait another 6-12 months to know just how well received it will be by the locals.

In the U.S. there were two big openings for Universal theme parks, one on each coast. WWoHP at Universal Studios Hollywood was an almost complete copy of the original WWoHP in Oralndo. Not surprisingly this had been a winner for the Hollywood park, which was already increasing in attendance before thos enhancement.

In Orlando, Islands of Adventure opened Skull Island: Reign of Kong. This attraction is based on a portion of the Hollywood studio tour however it has been massively scaled up. Once again the reaction was very positive, with the only real negative being the "adult" nature of the ride. While not the scale of Diagon Alley, this is yet another hit for Universal Orlando Resort.

CityWalk at UOR also added a pretty insane restaurant this year, with the opening of Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. I haven't heard a bad word about this place, and certainly the pictures of this place look amazing (although some have said their menu was designed for Instagram).

Over at Walt Disney World there has been a mixed bag this year. Epcot opened Frozen Ever After as a replacement for Maelstrom in the Norway section of World Showcase. This has, not surprisingly, been incredibly popular. Over at Animal Kingdom, their brand new show Rivers of Light failed to actually open. Due to open on April 22nd, it was announced om April 5th that it wouldn't open on time. In it's place a smaller show connected to the luce action Jungle Book movie was thrown together. Rivers of Light is still expected to open some time in 2017.

Over in the U.A.E, a brand new multi-park resort opened. Dubai Parks and Resorts consists of three theme parks and one water park: Motiongate Dubai, Bollywood Parks Dubai, LEGOLAND Dubai and LEGOLAND Water Park opened December 18th. While all the LEGOLAND parks are cut from the same fabric, Motiongate and Bollywood are brand new park concepts. It'll take a while to know how popular this new resort will be but initial signs are positive, particularly for tourist flows from Southern Asia and Europe.

In Australia, boxing day 2015 brought the retheming of the Cyclone rollercoaster into the Hot Wheels Sidewinder and the opening of the motorsport precinct at Dreamworld. Later in the year Dreamworld opened Tiger Cub Kindy as a temporary attraction while Tiger Island was completely refurbished. The new improved Tiger Island has improved stadium seating for viewing the Tiger Behavioural Presentations. Dreamworld also refurbished their Ice Cream Parlor this year. This park actually had gone through quite a rejuvenation this year before the tragic events of October, which we'll  discuss in a second.

At Movie World they opened the brand new Doomsday Destroyer ride and DC Super Villains Unleashed precinct in September this year. This opening represents probably the most detailed themed area in Australian theme parks and a real plus for the Gold Coast park. The area it replaced was largely wasted space since the closure of the show stage, so it is great to have it filled with a quality attraction (even if I think it's strange that is separate from main DC attractions). Movie World also added Australia's first VR Coaster experience on Arkham Asylum this year, altough Dreamworld very quickly followed this up in the Motocoaster.

Movie World's sister park Sea World had no major openings this year but similar to the other parks went through a rejuvenation program this year including opening a new and improved central plaza. The parks are starting to look very nice ahead of the upcoming 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

On Tuesday 25th of October a tragic accident occurred on the Thunder River Rapids ride that resulted in the horrific death of 4 Dreamworld guests. By some miracle 2 children on the same raft as the victims survived this accident. The accident appears to have been caused by an empty raft getting stuck at the bottom of the conveyor belt that returns rafts to the load/unload station. Tragically a second raft with 6 passengers struck this raft and was flipped backwards; spilling it's passengers onto the partially submerged conveyor belt mechanism. Dreamworld remained closed until December 10th, while investigations and safety audits were conducted. Not surprisingly the Thunder River Rapids and Rocky Hollow Log rides have been permanently closed and removed from the park map. Dreamworld has been taking time to reopen their major thrill rides, most of which did not reopen with the park.

Dreamworld and the other Gold Coast parks have all safety audits. We believe this is the reason why Sea World decommissioned their log flume Vikings Revenge at the end of this year.

We hope that after this horrific event and the subsequent safety clamp down across the Australian theme park industry, that we never have to have a tragedy like this in Australia ever again.

There are certainly things to be excited about in Australian parks in the next twelve months. Dreamworld is going to open a Lego store at the front of the park, which was due to open in November this year but is now expected in the new year. And of course we are very excited for
Movie World's new hypercoaster (or near hypercoaster) which is under construction at the front of the park. It hasn't been officially announced but we are expecting a Mack looping Hypercoaster similar to the Flash coaster in China. From the teaser poster we expect this to open in September 2017.

Hope that all you fellow Theme Park Nuts have a safe and happy New Year. Let's hope for a bigger and better 2017!

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

Dreamworld Thunder River Rapids Tragedy

On Tuesday 25th of October at approximately 2:30 PM a tragic accident occurred on the Thunder River Rapids ride that resulted in the horrific death of 4 Dreamworld guests. By some miracle 2 children on the same raft as the victims survived this accident. The accident appears to have been caused by an empty raft getting stuck at the bottom of the conveyor belt that returns rafts to the load/unload station. Tragically a second raft with 6 passengers struck this raft and was flipped backwards; spilling it's passengers onto the partially submerged conveyor belt mechanism.

I'm not going to write much on this tragedy. It is very hard to write about. If I could pass one comment on this, the Australian media, in general, has acted like a pack of pathetic soulless vultures on this issue. They should be ashamed.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the grieving families of these victims. Words cannot express the sorrow that we feel for your loss. This tragedy has broken the heart of all Australian theme park enthusiasts (and many overseas), and our theme parks will truly never be the same.

Rest in Peace Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorset, Roozbeh Araghi and Cindy Low. 

Movie World Trip Report October 2016

Movie World have just opened there most recent attraction, Doomsday Destroyer as part of the new DC Villains precinct. Since the local school holidays have just finished, it was the perfect time to check it out.

The former site of boot hill, is now the world's first DC Super-villain precinct. 

The area is anchored by Doomsday Destroyer, a suspended twin hammer. But the real attraction for me is the great theming in the Villains area.

Each villain is interactive in some way. Although the don't move, the action poses make these guys look impressive.

Not to mention creepy!

A new garden!

Some of the villians have add smoke or water effects to make them more impressive.

Ice to see you!

This guy was my favourite. I don't know who he is, but I'm totally with him.

And of course the Joker and Harley Quinn Make an appearance.

In case you were wondering, Wild West Falls is still there. There has been very little impact on this attraction from it's new neighbour. Overall I have to say this is probably on of the best themed areas in an Australian theme park. Tonnes of detail, and very cohesive. Although the choice of them doesn't really resonate with me, I do admire the effort that Movie World have put in here.

Else where in Movie World, keen fans can play a quick game of what's missing. Did you get it?

Although they've been behind walls for a while, the Chinatown gate for the old Leathal Weapon ride has finally come down.

And to finish on a personal note, Movie World's second newest attraction was definitely the highlight of my day. My daughter and I did many laps on this super fun ride!

Sea World Trip Report September 2016

This week we got a chance to return to Sea World after not visit visiting for about 6 months. Boy, has there been some changes in the park in that time!

While no new attractions have been added a lot of work has been done to front and middle of park that really improved the feel of the park. With both Dreamworld and Sea World having such dramatic face-lifts in the last 2 years, I think we are starting to see these parks hone their image for the upcoming Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (and the tourists that come with).

A few simple touches like a bridge being replaced, or a few new statues can make a huge difference.

The real star of the recent rejuvenation is The Plaza. 

This central dining retail precinct has been revamped with improved shop fronts and an awesome high roof added. 

However the biggest win here is, believe it or not, the new path.

 

This completely changes the flow of the park. It finally feels like you are headed the right way. To achieve this some of the unused rail line and station have been removed, as well as a shop from the entrance of Nickelodeon land, but it is well worth it. 

Plus Nickelodeon land now feels much more like a land, rather just some kids rides squished together. The Plaza opened last week, just in time for school holidays. 

I can also confirm the monorail is back in action and it definitely fits under the new Plaza roof. In general the park felt neater and cleaner. Even the underwater viewing at Shark Bay smelt better than previous visits.

This was also my first real chance to check out Creatures of the Deep. 

Much like it's predecessor Dinosaur Island, this attraction focuses on big things (mythical and real) making small movements with some sound. 

Thematically this is a better fit for Sea World than Dinosaur Island, and the animatronics are of better quality. But I love Dinosaurs, so it's a hard act to follow.

There is also a temporary attraction at what was the Polar Bear Cub enclosure, with 4 rescued New Zealand fur seals called Seal Rescue and Rehabilitation. 

I was surprised by the high level of detail added for this temporary attraction. It was very quiet too because almost no one new it was there.

Both the Sea Lion show and the Dolphin show were very impressive as always. In general, this was probably the best day I have had at Sea World! It is wonderful to see the park being looked after so well!