Theme Park Nut News Update - 26th April 2016

This week had a few big stories in Theme Parks. We had a large press event at Walt Disney World, which gave us some general teasing of new attractions, although as usual we didn't get a lot of concrete dates out of Disney. We did get a few more fresh details of the Toy Story Land to be added to Hollywood Studios. The new art that has been associated with these releases, has led some fans to try to work out how Toy Story Land Star Wars Land will fit together. Which is pretty cool. We also heard today from WDW that Paddlefish is set to replace Fulton's Crab House at Disney Springs, although it is going to be run by the same parent company as the former Crab House.


Universal Orlando has raised ticket prices this week also, which lead to this hilarious tweet from Jason Garcia:

*Disney shows off upcoming stuff to media*

*Universal raises prices*

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) April 20, 2016

Staying in the US, Six Flags Magic Mountain has opened The New Revolution VR roller coaster to the general public, after extensive previews over the last month. It looks like a really interesting attraction.

Heading international, ThemeParks-UK have give us some news about the upcoming SW8 for Alton towers, including a potential layout for the attraction. Alton Towers have been giving us some great roller coasters as their "Secret Weapon"s. The strongest rumour at the moment is that this will be a wooden coaster!

Over in the UAE, a new park has been announced, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi. The park will feature DC Comic Superheroes, Scooby Doo, and classic Warner Bros. kids characters (like Bugs Bunny). This is not directly related to the other Warner Bros. Movie World parks (of which there was originally 3, but now only two on the Gold Coast and in Spain), but you can see the similar themes. It will be interesting to see what makes up this indoor park.

In Australia, the good news of the week is that Dreamworld's log ride has re-opened. After a very short closure, it was found the accident that occurred two weeks ago was due to rider behaviour and not a technical issue, which is good news for the 35 year old ride. At the same time Dreamworld have also started Google-mapping their parks, which is interesting! They will have to keep doing this, since their park has a number of structure changes happening at the moment (including the rebuild of Tiger Island), but still it will be a great little feature to be able to work through the park virtually!

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

Theme Park Nut Update - 19th April 2016

The biggest news this week in Australian Theme Park news, is that Rocky Hollow Log ride at Dreamworld has closed (temporarily) after a man was injured after a fall from the ride. There is some conjecture about how this happened, and whether the man in question may have had some kind of intellectual disability, however all that is confirmed for the moment is that this issue is being investigated as we speak. The ride is currently close, but despite some media reports, it is expected to reopen in the coming weeks.

Looking more globally, the news was also not good for Hong Kong Disneyland, where rumours suggest that employees are being laid off due to a slump in profits. Hong Kong tourism is a difficult thing to measure, as the fact that their dollar is tied to the US Dollar, means that the local Chinese market has massive swings in value from visiting the region. At the moment it is a bad swing, and so even with the wonderful new attractions at this park, there has not been a significant growth in visitors. Who can say what affect the opening of Shanghai will have on this market in the coming year as well.

This week we heard ThemeParkInsider remind us that we have another park, other than Shanghai Disneyland, opening this year with a spotlight piece on Motiongate Dubai. This park looks like such an interesting mix of IPs, who knows what it will look like when finished, or in 10 years time for that matter.

Over in Anahiem Disney officially "broke ground" on Star Wars land. But let's face it, this ground was broken MONTHS ago, so there isn't any great surprises here.

In Orlando, we got to see a POV of Mako the brand new coaster for Sea World. It looks like a thumping good ride, but it is totally to little to late for this park!! Over at WDW, Animal Kingdom has again delayed showing it's new show River's of Light. They must be going through some serious unexpected technical hurdles, to have pulled the plug on the media day for this show. Hopefully it will all be worth it, when the show debuts (we hope) some time this summer.

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

Theme Park Nut News Update - 12th April 2016

The biggest news of the last few weeks in the Theme Park world, was the official opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. While it had been soft opened for a while (which means we had a great collection of guides before it even opened), there was still plenty of celebration to be had when the newest world premiered. After it opened, it has started people wondering what is next for theme parks in Southern California. The short story is, there is plenty in the works for SoCal.

In contrast, Disney has has a less successful week.  Firstly, they had to delay the opening of the Rivers of Life show at Disney Animal Kingdom. Secondly, the heir apparent to the Disney leadership Tom Staggs announced that he was leaving Disney. Although it's not clear what has happened to take this turn of events, it does show that Bob Iger will be difficult to replace at Disney, if the best home grown candidate is happy to move on.

In good news for Disney, they have added (yet another) up charge event for  WDW's Magic Kingdom, with Disney Early Morning Magic. This was rumoured a couple of weeks ago, so it's not a surprise. It's certainly no surprise that Disney has found a way to take more cash from rich travellers pockets.

Legoland California has announced that there new Ninjago ride is going to open on May 5th, which is an awesome day, because it also happens to be my birthday.

On the opposite coast, Orlando's fastest ride, Mako is going to open at SeaWorld on June 10.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios Japan has announced that the Back to the Future Ride, the very last Back to the Future Ride, is going to close this May. It is quiet reasonable for it to pass on, since the ride itself is partial set in the "future" of 2015.

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

Dreamworld Ice cream Parlour

The Ice cream Parlour at Dreamworld  recently underwent a beautiful restoration, and it is now a beautiful pink with lovely retro style. They've added a few menu items as well, so i had to try the Krispy Kreme Ice cream sandwich. Before anyone asks, yes you can put whatever Ice cream you like in the Ice cream sandwich, and yes I put in Rainbow. Because Rainbow ice cream rules, that's why!

Theme Park Nut News Update - 26th March 2016

Well it's been nearly a month since my last update! We've been on holidays, and everyone has been sick here. Plus we have another little Nut on the way, which always keeps things busy!!

So here is 4 weeks worth of Theme Park News!!

At the start of March, we had Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters opened at Disney California Adventure. This ride is the replacement for Luigi's Flying Tires, which opened with the Carsland expansion of DCA. Sadly this ride never really had the kinks (both mechanically, and thematically) worked out of it, however the new ride looks like a much more interesting enhancement.

Disneyland Resort also set an opening date for their new Frozen musical as May 27th. This new show replaces the phenomenally popular Aladdin musical which had a 13 year run at the park. They have simultaneously announced the closure of the Frozen singalong show at DCA as April 17th. Meaning the resort will only have 2 Frozen musicals running at any one time, instead of a disgraceful 3.

Over at WDW, Disney has set an opening date for Rivers of Light, April 22nd. This new night time show at Disney's Animal Kingdom promises to be very different from any nighttime show currently presented at WDW.

WDW have also given us a new way to spend our money, I mean have more time in the Magic Kingdom, wit the introduction of the Disney After Hours event. It only costs $149 per person (yikes!). There is also a strong rumour, that they are going to be adding an Early Admission upcharge event as well, in the near future.

We also heard more about Shanghai Disneyland this month.

At Universal Orlando, we've started to get the first few tastes  at the upcoming Skull Island: Reign of Kong attraction at Island's of Adventure. This includes getting a look at some of the creatures that are going to be part of this ride. If they can tie all their effects together smoothly (which they have gotten very very good at recently) this is going to be one heck of a ride!

They have also announce this month that the NBA City restaurant, which has closed at Universal Orlando CityWalk, is going to be replace by an awesome looking Steampunk Chocolate Factory. The Toothsome Chocolate Factory will be a full menu restaurant, however it will clearly be heavily chocolate oriented.

Universal Hollywood has been all a buzz this year, with the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but this month the biggest news as that they are adding a new all-year-round Walking Dead attraction. Well the biggest news apart from raising their one-day ticket prices. They also added an expensive new type of Annual Pass this month, with no block out days. And since more UH visitors are either locals, or one of day visitors, that means this park has just got more expensive for everyone. And so it should have, it's got Harry freaking Potter!

Universal Japan has announced their Nintendo land is expected to open in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, which is ridiculously exciting news! No word on when other Universal parks in the U.S. or Singapore might be getting anything Nintendo related (but at least for Orlando, it is inevitable). USJ also opened the world's longest flying coaster, Jurassic Park: The Flying Dinosaur this month. 

Over at Knott's Berry Farm in California we got our first look at the food for this year's Boysenberry Festival. Now, I don't eat Boysenberries, but I'm willing to make an exception for some of these as they just look delicious!

Six Flags has taken a leaf out of Europa Parks book and announced it is bringing VR coaster experiences into their parks. The early reports of this technology is that it has worked really well, and people were not experiencing the nausea anticipated from the ride.

Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi has opened two new attracitions, including a really interesting looking trackless interactive dark ride called Benno's Great Race. It is great to see some of these non-major parks working with some really innovative companies to create really interesting attractions. 

Finally, the embattled SeaWorld parks in the U.S. have announced that they have ended their Orca Breeding Programs, which effectively means that there will be no more Orcas in these parks beyond their current rotation. This has come after enormous pressure from Green and Animal Rights groups over the last 5 years. I come down somewhere in the middle of this debate, where I am not concern with the keeping of animals for Zoos and Parks as long as the conditions are good enough. I also feel it's almost impossible to have conditions good enough for any kind of Whale, they are just too large. However, this is a big deal for SeaWorld, to effectively phase out what was previously their signature animal. The parks have been suffering incredibly large drops in attendance over the last couple of years, so maybe they need to change who they are to really keep themselves afloat. Only time will truly tell!

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

Theme Park Nut News Update - 1st March 2016

Officially I am holidays this week, so there isn't time for a full weekly update this week. But here is a few pointers:

U.S. Parks
- Disney legend Jack Lindquist passes away
- Disneyland and WDW to move to a seasonal pricing model
- Disneyland Resort sets opening day for Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters at March 7th.
- Universal Orlando give us first glimpses of Skull Island: Reign of Kong.
- Penn and Teller rumoured to return to universal's HHN

International Parks
- Alton Towers to reopen The Smiler on March 19th
- Thorpe Park to open new Darren Brown's Ghost Train on May 6th

Australian Parks
- Dreamworld Tiger Cub kindy to open (near ocean parade) to show off 4 new tiger cubs. 2 white, 2 gold.
- Tiger Island to close for extended 7 million dollar refurbishment designed by Jamie Durie.
- Also mentioned in that article is a new Master Plan for Dreamworld that we'll see later this year.
- Dreamworld starts offering monthly Memberships.
- Rumour about the Doomsday Destroyer at Movie World reported at Screamscape.

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

Theme Park Nut News Update - 23rd February 2016

The biggest news of the Theme Park week dropped today, as WB Movie World announced their new ride and precinct for 2016! The Doomsday Destroyer will be the anchor attraction for the DC Comics Super Villains Unleashed area, which opens in October 2016! General Manager of WB Movie World Greg Yong has described the new attraction as a 20 metre high looping attraction with high thrills, high speeds and inversions. Parkz has speculated that the ride might be Intamin Suspended Twin Hammer, although there is not enough information yet to determine the validity of these rumours. It is very exciting! It is interesting to see how this area is going to connect to the rest of the park, since the parks DC area, including their current Villain attraction (Arkham Asylum) are based at the front of the park, and the current area being cleared is behind the Scooby Doo coaster at the back of the park (although these areas aren't actually that far away from each other). Given we only have to wait until October, I'm guessing we won't have long to wait to find out more!

There is plenty going on outside of Australia this week as well!

Over the weekend, Disney had a special for Disneyland's 60th with a segment on the upcoming Star Wars land, which sadly released so more concept art, but very little new details. WDW also announced this week that it is adding two new Star Wars shows to Disney's Hollywood Studios. So it won't be long until we have more Star Wars at Disney!

Staying in Orlando we the Magic Kingdom has announced that it will updating it's castle show in April. The new show "Mickey's Royal Friendship Faire",  will add characters from recent Disney animated movies, Princess and the Frog, Tangled and Frozen (d'uh). Also in Orlando this week we got a peak at the trains for Mako, SeaWorld's new Hypercoaster which is opening in the U.S. summer.

Six Flags have announced some Managerial changes at the very top of their food chain. President and CEO Jim Reid-Anderson is moving up to the Executive Chairman role, while existing CFO John Duffey is moving into the President and CEO role. It is expected that this transition will be a smooth one, with Six Flags looking to maintain the positive financial results achieved over the last 6 years.

This week also saw further construction walls coming down at Universal Studios Hollywood, where the new "main street" was shown for the first time. This park has really gone through a revolutionary change in the last 2 years, where this park now looks almost nothing like it did originally. We all know that the WWoHP is going to be huge for this park, but the more exciting thing for theme park fans, is they aren't letting the rest of the park stagnate while they spend heavy on Harry.


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