Thoughts On A Few Things

Files Gone

So as some of you may have heard on the Special Edition Of A Walk In The Park Podcast I dropped something on my external hard drive and have lost all my files. The fine folks at Best Buy told me they could save the files for ......... $1500, no thanks. I was able to save my all my music because it was on my iPod and 300 or so of my favorite pictures from my digital picture frame, the rest are history. The big stuff I lost were the 3000+ non-favorite pictures and all my videos, including the complete history of A Walk In The Park Podcast, bummer but life goes on.



Freestyle Music Park

So Hard Rock Park is now Freestyle Music Park, and even though many people have said otherwise, I don't hate the name. I think it is original and not a 'cop out' like they could have easily gone with something generic like 'Rock Hard Park' or 'Rock & Roll Theme Park' or 'Music Park'. While the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear 'Freestyle Music' is an Eminem 8 Mile-esque rap battle, I still don't mind the name. What sends up a red flag for me though is that they are a month away from supposedly opening back up and have no information on there websites about what will be at the park, when the park will be open or how much it will cost? How are people supposed to plan a trip (which I am doing) when these important pieces of information are missing.



2008 Attendence Numbers

The 2008 Attendence Numbers came out this week, nothing too groundbreaking, but I did have a few thoughts.
- I was surprised there wasn't much of a bump from Toy Story Mania at DHS or DCA, I absolutely love the attraction, but apparentely it didn't equal an attendence increase. Hollywood Studios was up 1% and California Adventure down 2%. I would think that DHS would see higher numbers from people showing up one day seeing the insane lines at TSM and then coming back earlier on another day of their vacation.
- IOA was down again, no big surprise as this was another year with nothing major added (yes I know Potter is coming - I take pictures of it once a week).
- Jungala cost BGT a lot of money, their reward a 2% attendence decrease.
- I'm always impressed Knotts does 3.5 million.
- Canada's Wonderland is a monster when it comes to attendence, but never seems to get talked about in the enthusiast community.
- I wonder how high Kings Island jumps this year with Diamondback. It only needs 72,000 to leapfrog CP for top park in Ohio.
- I'm shocked Hersheypark was down so much. I know 07 was big for them with the 100th anniversary and the boardwalk, but they still got Farhenheit last year.
- Aquatica opens strong with almost a million guests in not a full first year of operation, sure seems like that was a good idea.
- Damn Splish Splash jumped up 17.6% without adding a thing!! I grew up about an hour from this park and do enjoy it, wish them continued sucess and expansion.



Sum Of All Thrills Coming To Innoventions

There's a new attraction coming to the ever changing Innoventions at EPCOT and it's a Robotic Simulator Called Sum Of Thrills. Whats awesome about this is that its using the very cool Kuka Robocoaster technology. This is something I'm pretty excited about and something that seems way too good for an Innoventions attraction. Also Disney isn't building a whole lot right now, so at least its something to look forward to.



Kings Dominion Getting A New Coaster Next Year

I was pretty surprised this week when Kings Dominion Filed Paperwork For A New Roller Coaster. Of course now the million dollar question becomes, what is it? Personally, I'm not sure. Normally you would look at park chains trend of expansion and the roller coasters Cedar Fair parks have been adding the past few years have been Geauga Lake Leftovers (all outta those), GCI Woodies and B&M Hypercoasters, so the smart money would be on one of the last two. I guess seeing a coaster at KD isn't too shocking, as I don't think they will be adding much to the three parks on the chopping block (CGA, VF & WOF). I do like that Cedar Fair has really been beefing up the former paramount parks and I'm still a fan of them taking over.

And that's whats been on my mind lately in the theme park world.