 SANDUSKY, OH -
Soak City Waterpark will be closed Sunday due to a water main break. A Cedar Point spokesperson told newsnet5.com the water main break affected the main line that supplies water to the amusement park. The park closed early Saturday because of the break. There was no early entry at Cedar Point on Sunday. The park opened to all guests starting at 10 a.m. Hotel Breakers and Sandcastle Suites Hotel will also not be open to guests Sunday evening. FULL STORY
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 MASON, OH -
PRESS RELEASE Construction is underway on a new wooden roller coaster adventure for visitors to Kings Island. Themed to an area surrounding a lumber company becoming overrun by a mysterious medusa-like overgrowth of vines as nature reclaims its land, Mystic Timbers will be 3,265 feet in length, reach 109 feet in height and weave along steep cliffs, down ravines, cross over water and go through an extreme S-turn, among a forest of trees, at speeds up to 53 mph. The ride will feature a total of 16 airtime hills, a mid-course tunnel and interact with parts of the Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad and White Water Canyon attractions. “Mystic Timbers is naturally exciting because of its setting in a densely wooded area,” Kings Island’s vice-president and general manager Greg Scheid said. “The natural rugged terrain and tunnel ensures a unique and memorable ride experience.” Mystic Timbers is custom designed and built for the topography of Kings Island by Great Coasters International, Inc. (GCI) of Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Three trains will accommodate 24 passengers each (four riders per car and six cars per train) with a capacity of 1,200 riders per hour. Guests must be at least 48 inches tall to ride. The ride experience will last more than two minutes. “Everyone who enjoys the fun and thrills of riding a roller coaster will want to experience this attraction,” Scheid said. Mystic Timbers will debut in the spring of 2017 and become Kings Island’s 16th roller coaster and its fourth wooden. With the addition of Mystic Timbers, Kings Island’s wooden roller coasters will combine to measure 18,804 feet of track, which will be the most at any amusement or theme park in the world. Those who cannot wait until spring may take a virtual ride on Mystic Timbers at mystictimbers.visitkingsisland.com. Visitors of the website may also access exclusive updates and features, including virtual ride renderings, ride statistics, construction photos and a live Web cam.  Grand Prairie, TX - Six Flags Entertainment Corporation (NYSE: SIX), the world’s largest regional theme park company, today announced another period of strong financial performance with revenue for the first six months of 2016 growing $51 million or 11 percent to $522 million, driven primarily by a 7 percent increase in attendance, a 3 percent increase in guest spending per capita and a 104 percent increase in international licensing revenue. On a constant currency1 basis, revenue for the first six months of 2016 grew $57 million or 12 percent. Net Income for the same time period increased $19 million and Adjusted EBITDA2 grew $21 million or 19 percent to $132 million. Diluted earnings per share for the first six months of the year was $0.15 as compared to a loss of $0.05 for the same period in 2015.
“Our 2016 season is off to an excellent start,” said John Duffey, President and CEO. “Our innovative new attractions have received very positive reviews along with the first-ever integration of virtual reality technology into our roller coasters. Our pricing and multi-visit pass initiatives are working well and we are highly encouraged by the positive trends in our business including the 11 percent increase in our Active Pass Base. Combined with our ticket price gains and international expansion opportunities, we are well-positioned for 2016 and we remain laser-focused on our aspirational target of $600 million of Modified EBITDA3 by 2017.” Attendance for the first six months of 2016 grew 7 percent to 11.2 million guests and guest spending per capita increased 3 percent, with admissions per capita increasing 3 percent and in-park spending per capita increasing 2 percent. On a constant currency basis, year-to-date guest spending per capita increased $1.65 or 4 percent. FULL STORY  Orlando, FL -
No one likes to wait in line for theme park rides. Most of us would prefer going straight to the ride without any wait at all. Until recently, very few attractions actually made the wait for an attraction interesting, but with new technology comes new trends, and with new trends comes a new mindset. Theme park attraction have always been themed to varying levels, with Disney and Universal leading the way when it comes to highly-themed attractions. What has more recently become a trend outside of the big chains though, is the idea of making the queue part of the attraction, not just a staging area for waiting guests. A few years ago, the Savannah College of Art and Design introduced a Themed Entertainment Design program, focusing on things like theme park attractions, but particularly theme park queues and the areas surrounding the attractions. Some attractions to note involve Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Expedition Everest, Star Tours 3D, Dumbo The Flying Elephant, and Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts to name a few. Each of these attractions not only provides an immersive ride experience, but an immersive queue that is highly themed to engage guests and make their wait time more enjoyable. FULL STORY Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! Coming to Disney California Adventure Park Summer 20177/23/2016  San Diego, CA -
Today at San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, announced to a packed house of fans that the Guardians of the Galaxy are coming to Disney California Adventure park! Beginning in summer 2017, the outrageous and irreverent gang will appear in Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! – a comically high-energy, rocking new adventure. Guests will be right in the mix with characters from the blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy” films. Deep inside his fortress-like collection, the mysterious Taneleer Tivan (aka The Collector) is displaying his newest acquisitions, the Guardians of the Galaxy. They are trapped in customized display cases, suspended over a vast abyss. Unbeknownst to their unscrupulous captor, the intrepid Rocket has escaped and is enlisting the Collector’s VIP guests for help. Guests board a gantry lift, which launches them into a chaotic and hilarious adventure as they join Rocket in an attempt to break his fellow Guardians out of captivity. FULL STORY  Chongqing, China -
There is a third wheel to the theme park giant in China. Disney, the company behind the Shanghai Disneyland, is the first giant. The second is Dalian Wanda which plans to build more theme parks across China. On Wednesday, a third theme park giant was introduced when Six Flags Entertainment Group revealed plans to construct the Chongqing Riverside-Six Flags Theme Park worth $4.48 billion, or 30 billion yuan. According to China Daily, it would be the first international theme park in the western part of China. John Duffey, president and CEO of Six Flags Entertainment, said the company chose Chongqing to build the theme park because of the city’s significant population, growing middle class, increasing disposable income and limited theme park presence. FULL STORY  Chessington World of Adventures is saying goodbye to one of its most iconic rides and giving fans the chance to take a part of it home with them.
The foamy, family Bubbleworks ride will close down at the end of summer after completing more than 15 million circuits. During its 26 years Professor Burp and his factory helpers have soaked 32 million people who boarded the bobbing bathtubs and travelled through the workshop. FULL STORY  Knott’s Berry Farm’s first Soak City expansion project in 10 years will feature a 165-foot water tower feeding four new slides and another 150-foot tower with two slides sure to keep guests cool during warm summers. “This expansion is really to enhance what we have at the park,” said Jeff Gahagan, Knott’s vice president of maintenance and construction. “We’ve turned into the local park that everybody can call home.”
Expected to begin later this year, construction on the 1.8-acre expansion will eliminate some parking. To compensate for lost spaces, Knott’s will demolish two buildings along Beach Boulevard it recently purchased from Buena Park for $250,000 and replace them with a 130-space parking lot. Soak City’s newest towers and slides are expected to open in May. FULL STORY  Fun Spot has seen growth recently at both of its parks, but that’s not enough to meet the need for family entertainment centers. The north I-Drive location announced a multi-phase expansion that will include everything from a water park to a new Universal Orlando-style parking garage. Down in Kissimmee, Fun Spot recently moved some of their smaller rides next door to Old Town, in part, to make way for the new Head Rush 360 thrill ride.
The Kissimmee park circles a small retention pond with the world’s tallest skycoaster as the park centerpiece. The skycoaster predates the park by a number of years. Before Fun Spot took over the property it housed a few smaller attractions, such as a drag racing simulator. The Kissimmee property is much smaller than its I-Drive sister location. GrowthSpotter is now reporting that Fun Spot is looking for a second location along west 192. The area to the east of the current Kissimmee park has transitioned in recent years from a tourist-heavy area to one with many more locals. The western side of 192 is in a bit of a renaissance recently with new projects, such as the Margaritaville mixed use resort. Both of the locations mentioned by GrowthSpotter would allow for easy access for Disney guests and would be along one of the busiest sections of 192. FULL STORY  While most of the focus at Walt Disney World has been on Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, there's a growing list of rumored possible fixes for major issues that have been plaguing Epcot. The brand new Frozen Ever After ride recently opened in Norway, and the new international film, along with the new third theater, has opened at Soarin’. At this point, the park has no official projects in the works but many rumors point to major updates coming to Future World in the coming years.
A massive update to Future World has long been conjectured, with plans dating back to the late 1990s, but the chance of a major overhaul now looks stronger than ever. WDW News Today has reported that Guardians of the Galaxy will be introduced to Future World, with the strongest candidate for replacement being the very dated Universe of Energy ride. The new ride would likely use the same ride system but would probably run much shorter than the current 45 minutes. With Shanghai Disneyland now officially open, it’s only a matter of time before some of the rides used there are replicated in other parks. The two most likely candidates for this are the Tron motorbike coaster and the "jetpack" spinners, both found in Shanghai’s Tomorrowland. The Tron motorbike coaster is a Vekoma motorbike coaster with a custom light package and layout. The rumored location for this ride is the former Wonders of Life pavilion. FULL STORY |
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