It was June 2020 – when all six of Disney’s U.S. theme parks were still shuttered amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – that Disney announced a major change few had expected. In the years that followed, both installations of Splash Mountain (at Disneyland Park since 1989 and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom since 1992) would shed their names,…
Higher. Taller. Faster. Wilder. In the 1990s and early 2000s, nothing – and we mean nothing – mattered more to Six Flags and Cedar Fair than breaking records. Parks battled back and forth to attract the globe’s most extreme thrill-seekers, loading parks up with the biggest coaster counts they could manage – and then a few more for good…
By now, you know the news that shocked the coaster world: that Cedar Point would get a very surprise addition for 2025: a second coaster to open alongside the highly-reviewed but infamously-pit-stopped Top Thrill 2. And we’re not talking about a kiddie coaster. Nope, Siren’s Curse will be a whopper – a sizable steel behemoth that…
Disney Parks tend to go big for the holidays. Fans dream all year of walking down Main Street, U.S.A. at Christmas; they plan their trips around riding the “Jingle Cruise” or “it’s a small world holiday”; they battle the crowds to experience New Year’s Eve as only EPCOT can do it. But as theme park…
Forget birthdays. Forget anniversaries. Forget Christmas. For horror aficionados, there’s nothing like Halloween Horror Nights. Nearly every year since 1991, Universal Orlando has transformed into a premier event that – even three decades later – still leads in a rapidly-expanding industry. Harnessing all might of Universal’s in-house creatives, storytellers, scenic designers, and owned & licensed…
By now, you know the story. In 2001 – the waning years of exiting CEO Michael Eisner at the height of his cost-cutting, budget-slashing era – Disneyland’s long-time dream of gaining a second theme park became a nightmare. Disney’s California Adventure was a mistake from the start. A self-referential, comical park designed with a “tongue-in-cheek attitude”…
If you’re like us, you probably haven’t forgotten the 2022 D23 Expo – the shockingly disappointing post-pandemic event wherein Disney infamously failed to announce any new, unknown projects for its theme parks. Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro instead spent the Expo dancing around the many downgrades and cancellations that had been made in the wake of…
Deep in the dense and uncharted understory of Jungle X, Rapterra is rising, and the skyline of Kings Dominion may never be the same… Here’s what you need to know to be prepared to conquer the skies on “the tallest and longest launched wing coaster in the world.” It all started in an ancient past……
The time has come. Er, gone. At long last, Disney has officially waved the white flag and announced surrender. In the not-so-distant future, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World will un-anchor itself from its strict setting in the Disney-produced “sequel trilogy” and open the floodgates to a new (or as…
“So the story begins with a ten-year old girl named Opal who meets a scruffy dog in the parking lot of a grocery store and names him Winn Dixie…” Okay, okay, so it might’ve been a long time since you’ve written a “book report,” but surely, you remember them. Standing before the whole rest of…
