.JPG)
Welcome to News Plus Notes' same day coverage of IAAPA 2012. For all you Northerners, yesterday it was 82 degrees late in the afternoon, and snow was an Internet only memory. The trade floor is open for business and all the doors were crowded as attendees stormed the floor..JPG)
Silver Dollar City unveiled the first almost completed car for Outlaw Run and she is a beauty. Brad Thomas of Silver Dollar City and Fred Grubb of Rocky Mountain Construction did the honors, after a short countdown and shouts of “Pull that drape.”.JPG)
Fred, and his wife Suanne, stand next to the car which features lap bar restraints only, and some very fancy handlebars on each side. If you look closely, their are slight cutouts on each side of the front base plate, which are required for the 3 degree roll necessary in the barrel roll element..JPG)
Here is a side view of the train. Look at the detailed pin striping! Only at Silver Dollar City in spring 2013..JPG)
Alan Schilke designed the layout for Outlaw Run and he offered these comments. "I have included the 180 degree inversion many proposals but nobody was interested until it was incorporated into a turn. I try to make the layout look impossible, but I always maintain excellent safety standards for my designs. This was a very fun ride to design, and both Rocky Mountain Construction and Silver Dollar City are excellent partners to work with for this project."
26 Kasım 2012 Pazartesi
Scott And Carol Present - The Unveiling of Outlaw Run's Coach at IAAPA
Scott And Carol Present - Gravity Group Announces Mt. Olympus' Hades 360 for 2013
.JPG)
With a very well kept secret, Nick Laskaris presented an updating of Hades, the first wooden coaster to have a 90 degree turn and a bidirectional tunnel. He admits that "I always have to be different, and for me, too much is not enough." Nick also said "I didn't let Son of Beast deter me from fulfilling this passion of owning great wooden roller coasters." Hades 360 will feature a fully upside down roll element along with a new 135 degree banked turn..JPG)
That is a very wide smile for someone about to spend $1.5 million to change what was already a very good roller coaster. The crew is hard at work in Wisconsin Dells taking the section of Hades in the parking lot down to the ground. There will also be a large amount of retracking on the rest of the layout and, of course, some new Timberliners on Hades 360..JPG)
The Laskaris family joins members of the Gravity Group behind the new nose cone for Hades 360. It would be interesting to hear the dinner conversation one night when Nick tells his wife, Eva, "I think I'm going to spend lots of money to redo Hades, and by the way, we're buying a new train for the ride also." .JPG)
According to Nick, "I am a very lucky man because Eva supports me in everything I do." Eva is looking forward to the first ride next summer..JPG)
Kory Keipert explains how "We did have calculations left over from the previous Custom Coaster days, but we didn't use any of them. We have been constantly improving our design tools because we are curious about the limits of wooden roller coasters. We are using 12 layers of 1 x width wood because we can make tighter twists without splitting. That technique is another new tool we started using recently." What a fun job, sitting around thinking of ways to improve roller coasters.
Here is a link to a virtual ride:
Summer of 2013 is going to be epic, because this is just a couple of the exciting announcements so far. Stay tuned for further details.
Disney's Hollywood Studios Previewing new Jack Sparrow Attraction
Disney's Hollywood Studios is now previewing their latest attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow, to guests of the park before it officially opens on December 6th.
I didn't follow the announcement of this attraction too closely, and honestly wasn't too sure what it was until videos of it started appearing online yesterday. Orlando Attractions Magazine filmed the experience, so if you do not want to know just what takes place, then skip this video!
As you can see, the attraction mostly relies on audio, lighting, and video effects to entertain. I have to wonder if small kids might have a bit of a cry-fest in this one, the combination of loud and dark usually have that result.
The projection of Jack Sparrow is particularly nice, very similar to the characters in Universal's Forbidden Journey queue line. While the attraction is by no means a big marketable addition, it's certainly nice filler for the Studios, which could use it.
I love how it pokes fun of itself, too, as Jack departs with "come back in eight minutes and we'll do it all over again."
Iron Rattler's Curves
 |
| © Six Flags Fiesta Texas |
The track is banked at what looks like 90 degrees, but take notice that it's not really during a curve, it's actually just banked that way on some straight track. I'm a little behind on this one, as the park posted it a couple weeks ago, but it's worth the repost in my opinion.
Also, did you all hear that the industry-famous Jeffrey Siebert is returning to the ride side of things from the word of Schlitterbahn by becoming the Marketing Director at Six Flags Fiesta Texas? Mr. Siebert really became a loved industry professional when he worked at Kings Island, and with Fiesta Texas debuting a massive new coaster this year I have a feeling we will see some interesting things from him.
From The Vault: SeaWorld Ohio 1998 Trip Planner
As promised from last week's Vault, here is the SeaWorld Ohio trip planning booklet from 1998. The park is now known as Wildwater Kingdom, and besides perhaps some fish no animals call this place home anymore.
SeaWorld Ohio first opened in 1970, directly across the lake from then Geauga Lake. A part of the Busch properties, it thrived for some time, eventually being sold to Six Flags, and then to Cedar Fair - which marked the end of animals at the park. Instead it was cleared out and water attractions were moved or built, and today it still operates as Wildwater Kingdom. That's the park history in one minute or less.
Here we see the cover of the booklet, advertising plenty of New Sensations to experience at the park. What was new? Let's see!
There really was plenty new in 1998 for guests to check out, the biggest of which was the new Shamu Advenutre show, presented by Jack Hanna and featuring the park's killer whales, Shamu and Namu. A popular part of SeaWorld Ohio was the water ski show, and there was a new one this year named Intensity Games. I wonder if it was anything like Hunger Games?
The park also celebrated each night like it was the 4th of July with the Red, Bright and Blue laser and fireworks spectacular. The show utilized a huge water screen in the center of the lake that had lasers displayed on it.
And we must not forget the pooches, they were the main draw of the all new, All-Star Mutts show.
As a marine life park, most of the shows featured animals as the stars. Such was true of both the park's bird show and sea lion show, who was home to Clyde and Seamore. To keep guests busy into the evening hours, the park presented the Rockin' Summer Nights show, a special evening killer whale show at Shamu Stadium.
As with other Busch parks at the time, Jack Hanna often visited for special events, and the tie (which has grown considerably stronger since then) with Sesame Street can be felt. 
If I remember correctly, the SeaWorld Parks added the word "adventure" to their name around this time, and that was the start of more traditional amusement rides being added to the properties. SeaWorld Ohio had a 4-D theater that was showing Pirates! 4-D Hi-tech Adventure at the time.
An aquarium and outdoor sea lion pool were also highlights, and I believe a dolphin area was transformed into a water activity area, and part of the lazy river, when the water features took over.
Shark! The amount of different animal exhibits was pretty neat, and much like those at the other SeaWorld parks. Many remember SeaWorld Ohio as a small park, and lesser than its siblings, but its atmosphere and selection of attractions made up for that, I think. The locations was pretty nice, too. I remember sitting in Shamu stadium watching the Big Dipper rolling across the lake and thinking why, oh why, did my family pick this over Geauga Lake?! Now I'm just happy I visited at all.
Here the information part of the booklet, which features the park's schedule - May through September - direction, hours and the like. There's also the park map, which is pretty fun to take a look at, and consider what resides there now. In fact, here's a pretty good comparison of just that:
Things are quite different these days. Both of the park's large stadium theaters are gone, one has turned into a wave pool. The water ski stadium is now home to lounge chairs, and the Eagle Reserve is home to a really rather tall tower of water slides.
Not all of the former SeaWorld Ohio park is used, though, on the right side where the 4-D theater, shark encounter, and Shamu's Happy Harbor play area once were is now closed off and slowly rotting. On the left part of the park everything above the former sea lion stadium is closed, including the former aquarium.
I've always thought it was odd that the former bird show theater is still standing, if for no other reason than the value in the aluminum seats. With a second phase originally planned for Wildwater Kingdom, then later canceled, perhaps more of the park will eventually be developed. And perhaps not.
25 Kasım 2012 Pazar
Disney's Hollywood Studios Previewing new Jack Sparrow Attraction
Disney's Hollywood Studios is now previewing their latest attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow, to guests of the park before it officially opens on December 6th.
I didn't follow the announcement of this attraction too closely, and honestly wasn't too sure what it was until videos of it started appearing online yesterday. Orlando Attractions Magazine filmed the experience, so if you do not want to know just what takes place, then skip this video!
As you can see, the attraction mostly relies on audio, lighting, and video effects to entertain. I have to wonder if small kids might have a bit of a cry-fest in this one, the combination of loud and dark usually have that result.
The projection of Jack Sparrow is particularly nice, very similar to the characters in Universal's Forbidden Journey queue line. While the attraction is by no means a big marketable addition, it's certainly nice filler for the Studios, which could use it.
I love how it pokes fun of itself, too, as Jack departs with "come back in eight minutes and we'll do it all over again."
Iron Rattler's Curves
|
| © Six Flags Fiesta Texas |
The track is banked at what looks like 90 degrees, but take notice that it's not really during a curve, it's actually just banked that way on some straight track. I'm a little behind on this one, as the park posted it a couple weeks ago, but it's worth the repost in my opinion.
Also, did you all hear that the industry-famous Jeffrey Siebert is returning to the ride side of things from the word of Schlitterbahn by becoming the Marketing Director at Six Flags Fiesta Texas? Mr. Siebert really became a loved industry professional when he worked at Kings Island, and with Fiesta Texas debuting a massive new coaster this year I have a feeling we will see some interesting things from him.