May 23rd, 2023

Universal Unveils New Minion Experiences

Universal recently released artwork of their upcoming Minion land expansion. This new land will feature a brand new minion cafe, a bake shop, and an interactive attraction themed to Villain-Con. The new expansion will open sometime in the summer of this year according to Universal. No exact opening day has yet to be announced.

The Villain-Con attraction will be a moving pathway instead of a traditional ride vehicle. This is a shooting style dark ride and guests will be armed with some sort of weapon to shoot at targets. The more mayham you can cause, the more points you will earn!

The Minion Cafe will feature a variety of very interesting looking foods that are definitely Minion inspired. There’s probably going to be a good amount of banana’s or banana flavored food available to purchase.

The Galactic Starcruiser Experience Is Shutting Down

Disney recently announced that it was shutting down the Galactic Starcruiser experience at the end of September. This experience wasn’t the hit that executives thought it would be. When it first opened, there were two dinner experiences. However, recently due to the number of people, they had reduced it to just one dinner show.

The main culprit for why this experience didn’t take off was the price. It is simply far far too expensive for the ordinary family to afford. Roughly $5000 for a two night experience is hard to justify when that money could go towards a ten day vacation at Disney world or some other amazing experience.

It’s doubtful that Disney will flat out destroy the hotel. It will probably be repurposed into just a high end hotel that may have a dinner show in it. Maybe even regular park guests can pay to board the Halcyon for a few hours and catch the show.

If you want to see our experience with the hotel, we have a full playlist you can watch here. We were on the second voyage ever which was amazing because it meant that most of the guests dressed up. This allowed us to feel even more ‘in the story.’

Disney Cancels $1 Billion Lake Nona Project

Disney has announced that it will stop building it’s Lake Nona Campus that would have seen a move of Imagineers from the west coast to this new campus in Florida. Some staff already had relocated to the area. In a memo, Josh D’Amaro said that the project was cancelled due to changing business conditions. This could be due to the company wanting to reduce costs across the board but it also is a dig at Governor DeSantis and his war against Disney.

Theme Park Stock Watch

I’ve made some images for the stock watch, I just gotta format it into HTML. Here’s a preview of one of the images that will signify a stock increasing in value in the previous week! For the time being, below are the stats just looking pretty basic.

Disney: $91.82 Down 0.23%

Universal: $41.24 Up 2.79%

Cedar Fair: $44.81 Up 3.08%

Six Flags: $26.25 Down 0.83%

Disney Won’t Create Miniparks Like Universal

Josh D’Amaro recently said that Disney will not create miniparks like the ones that are being built in Texas and Las Vegas by Universal. The Las Vegas park is more like a miniature Halloween Horror Nights but the one in Texas is definitely a miniature theme park. He later went on to say that it would continue investing in its current theme parks and cruise ships moving foward.

Evolution of Coasters Shirt

Waldameer Owner Paul Nelson Passes Away

Paul Nelson recently passed away at the age of 89. For more information on him, GoErie posted a great article here on his legacy.

From The Editor

Finally figured out how to get our referral program to work (I think). Feel free to invite a friend or family to join and let me know if the program works for you! We have some pretty good prizes so far but I really hope to have some very unique rewards later on. Maybe some actual parts from a coaster, season passes, or even a trip to a park???

Btw, I’m going to start occasionally hiding a message in the newsletter. The message will contain a codeword and the first person that messages me back with the code word gets some sort of prize!

Last week we asked the question “How many parks are you going to this year?” and 63% of people said they were only going to 1-5 parks this year, 31% said they were going to 6-10 parks this year, and one person said they were going to 16+ parks!

Disney Parks Will Simplify Parks Experience

Disney has recently announced that it will be simplifying the Genie+ service based on guest feedback.

We have heard from guests that they would like ways to plan with Disney Genie+ service and individual Lightning Lane selections before the day of their park visit, and we want you to know we are working on ways guests may do this for visits in 2024. Our goal is to give you the opportunity to spend less time planning in the park and more time enjoying your visit with friends and family. While we are not yet able to share specific details, we look forward to sharing more information at a later date.““

Too many guests have complained that it’s confusing to navigate and I agree with them. You shouldn’t have to watch hours of videos online to prepare for your trip. I sometimes have trouble navigating how to use the service. Also, waking up in the morning to try to grab a ride reservation is very frustrating, especially when you don’t actually manage to get it.

DarkKoaster Gets It’s Own McDonald’s Meal

Busch Gardens Williamsburg has teamed up with some local McDonald’s to create a meal that promotes their newest rollercoaster, Darkoaster. I think the main advertisement is just the box that the food comes in but it would’ve been extremely cool if it also came with some sort of mini toy from the ride.

Wildcat’s Revenge To Open June 2nd

Wildcat’s Revenge, seen here with two water dummies with some coaster swag, will open on June 2nd at Hersheypark. This new RMC rollercoaster seems like it packs quite the punch! It replaces the previous Wildcat wooden rollercoaster. This new coaster will reach speeds of 62 mph, have a ride heigh of 140 feet, and have a ride time of 2 minutes and 36 seconds! That last stat is absolutely amazing as the thing I hate the most is waiting an hour for just a 30 second ride.

Primordial At Lagoon Seen Testing

Lagoon’s newest coaster, Primordial has been seen testing after being under construction for years. This newest ride will feature ride vehicles similar to Guardians of the Galaxy Rewind at Epcot, where the ride vehicle will be able to certain positions during parts of the ride. This will be an interactive roller coaster with some sort of shooting experience when riders are inside of the giant mountain constructed at the park.

Not much more is known about the ride which is being constructed in-house as is tradition at Lagoon.

Nemesis Sub-Terra To Re-Open May 27th

To drum up the hype around the remodeling of their new Nemesis ride opening sometime next year, Alton Towers has announced that their launch tower ride would be reopening with some new theming. Read More about it Here

City Council Sues SeaWorld San Diego

The San Diego City Council voted to sue SeaWorld San Diego for $12 million from unpaid rend during the pandemic. This includes late fees and interested on the payments. The 8-0 vote was conducted in a closed session. One council member said that the company was flaunting record profits but were not paying the $12 million they owed the city. The rent that SeaWorld pays according to one source, is based on a percentage of the gross income from admissions/in-park purchases or a minimum yearly amount, whichever is greater.

The first person that sees this text and replies back to me with the word ‘Fastest’ will get a set of stickers sent to them for free!

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