Well it's been nearly a month since my last update! We've been on holidays, and everyone has been sick here. Plus we have another little Nut on the way, which always keeps things busy!!
So here is 4 weeks worth of Theme Park News!!
At the start of March, we had
Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters opened at Disney California Adventure. This ride is the replacement for Luigi's Flying Tires, which opened with the Carsland expansion of DCA. Sadly this ride never really had the kinks (both mechanically, and thematically) worked out of it, however the new ride looks like a much more interesting enhancement.
Disneyland Resort also set an
opening date for their new Frozen musical as May 27th. This new show replaces the phenomenally popular Aladdin musical which had a 13 year run at the park. They have simultaneously announced the closure of the Frozen singalong show at DCA as April 17th. Meaning the resort will only have 2 Frozen musicals running at any one time, instead of a disgraceful 3.
Over at WDW, Disney has set an
opening date for Rivers of Light, April 22nd. This new night time show at Disney's Animal Kingdom promises to be
very different from any nighttime show currently presented at WDW.
WDW have also given us a new way to spend our money, I mean have more time in the Magic Kingdom, wit the introduction of the Disney After Hours event. It only costs $149 per person (yikes!). There is also a strong rumour, that they are going to be adding an
Early Admission upcharge event as well, in the near future.
We also
heard more about Shanghai Disneyland this month.
At Universal Orlando, we've started to get the first few
tastes at the upcoming Skull Island: Reign of Kong attraction at Island's of Adventure. This includes getting a look at some of the
creatures that are going to be part of this ride. If they can tie all their effects together smoothly (which they have gotten very very good at recently) this is going to be one heck of a ride!
They have also announce this month that the NBA City restaurant, which has closed at Universal Orlando CityWalk, is going to be replace by an
awesome looking Steampunk Chocolate Factory. The Toothsome Chocolate Factory will be a full menu restaurant, however it will clearly be heavily chocolate oriented.
Universal Hollywood has been all a buzz this year, with the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but this month the biggest news as that they are adding a new all-year-round
Walking Dead attraction. Well the biggest news apart from
raising their one-day ticket prices. They also added an expensive new type of Annual Pass this month, with
no block out days. And since more UH visitors are either locals, or one of day visitors, that means this park has just got more expensive for everyone. And so it should have, it's got Harry freaking Potter!
Universal Japan has announced their
Nintendo land is expected to open in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, which is ridiculously exciting news! No word on when other Universal parks in the U.S. or Singapore might be getting anything Nintendo related (but at least for Orlando, it is inevitable). USJ also opened the world's longest flying coaster,
Jurassic Park: The Flying Dinosaur this month.
Over at Knott's Berry Farm in California we got our first look at the food for
this year's Boysenberry Festival. Now, I don't eat Boysenberries, but I'm willing to make an exception for some of these as they just look delicious!
Six Flags has taken a leaf out of Europa Parks book and announced it is bringing
VR coaster experiences into their parks. The early reports of this technology is that it has
worked really well, and people were not experiencing the nausea anticipated from the ride.
Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi has opened two new attracitions, including a really interesting looking trackless interactive dark ride called
Benno's Great Race. It is great to see some of these non-major parks working with some really innovative companies to create really interesting attractions.
Finally, the embattled SeaWorld parks in the U.S. have announced that they have ended their
Orca Breeding Programs, which effectively means that there will be no more Orcas in these parks beyond their current rotation. This has come after enormous pressure from Green and Animal Rights groups over the last 5 years. I come down somewhere in the middle of this debate, where I am not concern with the keeping of animals for Zoos and Parks as long as the conditions are good enough. I also feel it's almost impossible to have conditions good enough for any kind of Whale, they are just too large. However, this is a big deal for SeaWorld, to effectively phase out what was previously their signature animal. The parks have been suffering incredibly large drops in attendance over the last couple of years, so maybe they need to change who they are to really keep themselves afloat. Only time will truly tell!
For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter
@themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!
