Lemur

I honestly believe that half of the issue with the mazes is picking when to go. I intentionally avoid the first weekend, the staffing level isn't where it needs to be and the bugs haven't been worked out yet. It's usually super crowded to the point of using overflow parking and it seems like half of the Five Burroughs is there. Sundays, especially when the Giants, Jets and Eagles are playing, is usually better. Less people also means more ghoul interaction.

I think it's a Return on Investment situation. SF has to make the decision based on where their revenue stream is coming from. Is it coming from passholders who will come to the park on crowded days to go to the shows? Or is it coming from the day-trippers who are coming to spend the money single day admission and a Flash pass to go to the front of the line on the coasters? From that perspective, the emphasis on bigger and faster rides provides a better ROI. They're better off investing their show budget into things like Dead Man's Party and other special event shows.

That's provided CF decides to take you on as a client. If money truly is no object, I'd buy CF *and* the park. But, corporate buyouts and M&A is a pain to deal with. That said, I'd scrap all of the theming, especially since I wouldn't have access to the DC licensing anymore (not a bad thing, as most of their movies sucked except for Wonder Woman). Re-theme to be more local, like Eric said - I really like the idea of the Jersey Devil and the Matawan Maneater coasters. Get rid of the Mine Train (I have a vendetta against it). Buy Keansburg's old Spook House and finish it's restoration, install it in the Old Country area with some other classic flats or Euro fair rides. Bring in another flight sim (as Soarin' has proven rather popular), expand Skull Mountain's footprint and size by 3x, pump up the speed and add an inversion or three, bring in a classic or repo woody. Scrap the Big Wheel and bring in one with swing cars. Take the speed caps off the bumper cars and grease the pad (if you ever road the pre-Sandy Keansburg cars, you know what this is about). Basically, a really good mix of classic amusement park stuff that's on the wane and bad@ss coasters and flats. Also, I'd improve the food offerings because aside from Best of the West and the funnel cake sundaes, most of the food is miserable.

In a perfect world, GA would buy the old Keansburg Spook House that they've been restoring since Sandy and put it in the old flight sim hangar. I love Houdini, but can do without the pre-show. They need an express lane for those who don't need to see it for the 84th time.

Resurrecting an old post to add ... yes. I grew up in Glenside and was perpetually disappointed that the park was closed. And Challenges was the jam, that and the pet store right next to it.

So I stumbled across one of those Kindle deals for cheap books not too long ago for a book entitled FantasticLand. The basic premise is that a fictional third big park in Florida gets hit with a major hurricane, and the skeleton crew that's supposed to hold the fort for 72 hours is stuck there for much, much longer. It's stylistically in the vein of World War Z (the book, not the terrible, terribly movie, so it's narrative via interviews). It's ... not for the feint of heart. But it is an interesting study in disaster recovery and business continuity strategies as well as a pointed commentary on modern society. I found it thought provoking and enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone looking for some interesting amusement park fiction.

I love the old tyme appeal of a log flume, but I can see parks taking them out in favor of a Schlitterbahn-style water coaster, or taking any wet rides out entirely if they have an adjacent water park. Bigger, faster, etc. etc. etc. Thank God for places like Knoebel's.

And it seems that the ones that do well and survive have a meal component to them. I've often wondered if SF has ever considered doing a Dinner Adventure type thing - limited capacity seating, air conditioned venue. Orlando manages to support seven or eight of these things outside of the big parks, mainly on the I-Drive corridor. Could be an interesting revenue stream, especially since they already have a liquor license.

True. The eight-person cars are rather small.

It was mentioned in the Misc Mumblings thread. My condolences to the guy's family.

I know, I pulled out my down parka to make sure it still fits this past weekend and send it to the cleaner. I have a feeling we may go right into full winter after Halloween if not before.

Agreed. Football season's started, hockey follows shortly, the tourists went home, it's still warm enough to drink outside and I don't yet need more than a hoodie.

You mean DC Land. The rights to ride properties for the Marvel characters are currently held by Universal despite Disney actually owning Marvel. It's all very boring and litigious and I could explain it in detail if you're really bored or need something to put you to sleep.

Very true. I'm at the eastern end of 195 (literally), so it's a twenty minute jaunt with traffic. Usually my only pinch point is the Wawa on 537.

I'd love to GL re-branded, mainly because the GL movie was so laughably terrible it keeps the comic nerds (such as myself) away. Or completely torn out and replaced with a close of the Wondie coaster that's going in down in SFFT.

I always suspected that Black Eyed Kids came from Staten Island ...

I usually don't roll in to GA until after 5, and rarely during the high season between Memorial and Labor Days. (In short, I live for the shoulder seasons.)

It's got that one really good scare in it. I'd put it on par with the Coney Island Spook-a-Rama. But yeah, not exactly terrifying, but a ton of fun.

Seriously though, I wouldn't be surprised to see new, big time rides for Wondie and Aquaman especially if the Justice League movie does passably well. If the single-rail gimmick works well in Texas for the new Wonder Woman coaster, they may try to roll that out in other parks. As for Aquaman ... how do you do a water ride when you have a water park across the parking lot? A big flume? ETA: I wouldn't be surprised if they do roll the Old Country into Movie Town, they rebrand it as Justice League Central or some such. Can't call it Metropolis or Gotham -- they're two separate cities in the DCEU.

No new water ride for Aquaman?

I was just having that conversation with my sister. Feels like it's really early this year, but it's not. It's just that Labor Day was really late.

Maybe, maybe not. There was a good bit kicking and screaming a while back about deforesting a tract of land to install a solar farm, which the locals changed their land use ordnance to allow. The bigger issue would be GA spurring growth on Route 537, which considering they signed on to pay for municipal waterlines along there, I think the locals at least are more amenable.