The Master

I noticed the last couple of years that the blue paint has been chipping pretty bad off the old green paint. Hopefully they remove the failing blue paint first and not paint over it.

Here are some generic pictures of the palms. Needle Palms which are still growing in the park. Windmill Palm. Christmas Palms.

Despite the cold weather climate the park is located in, GADV has had palm trees over the years. Today only a few scatted specimens of Needle Palms remain in the Golden Kingdom, these are the most cold hardy of palm trees. They are scrub palms with fan fronds, they pretty much remain at ground level. Their small trunks are covered with sharp needles, hence their name, so don't get too close to them. Back when the Golden Kingdom first opened it used to have several Windmill Palms, which are the cold hardiest of trunking palms, palms that grow trunks. They are also a fan palm with hairy trunks for cold protection. However, they are marginal in this climate so they must be placed in the most optimum growing locations. Moreover, cold hardiness for Windmills can vary a lot from individual plants depending on several factors such as planting location, genes, and climatization. Windmills grown from saplings in colder climates tend to be much tougher than Windmills originally grown in warmer climates or greenhouses. Plus they still need some protection during unusually bad winters and treatments in the Spring. This is probably why all the Windmills seem to have died off in the Golden Kingdom by its second year. Windmills are usually pretty good at recovering from cold injuries such as complete frond loss and even spear (new foliage) pull. But sometimes gardeners are unfamiliar with Windmills high recovery rates and cut them down perceiving them as dead. When Plaza Del Carnaval first opened it too had palm trees only for its first season. From my memory they appeared to be Christmas Palms which are not cold hardy for this region. They can only take temps down to 30 for a little while. While Windmill and Needle palms can withstand 0 degrees for brief periods. I do know for sure the palms in Plaza Del Carnaval were pinnate (feather) fronds which tend to be not as tough as fan palms. I suspect these palms were merely in large containers and removed after the first season.

One way to improve spending is to offer better value. Customers who think they are are getting their money's worth are more likely to spend more. Customers who think they are getting ripped off will be hesitant to spend additional money. If customer A is having a good time in the park, experiencing all the rides without major wait times then that person will likely be more willing to spend more money on food and merch than customer B who is having a bad time. Long slow moving lines, line cutting, SBNO rides, non knowledgeable staff, dirty walkways, etc can easily piss off customers to not want to spend more. A better park experience will encourage more in park spending. Slightly improving the recipes of commodity food items is just a band aid.

They never seem to learn. Most people go to parks to ride, that is the primary reason for most to go. Eating is a secondary activity that is mainly done out of necessity within parks. It seems the new management really wants to copy Disney's business model even through it doesn't fit with the seasonal and regional amusment market segment that SF operates in. I wonder if they will try opening barbershops again, LOL.

Hopefully they will have enough staffing to run it. Last couple of years Hershey has gotten really bad with not running many of their flats and operating rides at minimum capacity even on busy days. Similar to how GADV was like in the late 90's, early 2000's with lots of rides SBNO on most days.

The rejection may be a good thing. Too many industries are becoming oligopolies.

I miss them too. Hopefully they will keep HITP at GADV as it is nice to have an extension to the operating season. It always seems to jam up at night, similar to FF.

I rode the original Gwazi and it was pretty rough. Can't remember which side I rode.

HHN still gets pretty unruly despite being an upcharge event. Its also much more crowded than normal daytime hours. The problems are that many parents use local parks as an daycare service. Sadly Halloween events in general just attract much rougher crowds than normal. Frankly, GADV's just isn't good enough to be a separate upcharge event, it would need major improvements. The one bad thing about HITP I noticed was that the park downsized and sacrificed the quality out of FF even more for HITP. For example, reducing Halloween decorations for a quicker changeover to Christmas.

I get cutting HITP in the northern parks as the weather is more uncomfortable and iffy for them. Plus snow and ice removal along with cold temps are harsh on infrastructure and machines. There is also the higher heating bills, even on days the parks aren't open they still need to run some heat to avoid frozen pipes. However, GADV does have a major drawing region between NYC and Philly and it isn't quite as cold as many of the other northern parks. It probably all depends on the NPV they calurated for continuing HITP. FF cuts are also unfortunate but I can see why. Besides security reasons, the reduced hours also helps to encourage repeat visits as there is less time to watch all the shows and to go through all the upcharge haunted houses in a single night. People do tend to become more rowdy as the night progresses.

I hope it works better than the these security bots.

I only remember the Loony Tunes character height checkers. Dorney used to have custom character height checker signs for each of their rides that matched the themes of each ride. Sadly they replaced them all with generic plain height checkers years ago.

Really nasty snow storm yesterday, the worst in several years. I got 7 inches of snow. When it all melts it will be a huge muddy mess.

Keeping existing customers is cheaper than attracting new customers.

Screamscape suspects that Six Flags may be retiring its membership program.

Screamscape reports that Shrek 4D is being replaced with an Minion attraction. Personally I am disappointed by the news as I am not a huge fan of Despicable Me and now there will be a pair of attractions based on that IP.

Its odd the Starcruiser hotel wasn't mentioned during the Disney parks Christmas special. Supposedly many of the reservations for it have already been cancelled. It could very well end up as a boondoggle. In other news, Screamscape reported that the Lightning Lane prices rose 150% for rides in DCA during Christmas week. The Disney parks are not worth this new BS IMHO.

Looks like only the Safari opens in March and the park itself doesn't opens until April.

It would be nice to have the simulator return. GADV can really stand another indoor ride on that side of the park.

I ridden the moving cars on the Sun Wheel, Mickey's Fun Wheel at DCA. How fast and hard the moving cars move really depends on how the wheel is being loaded.

Perhaps a traffic light should be installed. Also had issues with northbound cars exiting the park not letting me over to the access road entrance.

That has been a problem with SF for decades, especially GADV. I noticed other SF parks tend to perform better upkeep on theming than GADV does.

Also seems a lot more like The 5th Element than Star Wars too, the whole battle onboard a space cruise ship with an female alien singer. Through to be a bit fair to Disney, the CIS in the prequels did use touch screens on their ships.

The preview trailers Disney released for the Star Wars hotel are really getting roasted by fans. The reception was so poor for the first trailer with actor that plays Adam Goldberg that Disney pulled the video. People are probably so partly due to the high price. You can buy a nice used car for the price of that two night stay.