At the start of each year, Epcot at Walt Disney World presents the International Festival of the Arts with food marketplaces, galleries, workshops, pop-up shops, and performances featuring the the Disney on Broadway concert series….
Read MoreYear: 2019
It’s the hap-happiest season of all–at theme parks
I run down the 2019 holiday happenings at theme parks, including Disney World, Disneyland, Universal Orlando Resort, Universal Studios Hollywood, Six Flags, Silver Dollar City Attractions, Dollywood, and more in my USA Today Travel article. If all you want for Christmas are…
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Ride wimps: Could you handle Universal’s Hagrid coaster?
Many theme park attractions feature a combination of immersive storytelling and physical thrills. The Universal parks, especially, aren’t shy about amping up the thrills on their headlining rides. Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Coaster, which debuted…
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Nickelodeon Universe brings the thrills indoors at NJ’s American Dream
I visited Nickelodeon Universe, the largest indoor theme park in North America at the new American Dream mega-complex in New Jersey and was impressed by its headlining attraction, the TMNT Shellraiser coaster. Read my review…
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Putting a face on technology
There are some talented techies designing park attractions and chronicling the amusement industry. Folks such as Anya Tyler and Dustin Sloane, engineers at Skyline Attractions; Anne Irvine and Brian Ondrey of IOE, which specializes in programmable…
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Unsung heroes
Whiz-bang visual effects and kick-ass thrills may get all the glory when it comes to theme park attractions. But let’s hear it for the composers, sound designers, and other creatives that develop the music and…
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Devilish thrills on the way to Six Flags
What’s coming to Six Flags parks for the 2020 season? Perhaps the biggest news is the Jersey Devil, a huge, single-rail, Rocky Mountain Construction thrill machine at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. And…
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Six Flags takes a stand for preservation
I love this story! When it was time to retire the historic Iron Wolf, Six Flags sent one of its lead cars back to Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M), the company that created it, and another…
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We have met the HHN mazes, and it is “Us”
I headed to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando, and had a ball, as usual. The freakiest maze, by far, is the one based on Jordan Peele’s Us. After years of going to haunts, I’m…
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Parks offer chills to go with the thrills
Just about every park offers a Halloween event. Let’s run down some of the highlights for 2019, including the granddaddy of gore, Knott’s Scary Farm, Cedar Point’s Haunt at HalloWeekends, Six Flags’ Fright Fest, and…
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