Books in Theme Park Stores

This post is a continuationof the conversation I was having with a colleague about theme park books. Until this conversation happened, I had never really thought about trying to get a book stocked inside a theme park store before. Outside of Disney, there’s only one type of book I recall seeing in a theme park shop and they all belong to the same “Images of America” series (Holiday World and HersheyPark). Disney has a few smaller sized books such as the “Imagineering field guides” and “Fnd the Hidden Mickeys” that were intended to be taken into the theme park with you. In my experience and travels I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anyone reading a book at a park before. If you’re looking for something for guests to do while in the queue you’d be much better off developing some sort of interactive iPhone or iPad application.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The Columbus Zoo does have a few books in their gift shops but they’re mainly picture books. I would try to get something physical put together first before pitching the idea to a park. Based on the books I mentioned above, it seems most parks might be more willing to stock a book in their gift stores if the content were about their specific park or product (you think you’d find a book about HersheyPark inside Cedar Point? Yeah, right).

What do you think? Have you ever seen anyone reading a book in a theme park? Are there any specific park stores which come to mind that stock a variety of books? I would love to hear your feedback!

Hershey Chocolate Factory Tour Review

The Wonderful World of Chocolate and the Sweetest Place on Earth

After riding Skyrush at HersheyPark and visiting ZooAmerica, the other highlight of our visit to Hershey world was creating our very own candy bars at Hershey’s Chocolate World. There are several different attractions inside Chocolate World and the first one we did was the Hershey make your own candy bar experience. 

When you purchase your ticket they enter your name into the computer. At each station you scan your ticket and it displays your name so you know where your candy bar is at all times. We donned the white hair nets and aprons we were given and proceeded inside to the candy bar design studio. Using touch screens, I selected my base to be white chocolate and added butterscotch and milk chocolate chips and opted for no sprinkles. Scan our tickets at the start of the assembly line and pull the lever to begin. A suction cup contraption picks up the chocolate base you picked out and sets it gently onto the assembly line conveyor belt. The bar slowly moves down the line stopping at each respective station to receive its proper fillings. A layer of chocolate is applied on top (the same for everybody regardless your base flavor) and your fledgling bar is whisked away into the inferno of the oven. While it cools you get to design your packaging.

Next up, we did the free Hershey chocolate tour. Please note, this ride is a replacement for the original Hershey factory tour, as the original Hershey chocolate factory tour was so popular, and drawing so many guests it was impossible to please them all without disrupting operations of the chocolate factory. So an omni-mover type ride systems was created to move thousands of people a day through the sets of animatronics and video screens, a sort of virtual Hershey plant tour explaining how chocolate is made. Fun fact: Milton Hershey chose the location in Pennsylvania due to the abundance of nearby cows for his milk chocolate (I guess it’s cheaper to transport cocoa versus milk). At the end of the ride you are given a free chocolate bar before being dumped out in a giant Hersheys store.

I can’t wait to visit Hershey park Hershey park again! Pictured below is the 2012 Chocolate World map of attractions. Click here for the Chocolate World hours of operation.

Knoebels Flying Turns Update and Trip Report

On Sunday, May 27^th 2012 I visited Knoebels amusement park in Elysburg, PA. Knoebels grove is an old fashioned amusement park with a very relaxed atmosphere and some of the most classic rides around. This was the second stop on out tour of Pennsylvania after riding Skyrush at HersheyPark. Some of Knoebels rides and park favorites include the carousel where you can collect rings (one of only a few left in the country). 

 

Knoebels Haunted House is also a must ride on your visit. The Haunted House is consistently ranked as one of the best of its type in the world. As with all the Knoebels attractions, it’s a classic, old school ride full of great gags that made me jump despite riding it before. Warning: it is a very loud ride.

The million dollar question all theme park fans are dying to know the answer to is what’s the status on Knoebels Flying Turns? Construction started in 2006 and the ride has never opened to the general public (anyone know if park officials have ever taken a quick ride down the chute?). It appears they are waiting on a new car chassis to arrive to continue testing. The brake run and transfer track has actually been completely removed. Lift hill number has been modified too. I hope the Flying Turns Knoebels opens in my life time.

 I also had a chance to ride Knoebels Black Diamond, a new/old ride relocated from New Jersey (then called the Golden Nugget I believe) and given an updated control system. Black Diamond is technically a roller coaster as it relies solely on gravity after being pulled to the top of the third floor by multiple chain lifts. I have to admit I was very surprised at the number and quality of the show scenes inside the building. Bravo Knoebels – a job well done!

Pictured below is the 2012 Knoebels park map.

Skyrush Review: Intamin gets it right

I want to preface this by saying I only rode once in a middle seat in the back row and didn’t have to wait in a long, hot line. Skyrush is one of the 12 roller coasters at Hershey park. Where is Hershey park? Hershey park location (HersheyPark) is in Hershey, Pennsylvania, not far from Harrisburg, the state capital of Pennsylvania. Skyrush is easily the best roller coasters in Hershey park, if not the best in America.     

No, it’s not a perfect ride. The Stengel dive is actually quite boring, it’s short for a 200 foot coaster, and lacks a climatic ending (at least from the back seat it felt like it just ran out of gas after the last airtime hill). That being said, the airtime is very intense and the first drop is one of the best anywhere (due to it's three parts: flung over the top, 85 degree, curved bottom).

One of the reasons I liked the ride so much was because Intamin finally fixed their horrible restraint design. They actually modeled something after the kings of comfort, B&M. Now we get the best of both worlds – B&M comfort with Intamin airtime. Gotta love it!

I can't comment on the operations since I only rode it once during the sneak preview Friday night but watching the ride from a distance on Saturday I could tell dispatches were horribly slow. Many of the Hershey park coasters are operationally slow (I’m looking at you Fahrenheit).

How do I rank Skyrush against other roller coasters? Well, it’s really hard for me to say. For example, I hold Apollo’s Chariot very highly in my mind but I rode it over ten years ago. Thus, I have a hard time ranking coasters. Compared to Wild Eagle at Dollywood, which I rode earlier, Skyrush easily takes best new ride of 2012. While Wild Eagle is fun and unique Skyrush is extreme and intense. If you like airtime you have to get on this ride (before the public complains it's too intense and they add more trims to slow it down).

2012 Amusement Park Ticket Price Per Coaster

There are a lot of variables that go into amusement park entrance ticket pricing but from the viewpoint of a roller coaster enthusiast – someone only going to the park to ride the coasters – might look at the ticket price as cost per coaster. I decided to do a little quick research and proceeded to go to a few amusement park web sites to see what their one day ticket price at the gate is and then went to RCDB to confirm how many roller coasters they have. I charted out the results shown above (I use Excel spreadsheets a lot).

A few interesting notes from my research:

• Six Flags has an affiliate program with 5% commission for selling park tickets. Very smart. Why don’t more parks do this (or maybe they do and I've never heard about it before?)
• Six Flags has one of the harder websites to find out how to buy tickets while Kings Island was by far the easiest.
• Holiday World has the highest cost per coaster while Cedar Point has the lowest.
• I omitted the heavily themed parks such as Disney and Universal for obvious reasons (extremely high cost per coaster).
• Lagoon Park seems to be pretty good value as it's the same price as Holiday World but offers 5 more coasters. That is until you actually see the roller coasters that they do have to offer.

Of course this is just all fun and games as I stated to begin with there are many other factors which go into ticket prices like what other perks are included - water parks, parking, soft drinks, world class shows, etc. At the same time, those folks complaining about how expensive Cedar Point is need to realize that Cedar Point is very affordable compared to other parks as well as alternative forms of entertainment.

Roller Coaster Freakonomics

I wrote an article featured in the latest issue of Theme Park Geekly where I attempted to analyize some roller coaster data in a unique way. I compared the speed of wooden and steel roller coasters versus their height and found that they were pretty much the same. Then, I looked at height versus length and noticed a very interesting trend. Joel, the Coaster Critic, was able to take my data and create a pretty cool interactive chart that you can play around with. Check it out for yourself!

I am one of 24

I've been selected as one of the 24 Jr. Researchers for the Ride Institute of Technology. What that actually means or entails I have no idea! Hopefully we will find out more tomorrow after HersheyyPark's 2012 announcement.

By the way, I love the terminology used in this sentence: 
The Ride Institute of Technology has reviewed your application using a proprietary admixture of random forests, naïve Bayesian estimators, RESTful services, gossip protocols, data sharding, Byzantine quorums, erasure coding, vector clocks, and of  course, combinatorial optimization.

HersheyPark 2012 Viral Marketing Campaign Update

 HersheyPark has launched another massive online viral campaign for their new 2012 roller coaster. Everything is pretty much spelled out up to this point here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attraction_2012_%28Hersheypark%29

Here's the information on the actual ride that is all but confirmed at this point:

Height: 212
Angle of first drop: 85 degrees

Color codes:
"pastel blue" (supports)
"traffic yellow" (tracks)
"Night Blue" (train)Hershey trademarked the name "SkyRush" (although this is not the "confirmed" name quite yet). There is also a heavy military-type theme shaping up....like a "test pilot" type feel.

Possible layout?

Also, a fuzzy image the coaster was released, and it essentially looks like a mini I305. It seems there is still a rumor that it could be a wingrider-style ride, although my bet is on a standard sit-down coaster. 


A new clue was released today revealing the message: In the end only 4 will ride. Looks like this is a contest to be the first to ride the new coaster. Can't wait to see the final layout renderings (though I hope they hold off on those until a little while after vertical construction has begun. I love trying to figure out the layout just from the pictures of the footers). Figure out the next clue for yourself:

• Ride Institute of Technology website
• LaMarcus Brothers Mid-Air Excavation website