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Eye candy...

Theme Park Insider reader Mike Duchock checks in with a couple photos from Hard Rock Park's opening ceremony last Friday: (His photos follow)

After a few weeks of the "sound check" soft opening HRP in Myrtle Beach officially opened its doors for full operations last Friday, May 9th. Some morning rain showers ended just in time for a short ceremony celebrating this momentous occasion. Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland and South Carolina governor Mark Sanford's wife and son joined HRP CEO Steven Goodwin for a guitar smashing and to officially open the gates. The new $400 million theme park will celebrate its grand opening June 2nd - 3rd.

The day turned out to be a perfect theme park day- beautiful weather, thin crowds, and short waits. Every attraction and show was open except for the unique Maximum RPM coaster featuring the unique Ferris Wheel-type lift system. Crowds were virtually non-existent and lines were short throughout the entire 12-hour operating day giving guests the feeling that the park was all to themselves. Personally I never had to wait more than 3 minutes for a ride, even on the signature Led Zepplin: The Ride coaster. Bike week is currently going on in Myrtle Beach with HRP is hosting it's own expo in the parking lot. As a result, parking is free for all guests and you can buy a two day ticket for $75 this week only.

TPI readers Russell Meyer and Steve Lee each filed extensive trip reports on Hard Rock Park, with photos and video.

And now we hit the rewind button. Inspired by last week's King of the Theme Park Graveyard Tournament, Reader Ryan Roppel e-mailed a couple of classic photos of the Disneyland Skyway:

I know, having the Skyway cut through the Matterhorn like that killed some of the illusion. But, darn it, flying through a mountain was just so cool... ;-)

See you from Orlando Tuesday night....

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The Blog Flume continues after the awards. Just scroll down.

Readers recommend...

The Flume (con't.)

A tour of Magic Mountain, with park president Jay Thomas

TPI: So, how's the park?

Thomas: The park is phenomenal. We're heading into 2008; it's a transition season for the park. We've got a new team on board; A new director of marketing, new administration director, a new general manager, a new park president. But the park's doing fantastic. The park's cleaner that it has ever been. We're really working on raising the bar.

The Sky Tower, with Tatsu, Revolution and the now-operational Valencia Falls in the foreground.

TPI: But this year's theme park industry attendance report had Magic Mountain dropping out of the U.S. top 20.

Thomas: We can't really talk about the attendance. That's the directive given us. But our attendance is not so bad. We're definitely heading in the right direction.

[Indeed. That same day, Six Flags announced chain-wide attendance increased 19 percent in the first three months of 2008. And average per guest spending increased 13 percent on top of that.]

TPI: The advice we give people always is 'get to the park early, when the lines are the shortest.' But that doesn't work for people when they encounter closed rides and delayed openings. What's the situation at Magic Mountain these days? [Delayed opening have been, ah, a problem at SFMM in the past.]

Thomas: We have no delayed openings. Everything runs at opening and stays open until closing.

Riddlers Revenge, as seen from the Sky Tower.

I come from a background of operations. So I would rather us start the day at max units. Now, of course, that doesn't always work. We do have maintenance schedules we have to follow, and never will we make a decision that will jeopardize safety. But I don't want to spend 15-20 minutes in the middle of the day adding a train.

We're also trying to train guests not to bring certain items onto the load platform, so that we can expedite the loading process. And I think we've made significant gains in that area.

TPI: Which rides do you hit, in what order, to ride as many of the best coasters before noon?

Sue Carpenter: We always tell people to make their way to the back of the park, and make your way to the front. I would always go Goliath, Colossus. I try to start easy and work my way up to the inversions.

Thomas: I send people that direction to build the experiences, to end on Tatsu, to end on X2.

TPI: Let's talk about X2. Are you confident that you'll be able to avoid its past capacity problems?

Thomas: We're going to run with three trains. In the past, we ran with two trains. We often ran with one train. We put a substantial investment in this so that we can run three trains throughout the course of the summer. That alone should have tremendous affect on capacity. The next thing is that we are looking at changing the loading process and the unloading process.

* * *

Thomas described a new "IBU," Individual Business Unit, management philosophy that has been implemented in the park. Managers and employees at each of the more than 300 locations in the park, from rides, to shops, to food carts, adopt a business strategy for that location.

Kevin Yee at MiceAge has detailed how he believes an individual location-based analysis system is hurting customer service at the Disney theme parks. (See the second page of that article.)

Thomas detailed how Magic Mountain is trying to use the IBU philosophy to encourage individual locations to come up with unique ways to improve their show and guest service. One example is at the Sky Tower, where a manager has converted the tower into a "Magic of the Mountain Museum," a tribute to the history of the park.

A wooden horse from Magic Mountain's original carousel looks out from Sky Tower over Viper and X2.

The trolls live again at Magic Mountain.

At that point, we headed out into the park for a tour. As I grabbed my camera and sunglasses, I noticed Thomas picked up what we, when I worked at Disney World, called "nabby-grabbers," a long-handled pincer used for picking up garbage around the park. In fact, several managers I saw walking the park before opening were carrying the grabbers, picking up trash and leaves wherever they found them.

After we watched the park's opening ceremony at the front gate, Thomas said that he had challenged Magic Mountain's managers and employees not only to clear its midways of trash, but of all leaves as well. Not only does that help make the park look crisp and clean, he explained, clearing the leaves is important from a cultural perspective, as well.

"Clearing all those leaves looks like an insurmountable task, but when we did it, I now can go to any department in the park and say, 'Remember the leaves? What seemed like an in surmountable task, you overcame.'"

Thomas also talked up Six Flags' code of guest conduct, prominently displayed on signs in the park, as well as on the park's guidemap. As we walked from the front gate toward X2, a teen girl walking past us with her friends casually dropped the f-word in her conversation. She wasn't mad, just using the word, in normal voice, as an adverb, as some people often do. Yet Thomas, Carpenter and the park's operations manager all exchanged looks, and the ops manager quietly peeled away from us to confront the girl.

Tomorrow I will write about what I saw as we walked around the new X2. But after we visited the Sky Tower, as we were making our way back to the administration building, behind the rear of the park, Thomas expressed how frustrating it can be to turn around a reputation.

"I know the work that goes into what we're doing here.... Some that the things that have affected Magic Mountain's reputation, with the gangs, that was years ago. That's not what this park is like today. This park is cleaner. It's safe.... People are working hard here. I wish more people would come out and see what we're doing here," Thomas said.

"I wish we could be cut a break."

So... does Magic Mountain deserve a break? Let me say this: I have never encountered a theme park president so concerned about his park's online reputation that he spent a whole morning walking a Theme Park Insider writer around his park. This wasn't some cattle call with other local journalists or website reps. Just me.

And the park did look nice. Rides were running and Thomas impressed as a manager who did seem to care about the quality of his park, and guests' experience in it. How much of that has trickled down to the park's operations? I'll see sometime in the next few weeks when I revisit the park, as a normal guest this time and without the presidential tour.

In the meantime, though, I'd love to hear from other recent Magic Mountain visitors, in the comments. Has this park improved? How does it rate as an entertainment value?

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Cedar Fair Chief Exec. discusses future of Cedar Fair Parks

I found some of these quotes intriguing, including:

"Our goal is to have the Hotel Breakers and Camper Village at Cedar Point cashless by 2010"

"If we had the money on the balance sheet, we have hotel opportunities at Kings Dominion and Carowinds and in Canada. We have plenty of land around all of those parks to make it into a resort community like Cedar Point."

Regarding the removal of rides from the Geauga Lake park near Cleveland, Kinzel insists it was the right decision b/c the park was losing money, but does plan on making it, "the largest water park in the state of Ohio"

The most intriguing response came to questions regarding the building of coasters over 400 feet tall. Despite the fact that the technology exists, does it make sense?

"Financially, no. The price of steel is unbelievable....you can go as high as you want, but from a financial standpoint, it's hard to justify."

Despite the coaster wars we have seen in the last 10 years, it's possible that the race for the tallest and fastest might soon be at an end.

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King of the Theme Park Graveyard: Back to the Future

Back to the Future (Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood)

Just closed last year, these attractions, based on the popular Michael J. Fox movies, placed you in eight-passenger flight simulators, made up to look like the film's DeLorean time machines. You "flew" in front of a massive, Imax-style screen, as you chased bad guy Biff Tannen through time to reclaim his stolen DeLorean.

Back to the Future cruised to the victory, in a tournament where the higher seed won ever contest. Readers nominated dozens of now-defunct theme park attractions for the tournament, and the 16 receiving the most nominations faced off in reader votes each day this week.

Semifinal results

In the semifinals of our tournament to select readers' favorite defunct theme park attraction, top seed Back to the Future eliminated one-time Universal Studios Florida neighbor Kongfrontation. In the other match-up, the Magic Kingdom's The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter took out Disney sibling, Epcot's Horizons.

The higher seeds have won every match-up in the tournament so far. Does that mean BTTF will be our winner? It is time for you to decide:

more at twiigs.com...

Talk about your pick in the comments, please. And thanks, again, to everyone who e-mailed a nomination or cast a vote in this tournament!

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May 9, 2008

Hard Rock Park opens as the world's first 'Rock n' Roll' theme park

By Russell Meyer [Update: I've added part two of Russell's report, and posted it to the discussion board. Just follow the link at the bottom of the post for the complete report. - Robert]

From the ruins of an abandoned outlet mall,

rises the world's first Rock and Roll theme park.

Hard Rock Park features rides, attractions, and shows geared towards guests of all ages and music tastes. From the smooth sounds of Bob Marley to the ear piercing heavy metal of Led Zeppelin to the toe tapping sounds of country's best, there is something for everyone here. Even guests who listen to nothing but easy listening could find something to play air guitar to here.

Park designers have deliberately positioned attractions in each “rock environ” to satisfy guests of all ages and tastes. The idea for this theme park is for guests to walk around together as a family – no Mom and kids running to Fantasyland, while Dad runs to Pirates, and the teens run to Space Mountain – everyone experiences it together. Here you have attractions like Led Zeppelin: The Ride, for adults and teens that want a thrill, right next to the Reggae River Falls, designed for small children who want to have fun and get wet, next to Paradise Cafe, designed for adults who just want to relax. This philosophy of the family enjoying the park together repeats itself throughout the park's environs.

Read the rest of Russell Meyer's report...

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Theme Parks Reviewed

U.S./Canada Top 20 ^*

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Other U.S. parks

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