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New HD video of Cedar Point's Millennium Force

Cedar Point has released its official, high definition, point-of-view video of its Intamin Giga roller coaster, Millennium Force:

Update: I just updated the Raptor and Top Thrill Dragster pages with new POV videos from Cedar Point.

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Vote of the week: Holiday traditions and cranberry sauce

Next week brings the Thanksgiving holiday to the United States. More than any other time of year, it seems, the holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Year's causes people to fall back into family and personal traditions.

One tradition now seems to be jumping the gun. Most theme parks that remain open for the holiday season already have put up their Christmas trees and holiday lights. But no one seems to mind. Crowds pack the parks during the holiday season, encouraging some regional parks to reopen for these weeks, such as Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which will run its Christmastown event this season.

Individuals have their traditions, too. One for me is a particular reader vote that I run every year on the Friday before Thanksgiving. (Long-time readers will recognize it, I am sure.) This tradition is so old that, this year, it has outlived the publication where I began it. Denver's Rocky Mountain News, on whose website I worked in the late 1990s, folded last winter. (If you hail from the Denver area and are missing the more popular Thanksgiving tradition from that newspaper, here's a link to Gene Amole's stuffing recipe.)

So here it is:

From a can, or from the stove top? You tell me, in the comments.

By the way, notice something missing from this picture?

Consider this an escalation of my campaign to persuade Holiday World to add cranberry sauce to the turkey meals at Plymouth Rock Cafe. Whether you prefer cranberries from the can or the bag, I hope you'll agree that cranberry sauce makes a great addition to a Thanksgiving meal.

Have a great weekend, and I'm thankful for you reading Theme Park Insider!

Update: Holiday World tweets: "Sorry, dear, you're in the minority on that one. Haven't offered cranberry sauce since '07. Just didn't move. Happy Thanksgiving!"

Nooooo! I need a black-market source for cranberry sauce next time I'm in Santa Claus, then. Help!

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Disney Legends recall Walt Disney and the 'Yes, if....' way of management

LAS VEGAS - Walt Disney didn't create or build the theme park industry, contrary to what some folks have claimed over the years. What he did, veteran attraction designer Bob Rogers said, was to create and manage the team that built the theme park industry.

With that, Rogers introduced a panel of five Disney legends who were part of that team: Sculptor Blaine Gibson, Engineer Bob Gurr, Consultant Harrison "Buzz" Price, Composer Richard Sherman and Imagineer Marty Sklar.

Combined, these five men possess more than a quarter millennium of experience and wisdom in the theme park industry, Rogers said. Rogers, founder and CEO of BRC Imagination Arts and a former THEA Lifetime Achievement Award winner, brought together these colleagues of Walt Disney at the 2009 IAAPA Attractions Expo to talk about what made Walt's management style so effective, and what today's managers might learn from the way Walt did it.

Working with Walt, Gurr said, "you're going to leave the room more inspired than when you came in it. To me, that's leadership."

Walt hated negativity, Sherman added. He was a very positive man who focused on making improvements, rather than laying blame. Sherman told of one Disney co-worker who criticized a gag in a film the group was working on.

Walt erupted.

"'I don't care if you don't like it,' Walt said. 'Tell me what we can do to make it better'," Sherman recalled.

What an amazing statement. I've worked for my share of graduates of the Marquis de Sade School of Management. (I'm sure that some of you have, too.) These sadists seem to think that managing demands laying blame for every slip-up or missed opportunity - as if the threat of criticism alone will inspire employees to work better.

Walt found a way to push improvement without laying blame. Take a look at what he said - he's not glossing over a problem with the gag. He implicitly acknowledges it could be better. But rather than indulge an employee's criticism of another worker, he demands a positive, forward-thinking attitude - "what we can do to make it better."

All the panelists told stories about how Walt kept employees engaged and contributing by not shooting down suggestions, but instead steering employees toward improving their ideas.

Price described Walt's approach to suggestions as the difference between responding "'Yes, if...' or 'No, because...'."

Nor did Walt offer his employees empty praise.

"There were no 'attaboys' from Walt," Gurr said.

"All we ever heard was "'Hmm. That'll work'," Sherman said.

But that didn't mean Walt couldn't be effusive with praise. He'd walk down the hall and gush about an employee's ideas to co-workers, who'd then head back up the hall to see what that employee was doing and to congratulate him, Gurr said.

"You had to get [praise] second-hand," Gurr said. "That way, no one got a puffy head."

"He knew how to use one employee's word to stimulate another," Gibson added.

"Walt was the greatest casting director who ever lived," Sklar said. "He knew not to pigeon-hole anyone. You never know what you might find when you give someone an opportunity."

Indeed, Sklar joined the company as a UCLA journalism student in 1955, hired to write a tabloid newspaper for Main Street U.S.A. He went on to write for Walt for 10 years, and eventually ended up as president of Walt Disney Imagineering. Gibson joined the movie studio as an animator and ended up as the lead sculptor for WDI. Bob Gurr holds a degree not in engineering, but in design.

"Bob never engineered anything... except everything at Disneyland," Sklar quipped.

To drive home the point, Rogers turned to the audience and asked for a show of hands: "Think back to what you studied in school. Now, how many of you are doing something fundamentally different?"

The majority of the audience raised their hands.

The key to sticking with Walt was never to tell him 'no,' but instead find a way to rise to the challenges that he gave you, Sherman said.

Gurr told about being hired to design the shells of Disneyland's Autopia cars, then being asked by Walt to design the rest of the cars, too. When the ride opened, it ran 40 cars. By the end of its first week, only two still worked, Gurr said.

"That was a pretty good invitation that you needed to learn more," Gurr said of his experience. He said that Walt asked him what he needed to make the cars work more reliably.

"Well, a couple of mechanics to work here and keep the cars repaired," Gurr replied. Within hours, workers showed up at the Autopia site to build a garage.

"Walt could see a need and fix it," Gurr said. "But he didn't criticize the situation you found yourself in."

"Enthusiasm was one of [Walt's] greatest assets in teaching," Gibson said.

Ultimately, that enthusiasm paid off.

"One thing that [Walt] never let is forget was it is all about the audience," Sklar said. "Do something that people would like."

Something theme park audiences have loved over the years has been the music of the Sherman Brothers. Ricgard Sherman closed the session by spending 10 minutes on the piano, recalling the circumstances under which he and his brother wrote some of the Disney theme parks' most beloved music, including "In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room," "There's a Great, Big Beautiful Tomorrow" and, of course, "It's a Small World."

My audio recording of Sherman's performance is available at this link.

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From the show floor at the 2009 IAAPA Attractions Expo

LAS VEGAS - [*Updated throughout with photos and additional detail.] Scenes from the 2009 IAAPA Attractions Expo:

I bumped into Six Flags CEO Mark Shapiro this morning, and he's trying to manage expectations for Magic Mountain's new roller coaster. We've known it will be a family coaster, bur Shapiro said to think even smaller than that.

Terminator Jr., anyone?

Six Flags' bigger news, which I didn't get to ask Shapiro about, is that the chain will install an attraction from 5D International in Spring 2011. No word yet on which park, but I talked with the folks at 5D and the tech seems impressive. (Think 4D show inside a ride.)

If you're mourning the loss of Big Bad Wolf and other suspended coasters, keep your eyes open for the new Free Fly Coaster from S&S. It's two four-seat verticle benches, swinging freely on either side of a coaster track. It reminds me of a milder version of X2, with a suspended coaster feel.

A prototype ran this summer in Sweden, and an S&S rep boasted that it didn't suffer any downtime. Yet she said that while several US parks have expressed interest, the economy seems to be stronger in Europe, prompting more serious interest there.

The Gravity Group was showing off its new Timberliner train cars, which will be installed on The Voyage at Holiday World this spring.

If you're going to ride a kiddie car ride, why not ride in style?

Chance Morgan was showing off this Ferrari ride vehicle, which will be features at the new Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi next year. Middle Eastern parks are a bit beyond my radar, but Arthur Levine has been keeping track of what will be in the new park.

Mack has blended the Splash Battle and the classic Teacup spinner in its new Twist 'N' Splash shoot-'em-up soaker:

Finally, because I knew someone would ask, here is the Bolliger & Mabillard booth. Not much action in the coaster leader's exhibit this year, but they did bring along a B&M Mega coaster car:

Later today, I will post a write-up of the afternoon session with five Disney theme park legends: Blaine Gibson, Bob Gurr, Harrison "Buzz" Price, Richard Sherman and Marty Sklar.

The IAAPA Attractions Expo isn't held for theme park fans. It's an industry gig, where you can find vendors hawking everything from greaseless frying machines to light-up cotton candy cones.

Need thatching for a tiki hut? Non-skid surface material for walkways or rubbery pebble material for playgrounds? Tons and tons of carnival prize plush, at low wholesale prices? Someone on the IAAPA show floor can hook you up.

I enjoyed checking out the new trends in food options. Based on what I saw on the floor, look for crepes to make a bigger presence in theme parks in the year ahead. I also was intrigued by potato chips on a stick.

But the wildest food exhibit has to be one that Bob Rogers tipped to me: A vendor who combined a restaurant lobster tank with a carnival "claw" prize game. For $2 a pull, you can try to extract a live lobster from the tank.

One one hand... ewww. On the other, how did it take someone this long to combine those concepts?

Yeah, that's the IAAPA show floor.

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Disney's Victoria & Albert's awarded AAA's 5 Diamond rating 10th year in a row

Walt Disney World's Victoria & Albert's restaurant has been awarded AAA's coveted 5 Diamond rating for the 10th consecutive year. Only 52 restaurants out of 60,000 rated in North America achieve the ultimate rating. Read more about the guidelines at http://tinyurl.com/yfnb3bc

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