The station hums with festive cheer, The grandest ride of all the year! The tracks are iced in silver light, A ribbon through the frozen night. With wreaths upon the velvet cars, We’re climbing upward toward the stars.
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Did you know firefighting used to be an Olympic event? The 1900 Olympic Games in Paris were organized as part of the 1900 World’s Fair and included firefighting. These were only the second modern Olympic Games and much more informal than the games are today with a mix of traditional and novelty events. If you’ve been to the LEGOLAND Florida park you know one of the most fun group activities is the Rescue Academy firefighting attraction, sometimes also referred to as Fire Brigade or Fire Academy at other parks. In this attraction you use pumping action to propel your firefighting vehicle, spray water on a target and then race back to the finish line. It can be quite a workout and get competitive, but it also mimics several aspects of the 125 year old Olympic event.
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MrBeast now has his own theme park, or more of a high quality traveling carnival, called Beast Land in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I’ll call this a theme park as it is themed to him! Beast Land really has two elements, the Beast Land amusement/theme park and Beast Arena where you can compete in games and events to win money. The park launch video is below and is highly focused on the game aspect of the park and less on the rides. There are also complex issues related to Saudi Arabian investment which enables this much of this wild stuff. However, we cover theme parks here, so we’ll focus on the rides including a massive inverted coaster you can see in the video.
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I visited Six Flags Fiesta Texas on Saturday, November 22, 2025, the start of Holiday in the Park. It was a beautiful fall day and the park looked awesome. I had purchased the Flash Pass for my son and I several days in advance anticipating a busy day due to the great weather forecast and t. The Flash Pass was $39.99/person for the standard version which holds your place in the virtual line, so you can enjoy the park while waiting for your turn to ride. In theory this should approximately double the amount of rides you can get on in a day as you can be two places at once by virtually waiting for one ride while riding another ride, enjoying a show or having a meal. Was this a worthwhile purchase? The answer is a resounding “maybe” as although we saved a relatively minimal amount of time for our $80 investment, we did legitimately enjoy a few more things at a more relaxed pace than we would have without it.
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Many areas of Disney are filled with American flags. The most prominent of these are the main flag poles at the entrance of the parks, but areas like Main Street, U.S.A. are filled with flags on top of each of the buildings. However, many of these flags are not “real” official United States flags, but are often missing some stars or have some other imperfections. Why would Disney do this? It’s not due to any lack of patriotism, but rather is more about practicality in not having to follow United States Flag Code for every single one.
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There have been rumors of a Busch Gardens Tampa hotel for some time, but did you know there are already several options to stay overnight at the park? In fact there are actually two options, the Mzinga Lodge which is an on-site dormitory and the Tiger Lodge, a building overlooking our tiger habitat. These venues house up to 50 people and can be used for kids groups or adult groups. In the case of the Tiger Lodge, this is just reuse of the indoor tiger viewing facility where you could put out sleeping bags, but the Mzinga Lodge is an actual separate building onsite at Busch Gardens. Its location in the backstage area as well as some pictures from the park’s camp guide can be seen below.
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It has been reported that Warner Bros. Discovery is considering licensing its DC characters to Universal. Six Flags currently holds exclusive theme park rights to DC Comics characters in theme parks, so the question is if the characters would potentially be found in both chain’s parks going forward or move exclusively to Universal. Warner Bros. currently license Harry Potter to Universal, so the two companies already have a track record of working together on theme park attractions. A DC license could also be seen as a replacement for the Marvel IP Universal still has in its park Disney now owning the rights to Marvel. Given the media merger landscape, we could see a major reshuffling of theme park IP in the coming years.
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There’s a great documentary on YouTube by Seaworld History about the former Rhino Rally attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa featuring the amazing SirWillow who used to be a driver on the attraction. I was also thrilled to see the inclusion of some pictures I had posted several years ago on a blog entries about the abandoned ride area and the Rhino Rally area being under construction for what would become Serengeti Flyer. It was so cool to see my blog mentioned in the credits!
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Three rides from the former Six Flags America park briefly appeared on the prominent used ride website Amusement-Rides.com. The rides included the park’s Zamperal NebulaZ SteamWhirler, its Zampera spinning coaster Ragin’ Cajun and its Zamperla Discovery Harley Quinn Spinsanity. The NebulaZ and Giant Discovery were especially surprising given they were nearly new and seemed likely to be relocated to another Six Flags park. The spinning coaster was a tad older, having originally come itself in a relocation from Six Flags Great America, but also was seen as likely to find a new home.
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Kasas City Chiefs tight end and Taylor Swift fiancé Travis Kelce is now a major investor in Six Flags. He has partnered with activist investor Jana Partners to take a 9% stake in the company. They plan to engage with the company’s board and management regarding opportunities to enhance shareholder value and improve the guest experience and the company seems willing to accept the help. Kelce was a fan of Cedar point as a child and wants future generations to have the same experience he did growing up.
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