Rides

New Theming and Story in the Lickskillet Area of Six Flags Over Georgia with Georgia Gold Rusher

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LickSkillet Area of Six Flags Over Georgia
LickSkillet Area of Six Flags Over Georgia

There are amusement parks and theme parks with one merely being a collection of rides while the later uses decor, landscaping, attraction design and overall atmosphere to create a unifying theme throughout an area of a park or an entire park. Six Flags Over Georgia is not an amusement park, but a full fledged theme park. I would argue the park has at least two themed sections and the argument can be made for a couple more. The most obvious of these is the Gotham area of the park with all the rides pulled together by the Batman universe. However, potentially the most themed area of the park is LickSkillet area where food, rides, buildings and entertainment all come together to tell a cohesive story about the Gold rush times in Georgia.

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Review of the Georgia Mountain Coaster: The Perfect Addition to Downtown Helen, Georgia!

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The Georgia Mountain Coaster is Georgia’s first and currently only mountain coaster. This may be the first mountain coaster in Georgia, but it will have everything you love about mountain coasters in areas where they are more commonplace, like Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. What makes this coaster special is location location location. It is located in the heart of Helen, Georgia, a popular German themed tourist destination in Northern Georgia and it’s LITERALLY on Main Street. You can easily walk to it from all the popular shops and restaurants and it’s the only pedestrian accessible coaster I know of other than Ripley’s Mountain Coaster in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee. However, even though it’s very close to everything, when you’re up on the hill it still feels quiet and isolated.

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Review of Island H20: A Wonderful Water Park Day!

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Island H2O Sign

Island H2O is the Orlando areas newest water park located just south and adjacent to Walt Disney World in Kissimmee, Florida.  It combines family fun with technology using an internet and social media theme with attractions like Follow Me Falls, Reply Racers, Chat Creek and Live! Lagoon. Island H2O isn’t the largest water park, but it essentially has one of everything you could want in a water park in a great layout and manageable size. Each of the slides and attractions it has are well done and sincerely great versions of that type of slide or flume. Island H2O is very much a quality over quantity approach to a water park with excellence at every point from the food to the staff.

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Review of the New Wisconsin Dells Mountain Coaster: A Fast Ride Through the Woods on Wisconsin’s First and Only Mountain Coaster

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New for 2025 is the Wisconsin Dells Mountain Coaster, which is Wisconsin’s first and currently only mountain coaster. This may be the first mountain coaster in Wisconsin, but if you’ve ridden a mountain coaster in a place like Pigeon Forge this Wiegand creation will feel very familiar to you. That’s not a bad thing though, this is a really fun coaster in a great location. You could summarize this coaster with two words, smooth and fast. Some mountain coasters take a bit to get going, but from the moment you’re released from the lift hill this coaster is flying and doesn’t slow down until the bottom while giving a glass smooth ride.

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Superman IP Likely to Pay Dividends for Six Flags with New Superman Movie #1 at the Box Office

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Superman: Ultimate Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia

Intellectual property is a big deal for theme parks as guests come to immerse themselves in themed worlds of their favorite characters. The largest license at Six Flags is DC comics and with that comes characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. On July 11th the new Superman movie debuted and box office results of $122 million domestically had it #1 this week with the 3rd biggest opening of 2025! Having the IP of a #1 movie in your park is never a bad thing!

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Big Thunder Mountain Renovations at Disney’s Magic Kingdom Continue: July 2025 Update

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Big Thunder Mountain Track Work
Big Thunder Mountain Track Work (Photo by Matt Brinkley)
Big Thunder Mountain Track Work
Big Thunder Mountain Track Work (Photo by Matt Brinkley)

The renovations on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom continue with a special vehicle on the new track on the coaster’s mountainous twists and turns. There’s also a bunch of scaffolding still around the track. With an attraction that quite literally is a large outdoor artificial mountain it’s difficult for Disney to camouflage the work behind walls or indoors like they often like to do. The ride is slated to open sometime in 2026 and that probably can’t come soon enough for Disney with the July 6, 2025 closure of Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island making this corner of the park pretty quiet for the rest of the year.

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Rivers of America at Disney’s Magic Kingdom Closes Forever to Make Room for Piston Peak National Park

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Steamboat riverboat on Rivers of America at Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom
Rivers of America (Photo by Matt Brinkley)

On on July 6 2025 Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island at Magic Kingdom closed Forever to make room for “Cars Land” and specifically what is being called Piston Peak National Park. Rivers of America have been part of Frontierland and Liberty Square since 1971 when the park opened, but the Liberty Belle steamboat and Tom Sawyer Island were actually added in 1973. This has long been known as a scenic and relaxing area of the park. This area is now being reimagined into a Cars themed land with a ride similar to the Radiator Springs Racers, a high-speed ride at Disney’s California Adventure. However, this is not a carbon copy of the California attraction located in the desert town of the first movie, but instead it will be an off-road adventure in a mountain and water-filled National Park.

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No More Virtual Queues at Disney World!

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Standby at Haunted Mansion at Disney Magic Kingdom
Lightning Lane at Haunted Mansion at Disney Magic Kingdom

It was announced earlier this year that Disney World’s Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind would cease using the virtual queue system on February 25, 2025. This followed a similar previous announcement in September 2024 for Tron Lightcycle Run. This means there are currently no rides at Disney World using virtual queue for the first time in years and every attraction will have standby lines available. It also ends the stress for many of waking up at before 7am on the morning of a Disney vacation and feverishly hitting the refresh button to try to get a boarding group to ride the lastest Walt Disney World rides sometime that day without paying extra. Virtual Queue was the only “free” way to ride without paying for a Lightning Lane Single Pass, which could cost $100 or more for a family on top of a regular Lightning Lane Multi Pass (formerly Genie+).

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Get Your Engineering Cub Scout Adventure Loop at Fun Spot America Kissimmee with Mine Blower!

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Fun Spot America Logo
Scout leader and scout in front of the Mine Blower roller coaster at Fun Spot Kissimmee

Earning the Arrow of Light “Engineering” adventure loop has the potential to be one of the most fun and exciting activities in scouting, especially with the increased interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). What’s even more exciting is that one of the recommended adventure activities in the cub scout handbook is to have scouts build their own roller coaster! A theme park is a great place for the scouts to explore and learn about engineering and Fun Spot America Kissimmee is perfectly suited for this adventure. Earning the “Engineering” Adventure Loop at Fun Spot Kissimmee can be as simple as watching a few YouTube videos, having a discussion, riding a roller coaster and participating in the park’s “build your own roller coaster” activity or doing your own at your next den or pack meeting.

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Adult Review of Peppa Pig Theme Park Florida

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I visited Peppa Pig Theme Park at LegoLand Florida with no kids while visiting Winter Haven on a business trip and had a very enjoyable couple of hours. I mainly went to get the roller coaster credit for Daddy Pig’s Roller Coaster, but found myself really enjoying and appreciating the rest of the park as well. The roller coaster is really phenomenal for what it is (a kiddie coaster), but the overall atmosphere is very lighthearted and pleasant. You’ll basically be able to do everything in a couple of hours and if you plan your visit accordingly you can do it at a reasonable price too.

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