September 18, 2025 Update: Looks like we were all a little wrong as Dollywood has announced NightFlight, which appears to be a Mack “rocking boat” ride. This indoor boat ride appear to be version 2.0 of the combination roller coaster and boat rides like Atlantis at SeaWorld Orlando.
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If you spend time at a theme park you know it can be a lot of walking. In some cases it’s 5-10 miles in a day complete with stairs and hills at some parks. That can be a serious workout and a new article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that it could actually be incredibly good for your health. The study showed that older adults who got 150 minutes of aerobic activity every week lessened their mortality risk by 31% compared to those who do not exercise. This means that the weekend trip to your local park with your season pass is “healthcare” if it gets you off the couch and away from screens.
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Herschend and Parques Reunidos have signed a definitive agreement for Herschend to acquire all of Palace Entertainment’s U.S. entertainment properties from Parques Reunidos (official press release). This includes famous properties such as Pittsburgh’s Kennywood, Iowa’s Adventureland, the massive Noah’s Ark water park in Wisconsin and Lake Compounce, the oldest continuously-operating amusement park in North America. This transaction came a bit out of left field, but the Palace Entertainment parks do seem to be a perfect fit with the culture and personality of Herschend.
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We’ve had the GetOutPass for Georgia for about a year and couldn’t be more thrilled with it. The GetOutPass is an annual pass that gives you free admission to local attractions either once annually, quarterly or monthly depending upon the attraction. In Georgia this includes admission to Wild Adventures and Fun Spot America Atlanta. However, you’ll also get admission to great non-theme park locations like Zoo Atlanta, BreakOut Games (escape room), Terminus Wake Park and many more. In other states this includes SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Kentucky Kingdom and Silver Dollar City. GetOutPass prices are so good that the price of an annual GetOutPass is usually less than a single day at ticket to just one of these attractions!
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Breakout Games Atlanta was our first escape room experience and we were blown away. We mostly cover theme parks here, but lines blur sometimes between theme park, amusement park, family entertainment center, etc. I wanted to review our experience here because a theme park is all about immersion and story and our experience at Breakout Games had both of these at a level rivaling the best of theme parks. Our multi-room interactive experience had effects and production value far beyond what I expected from a nondescript office building exterior, providing an hour of amazing entertainment.
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The Trump Administration recently announced a new 25% tariff on all imported steel that is set to go into effect on March 12, 2025. A steel roller coaster uses a significant amount of steel, in fact Steel Curtain at Kennywood is reported to weigh an astounding 2.67 million pounds with 113 pieces of track, 1,162 total pieces and 21,470 bolts! The largest single track piece of track weighed 15,000 pounds. A tariff wouldn’t just affect steel coasters though, but also affect flat rides and even drop towers. So let’s talk about the potential impact of a steel tariff on the theme park industry and what we can expect going forward. We won’t get into politics or the potential economic reasons for tariffs, just how it might affect new ride costs in the future.
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Wanna bid on a roller coaster? This isn’t Scorpion from Busch Gardens or anything (which I’ve heard rumors of relocation about), but a kiddie coaster called Safari Coaster from the defunct All Star Adventures Theme Park in Wichita, Kansas that’s up for auction! This is from the “Miner Mike” line of kiddie/family coasters by Wisdom Rides and operated until 2024. It is an auction by Bill Ramsey & Associates, LLC who seems to specialize in the Family Entertainment Center space.
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Six Flags Over Georgia has electric car charging available in its parking lot and at least last year it was totally free! The chargers are on the edge of the main parking area in near ideal parking spots right next to Batman The Ride. This location has to be the prettiest view I’ve had from a charging station. The chargers have the standard SAE J1772 plug, so if you have a Tesla you may need an adapter. The chargers also have huge beautiful LED screens that double to show advertisements.
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Earlier this year Ari Novick was featured on the CW magic themed show Penn & Teller Fool Us and the show made prominent mention about his time as a theme park designer. The concept of the show is that magicians perform a trick for world famous magicians Penn Jillette and Teller who then try to figure out how they did it. The trick Ari performed even had a theme park bend on it using the carnival game of rings and bottles as the basis of a prediction trick. Although Ari did not fool Penn & Teller to “win” the game, he certainly still won overall by obtaining great exposure for his new professional magic career. In this article we’ll delve deeper into Ari’s theme park background and the surprising number of connections with magic.
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On a recent trip to Strand Adventures, a family entertainment center in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, I ran across the Rilix Coaster in the arcade. It was quickly obvious it was a VR experience, but with the twist of being coaster themed. I’ve ridden virtual reality coasters before, but they’re not usually in the regular arcade and instead are more of an upcharge experience, usually with an attendant. There are other arcade VR experiences too like Virtual Rabbids, but not with a complete coaster theme, so the Rilix Coaster is unique in its offering.
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