Tech & Business

The USPS Releases Carnival Nights Amusement Park Stamps

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Ferris wheel, roller coaster and fireworks on postage stamp

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has released an awesome series of amusement park stamps entitled Carnival Nights. These are first class forever postage stamps with 8 unique designs that were released on June 6, 2024. They feature swings, flat rides, a Ferris wheel, fireworks, a carousel and even a roller coaster in the corner of one. These would look great on Christmas cards, wedding invitations or birthday cards, so order online or head to your post office to get a sheet today.

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Korey Kiepert of The Gravity Group Does “Roller Coaster Support” for the WIRED Tech Support YouTube Video Series

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Korey Kiepert WIRED YouTube video

I’m a big fan of the WIRED “Tech Support” video series. The essence of the series is that they get an expert in a particular field to answer viewer questions about their area of expertise. I’ve seen everything including a mortician, an FBI agent, Penn Jillette talking magic, John Cena talking wrestling and now Korey Kiepert of The Gravity Group talking roller coasters!

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Why Didn’t Disney Announce a 5th Gate at D23?

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D23 has come and gone with lots of major announcements that have fans excited. One thing fans had hoped for was a “fifth gate” or another theme park to add to Walt Disney World to match what Universal is doing with Epic Universe. Instead, Disney’s announcements were expansions and retheming of existing attractions. Many would argue you could preserve the existing attractions at the existing parks and simply roll all the new together to make a pretty amazing new park. This way you increase capacity at Disney world rather than keeping the status quo of real estate and attractions. The question is why?

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Is Bluey Coming to a Theme Park? Which One? Disney? Sesame Place? Alton Towers? Bluey’s World?

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Bluey Meet and Greet at Disney Alton Towers? https://www.altontowers.com/explore/cbeebies-land/bluey-at-cbeebies-land/

Update April 2025: It appears Disney and Ludo Studios came to an agreement in December 2024 for Bluey to come to Disney cruise ships in 2025. It also appears there will be a Bluey movie in cooperation with Disney in 2027 and potential for theme park involvement too. So Disney has not “bought” Bluey, this is an enhanced license deal beyond just having the show on Disney+.

If you have children you know all about Bluey (and probably if you don’t too). Bluey is the Australian cartoon about a dog family with sitcom level writing and humor both children and adults can appreciate. Bluey has been on Disney+ for years with some reports stating it is responsible for nearly 30% of the streaming on the service, but Bluey has not yet made an appearance at a Disney park. Have you wondered why?

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The Six Flags Cedar Fair All 42 Parks Combined Season Pass Has Arrived! (at least at Schlitterbahn)

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Image from https://www.schlitterbahn.com/new-braunfels/season-passes

Thanks to your friends at Schlitterbahn we appear to have the first details of the the new Six Flags Cedar Fair chain-wide combined season pass. It falls under the old Passport Add-on system from Cedar Fair and for $75 you can add all the extra parks! This benefit won’t start until January 6, 2025, but happy to see it coming. Access to 42 Parks on one season pass is amazing!

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Cedar Fair and Six Flags Merger Official Today (7/1/2024)

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The new Six Flags (Cedar Fair) Logo after merger

The Six Fags and Cedar Fair merger is expected to finalize today July 1, 2024. The last major hurdle was passed last week with regulatory approval. The new combined company will be known Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, trade under the ticker symbol “FUN” on the NYSE starting July 2nd and be based out of Charlotte.

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Who Wants to Buy a Used Roller Coaster for $15,000? How Parks Buy and Sell Old Rides.

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Update September 2025: It appears Canada’s Marineland is selling most of its rides. Bill Ossim of Rides Plus, LLC is handling the sale with details like pricing managed through a formal inquiry process for qualified buyers. There have been some reports of pricing online with family rides going for $75,000 and thrill rides as high as $2.5 million.

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Get a Six Flags Diamond Pass for $100. A Great Deal with Admission to 27 Parks! A SFOG Review.

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Six Flags Diamond Pass

Update March 2025: The Six Flags Diamond pass is essentially no more. It has been replaced with the Prestige pass which does NOT have the “all parks” access. You can still get many of the same “all parks” benefit by buying anything as low as the Gold Pass and then get the All Park Passport which could be $75 to $150 more depending on your park. It is more expensive than the old Diamond pass with all parks for sure, but it’s also a lot more parks including all the legacy Cedar Fair parks and not just the legacy Six Flags parks. The Prestige Pass would also be required to get you into the VIP Lounge. The new price of the Prestige Pass at SFOG is $149 in 2025 instead of $100 in 2024.

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Is “Spinning Coaster” by SBF-Visa the Most Popular Roller Coaster Ever?

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Spinning Coaster roller coaster by SBF-Visa at Incredible Pizza in Cordova, TN
Spinning Coaster by SBF-Visa at Incredible Pizza in Cordova, TN

There are a lot of coaster clones out there from the numerous iterations of “Batman” at the Six Flags parks to the Sky Rocket II rides across Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. However, the one that may be the most numerous is “Spinning Coaster” by Italian manufacturer SBF-Visa. This simple figure 8 spinning coaster seems to be everywhere from family entertainment centers to small amusement parks. By my count on Caosterpedia there are at least 66 installs of the several different variants of this ride all in just 10 years from its 2014 debut.

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March 2024 Brings Opening Day for Many Southeast Theme Parks

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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

In the south it feels like spring is here. Daffodils are blooming, temperatures are warming and trees are budding. This also means the return of most of our favorite theme parks! Some of the new rides and attractions may not be ready yet, but the parks will be open. The parks are open more days than ever (for example Dollywood is open 280 days this year, 23 more than last year), which means greater value for our season passes and more fun! Here is a partial list of opening days:

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