Tuesday December 8, 2009
There's a new way to get wet at Wilderness at the Smokies, the indoor water park resort in East Tennessee. The Runaway Canyon, a family raft ride that opened a few days ago, sends groups of up to four passengers careening in the dark through 450 feet of enclosed water slide. The Wilderness flacks say that the ride includes themed lighting, sound, and music as well as a 360-degree loop. I say riders had better hang on to their bathing suits. The park also includes a FlowRider wave machine for surfing and a funnel ride.
Monday December 7, 2009
Barring an advanced degree from the Hogwarts School of Wizardry, it's tough for mere mortals to get the lowdown on exactly what's going on behind the construction walls at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter land scheduled to open spring 2010 at Islands of Adventure. But mortals who plunk down extra bucks for a premium Blu-ray or Special Edition DVD of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when it goes on sale tomorrow (December 8) will get a bonus feature with newly released info about the highly anticipated land. The footage will offer reveals about the ride experiences, including the hush-hush Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction, according to Universal Orlando. Stay tuned Muggles.
Photo: Universal Orlando, 2009. Used with permission.
Friday December 4, 2009
Time-lapsed still photographs shot from a distant perspective and stitched together create what are known as tilt-shift videos. When they are done correctly, they transform full-scale events with real people and places into what appear to be models shot using stop-motion animation on a miniature movie set. The Disney folks have been creating tilt-shift videos of their parks and just released an eerie montage of Epcot. I think the park's pristine grounds help convey the illusion.
In other Mousey news, Disney's California Adventure will replace the long-running Aladdin musical at its Hyperion Theater with a new Toy Story musical. The Pixar-themed production will debut in early 2011.
Thursday December 3, 2009
The ownership merry-go-round continues at major theme parks. The ink had barely dried on Tuesday's sale closing of Busch Entertainment Corp. (which runs the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks, among others) to The Blackstone Group when Comcast announced its plans to purchase NBC Universal today for a cool $30 billion. That wrests control of the Universal theme parks from General Electric and places it in the hands of the company that provides much of the cable television service in the U.S. (Insert your own joke here about how the mega cable company, infamous for its less-than-stellar customer service, will manage the wait times at Universal's attractions.)
The deal would also give Comcast ownership of Universal's movie business, the NBC network, and myriad cable networks under the NBC Universal umbrella making the company an incredible entertainment hulk that would control a huge swath of the creative content that it provides. Industry insiders have speculated that Comcast might want to shed the theme parks, which are a relatively small part of the deal and not part of its core business.
