Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays

from the staff of InSanity lurks Inside

 We Wish Everyone a Happy and Safe Holiday Season.  

We are spending time out-of-town with family over the next few days, so please forgive our slowness in updating during this busy time of year. May you all have safe travel, good times, excellent food and dreams of many rides coming in the 2014 season! 

....also because I'm entirely incapable of being fully serious, have a funny !

Happy Thanksgiving!

We here at InSanity lurks Inside would like to wish all our friends, fans and readers a very Happy Thanksgiving Holiday!

If your not having a "Happy Turkey Day" we suggest all our friends, fans and readers who are over the age of 21 cope in the same time honored tradition that the staff of InSanity lurks Inside does- To the Wine Rack- STAT! 

Haunt Review- The Fear Experience

Haunt: The Fear Experience
Location: Parma, Ohio
When: October 25th, 2013
Times: Closed for 2013
Price: $22-30
Rating: Good
Recommendation: Visit if Nearby
Website: The Fear Experience

!DISCLAIMER!

We were invited by Fear Experience to review their haunted attraction. This has in no way swayed or altered our opinion of this or any haunt we visit.

 

 

  Honestly, I knew nothing of this attraction as it was one Kitsune had picked for a review. Before our visit I hadn't even heard of them before so I had no idea what to expect. 

 Although I admit, I'm rather disappointed they aren't running for the final Halloween weekend. It's a pretty good haunt which could easily attract people for Halloween and the final weekend of Oct/Nov. Sadly though they mad the choice to close early, so you'll have to remember this for the next Halloween season.

Fear Experience offers 4 haunted attractions located in Parma, Ohio. Hidden in once abandoned body of a big-box store, we found a fun and rather long haunted attraction. Each of the three haunts has a unique theme, while it's not amazing it's petty good and worth a visit. 

(Keep Reading for the Full Review)

[Haunt Review] Freddy's Haunts...Biggest Mistake EVER!

  This is probably going to be my only Haunt Review for the season, if not for as long as I can manage it.  I'm stating right up front that I am not a fan of being scared and it usually leads to someone getting injured but trust me when I say that my dislike of houses does not color my review. (The horridness of the haunt did that on it's own)

Disclaimer: I was not invited to this event and the fact that I wasn't invited didn't sway my opinions either.
 
  So this all started because my sister and brother-in-law asked me to join them for dinner and a haunted house and I figured "What the hell, maybe one house can't hurt."

Below is my review of Freddy's Haunts:

• Date Visited: 10/5/2013
• Review Team: Just me
• Support People: My older sister Amy and her husband, John
• Time: 9pm
• The house is located inside an aircraft hanger so it runs rain or shine

 (Click to continue on to the full review!)

2013 Golden Ticket Award Winners

 Amusement Today announced their 2013 Golden Ticket Award Winners last night. We got all the details you want to know about who won and for what along with some randomly peppered sarcasm for a few things that probably shouldn't have won! Oh Boy, we're going to have some fun with that!

 Alright Carrie, Get to it already..

Without further ado..

2013 Golden Ticket Award Winners

Six Flags Great America Announces Goliath Fastest, Tallest and Steepest Wooden Coaster! (Update- POV)

While Carrie is a bit unavailable at the moment, I'm stepping in to fill you all in on some huge news out of Six Flags Great America. This morning, along with a ton of other announcements, Six Flags unveiled it's newest coaster, Goliath. While just one of a ton of other announcements, this one has to be one of the biggest for park chain and they definitely aren't disappointing anyone with this one!

It takes the crown away from El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure in quite a few areas...

Goliath Stats:

Top Speed: 72mph
Drop: 180ft
Drop Angle: 85 degrees
Elements: 3 overbanked turns, inverted drop, zero-g roll, inverted zero-g stall.


This is a massive addition to the Great America park just outside of Chicago, IL and certainly is the most extreme wooden coaster on the planet. It looks like the rumors of Rocky Mountain Coasters being in the park were dead on and instead of a retracking, they've come up with this insane monster of a ride.

One of the more interesting elements (if I had to pick just one that is) to this insane new ride is the "zero-g stall" element of the ride. Whie it may look like a normal camel back, you'll be quick to realize that you're going over this one completely upside down! Can't imagine what that's going to feel like at all.

Judging by the picture to the right, it's going to be completely mental to experience.

Overall, this looks a little like the same layout of El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey with a ton of new twists and elements. Almost as if this was the ride they wanted there all along...

Goliath will start construction in just about a month and is planned to be open in the Spring of 2014! Keep it here for more updates as we find out more information about this amazing and ground breaking wooden coaster from Six Flags Great America! 

2013 Epcot Food and Wine Festival Menus

2013 Epcot Food and Wine Menus

Image from Travel with Rick

 Disney has released the menu's for the 2013 Epcot Food and Wine Festival which begins on September 27th and runs through November 11th at World Showcase. Epcot hosts one of the largest Food and Wine festivals out of any of the theme parks and each year adds in something new. This year they have added Scotland, which looks to have some tasty treats!

 Epcot also is one of our favorite theme parks and we try to time our visit's so that the Food and Wine Festival is going on during our visit. We will be in attendance this year during the preview day as well as opening weekend.

The 2013 Haunt Review List- A work in Progress

Is it Halloween already?! 

Girl, your nuts.

Yes, I know I'm crazy but that's all just part of my charm! 

Needless to say it's now April and that means it's time to buckle down and start planning the massive "Haunted House Hit List" for September/October this year. Trying to cover as much ground as possible and still provide quality reviews, we're trying to find new haunted houses that we haven't experienced yet while keeping to a tight budget. So with that, let's get down to business!

We'll be canvasing the following areas:

Northeast Ohio.

Lancaster/Central Pennsylvania

Central Florida

West Virginia

So, we're looking for YOUR recommendations. Is there a haunt we simply shouldn't miss? Something that made you piss your pants and scream like a small child? Have a heart attack and live to tell about it? Then we WANT to know! So pipe up people, use that comment box and tell us what we can't miss this year! If your feeling entirely too shy to use that scary comment box you can tell us other ways such as:

Email:  InSanitylurksInside@gmail.com

Twitter: Tweet ISIParksBlog

Google+: Carrie@ISIParksBlog

2013 Opening Day/New Attractions Bucket List

The 2013 Bucket List

Well, it's that time again folks! Time for the grand daddy of all lists, the only list that really matters to us theme park and amusement park geeks. It's the 2013 Bucket List of Opening Day's and New Attractions! It's been a vastly annoying winter and I'm sure we're all ready for our favorite parks to open up and more importantly we want to know what's new. So here we go!

NorthEast: 

Six Flags Great Adventure: Spring Break Opening 3/23. Open Weekends until full summer operations on 5/22.  

New Attractions: Safari Adventure, SkyScreamer. 

Moreys Piers: Limited Operation of Mariners Landing on 3/30. Weekends Mariner's and Surfside Open 5/11. Full Operations on 5/8.  

New Attractions: None.

Dorney Park: Open 5/3 for Weekends. Full opening is 5/24. 

New Attractions: None. 

Six Flags America: Spring Break Opening 3/23. Open Weekends until full operations on 5/24.

New Attractions: Bonzai Pipelines (Waterpark)

Hershey Park: Spring Break/Springtime in the Park Weekends 5/29-4/14. Full Operations on 5/3. New Attractions: None.

Knoebels:  Opening Day 4/17. 

New Attractions: Flying Turns (again).

Six Flags New England: Spring Break Opening 4/13-4/21. Weekends from 4/26 until full operations on 5/24.  

New: Bonzai Pipelines (Waterpark).

Lake Compounce: Open Weekends 5/11. Full operations on 6/12.

New Attractions: Bayou Bay Wave Pool. 

Rye Playland:  Opening Day 5/11. 

New Attractions: None. 

Six Flags Great Escape: Open Weekends 5/18. Full operations on 5/18. 

New Attractions: Screamin' Eagles.

Darin Lake: Open Weekends 5/11. Full operations on 6/18. 

New Attractions: Blast Off. 

Kennywood Park:  Weekends on 5/14. Full operations on 5/15. 

New Attractions: None.

Lakemont Park: Weekend on 5/25. Full operations on 6/1. 

New Attractions: None. 

Idlewild Park:  Open Weekends on 5/23. Full operations on 6/7.

New Attraction: FloatAway Bay (Waterpark).

Conneaut Lake: Dates Unknown. Check Website. 

MidWest:

Kings Island: Weekends from 4/27. Full operations on 5/10. 

New Attractions: None.

Cedar Point:  Open 5/11. 

New Attractions: Gatekeeper.

Six Flags Great America: Open 5/4. Full operations on 5/15.

New Attractions: None.

HolidayWorld: Open 5/4. Full operations on 5/10. 

New Attractions: None.

SouthEast:

Kings Dominion: Spring Break opening 3/29-4/7. Weekends until full operations on 5/14.

New Attractions: None.

Dollywood: Open 3/23 for Festival of Nations. Full Operations on 5/22. 

New Attractions: River Rush (Waterpark).

Carowinds: Spring Break opening 3/29-4/7. Weekeneds until full operations on 5/24.

New Attractions: None. 

Six Flags over Georgia: Open weekends 3/16. Spring Break Open 3/29-4/14. Full operations on 5/24.

New Attractions: SkyScreamer.

Wild Adventures: Open 3/26 on limited schedule. 

New Attractions: TailSpin, Wacky Wheels.

____________________________

Well Folks,

We hope this helps you plan your Spring and Summer. Now get out there, get planning and don't forget to ride a few for me!

The Shitstorm of News: Disney and Universal are at it again!

..The Shitstorm of News..

Disney and Universal Edition

Wow, things have been fairly wild lately with news announcements.  

They've been flowing out of the theme parks lately like trots after a Cozumel vacation!
(They told you NOT to drink the water!)



Let's Begin with the BIGGEST of these stories, because a few of you may yet still be living under rocks and not heard what sent the internet into a complete uproar worse then a teenager saying "I didn't get my period" after a drunken prom.

Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4.05 BILLION

"I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and joy at the same time" -What the Internet did on 10/30/12

HOLY SHIT!

The internet collectively had an orgasm and died at the same time the moment this one went live. I can't even begin to describe the chaos that every single social network feed I have became, it was the biggest geek media news in the world. This was bigger them Marvel folks, the reaction was a mix of pure outrage mixed with pure joy. I can't even put it into words but I think most of us just read, then re-read this news going "Wait.. What?!" cause I sure as hell did!

This came entirely out of left field, No one had a clue this would happen. While Disney and Lucas have had a good working relationship that began in 1986 with Star Tours and followed through with other big names like "Indiana Jones". It was shocking news to everyone because there was never even a hint of a whisper about this being a deal. Between Marvel and Lucasfilm, The Walt Disney Company with one swift move now owns a vast majority of our collective childhoods. Most of us who follow along with the theme parks are now entirely convinced that Igor (oops) Iger is obsessed with owning Intellectual Properties of other franchises, at least the ones proven to make a MINT of money.  With this deal they don't just get the movies, Oh No, They get the whole bloody lot. LucasArts (Video Games), Industrial Light and Magic (Special Effects) and Skywalker Sound (Sound Effect/Music/Design/Mixing). 

Disney is making some BIG promises with this buyout, the biggest news being a "StarWars Episode VII" which has suddenly been promised to us in 2015 with more movies to follow every. two. or. thee. years. 

Frankly, I don't know how to feel about that either considering they've flat out said our beloved characters will NOT be involved in this new movie series. The rumor mill is working overtime but from what I've been able to discover it will be in the "Star Wars Universe" on a Parallel Line. So same place, different people.  This new movie is been confirmed to be written by a Pixar Monkey known as "Michael Arndt" who wrote Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine. Your guess is as good as mine on how the hell THAT will turn out!

There is also no word if this will effect the new "Star Wars 1313" game which has been in production for a while now. 

I can't honestly tell you how I personally feel about this. Star Wars was a big part of my childhood and young adult years and still a beloved series. In the best faith I can't decide if Disney has the true creative power to handle Star Wars as a whole, Oh they are good. Don't get me wrong on that and they have more hits then misses but can they do Star Wars? I don't know. Disney and I have a love/hate relationship and as much as I hope for good I'm going to approach a new movie very, very tentatively and with low expectations. 

(And because Disney is STILL mad about Universal's Harry Potter Announcement taking light off their Fantasyland Expansion, they've been pissing in Universals cheerios every chance they can.. which the newest round would be...)

Optimus Prime WRECKS Orlando 

“Sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error.”-Optimus Prime

Like we all didn't KNOW this was coming but Universal has officially announced that in Summer of 2013 "Transformers: The Ride 3D" will be coming to Universal Studios Orlando.  This announcement launched with a rather cool website which is said to feature a good bit of the pre-show information included as various videos from NEST and General Morshower, as well as ride information and buzz around the attraction

Prepare for Battle

Frankly I think this is an addition that the Orlando Studios Park has been needing. Despicable Me is good addition for the kids but this is something to really haul in the multi-age fans and the younger boy market. Since Islands of Adventure has Harry Potter which draws the people Studios has been facing lower crowds and with the loss of JAWS something has really needed to happen to generate interest and pull people back into the original park.  Transformers looks to open on time as the demolition is already done and supports for the attraction are already being put into place, it's going vertical quickly.

However still no word on what's happening with the area JAWS used to be located in although construction is proceeding over there at a rapid pace. Many think it's the rumored expansion of Wizarding World and others (like myself) are still sitting on the fence and waiting for either visual proof or for Universal to tell us what they're really up to.

All Sarcasm and Smartassery is mine and doesn't reflect on anyone but my own twisted sense of humor.

Special Saturday Update- Rumor RoundUp!

Happy Saturday!

So rumors have been flying all over the damn place lately to the point I left it was time for yet another "Rumor Round-Up". So get comfortable! We've got a lot of juicy materiel to cover here today!
Please remember, these are RUMORS and have not yet been confirmed!


So let's get started!

Cedar Point
Location: Sandusky, Ohio
 RUMOR: 2013 B&M Wing Coaster
Cedar Point may well be building in 2013. A new Wing Coaster from B&M is the rumor floating around right now. The Sandusky Register posted up a 'leaked' document stating that Disaster Transport and Space Spiril will be removed  to make way for project "CP Alt.Winged" in 2013.

"Cedar Fair stands ready to spend big money on a new roller coaster for 2013 at Cedar Point that will change the park landscape.
Code-named “CP Alt.Winged,” the coaster will have the “longest drop, run the fastest and be the longest ride” of its kind, Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet wrote in Feb. 15 memo to Cedar Fair’s board of directors."

Read the Full Piece: Cedar Point to build Coaster in 2013


In additional News about Cedar Point and this 2013 Project, It's possible track is already being built and possibly transported to the park!
Screamscape: Industry News, Green Track?! 


Disney Imaingeering/ Project Avatar/Testing
Location: Orlando, Florida 
RUMOR: Testing for AvatarLand?
This came as a bit of a surprise to me, Could it be Disney is starting testing on some of their "AvatarLand" projects? This article seems to show they may just be doing that!

 

Dragon spotted over Minter Field

Universal Orlando Resort
Location: Orlando, Florida 
CONFIRMED: Universal to add Themed Resort
Universal Orlando Confirmed that they will be adding a new resort to their growing collection of on-property hotels. Also to be run by Loews Hotels, Cabana Bay Beach Resort will be a family friendly property as well as "High Value" which really means "Budget Hotel" for those not familiar with the lingo. 

"Universal’s Cabana Bay Beach Resort will offer two distinct experiences within the development’s multiple buildings: 900 family suites, capable of sleeping six, that include kitchen areas and 900 standard guest rooms – offering both moderate- and value-priced accommodations. It will be operated by Loews Hotels & Resorts and is scheduled to open in 2014."

Amusement Today: Cabana Bay Beach Resort 

Six Flags Magic Mountian

Location: LosAngelos, California

CONFIRMED: Lex Luthor "Drop Tower".

For this, let my quote one of my favorite writers over on Theme Park Insider, Jeff Elliott.  Simply because he sums this up perfectly, at least in my opinion!

"Let’s super glue a drop tower onto the Superman tower so that we can use it some of the time while Superman is down for one of its many maintenance issues…..and thus was born Lex Luther’s Drop of Doom…..which just opened. Some of the other drunken rants that didn’t quite make it onto the fabled napkin include all of them going down to Disney to punch the Mouse right in the nose, taking sidewalk chalk over to Universal to write signs that say “Magic Mountain is cheaper and has more than 6 rides”, and some sort of launched roller coaster that uses the old tunnels through the middle of the mountain."

Lex Luthor.. Stapled to Superman!

Discovery Cove

Location: Orlando, Florida

CONFIRMED: Freshwater Oasis is Now Open!

"Now Open is Freshwater Oasis, an all-new attraction featuring wading adventures and face-to-face encounters with playful otters and curious marmosets. Designed with a rainforest canopy above and sparkling-clear springs below, Freshwater Oasis is a natural fit within Discovery Cove’s tropical vibe. You can relax and explore. You’ll wade, wonder, and float in the water-filled trails. No matter where you turn, you’ll find endless discoveries. "        

Disney World

Location: Orlando, Florida

RUMOR: Master Plans for 50th Anniversary

Screamscape has a GREAT bunch of pieces devoted to the "Disney Master Plan" which continues some information on what we could be looking at for the big 2021 "50th's Anniversary".  Also notice how Epcot has once again been completely left out in the cold?

Magic Kingdom: 50th Anniversary Rumors 

Hollywood Studios: 50th Anniversary Rumors

Epcot Center

Location: Orlando, Florida

RUMOR: New Illuminations/Nighttime Show

Rumor has it that Illuminations may be going threw a change soon. The Video Globe could well be retired with water-screens and fountains taking it's place in various areas of the World Showcase Lagoon.  

Screamscape: Possible New Illuminations? 

Freestyle Music Park

Location: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

CONFIRMED: Land purchased for "Hard Rock Hotel" sold in auction.

Freestyle Music Park is still closed with no buyers in site. Due to the fact this little park folded within it's very first year of operations, it's not a big surprised the extra land purchased by "Hard Rock" for their hotel plans got thrown to the chopping block. 

Hard Rock Hotel Land SOLD.