Silver Dollar City- Fireman's Landing Expansion for 2015

 'Fireman's Landing' is coming to Silver Dollar City, the 2015 Major Expansion.



 About an hour ago Silver Dollar City announced their big project for 2015, a major expansion to the park called 'Fireman's Landing'.

  It will encompass over two acres and will be themed towards an 'Old Time Volunteer Fireman Recruitment Fair'. While many of the attractions appear aimed towards kids, the themeing looking amazing and will add six new family rides as well as four interactive play zones. The park is billing this new area as "For Ages 3 to 93" and will be relocating their drop tower to this new area.

 Silver Dollar City expands more on their theme ideas by stating Fireman's Landing is "An ALL NEW area with rides and attractions for the whole family, Ages 3-93! Fireman's Landing harkens back to the days of bucket brigades and volunteer fireman with rides and attractions ready to train and entertain new recruits". 

The new attractions being added are the following-

1. Fire Spotter- Soaring Balloons for Spotting Fire Dangers
2. Fire Wagon Frenzy- A bumpy ride for Bucket Brigade Volunteers
3. FireFall- An 8 Story Fire Tower free-fall drop ride for the more daring recruits! (The parks current drop-tower is being relocated to this new area)

For the "Interactive" Areas, this is being called "Fire Station No. 3 Playplace" where guests can meet the park's newest Dalmatian 'recruit' and 'sign in' for three training activities!

4. Firefighter's Fire Drill- Featuring Buckets, Pumpers, Foam Ball Cannons and Targets for showering mock fires.
5. Firefighter's Fire Escape- An obstacle course of tubes, mazes, climbing structures and slides.
6. Firefighter's Junior Escape- A soft 'play area' for Toddlers

 In addition the next attractions are aimed at the smallest members of the family, completing the family experience of the area.

7. Fireman's Flyer- A low flying swing ride for little firefighters.
8. Up The Ladder- A smaller drop tower for your junior recruits.
9. The Roundaboat- A bouncing ride on Dalmatians racing around a fire hydrant.
10. Firehouse Splash Yard- Squirting Water Jets and Pump Hoses.

 The park goes on to close their big announcement with some history and how their tying in their whole 'Firefighter' theme into the park.

 Overall the new expansion looked to be well themed, well thought out and filling the need every theme parks has to entertain and provide enjoyment to the whole family. Including areas of family, kids and even toddlers who visit the park.  While there isn't an official opening date yet, the park states the area will be ready in 'Spring of 2015'.

 For more information, you can visit the website for Fireman's Landing- Just Click Here! 

Silver Dollar City to Announce 2015 Expansion August 13th - Fireman's Landing?

The folks at Silver Dollar City have been busy putting up banners around the Geyser Gulch section of the park that give the date for their 2015 project announcement. The new area is suspected to be called "Fireman's Landing", based on a trademark filed by  Herschend earlier this year.

You guessed it, Fireman themed and by the looks of it, turn of the century fireman at that. If this sounds familiar, it should. Dollywood opened Firechaser Express just this year as well.

That said, we won't have to wait long until the "5 Alarm Announcement" as it will be coming to use on August 13th. So, just a few weeks away. What exactly will be going into the area is not entirely known, and construction updates from MidwestInfoGuide.com haven't shown any hints of what might be to come either.

Either way, here's the banners that have been spotted, courtesy of MidwestInfoGuide.com!

Cedar Fair moves a Windseeker- The Media Goes Stupid

At this point in time, I'm pretty sure that most everyone knows what a "Windseeker" is. I'm also fairly sure most people can look at this unique ride and easily identify it. Everyone, except for the national news media, who are obviously not very bright.

 Those of us in the theme park/amusement park world knew that when World's of Fun in Kansas City, Missouri announced 'Steelhawk' that it was the 'Windseeker' ride from Knott's Berry Farms. It's move just hadn't been confirmed yet.  We also knew it was one of the three original prototypes of this now iconic Cedar Fair ride made by Mondial.

 However, the news media isn't bright enough to put this simple puzzle together.

 Within the last few days they JUST realized what we knew at the end of August. Maybe they need to listen to people who know what their talking about more? Wait, knowing how they operate, they'd just mess that up too! They've been stiring up the shit-pot announcing such fun headlines as "Shuttered Calif Ride to Move to Missouri Park" and "Knott's Berry Farm To Move Troubled Ride".

Windseeker at Cedar Point 2012

 Yes, Windseekers have had their problems. I dare you to show me a prototype or original design ride out there that hasn't had issues someplace along the way. The 'Windseeker' line has never killed anyone, they've gotten stuck which is annoying as hell but not exactly deadly to your average Joe Q. Public rider.

 I've been stuck on rides before, sometimes for minutes and others for over an hour. It's highly aggravating and can get vastly boring but I wasn't injured, just inconvenienced. Now if you have anything that could be a medical or mental issue due to a ride stop, this could be a real problem but otherwise it's no worse then waiting in rush hour traffic without air conditioning.

Evac Platform at Kings Dominion from Theme Park Review

 Since then Cedar Fair has installed 'Evacuation platforms' which will evacuate guests in case of an emergency stop in the ride. That is what the news means when they say "voluntarily shut down"it wasn't because the rides are unsafe, it was to instal those exact same 'evacuation platforms'.

Due to California and their endless coddling of the paranoid and panicky, the Knott's Berry's Windseeker never got a chance to re-open and prove itself safe. The other Windseeker clones have operated just fine with their platforms in place but like any ride with major height involved, they are subject to weather conditions like wind and rain. To hear the news talk, this just extrudes a lack of safety. Trust me when I say you wouldn't want to be spinning around 300 feet in the air while doing 30 miles an hour in the rain! Rain + Speed = OUCH

 Now I'm not a huge fan of Windseekers myself. Yes, I've ridden several of them and they are fun, you can get some really amazing views from the top. But folks, it's just a really tall swing ride.

 What does annoy the hell out of me is when the news media purposely tries to scare people by hinting that something isn't safe when it's history shows otherwise.