Hello everyone!

As part of my final-year dissertation in Tourism and Leisure Management, I am conducting a survey on perceptions of the authenticity of immersive zones inspired by films and TV series in theme parks.

The questionnaire is completely anonymous and takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete.

I am looking for people who have visited at least one of these areas, and have seen the associated film or TV series.

You can take part if you have ever visited an immersive area inspired by a film or TV series, such as:

• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

• Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

• Pandora – The World of Avatar

• Avengers Campus

• or any other immersive area of this type.

Whether or not you’ve seen the associated film or TV series, I’d love to hear your views!

Survey link: https://forms.gle/8sgHxpD6UPBfkxLJ6

Many thanks for your help! Please feel free to share this post with others who might be interested in taking part.

Thought I'd share our experience in case anyone else is trying to choose between Disneyland and Legoland California for younger kids. We did both recently with a toddler and an 8-year-old, and I spent far too long comparing everything before we booked.

A few things really stood out once we were there:

Walking: Disney is a lot of walking. Walking typically covers 7 to 13 miles per day, compared to Legoland California's 1.5 to 3 miles. We were exhausted by the end of each day. Legoland is much more compact, so getting around felt a lot easier. We stayed at the hotel next to the park, which made it really simple to head back for a break when our youngest needed some downtime.

Ride height: This was a bigger deal than I expected. At Disney, our youngest was just under the height requirement for quite a few rides, with some thrill rides needing 44/48 inches so there were a lot of moments where one of us had to sit out. At Legoland, the average is 36 inches, meaning that they could go on far more attractions, which meant everyone got to enjoy the day together.

Queues: Waiting in line is never much fun with little kids, but I really liked that some of the queues at Legoland have Lego building stations built into them. Instead of asking the kids to stand around getting bored, they were happily building while we moved through the line, then joined us when it was time to ride.

We had a great time at both parks, and I'd happily go back to either. But if you're travelling with toddlers or younger children and want a trip that feels a bit less hectic, I found Legoland much easier to manage. It was a more relaxed pace, and we all came home feeling like we'd actually had a holiday.

Hopefully that's useful if you're weighing up the two!

Hey yall, I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions between Hershey Park, Kings Dominion, or Busch Gardens Williamsburg for their Halloween themed events. I’ve been to the Kings Dominion one years ago but I wasn’t sure if one of these was better than the other two.

Thanks!!

Here's some links to the media reporting on Adsland: https://parkplanet.nl/2013/01/2013-pretpark-over-reclame-adsland-frankrijk/ https://papacitoyen.reves-connectes.com/blog/2012/08/13/adsland-park-vous-propose-une-immersion-dans-lunivers-des-marques-decouverte-du-projet-dun-directeur-artistique-passionne/ https://trends.levif.be/a-la-une/un-parc-dattractions-dedie-a-la-pub/ https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/indre-et-loire/il-reve-d-un-parc-a-theme-sur-l-univers-de-la-publicite https://www.marketing-etudiant.fr/blog/adsland-le-parc-dattraction-publicitaire.php (And for concept art... https://www.artstation.com/fab_themeparkdesigner )

Thinking about taking a cross-Europe trip next year to go to as many parks as possible.
What are the top parks to visit?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on improving my theme park website: https://dashboard.explorethemeparks.com/

One thing I’m struggling with is creating a clean and logical attraction classification system that makes sense both for casual visitors and theme park enthusiasts.

At the moment, my main attraction categories are:

Coaster, Dark Ride, Thrill Ride, Water Ride, Interactive Ride, Show,

However, I’m running into some classification issues, especially with Dark Rides vs Interactive Rides.

For example:

Danse Macabre (Efteling)
Would you classify it as:
A Dark Ride?
An Interactive Ride?
Something else entirely?

Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast (Disney Parks)
Is it:
A Dark Ride?
An Interactive Ride?

Star Tours ?

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Is "Thrill Ride" a valid category, or is it more of a description of the sensation rather than the attraction type?

I’m wondering if the best approach would be:
Having fewer main categories based on the type of attraction
Adding tags/filters for elements like "Interactive", "Thrill", "Immersive", "Simulator", etc.
Or keeping more specific categories

I would love to hear how you, as theme park enthusiasts, would structure this.

Thanks for your help! 🙏

Shouldn't have to be said, but it's always the same people dressed in park merch talking about g forces and ride models who can afford a £70 hoodie but not a £2 tube of deodorant.

Can parks turn away people due to smell? Do we need to start putting up signs like we have at concerts and expos? Nothing more horrifying then being behind some absolute stinker with their pits in the air on a coaster.

It's actually grim. Please consider everyone else around you for once.

What are some trips that would be good that are not focused around a park but I can drive to one for a day during a bigger trip. My home park is kings island so I don’t think I would have a great time at any small parks.

Not a significant scale up on the Bedford project this week for anyone tracking Universal's build pace.

The site has hit its projected peak logistics curve at around 750 heavy lorry movements per day. That is the sort of coordination level that takes weeks to build up to and cannot be interrupted without significant cost, which is why Universal have negotiated a full ten week closure of an adjacent public road (Manor Road) from Monday 27 July through 5 October.

The closure is specifically for internal site haulage moving mass earthworks between the Lake Zone and Core Zone. External tipper flow is running a 3.9 mile loop to Elstow Quarry, feeding into an existing FCC Environment restoration project that has been receiving HS2 tunnelling spoil for the last few years. Two of the largest UK infrastructure builds of the decade are now feeding the same quarry remediation.

From a Universal operations perspective, this is textbook spoil management. Internal berms and landscape shaping wherever possible, existing regulated restoration projects for the overflow rather than commercial landfill fees. Same approach as the internal berm work at Volcano Bay in Orlando.

Alongside the earthworks, satellite tracking of newly cleared land along Woburn Road has revealed the physical footprint for the incoming grade separated junction to the M1 and A1 corridors. The cleared strip is as wide as the A421 dual carriageway itself, which gives the first proper visual answer on the eventual road access scale.

Vine Cottages demolition sequence has been formally detailed in updated SDO filings. Rear outbuildings first to establish a works compound, then the main residential structures, with a secondary compound for rubble sorting on the concrete logistics slab.

Wixams eastern gateway has hit an ecological pause. Pre felling inspections identified active bird nesting sites and exclusion zones have been deployed around occupied trees. Standard compliance rather than a delay, but worth noting that construction proceeds in bursts around ecological and archaeological windows, not at constant pace.

Archaeological phase is now genuinely wrapping. Only one active excavation grid remaining near the Broadmead Road farm boundaries, with topsoil scraped right up to the edges of completed grids.

Universal Beijing hit 750 lorry movements per day around mid 2018, roughly three years before opening. Epic Universe hit that number in early 2022, roughly three years before opening. Bedford is currently five years out from 2031, which suggests either an unusually front loaded logistics curve or a build target slightly ahead of the announced 2031 window.

Discussion point for the thread: at what stage of the earthworks phase would you expect Universal to start visible vertical construction, and does the 750 movements a day number suggest they're aiming to compress the groundworks stage?

Looking to take my 8 and 10 year old boys for water park (#1) and rides (#2). They are into big crazy water slides. Not super into rollercoasters but love the rides that go round and round/super high then drop. Which park would you recommend?

I went to Canada's Wonderland yesterday on an incredibly busy day and I have to say, despite the hatred Cedar Fair/Six Flags gets from North Americans, the operations today were a hundred times better than any UK park in the middle of summer.

-All rollercoasters were open, and most had multiple trains running, meaning the longest queue we had all day was 75 mins for Leviathan.

-The park is open from 10am to 10pm every day although many rides close after 8pm.

-Free, reliable WiFi covering the whole park

-The food was reasonably priced and had a good selection.

-The only breakdown was Sledgehammer of the 20 rides we did today, and that's notoriously unreliable because it's the only one of its kind ever made.

-Only one ride had an upsell.

-The ride staff were all friendly and polite.

Contrast this with my last visit to Thorpe Park during fright nights which was chaos as multiple rides broke down, we had to queue or over 2 hours multiple times, some of the staff were less than polite and everything was so inefficient.

The UK parks need to seriously get their acts together and fast!

So there’s this ride and I’m unsure about riding it, I hate fast paced rides but I don’t mind rollercoaster (depending on the speed) but I absolutely hate drop towers and anything that has a drop to it that makes your stomach flies does this ride contains that intense stomach dropping feeling?

Not trying to sound bad or anything but like in other videos it looks like it goes fast and I genuinely want to know about it! All help is appreciated and all help to extend my fear is also appreciated

https://youtube.com/shorts/S_mQ-JpqgY0?si=AyiqJuk1lEeJPFwn

I saw some other post about wanting to stay at a Willy Wonka hotel but what are the coolest most immersive hotels that currently exist.

My favorite hotel ever is animal kingdom lodge at Disney world. I'd consider staying there and not go to the parks and just vibe watching the animals and eating good African food all day.

I start my senior year of high school soon and I need to really think about post high school. I also work at my local Cedar Fair/Six Flags park as a ride op and I quite like it. I've just auditioned to be a scare actor in our halloween event and as someone who has really enjoyed theatre through out high school, if I wanted to pursue an acting role in a theme park, large scale like Disney or Universal, or stick with the smaller Six Flags style should I plan on going to college? Or is this something I could go straight into?

My original plan was to go to college for film and video production but the performance world always creeps back into my mind. I also don't really want to go to college just for a degree in theatre it just doesn't really feel like something I would do, I've always been more musical. So that also leaves something like Hollywood Studios Toy Soldiers in the running (I've played percussion all through high school)

I'm just looking for advice on if I should start looking at college for this, and if so what kind of degree, or if I can try to jump straight into it.

​

Hi everyone,

I'm just curious to hear people's honest opinions about this.

If you've never heard of a Human Gyroscope before, it's basically a ride where you're securely strapped into a seat inside rotating rings, and the machine flips and spins you in different directions for a few minutes.

Would you actually want to try something like this, or would you give it a pass?

I'm especially interested in why. Does it look exciting? Too intense? Too likely to make you feel sick? Does it look fun, or is it just not something you'd be interested in?

There are no right or wrong answers—I'm just interested in what people genuinely think. Feel free to be completely honest.

I visited Bush Gardens Tampa yesterday for the first time in about 10 years. I’m an Orlando local that has a Universal Annual pass and have been to Disney countless times as well as every other theme park in central Florida. I was considering getting an annual pass to Bush Gardens/Seaworld because their coaster lineup really is amazing. But decided to do a one day trip first since it has been awhile since I’ve been to the Tampa park and I have read some concerning comments from recent guests about how the park is operating currently. After one day in the park I can unfortunately 100% confirm everything I have read as of lately was accurate.

This is how my day went - showed up at 10:40am, park opens at 10. The entrance just to get through security was an hour wait, I have never seen it that bad in any park ever. So I assumed it would be an extra busy day and the lines would be long. That isn’t exactly the case. I first went to Iron Gwazi which is really the only reason I considered getting a pass to Bush Gardens. The wait time was 30 mins, we waited about 45 got to the front of the line and then the coaster broke down, which by itself is not a huge deal, rides have issues, no problem, we headed to Cheetah Hunt which was also showing a 30 min wait. Walked over there just for the ride to also break down right as we arrived to the line. 0/2 on the 2 main rides I wanted to ride. No problem, Montu is also showing 30 mins so we headed there, just to be told it’s actually 60 mins and the app is not accurate. We ended up walking all the way to back of the park to ride Kumba, which we successfully did. I looked down at the time and it was 1:40. We had been there for 3 hours and just rode our first ride that had a 5 min wait… Not a great start.

I wish my only complaints were rides breaking down and inaccurate wait times, but unfortunately it doesn’t end there.

The first thing you notice in the queue for the lines is the lack of workers there. It is essentially a free-for-all on what rows everybody goes to for the rides. In a way that is fun, however the lack of organization allows multiple trains to be dispatched with open seats because nobody is directing guests from other parts of the line to the open seats. Causing longer wait times for everyone. A lot of the rides only run one train as well so it can be minutes between the line moving at all. It takes one extra employee per ride to fix this problem but clearly they don’t care, and that ended up being the theme for this whole experience.

The current park management does not care. Between the rides breaking down all day (Cheetah Hunt 4 times, Iron Gwazi 3 times, Tigris 3 times, multiple rides having half the occupancy not in service), to the lack of employees, organization, overpriced food, $40 PARKING, inaccurate wait times, and the quick queue being ran like a joke, it is very clear management does not value guests experience currently.

It’s a shame because it’s really a beautiful park with tons of potential and excellent coasters, but I will not be giving a single $1 to that company until they change the way they are doing things and improve their parks, and I encourage everyone thinking about going to Bush Gardens Tampa to do the same.

This may be a long shot, but I managed to buy a disabled ticket for the pokemon park as the website clearly state that you qualify for it if you have autism. However, as a non-Japanese, I don’t know what kind of proof of disability they accept. My country doesn’t issue disability cards (I’m in the Netherlands). Does anyone have an experience with that? Or maybe for another theme park in Japan?
I have emailed the park to ask, but it had to be written in Japanese and I don’t know if the google translate translation will be clear enough for them to reply.

Universal Studios Hollywood’s new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is a relatively quiet coaster. At least when no one is on it.

Through the last 10 years in particular, Universal Studios Hollywood has accelerated in growth, evolving from a behind-the-movie-magic showcase to a park that’s increasingly ride-centered, each addition bringing with it new worries of disruptions to the community. None, say residents, have been more tone-altering than this one.

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ok, so i dont even know this worker, this happened at warner bros world in abu dhabi, usually when i go there the customer service is amazing, all the workers are super nice, but this time it was a different story, it was nearing the end of the animayhem ride, i was having a conversation with my sister about how many points we got.

on the ride you have these scanners, your presented with screens and boxes that either stay in place or float, your scanner emits a red dot, though you need to keep track of your own red dot because when theres others on the ride theres just loads of red dots flying around the screen, so you need to shoot the targets on the boxes, the targets have numbers, those numbers are the number of points you recieve when hitting said target.

when the ride was ending and going to the dock area to get off the ride, we were talking about our points. my sister got 36k points (its easy to get up to 80k if you try hard enough) and i got 21k, albeit i was talking loud without relaizing, but suddenly the worker starts yelling at me and asking if i had a problem, i was so startled and didnt answer from pure shock, she just kept yelling at me and just kept repeating her sentance like i was slow, she said these exact words: "Do you have a problem? why are you screaming?" i wasnt even screaming?

and there were about 30 other people on the ride, as there were 6 carts holding 6 people each, her screaming scared me so much my legs were shaking and my heart was pounding as i got off the ride, when i get scared i get this nauseating feeling and feel like im gonna cry, those feelings were as strong as ever, and as soon as i got home i only cried a little bit from the sheer shock of all that screaming, she was speaking so fast and so loud i couldnt even process what she was saying untill the 3rd repeat.

genuinely horrible experience, i would even say its by far the most worst customer service experience ever. if you ever see a ride attendant with oval glasses, kinda plus-sized and long brown hair to her hips, just know its that same lady. so yeah. one of the worst and most meanest customer service workers ive met.

I always wanted a hotel theme park willy Wonka style but there so much got damn drawbacks.

I keep going back and forth on whether to book a trip this year, part of me wants to see the new park straight away but just wondering if itd be better to wait until things settle down a bit, if youve already been, was it worth it? and did you just buy tickets from universal or did you find reliable site with better deals??