City Walk vs. Downtown Disney

On a rainy Southern California Monday, you do not expect a huge turn out at the parks. Only the diehard tourists who have traveled hundreds miles will turn out for a cold, wet day of themeparking. Such was the case today when I went to Universal Studios Hollywood. It rained all morning, which made for, what I consider, the perfect conditions to visit a park. A week day with enough rain to keep the crowds away but not enough to make playing outside completely miserable.

Walking through City Walk to the park entrance, it was apparent the "entertainment capitol of LA" was sparsely attended. Open, uncrowded walkways leading to empty stores. It didn't seem like anything that wasn't to be expected. A weekday with less than desirable wether shouldn't lead to a huge turn out at an outdoor mall. When I left the park and trekked through City Walk again on the way out, little had changed. The weather had improved, but it was still a slow Monday night for the shopping complex.

As luck would have it, my parents were visiting Disneyland on the same day I was at Universal Studios. We made arrangements to meet at Downtown Disney for dinner after they left the park after their own day of themeparking. When I arrived at Downtown Disney, it was apparent there were far more people at Disney's mall than at Universal's. The pathways were busy, restaurants had less empty tables, and she shops had people coming and going. When compared to City Walk, DtD was quite busy, though not nearly as packed as it can be on a busy summer weekend with beautiful weather.

This leads to the big question. On a rainy Monday night in the beginning of May, why is Downtown Disney so much busier than City Walk. Is it a random occurrence, a one off night where the conditions of the day favored Disney, or has Disney taken the reigns as the nighttime shopping and dining destination from Universal?

It has always been my belief that Universal Hollywood's City Walk began the modern era of theme park shopping districts. While I think Disneyland's Downtown Disney is exceptionally well designed and has a great assortment of tenants, City Walk, to me, still had them beat when it came to support from the local community, variety of offerings, and overall impact. Is what City Walk offers not enough anymore? Is Downtown Disney now finally the new hottness?

What do you think?

--Mike

Desperate for Desperado

Hugging the state line between California and Nevada lies Buffalo Bill's Hotel and Casino, part of the Primm Valley resorts. Buffalo Bill's makes a valiant attempt to be a family casino resort, in the great tradition of Excalibur, Luxor, and Circus Circus. It has a relatively well done western theme that ties together the resort's hotel, restaurants, casino, and rides. That's right, there be rides here.

The resort is home to a collection of off the shelf amusement rides, a simulator, a space shot, a kid's bouncer. Attractions that would be at home at any neighborhood amusement center. They also have a very nice, custom log flume ride that starts within the casino, proceeds outside into a man made mountain, loops around some dark caves before sending you down a good sized drop, before finally floating you through portions of the casino and food court. The ride flume is littered with digital targets that are meant to make the ride a shooting game as well. Targets are attached to various animatronic cowboys and animals, though when I rode, they were out of guns, so no shooting for me.

The real reason for my trip to the Primm Valley was Desperado, a 209 foot tall hyper-coaster that rises above and surrounds the hotel. When it opened in 1994, it was tied for the world's tallest drop (around 225 feet) and, with it's nice ride time of over two and a half minutes, it promised to be a ride well worth the trip.

Getting on Desperado has proven to be a challenging task, and has become a personal endeavor that I have yet to complete. Currently, Buffalo Bill's only operates it's rides three days a week for 7 hours and 45 minutes. It's only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays that they power up their attractions for anyone to have a chance to ride. As someone who lives in Las Vegas and works on The Strip, around 30 minutes away from Primm Valley, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are generally the toughest day to get off from work. To add to the fun, everything is scheduled to close at 7:45pm. That means, in order to get on the coaster, I would have to leave work and be on the road no later than 6:30pm so I could get to the hotel and still have enough time to navigate the casino, buy a ticket, and get on the ride. Sounds simple enough.

Today the perfect opportunity presented itself. Work ended at 5:45, and I was on the highway to Primm by 6pm. I made excellent time and arrived at Buffalo Bill's around 6:30pm. As I approached the resort, I could see the towering track for Desperado in the distance, but became very concerned as I did not see any trains cycling through the circuit. Was the ride in fact open today? Had they decided to close early? Was my trip all for nothing? I put my doubts aside, parked my car, and ventured into the casino.

Portions of the coaster track weave in and out of the upper portions of the casino. I could not hear any trains cycling. I trekked onward to the attractions area, fingers crossed that the coaster was open. I arrived at the ticket boot, and low and behold, Desperado was open and operating, but for some reason, in order for them to send a train, it had to have 12 riders on it. Currently there was 1 other person waiting in the station to ride. I became number 2.

It was 7pm and no one else was coming to ride. I decided to kill some time and ride the log flume, which I had no problem riding alone. Empty seats did not seem to affect the ride at all, much like I'm sure would have been the case on Desperado. I can't tell you if that is true or not because I never got to ride Desperado.

Upon exiting the log flume, I went back to waiting for 10 more people to magically appear so they would send the train. It never happened. At 7:30, (15 minutes early, though it wouldn't have mattered) they powered down the coaster and drained the flume due to lack of riders.

My Desperado mission was a failure. I moved on to the casino, where they graciously compensated me with $260 from the slot machines for my troubles. I thought that was very nice of them.

Someday the stars will align and I will cruise the track of Desperado. The next time I am out of work on time on a weekend, here's hoping 11 other people have the same idea that I do, and we all meet at the same time near the roof of the Buffalo Bill's Casino for a ride on one of the tallest coasters in the world.

Until then, I have $200 to spend on things that are open.

Theme Park Nerds Episode 2

Hey Nerds!
The second episode of our video blog is complete and ready to be enjoyed!

This week we talk about:
Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland, quite possibly the greatest dark ride ever created!
Springfield coming to Universal Studios Hollywood and Orlando.  Are you ready for your Flaming Moe?
and Disney's Animal Kingdom's 15th Anniversary.  Disney isn't really celebrating it, so we thought it should get some attention.

If you want to make sure you are the first to see future clips and episodes, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us on Facebook.

Ready, go!

Later nerds!

Mike

Legend of the Disco Yeti

Hey Nerds!
If anyone has been to Disney's Animal Kingdom in the past 6 years, you have no doubt ridden Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain (which is a SUPER long name for what everyone just calls "Everest").  Its a towering roller-coaster ride inside a faux himalayan mountain that features Disney's first coaster that goes both forwards and backwards.

At opening, the attraction also featured what was billed as the world largest audio animatronic, a HUGE yeti at the finale of the ride.  The Yeti, at opening, was truly impressive.  As your train entered the final cave of the mountain, you saw this gigantic monster hanging from a broken piece of track from above.  His body lunging towards you as his arm reached for your train as you zoomed by, seeming just out of reach of the beast.  It provided an epic ending to an amazing ride and gave Animal Kingdom the jolt it needed to inch it closer to become a full day park.  I had the pleasure of riding Everest when it first opened and the Yeti was truly a sight to behold.

Shortly after opening, however, the yeti started having problems that effected the entire attraction.  The motions that the animatronic was performing was starting to tear the entire mountain apart.  The yeti's size and manner in which he moved caused great strain on the structure that housed the roller-coaster and the beast.  Before the end of Everest's first year of operation, the yeti was shut down and posed in a manner so that he still seemed menacing while making no movement.  A strobe light was added to the cave to give the appearance of movement.

It was the addition of the strobe light that caused park fans to jokingly call the beast the "Disco Yeti" and the name has been adopted by many since he was shut down.

Rumors have persisted that Disney is attempting to fix the issues caused to the structure when the yeti moves, but there have been very little signs of progress.  Whenever the internet gets the slightest notion that ANY part of the yeti MAY be moving, the queue at Everest will swell, filled with hopeful internet surfers trying to catch a glimpse of yeti motion.  Usually, they are sorely disappointed.

The topic of the Disco Yeti came up between Parker and I.  See what we think.

See you on Everest whenever the yeti starts blinking his eyes!

Mike

Limited Time Dirt Pudding

What's happening Nerds?
I hope everyone had an awesome Earth Day earlier this week.  I know I did.  Disney is doing something special to celebrate Earth Day too.  No, it's not celebrate the anniversary of their Animal Kingdom theme park that is turning 15 this week AND happened to open on Earth Day in 1998.  They are serving dirt pudding!!!  YAY!  It's for a limited time only, so you had better hurry to your favorite Disney park before the end of the week (April 28th to be exact) to make sure you can get your very own Disney gummy worm covered in Oreo cookie crumbles and chocolate pudding.

If you can't make it to a Disney park in the next few days, I'm sure you could go to your local grocery store and make the same thing for under $5, but where's the magic in that?!

Of course, Parker and I have some thoughts about this Limited Time "Magic" offering.  See what we think.

Now that you're up to your ears in worm based magic, make sure you follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.  You know I am going to keep asking until you do :)

Later nerds!

Mike

Theme Park Nerds Facebook Page
Theme Park Nerds YouTube Channel

Closed Mountains (and hang gliders)

What up Nerds!
Have you ever wondered how Disneyland keeps its workers safe when they are performing maintenance to some of their famous buildings, like Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and Sorin' Over California?  Well so has the sate of California.  They wondered so much they decided to pop into Disneyland and do a little safety inspection and see what they could find.

The result was the sudden and immediate closure of Space Mt., the Tomorrowland side of The Matterhorn, and Sorin' Over California by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH).

If you would like to read the actual citations from DOSH, here's the link:
Disneyland Citations

This isn't the first time Disneyland, or any other California park, has had one of its attractions shut down or changed by the state and it won't be the last.  The remnants of DOSH's 2010 visit to the Alice in Wonderland ride are still present in the form of very visible "temporary" hand rails that were erected to protect anyone working on the outer portion of the second story of the attraction.  This was required to get the ride back open and get DOSH off the mouse's back.

Obviously, the closure of Space, Sorin', and Matterhorn isn't the first time Disney has had to deal with changing policies regarding the state of California's stance on worker safety.  In fact, California has some of the most detailed, strictest labor laws in the country, and it should come as no surprise to an employer as large as Disneyland that the laws were updated.  I am a little baffled that no one in the Anaheim theme park offices took note of the safety changes and didn't think to start some sort of process to assure the state they were taking appropriate actions to appease the state, especially when the result would be the closure of major attractions and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Say what you will about the fairness of California constantly changing its labor laws and its expectations that employers constantly update their facilities to whatever the government deems fit.  Its a fact of life when you do business and employ workers in the state of California that you will have strict guidelines to conform to and failing to do so will impact your business.  Disney can drag its heals all it wants and the fans can complain all they want about how "it hasn't been an issue in 50 years, why is it an issue now?!?!?" but none of that matters when if comes to the law.  Besides, its not like Disney doesn't have the means, manpower, and insight to comply with any new law if they truly wanted to.  Like any business owner, they tried to spend as little as possible on updates to their product that they didn't think were necessary.  They just got caught, that's all.

Here is Parker and my take on the situation.  Enjoy!

See you at Space Mountain Nerds!  (Whenever it reopens)

Mike

Limited Time Fairies

Hey there nerds!
So this year, Disney Parks big marketing campaign is "Limited Time Magic," a weird attempt to turn random events demanded by a very small portion of the theme park visiting population into legitimate, marketable things.  It's weird, but if odd event being highlighted the week you are at the park, I guess it could be cool.

Most limited time magic events happen for around a week and are usually centered around some sort of food item, show, or character that you can't see the rest of the year.  It's mostly Disney digging through their theme park vault and digging out and dusting off anything that a group of people may mildly care about.

Last week was fairy week at Magic Kingdom and Disneyland.  Neither Parker or I had the pleasure of participating in limited time fairies, but that doesn't stop us from talking about it!

Check out our excitement about Limited Time Fairies in the outtake from our last Theme Park Nerds episode.

Now that you have enjoyed that video, please take a moment to follow us on twitter @themeparknerds so you keep up to date when we say something else awesome.

Later Nerds!

Mike

Theme Park Nerds YouTube Channel
Theme Park Nerds Facebook Page