TripCart - the best place on the web to find things to do in the United States. Presents a religiously updated blog full of advice and tips for trip planning
Last week the Golden Ticket awards were released announcing the "Best of the Best" for the year throughout the amusement industry. The awards are now in their tenth year. Below are some of the highlights from this year's contest-
Here's another top 10 list we missed while we were away on vacation. TripAdvisor asked their 15 billion users for their favorite amusement park outside the confines of Orlando and they came up with the following list-
In a grisly, freak accident on Thursday, a 13 year-old girl lost her legs when the Superman: Tower of Power ride she was on had a cable snap, whipping in the air and severing the child's legs. According to WLKY-
“As the ride came down, the wire swung left, struck the young lady on the back side of my children,” Williams said. Williams’
daughter Amber said she gave up her seat to the 13-year-old and was
sitting on the other side of the ride. Williams rushed toward the ride
to find his daughter. As Smith raced to find members of her group, she
said she made a gruesome discovery. “When I got up there, the
lady, she was just sitting there and she didn’t have no legs,” Smith
said. “She didn’t have no legs at all. She was just calm, probably in
shock from everything.”
So far there is no word on the girl's condition. The ride has been shutdown pending a full investigation and has also been removed from the Six Flags website.
The video above is a POV from the Millenium Force in Cedar Point, Ohio. This bad boy is over a mile long, over 30-stories high, and hits speeds of over 90 miles per hour. It opened in 2000 and has since had over 12 million butts in its seats. If you like riding the best and you're going to be in the Midwest between May and October, this is definitely worth a stop. For now, you can ride vicariously through Eddie and Sarah.
Navy Pier's most visible attraction, a 150-foot-high Ferris wheel
presented by McDonald's was modeled after the very first Ferris wheel,
which was built for Chicago's 1893 World Colombian Exposition. The Navy
Pier Ferris wheel provides unparalleled views of the skyline and
lakefront. with 40 gondolas seating six passengers each. In the
evening, the Ferris wheel's 40 spokes, spanning a diameter of 140 feet,
are illuminated by thousands of sparkling lights.
The 'Wave Swinger" towers nearly forty feet over a pond of water. This
exhilarating forty-eight seat swing ride lifts visitors fourteen feet
in the air, and whisks them around for a thrill that shows guests a
view of the lakeside never before seen.
Tigger just couldn't take it anymore, the heat, the bad food, the little girls pulling his tail, the constant photo ops; he finally lost it and apparently accosted the Monaco's son on Friday. Jerry Junior was posing next to Tigger with the rest of the family when Tigger (the man in the big orange suit's name is Michael J. Fedelem) lashed out. However, Tigger's union rep. claims that Jerry Junior was pulling and choking him and that he took a swipe at the boy in an effort to escape the assault. The lawyers are already licking their chops like Pooh over a pot of honey.
Universal is at it again this year, for the 16th time they'll be putting on their annual Halloween Horror Nights. From the end of September until the end of October, you can get the beejeezus scared out of you after the park's regular hours are over. They've built seven different haunted houses with names like Screamhouse - Resurrection (walk around a gothic mortuary) and Psychoscarepy - Maximum Madness ("If you think you know insane you don't know Jack"). There are also a couple of shows including Bill and Ted's that is a perennial favorite among fright fans.
Need a way to cool down this Labor Day? Want to head one of the best waterparks in the country? You've got a lot of options but CNN picked their ten most favoritest. Below is a roundup of the waterparks along with their best features-
Schlitterbahn(Texas) - the 1,000-foot-long Master Blaster water coaster and the natural spring that keeps the water from reeking of chlorine are the two big highlights
Wet N' Wild(Florida) - this park's been around since the Carter Administration and is packed with slides
Noah's Ark(Wisconsin) - this is the biggest park in America and it also has a water coaster that reaches speeds of 30 m.p.h.
Splashin' Safari(Indiana) - crammed with stuff for kids as well as a 10-story enclosed slide that's the highest in the world
Water World (Colorado) - this park attempts to meld water with kitsch and usually succeeds except when it's too cold to get in
Blizzard Beach(Florida) - Disney went overboard with this one, a 120-foot nearly vertical slide that will have you begging for a wedgie
Water Country USA (Virginia) - this place has a sort of 1950s style, and we can't really figure out why it's on the list
Kalahari Water Park (Wisconsin) - this place might not be as impressive as it's neighbors but it is the country's first indoor water park
Typhoon Lagoon (Florida) - Disney's sister water park is more family oriented (big surprise) than Blizzard Beach and has a 360k-gallon Shark Reef to snorkel in
Wild Rivers(California) - Wild Rivers isn't afraid of a lawsuit and you can see it in their rides that take some adventurous risks that other corporate parks might not have the cajones to take
My personal choice would be going to Nevada's Black
Rock City in the Black Rock Desert, where every year, thousands of participants gather to celebrate the coolest / craziest Theme Park of them all - Burning Man.
