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It looks great and runs so fast!  Thanks for working so hard.

A quick fall update:

They really need to replace some of the carved, fake  pumpkins. Pieces are falling off and it's hard to tell what the original design was.

With the weather so dry, it doesn't seem that the real pumpkins are rotting as fast as in previous years. By this time last year, the smell of rotting pumpkins was strong sometimes.

Foggy Hollo...I want to like it.  But it's so crowded that it's unpleasant to walk through. The park wasn't even crowded on Sunday evening. At some point, they will probably need to do something about the crowd in Grand Expo and Pumpkin Plaza. With everyone down there, it's a bottle neck and an emergency could turn in to a disaster really quick. 

They need to drop this and focus on their current assets. Renovate the Mansion and fix the leaks in the roof. Make it a premiere destination that hosts more than 75 year old artists and dance competitions. Then move on to the film studio they are supposed to be opening. They have tried to bite off more than they can chew and it shows. Bicknell must have money he needs to spend. .

Swoosh for the win.

March 30
9:45am

A mostly great trip yesterday!  Tons of little kids and grandparents in attendance. The longest wait for a ride was MRF and it was about an hour.  Everything else was close to a walk on all day.

There were some glaring missteps though. Within 10 minutes of Pumpkin Plaza, they ran out of cashew chicken for the cones. They could not tell you how long a wait for that would be. The line for Taste of the City ran at a snails pace due to only having one ordering line. Food lines at lunch were well over 30 minutes...some closer to an hour. Thankfully we ate before we got to the park. And the tram  situation was embarrassing. We waited over 15 minutes for one to take us to the park around noon. We walked back to our car at stop 2 around 8:45. Probably took us closer to 10 minutes because of the amount of people walking and my daughter loosing a sock. In that time, we never saw a tram or bus pass by us to go to stop 2 or 3. They were loading busses and trams when we headed down our vehicle but they never delivered any passengers. Took 5ish minutes to get settled in the car and pull off. Still no one had arrived via transportation. I hope they fix things before Christmas because it will be an absolute nightmare if they don't improve it.

Anyone going this weekend? We will be there some on Friday evening, & Saturday morning - afternoon.
Anyone heard how the Labor Day weekend crowd was?

We were there in Labor Day. The crowd wasn't too terrible. It poured for part of the afternoon, but the crowd didn't thin as much as I've seen in the past. Line wait times were long as always. They really need to get some more rides  in that can handle more than 15 people per vehicle. The small vehicles just clog up the lines and the load times are so long.

It's barely been 80 for the last 3 weeks. Extreme heat didn't cause this.

Driving out today, we noticed some work being done to the east of the city. Lots of dirt moving. New fence. What appears to be a water filling station perhaps?  Any ideas on what this is?

Tony and I will take a cruise in October. We did get SDC passes again after taking a break last year so we will spend a lot of time there.

There will be a family vacation in august, the week before school starts. Location is TBD. Maybe Dollywood and the Smokies. Maybe a cruise?  Maybe Disney? 

Work will likely take me to Chicago, Colorado, perhaps NM, and TN. 

We always called it "just don't". As in just don't park us. We'll come back another day.

They've already walled it off. Man they are fast!

According to social media, it was contained to the pork rind stand and the wood carvers shop. I'm guessing there is at least some damage to the connecting buildings. They have already ordered dumpsters to be delivered today.

Photo

Due to my grandfather being ill, we've had to push back our spring break plans to 2022. But...

15th anniversary trip to the Smokies and Nashville-October 2021

We were told that it's been impossible to clean up the bat droppings. And that the chemicals they would need to use to clean from covid would ruin the cave ecosystem. So, no idea when it will be open again.