Written by Gregg Condon

The entrance to Ninjago World

There are lots of great Lego diagrams in the area

The Ninja Kitchen has some great food and we tried it all. And it was all amazing especially the pork belly. 

More of the awesome Lego people

Even a kid-sized rock climbing wall

The entry to the ride, it looks really great. You can't see the ride building at all from the land. 

And of course the store at the exit

The opening ceremony featured some ninja's, drums and lots and lots and LOTS of confetti. 

Let's take a look at the ride with video and pictures. 

Ride Review: 

So I think it's safe to say we were kind of hesitant about Ninjago. Not only are we wholly unfamiliar with the theme but after Iron Reef last year we weren't quite sure what to expect. While Iron Reef is fun, the capacity, ride vehicles and some of the effects on the ride didn't really excite a lot of people. 

Fortunately with Ninjago they've addressed all of these issues. 

First off, instead of one vehicle (holding 8 people max) at a time going through the ride Ninjago actually sends two vehicles (holding 16 people max) at a time. Each scene has two screens which effectively doubles the capacity from Iron Reef. 

The vehicles go through the station much faster than Iron Reef (as you can see in the video above) and the entire front of the vehicle doesn't need to be moved, just the "doors" on the side. 

Technologically the video is much more crisp and clear and there are many lighting and fog effects in the ride. 

The motion activated technology seems to work pretty well but takes some getting used to. We rode 4 times and by the last time we seemed to be getting it down. But even without being able to aim right where we wanted to without practice we still had a great time. It's a bit of a workout as well. 

Overall we think the ride is a solid addition to this park and considering Ninjago is Lego's biggest original franchise we have no doubt this ride is going to be a hit. 

The 3D glasses are placed in racks which probably makes them easier to clean

The ride station which loads 4 groups of 4 for 16 riders at a time. 

Thanks again to Legoland for having us out, we had a great time and enjoyed the event and ride immensely. 

​Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple has a ton of show times.

Thanks again to Renée for another amazing update. It's amazing to see all the work being done to Star Wars Lands on both coasts. 

It was a beautiful spring day at the park. Sadly two of the major coasters were closed during our visit. 

Let's start off with a look at the Wagon Camp and all the work going on. 

Lots of work going on for the Wild West Stuntshow. 

Ghostrider looks closer and closer to being done and the trains should be on-site by now. 

A peek in the station, no sign of trains. 

Still working on stuff

Pan For Gold is back at the front of the park where it belongs and it looks great!!! 

Should be much more popular in a more visible location. 

A look at the previous location. 

Lots of outside seating towards the back, will be a nice spot to spend some summer evenings. 

A peek inside

We've seen a lot of complaints about the restaurant looking too "modern" or non-original, we didn't get that impression at all. It looks amazing in person. 

One of the more popular locations is going to be the bar of course. 

Lots of work still going on for the 75th Anniversary of Ghost Town

Work going on for the living peek-in's

The Barn is getting set to host live animals

The new stage is springing up rather quickly

The show area for the new stage is supposedly going to be bigger which will be nice

No word on how Pony Express is going to impact the shows

Lots of random things going on at the park as well. 

​Some work in the games area near The Log Ride

Xcelerator was closed, the purple train was on the break run so not sure if it was just down for the day or is in refurb. 

Jaguar is also getting some TLC as the supports have been repainted to their original color. 

From the lift hill of Sierra Sidewinder it looked like the 2nd train for Jaguar was receiving a pretty extensive refurb, but of course we can't take pictures from the ride. 

New Guest Relations area is open near Ghostrider. 

The area where Riptide was has now been redone to a nice park. It looks really nice but hopefully a new ride will return to this area for 2017. 

Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update. We had lots of stuff to cover so we apologize for it being a bit too long. We do hope you enjoyed it though. 

Once we get word of testing going on with Ghostrider we will for sure be doing another update. 

As a short preface, I think it’s worth mentioning that I am not familiar with Mass Effect, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect when going into the attraction. I can’t really tell you the name of any of the characters, and I probably missed a lot of nods to the franchise throughout the ride.

​With that being said I was a huge fan of the attraction and ended up doing it three times. Here is breakdown of what to expect. 

The Queue: The queue was entirely outside and pretty basic. There were a few signs setting up the story of MRG: Mass Relay Getaways, a company that was taking us from Great America to a luxurious vacation planet. It felt very “Star Tours” in terms of plot setup.

The Preshow: After waiting through the queue, you are given your glasses and sent to a corral area that corresponds with a door. There are two robots in the preshow area, but they don’t move. The TVs continue to set up the MRG storyline, telling you about how you are going on a safe vacation through the galaxy.

​However, towards the end of the video, in a classic “something might go wrong” moment, the MRG commercial is interrupted by a character warning of an attack coming. He quickly loses his signal and we watch the conclusion of the MRG commercial before the doors open and bring us into the theater. 

The Attraction: You walk into the theater, which is themed to look very sleek and futuristic. Our live-action pilot is standing at the front of the theater and begins chatting with the audience as everyone finds their seats. The seats themselves are very comfortable and have some great motion effects. 

Once everyone is seated, our pilot asks us to put on their safety goggle so that our vision is protected from solar flares. We then take off from Great America, dodge a minor meteor field, and arrive at our vacation planet, Terra Nova. Just as our pilot begins to tell us about the great timeshare opportunities on Terra Nova, some alien villains begin to attack the planet, and then things begin to escalate from there. 

The attraction includes very crisp HD 3d technology, water sprays, smoke effects, odors, motion, and a live action pilot who interacts pretty seamlessly with the 3d environments.

​Overall they really went above and beyond to create something that, aside from the queue, felt on par with an attraction like Star Tours or Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. I was so impressed that I ended up riding three times during my day. Hats off to Great America for getting such a great themed attraction, I really hope to see more of these pop up at other Cedar Fair parks. 

Just a few other random park pictures as it was an absolutely beautiful day at the park. 

Thanks to Andrew for the great pictures and review. We're definitely excited about this attraction and it looks like it may be one of the surprise hits of the 2016 season. 

It was a beautiful day to be out at the zoo. It had actually been quite awhile since we'd been here during the day. 

Part of Wild for the Planet, some awesome Keeper talks!! 

Lots of booths set up including one for Disney's The Jungle Book. We scored some swag, even a poster that we'll be putting up in the Park Journey office one of these days (along with about 20 other posters we haven't put up yet).

Wild Art!!! 

Most of the activities were centrally located near Treetops Terrace which was nice. 

Be sure to check out Wild For The Planet now through May 22 (Saturday's and Sunday's)

The other new thing that recently opened was Dinosaurs Unextinct which was actually really cool. 

Lot of cool animatronics 

I bet you never look at birds the same way again ... 

Lots of fun facts about the Dino's displayed

#ImWithCoco 

Funniest comment overheard ... why is that dinosaur just laying there? 

They even had one without the skin that you could control. Very cool. 

Doin' the Utahraptor rap ... 

Overall Dinosaurs Unextinct is a really cool addition to the zoo and well worth the $5 upcharge to check out. There are even some cool photo ops for families to get a unique Christmas card or something. 

Thanks again to the LA Zoo for having us out. We hope to get back soon to just spend a day hanging out with the animals.