This morning Sea World CEO Joel Manby announced an end to the Orca breeding program at all of their parks. Be sure to click for the full press release above if you haven't yet. We wanted to share a few thoughts on this in addition to simply posting the press release. 

Written by Gregg Condon

As we stated in our article "It's time for SeaWorld to promote fun in their parks again" almost exactly one year ago, one of our suggestions was stopping the promotion of the breeding program. And that really is something they've done. 

If you've driven around any of the area's where their parks are and seen billboards they've pretty much been promoting the rides and not so much the Orca shows. 

But even at the time we pretty much figured the breeding programs days were numbered. It makes sense for a variety of reasons. 

I'd also like to point out and give a huge hug to all of the trainers at SeaWorld. We all owe them a HUGE debt of gratitude for the tireless hours they put in caring for these animals so that we can all have a chance to experience them in the parks. 

I've seen up close and personal how much love the park staff have for all of the animals at the park and nobody should ever try and deny the love they have for these animals. 

First off ... to "Stand with Seaworld" people: 

We've already seen a few posts this morning that the park betrayed you, took your support for granted and more. STOP IT!! 

SeaWorld isn't just about the Orcas, Standing with a company doesn't mean you agree with everything they do (although we do personally agree with this). It means supporting them, not blindly, but realizing when they are in a position they simply can't control. 

It's time to turn our attention away from the fighting and protesters and back where it belongs, on the welfare of all the animals at the parks, and the countless animals SeaWorld has a part in rescuing every year. 

Secondly ... to the "anti SeaWorld" people: 

This is not a victory for you. This is not a defeat for SeaWorld. Stop gloating like your little protests and having jackasses put signs up on freeway overpasses did anything. It didn't. It was an annoyance and took precedence over the real issue which is caring for animals.

You would continuously quote a movie that contains very little fact and for that you should be ashamed. Maybe if you would have stuck to facts, been less militant in your opposition and clearly and concisely stated your opinions this would have happened a long time ago. 

For many of you your goal was to protect the animals, for SeaWorld that IS their only goal. For PeTA, it's not their goal. So they get no credit in this. It's not deserved. 

I've seen many of you already say that you will now support SeaWorld, and for that we thank you. I hope you do realize that SeaWorld was always about caring for the animals. Had they made mistakes, sure, of course they did. Even they admitted it. 

Still, there will be those out there who won't stop until all SeaWorld parks are shut down and there's nothing we can do about that. Damn all the work they do to protect animals in the wild and that the money they make from the parks goes to support that. It's their way or nothing. 

​C'est La Vie ... 

So now that this chapter in the history of SeaWorld is done it's time to look towards the future and realize a few things. 

Orcas will not be gone tomorrow, or even 5 or 10 years from now. In fact, most of our children and for some of us, grandchildren, will still be able to see these animals in the parks in their all new larger habitats. They aren't being released into the wild, as it's been proven time and time again that they simply don't have the skills to survive. 

SeaWorld is still about protecting animals whether they be Orcas, Dolphins, Manatee, Turtles, Sharks and Penguins. That is NEVER going to change as was made perfectly clear in the release this morning. 

As we look forward to the next few years of SeaWorld attractions including Mako in a few months and the Ocean Explorer attractions next year it's important to support the park more than ever now. Not only for the future growth inside the parks, but for the future prosperity of these animals outside the parks in their natural habitat. 

​What are your thoughts on these changes to SeaWorld? Let us know in the comments below. 

I like the idea of updating this every year. 

This past year was rough. We didn't see our son and his wife for almost a year. My son couldn't leave Canada due to Immigration stuff and there were some medical things going on last year that prevented us from going to Canada. 

That changed in early February. Our son got his Permanent Residency in Canada and could finally come visit. For the first time ever, both kids and both of their spouses were all together. Our in-law kids had never actually met. So it was special and we loved it. 

We of course got to show them Super Nintendo World for the first time. 

Now that things are getting back to somewhat "normal", we'll be visiting Canada at some point this summer, and the Canadian's will be coming out for Christmas. To have a house-full of people for the Holidays will be great! 

​ORLANDO, Fla. (March 15, 2016) –  SeaWorld Orlando has installed the final piece of Mako’s nearly mile-long steel track – completing the footprint of what will be Orlando’s longest coaster (as well as fastest and tallest).
 
Following tradition, the 12,500-pound, final piece of track was topped with a waving American flag as it was lifted high in the air by a giant crane, and then bolted into place by workers.  The moment finished off a track that is 4,760 feet of pure thrill.
 

​When Mako – a true hypercoaster – opens this summer, it will top 200 feet high and reach speeds of 73 mph. Riders will feel weightless as they reach the top of each hill. 
 
This January, SeaWorld topped off the highest point of the coaster, with a crest that reaches 200 feet in the air.
 
For more Mako information, visit SeaWorldOrlando.com and join the conversation using #NothingFaster.

Before we get started, if you haven't yet, be sure to register for our event at Six Flags Magic Mountain on Sunday June 5. We will have ERT on The New Revolution, Food and Tours all for $55. Click the picture below to see all of the info on the event. 

For those of you who like your updates in video form, we've done a new video for you. Or you can look at the pictures and video. =) 

A look at the loop and the new Plaza Cafe. ​

The track has now been completely painted

The walls are down around the rides entry, which means an employee is stationed out front to tell everybody it's not open. 

New signs inside

Really brings some much needed color to this area of the park. So glad they didn't just cut everything down. 

Another ride sign waiting to go up

The building is completely painted and looks great. 

The ADA entrance is complete. Let's hope they do something with the wood overhead. 

The station is also done, and something is inside there. 

The front has been added to the train!! 

The ride has been testing and it is apparently vewwwy vewwwy quiet ... 

We've been asked by a few people if the ride will be soft opening next weekend, we have NO idea. But our guess would be no as the soft opening is technically the first month the ride is operational for Season Passholders.  

Quick update from the back of the park, the Action Theater is gone. Certainly a lot of room here for ... something. =) 

Only the facade remains

While we aren't sure what's coming (other than rumors) we assume that it will be DC themed and if so hopefully they will find a way to connect the existing DC Universe area with Riddlers Revenge and the new ride. And a rehab/retheme of Tidal Wave maybe? 

Back up at the front, the new awning for the World Famous Funnel Cake Factory looks really nice. 

The Six Flags Emporium is now open

Compared to what was here before it looks really nice. I saw some tweets earlier comparing it to a Kmart or Marshalls, I'd say it's at least on Target level. 

Not sure what people were expecting out of the store but again, compared to Flags this is a tremendous improvement.

The no longer Orient Express

The Carousel horses are coming back

Everything is new, although we were kind of surprised to see that the flooring hadn't been repainted. Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do so. I would imagine they could just spin the base and have somebody stand there with a roller or something. 

Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update. Thanks for reading and we hope you all enjoyed it. 

If you want a taste of what the VR Experience will be like be sure to check out our report from Media Day at Six Flags Over Georgia last week. 

SFOG goes VR … WTF or WTG?

​In early March 2016, Six Flags surprised park fans by announcing it was rolling out a virtual reality experience at several of its parks for the coming season. We’d been hearing about Cedar Fair testing VR on Thunder Run at Canada’s Wonderland, and Alton Towers is transforming its B&M Flyer, Air, into Galactica, complete with a wired VR experience. But what Six Flags is doing is rather unprecedented, and was kept remarkably quiet until about 10 days before the first parks receive it. Nine different parks on nine completely different coasters … will the big gamble have a big payoff?

Before we begin, we need to flash back to IAAPA. VR Coasters, the German company behind The New Revolution VR Coaster program, showcased its product aboard Freedom Flyer, the Vekoma Family Suspended Coaster at Orlando’s Fun Spot America. The reaction from the various Six Flags park presidents in attendance was pretty unanimous: let’s do this! Most importantly, they did it very silently, so it came across as a great bonus way to start off the season. By virtue of the calendar, Six Flags Over Georgia will be the first park of the nine to launch The New Revolution VR Coaster, and does so aboard its now five-year-old Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter, Dare Devil Dive.

The ride already has a huge sign announcing the arrival, and the ride platform has had some features added to get it ready for this new experience. A work area has been set up at the back off-load side of the platform, where the virtual-reality headsets can be kept charged and will be cleaned after each use. There’s plenty of tech available to keep things moving. Park officials also insured that there will be additional staff on the platform to help get riders ready and to keep the lines from getting extraordinarily long. It debuts exclusively to Season passholders for opening weekend, so it will be a good test run. (Incidentally, the ride will be open to all this weekend, but only passholders can experience the VR version; all riders can access it starting March 19.)

Thomas Wagner, the co-founder of VR Coasters, was on-hand to describe the technology. The headset itself, aside from the various securing straps, is very stock. It uses Samsung’s GearVR goggles with a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone for the visuals. The eyepiece and straps are covered in an anti-microbial leather material similar to that used on airplane seats, which will be wiped down between uses. Each of Dare Devil Dive’s four cars will have a small box mounted to it, between the rear seats. This box controls the on-screen action that’s sent to the goggles using two sensors; one looks for specific sections of track so it knows where it is (such as the station), while the other counts rotations of one of the rear wheels. This sets the speed of the experience, ensuring the film tracks precisely to the, well, track, regardless of its speed. Also, in the event of a mechanical failure on the ride (such as getting held in the mid-course brakes), the experience will hold at that point and resume after the car gets moving again.

Riders will take their seats on the ride and then mount the headgear. It’s not difficult, and the prototype straps in place for this media preview were comfortable. It’ll be powered up as soon as you put it on, and will show you inside a fighter-jet parked inside a hangar. Look around, and you’ll see other activity in the hangar. You’ll also notice a rather formidable dual-barrel gun tracking wherever you look. Touching the right side of the visor will fire those guns, even! After the restraints are secured, the car leaves the station – er, the fighter begins to taxi around the hangar. It approaches a door and holds for a moment, but when the door opens, there’s nothing in front of you. Oh well, the only way to go is up,  and up you go as Dare Devil Dive climbs its vertical lift hill and your fighter heads toward the (thankfully) open roof.

As soon as you reach the top, you emerge into a raging battle. In the distance, a looming alien mother-ship is menacing a port city. Alien ships to the left and right! Hopefully you can take one out, but another one will take out your guns, leaving you to hang on for dear life as your pilot dives straight down to street level and winds through the city streets chasing the invaders. So many buildings! Let’s hope you don’t hit one, but no such luck. You do, and it slows you down … at exactly the same time you hit Dare Devil Dive’s mid-course brakes, coincidentally. It’s that attention to detail that makes the experience that much more believable. We now swing around a loading crane by the port, pursuing more invaders, ducking between falling buildings and spiraling through that crane again, heading towards a waiting aircraft carrier. We touch down (DDD hits the final brake run) and see the mother-ship falling out of the skies, engulfed in flames and explosions. Victory is ours … until the next batch of riders boards!

Sam Rhodes, Six Flags’ Director of Design, explained that the basic theme is similar across six of the nine rides, but synced up to that particular ride’s profile. Since Shock Wave at Six Flags Over Texas is different from Dare Devil Dive, it has a completely different VR experience. The three Superman-themed rides that will have this overlay – Krypton Coaster at SF Fiesta Texas, The Ride at SF New England and Ride of Steel at SF America – will indeed feature the Man of Steel battling arch nemesis Lex Luthor. Again, real-world components of the ride are masked in a way that makes sense in the general story. For example, for the Superman coasters, riders will be taking a pleasure flight and will have just taken off from the airport when Lex Luthor appears, pursued naturally by Superman. Lex attacks your plane, sending it hurtling to the ground before Superman collects you and pulls you back into the sky … I’m sure you can tell me what REALLY just happened.

Both Rhodes and Wagner said this may just be the beginning of this experience at the park. The VR overlay is described as “limited-time”, but that’s being purposefully vague. SFOG does pay attention to its visitors; it kept namtaB (Batman Backwards) for several more weeks last season by popular demand. So you may be battling aliens all year, or just until daily ops begin this May. Or, it may relocate to another attraction … or it may be given a Halloween or Christmas theme during those two end-of-year events at the park. All it takes is the ride profile, a bit of math and a lot of creativity, and the sky is VIRTUALLY the limit!

Having ridden Dare Devil Dive since its debut five years ago, I knew the ride layout by memory, making the VR easier to adapt to. I spent much of the first ride matching everything up in my head … but that was unfair. I blocked that out on my second run, trying to experience it as if I was a first-time rider. The VR really does plus it up in a fun, but unobtrusive way. It all makes sense, with no dialogue or explanation … which is mainly because it has no sound component. Adding audio would make everything heavier and harder to wear, to say nothing about adding even more to the concerns about guests’ personal hygiene. Also, and this is really being nitpicky, the graphics are good, but hardly cutting edge compared to today’s movies and video games. But in the end, it’s the experience that overweighs all that. It’s still fun, and still worth some effort to experience.

The New Revolution VR Coaster is just one of the new experiences Six Flags Over Georgia has in store for 2016, its 50th operating season. The first of the two announced kids’ areas, Bugs Bunny Boomtown, will open with the park on Saturday, March 12 with all but one ride, the Yosemite Sam Wacky Wagons Ferris wheel (that will open soon). Work is slowly getting underway on the second area, DC Super Friends, which will be the first-ever use of this kid-friendly variant of the comic heroes. It’s still on target for a late spring opening. Another new feature, JB’s Sports Bar and Grill, replaces Big Mo’s in the French section and will open by the end of the month.

For you coaster fans, the rest of the park’s arsenal looks to be ready for the season, with some notable exceptions. Goliath will open with just one train; the second unit is being rebuilt from the bogies up and will be added later this spring (the operating train has already undergone this overhaul). Cyclone may debut with one train at first, as well, but everything else will have standard load-outs starting Saturday. Two coasters will not debut with the park. Canyon Blaster is busy being rethemed into The Joker’s Funhouse, and should re-open with DC Super Friends later in the spring. And then there’s the red-tracked stepchild in Cotton States, Ninja.

Sharp-eyed readers observed the park’s 2016 map on its website and noticed two things: that Ninja was now blue in color and was labeled “all-new” and opening later in the season. Park President Dale Kaetzel said that Vekoma was on site and working to improve the ride experience with some track work and some improvements to the trains. Kaetzel did mention it would sport the new vest-type harnesses found on Vekoma’s Boomerang coasters (such as Carolina Cobra at nearby Carowinds), but was coy about whether it would be on new trains or on the existing vehicles. I’m wagering it’ll be the former. Kaetzel also mentioned that the name “Ninja” may not be on it when it does re-open, but nothing was set yet.
​
And lastly, while this is the 50th operating season, next year is the big 5-0 itself. Big anniversaries usually mean big presents, and needless to say, Mr. Kaetzel wasn’t forthcoming with what may be planned for 2017, but he did say that I would be pleased with the plans. He knows I’m a coaster fan, so I’m pretty sure he knew the message was received and understood.


Randy is a member of Metro Atlanta Coaster Club (MACC), which will celebrate its 7th anniversary this summer. MACC calls the Atlanta area home when it’s not traveling around the United States trying out other new attractions, but it has members and followers throughout the country. You can find their site at http://www.metroatlantacoasterclub.com or on Facebook under “Metro Atlanta Coaster Club” or on Twitter at @MACC_Coasters.]

The tech is impressive!

Another group of riders about to take off!

Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Thomas Wagner, from VR Coasters, the German company behind this great experience

Thanks again to Randy for covering the event for us, looks like a great time. Be sure to check out Metro Atlanta Coaster Clubs Events Page for all the latest on their upcoming trips including trips to Dollywood at the end of this month and their big Ohio/Indiana/Kentucky trip in May. 

For those who like their updates in video form, a full walk-through of our tour including the entire ride area, trains and more. 

So first let's look at the all new sign for The New Revolution. It's back-lit and is going go look amazing at night. 

Even during the day with the right lighting it really pops. 

The station has been completely painted and looks fantastic. 

Something is sitting over on the transfer track. You can also see the entry to the station is much bigger to accommodate the new trains. 

Let's take some time and check out the trains ... 

If you missed it, be sure to check out our video of the trains. 

Nerd shot!!! 

The front of the train is not on yet, but it'd be fun to ride it like this too. 

The restraint mechanism. 

And while there isn't an "ankle restraint" you can see to the right there is a bar there. 

The trains have headrests unlike the original trains. Which means the ride can actually run backwards. 

A look back at the station, just a little bit of work still to do. 

Brakes ... 

An overview of all of the landscaping going on

They were building the big entry sign

We also got to check out the new VR headsets, they were really cool and well done.

There will be about 200 headsets which means 40 will be in use for the new riders, 40 for those being loaded and 120 being cleaned or charging. 

These are totally optional but are definitely worth checking out once. 

The ADA queue is finished for the most part. 

Lots of little paths that are presumably for getting up and landscaping the area. 

Getting ready to put the new sign up

We also got a preview of Chop Six which was really good. Lots of "Americanized Chinese" food like Orange Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, a really tasty Tofu vegetarian dish and some WonTon Taco's. 

If you have a Season Dining Pass you can get a sneak peek of ChopSix this weekend!! 

A look inside the new Six Flags Emporium. Lots of great work going on inside. 

The Grand Carousel continues to get a lot of work done, all of the diagrams are being re-done. 

Plaza Cafe is still getting work done. 

We got to try one of the new Funnel Cakes at the "World Famous Funnel Cake Factory". 

The Berry Revolutionary Funnel Cake ... 

Red Velvet Funnel Cake, Raspberries, Blueberries, Whipped Cream, 

We hope you enjoyed this look at The New Revolution. 

Some important notes regarding the opening of the ride: 

• Season Pass Previews begin on March 26
  
• You must reserve a time to ride, which you can do here
• The reason for this is because the 2nd train is not ready until the end of April
• The public opening will be announced at a later time
• The VR Headsets are completely optional and will be available beginning on March 26 as well