For anyone who has been to Universal Stuidos Hollywood, you know that if the crowds cooperate, you can do basically the entire park, twice in 2 1/2 hours.  Fortunately when the other Universal parks got their coasters first 2007, then 2009, I knew that Universal Hollywood had to get a coaster in 2011!  Just imagine my face when Universal announced a dark ride for 2011….

Transformers: the Ride is suppose to be spectacular with world class effects, a in depth story and great theming.  Finally, Universal Studios Hollywood will compete with its brothers in Japan and Florida….yeah right!

Universal Studios is adding a dark ride, yes, but Universal Studios Osaka and Universal Studios Florida already have their dark rides.  Spiderman from Island’s of Adventure also found a home in Japan, and Men in Black made territory in Orlando and of course, Hollywood was lonely.  So at this point it is a game of catch up.

Park managment has to be freaked out by the quickly upcoming Carsland at Disney’s California Adventure that will send thousands, and thousands of toddlers running to meet their favorite characters AND a world class thrill ride coming to the same land.  Nervous Universal?  You bet.  This leads me to believe that maybe the dark ride isn’t the only thing coming.

Don’t even try to sell me that Universal doesn’t care about Disney’s California Adventure’s Carsland expansion.  Walt Disney World already has restored lots of plans to respond to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter announcement.

Even though a movie themed dark ride is highly marketable, in the long term, a coaster probably keeps the crowds up, which makes me wonder, why would the park settle for a dark ride.  What I think is that the coaster was already designed, along with Hollywood Dream (Osaka’s) and Rip Ride Rocket (Orlando’s) but was put back a few years to add Transformers.  Then after that was added, they would add the roller coaster, as a double hit to counter act the mad rush going to Disney’s California Adventure in the coming years.

Even if my theory is totally wrong, I really doubt that Transformers will be the only thing Universal has planned for the Disney trouble they will soon be facing.

This is a pretty small news, but also very good news to any Carowinds fan. Screamscape reported that it was said at Coaster Stock (The Carowinds enthusiast event that took place this past weekend) that Carolina Cyclone, Carowinds’ classic Arrow looper, would receive a much needed paint job in 2010. It wasn’t mentioned if it would be just a touch up or a total new color scheme like we saw on Nighthawk this season. The ride has gone through several different color schemes over the years from red, to light blue, to the current dark blue and black.

Carolina Cyclone in 2007

What colors do you think would fit well on Carolina Cyclone? Leave your comments and park thoughts!

You may remember back a few years ago, Dorney Park had a second wooden coaster, Hercules, a Curtis D. Summers ride that was, at one point, the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world, topping out at 95 feet. The ride wasn’t very popular in its later years due to the extremely violent and rough ride that it produced.  It was closed and demolished at the end of the 2003 season and a little under 2 years later, Hydra: The Revenge, a unique B&M floorless coaster opened on its former spot. Yesterday, Theme Park Review posted a great mounted POV of Hercules in its early years (back when it was smoother.)

You heard right.  Kuwait is now home to an indoor Cartoon Network theme park.  Opened in 2009 (I think) little is known about this fresh park.  It features all sorts of Cartoon Network characters.

While there are very few pictures of the park, from what I could gather the park appears to be centered around small children.  It also has Birthday...

The Wizarding World’s of Harry Potter have been under construction for quite some time now but little was known about the land.  Island’s of Adventure management was smart in not announcing the opening date to prevent thousands of fans traveling from hundreds of miles away to be disapointed by the delay of the land’s opening.  Luckily Orlando Sientenial as well...

For any fan of Carowinds, 2010 is coming closer and closer.  And currently, it is a race to see what the new coaster will be.  The official announcement is August 26, 2009 for this new project but the park has already been highly publicizing the park’s future attraction.

As Ethan reported several days ago, a logo for Carowind’s called “White Lightnin”...

Cowabunga Bay is the world’s largest play structure.  The park’s youtube channel uploaded this short video that just shows you how big of a splash you will find at the Utah park.

What do you think about this?  Like it?  Hate it?  Love it?  Leave your comments and park thoughts.