Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Going Under the Knife

Photo by Loren Javier

In an announcement that surely has many Disneyland fans thinking, “It’s about damn time,” Disneyland has announced via their park blog that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will go down for a major refurbishment on Jan. 7 and will reopen in Fall 2013.

The most exciting part of this refurbishment is that the wildest ride in the wilderness will be getting new trains in addition to track being replaced. Cosmetic enhancements will also be made, most likely in the same vein as the new paint job the Matterhorn just received. The attraction is in bad need of repainting and if the trains are indeed new, and not just carbon copies of the current trains, there’s reason to be excited for this news.

Plan of Attack: Halloween Horror Nights (Hollywood)

Tomorrow night kicks off the second weekend of Halloween Horror Nights and it’s time to get the game plan I promised in my last post.

Use it or lose it.

The above map is given to you for a reason. Use it – especially if you are unfamiliar with the theme park. In fact, the park feels so different during this event than it does during the day time that you might want to grab a map even if you frequently visit the park in its regular operating hours.

Halloween Horror Nights is Off to a Screaming Start

In five years attending Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, I’ve never been disappointed. Part of that is thanks to the Halloween event’s only true competition, Knott’s Scary Farm, setting the bar pretty low. That being said, Universal could easily rest on its laurels given its meteoric growth over the past few years, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards thanks in no small part to John Murdy, the creative director of the event.

This year a limited number of Frequent Fear passes were sold for $99 a pop for eight pre-determined nights, so naturally I picked one up for myself and my brother-in-law. The first two nights were back-to-back, starting on opening night. I’ll have more in depth posts on each maze in the coming month, but I’m going to start with a weekend snapshot so you can best prepare for your visit NEXT weekend.