Alan is joined by Victoria Wolcott, Chair and Professor of History at University at Buffalo, SUNY to discuss the history of race relations in amusement parks, pools, and other areas of recreation in the United States. Check out her book 'Race, Riots, and Rollercoasters' available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Universal Studios has pushed hard in recent months the specific nomenclature of "Water Theme Park" for the upcoming Volcano Bay. This has, in turn, led to much discourse on social media about the term, what it means, and whether or not it is even a thing that exists. Those against the term suggest that no water park meets the criteria of Disneyland with having multiple themes, and thus it is not an actual thing. Proponents often point out that having multiple themes is not a requirement for a theme park: merely that there is a theme at all is sufficient. While these ultimately very important battles rage on outside the realms of public understanding or care, the reality is that this discussion could have easily taken place and been concluded eons ago. There is an "immersive" water park outside the Disney bubble already in the hemisphere to visit. In fact, it is relatively easy to go to using one of Disney's own methods of cash extraction: cruise ships.
Before I review my experience there, I think it would be good to explain the history behind Atlantis Paradise Island and how it came to be that the present-day most expensive water park in the world exists on a tax haven off the coast of Florida. Why? Well, it's actually kinda interesting. A lot more so than the story of the guy who's orange groves Universal and Disney bought out.
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(Sir Harold Christie)
In 1922, Harold Christie had set up H.G Christie, a real estate firm in Nassau, Bahamas. A lifelong resident, Christie reportedly grew up impoverished [1], but went about selling real estate to non-residents and came to the conclusion that by asking his commission be paid in land rather than money, he would be able to amass a fortune in holdings. Christie recognized somewhat early on that the Bahamas had some key aspects which made it highly appealing: it was a tax haven while still part of the British Empire. There was and is no capital gains tax, inheritance tax, personal income tax, or gift tax on the island chain. It also had geographic proximity to the US which made it an appealing stop for tourists. Christie used these to his advantage, pushing the Bahamas into the global consciousness and associating it with fun and sun. For this, he was rewarded with knighthood.
One of the parcels of land he would come to sell was a significant island near to the capital of Nassau. Hog Island, as it was known then, first appears in historical record in - what else? - litigation. Thirty-two acres of the island had been owned by an individual named John A. Burrows, and upon his death in 1913, it was to be divided amongst children and grandchildren per his will [2]. This section of land was first sold to a non-resident in the 1930s, and became the holiday estate of Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren. Wenner-Gren had an illustrious career, patenting vacuum cleaners and becoming the owner of Electrolux, To theme park fans, he's most well known for the company that was based on his initials: ALWEG. Yes, this is the guy who's company built the original Disneyland Monorail.
(Huntington Hartford)
Wenner-Gren received an offer in 1959 to buy the land from another insanely rich individual, Huntington Hartford. Mr. Hartford was the heir to the riches of A&P Supermarkets and rather than operate the company, chose to sell it and invest in minor things like oil shale. As you might expect, he was among the richest men in the world, and could do things like buy an island in the Bahamas, construct a golf course on it, and have consensus top ten all time golfer Gary Player be the course's pro. Rich as he was, that he was an inheritor and not a great businessman himself is illustrated by the actual acquisition of the land. The terms of the sale were drawn up on the back of a dinner menu and signed by the parties. However it was later determined that the menu contract lacked sufficient information and terms, and was ruled null and void. Hartford and his lawyer were forced to re-negotiate the price.
(Britannia Beach Hotel, now colored pink and named the Coral Towers)
Together with an expat by the name of James Crosby, Hog Island became Paradise Island under Hartford's ownership. Crosby's company, the Mary Carter Paint Company gobbled up 75 of the island's territory in 1966, and construction began on the first tower, completed in 1968. By this point, the company was leaving the paint business and entering real estate, leading to the renaming to Resorts International and with it, a push for casino gaming. The casino business was not entirely a new discussion in The Bahamas; it was actually Sir Harold Christie who had first heard the pitch way back in the 1940s. In that case, the pitch came not from businessmen, but from Lucky Luciano. It has been theorized that the non-committal of the Bahamanians to the idea of the casino contributed or directly led to the murder of gold magnate Sir Harry Oakes [3] in 1943.
Resorts International, while just as hooked on expansion of gaming as the mob (less as a method of laundering money, more because it was profitable) looked to convince the public by finding legitimate businessmen to promote its developments in places like Nassau and Atlantic City. Still, this was not a traditional hotelier, and legalized gambling was in its infancy in America. Most of the known people with high level of knowledge about operations of casinos were at tables themselves, in federal penitentiaries from RICO investigations, or dead following the Cuban revolution. Even while trying to show themselves to be entirely clean, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission managed to unearth evidence that Crosby had paid bribes to the country's Prime Minister in order to obtain the license held by the Bahamian Club. In order to fulfill the desires for the resort, that entire building was picked up and moved to Paradise Island, thus taking with it the license. The name is still attached to a restaurant that operates today in the conference center/Beach Tower complex.
(Atlantis Beach Tower in the Merv Griffin years)
Enter the future 45th president of the United States. In 1986, with costs mounting on the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, James Crosby died on a NYU Medical Center operating table at the age of 58, throwing Resorts International into total disarray. Donald Trump, another child of privilege (his dad was a real estate developer who once tried to pave Coney Island NY) entered a fierce bidding war to take over controlling share of Resorts International in the aftermath of Crosby's death. Unable to drum up external funding for completion of the Taj Mahal, Trump stated he would pay for it himself if he was given 100% ownership of the organization. [4] TV mogul Merv Griffin saw an opportunity as well, and exceeded Trump's bid by nearly 160%. Lawsuits followed, and when the smoke cleared, Merv Griffin owned Resorts International, and Donald Trump owned the Taj Mahal.
In a matter of months, Merv Griffin's new resort empire began to crumble. The purchase was financed with junk bonds and interest payments to investors stopped coming. 13 months after settling with Trump, Resorts International entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with bondholders ultimately assuming control of the company in exchange for debt forgiveness. Paradise Island was to be sold to drum up cash. At this point, the history of Atlantis includes a future US president, a Prime Minister, a mob boss, vacuums, Disney's monorails, fracking, and an all-time great golfer. The next sale of the resort couldn't be to a run-of-the-mill developer. That would be too boring. It had to be someone with panache. Someone with confidence. Someone with money. Someone who had protest songs written about his work.
Sol Kerzner made the decision in 1989 to buy Paradise Island out of bankruptcy and turn it into a shining light in the Caribbean. [5] Kerzner was not new to the idea of massive, themed, gambling & amusement resorts. He built one of the world's most famous in his home country in 1979. Kerzner was a Russian-Jewish immigrant to Johannesburg who, unlike every one else in this story up until now, actually grew up wanting to be in the hospitality business. He followed his family into management of hotels in South Africa and eventually proved to be the brightest and best of the bunch. Kerzner convinced South African Brewers (The SAB in modern day SABMiller) to go in on a whole hotel chain that he'd manage. Ultimately Kerzner constructed his crowning achievement: Sun City. With huge hotel towers, artificial lakes, a water park, casino, and arena, Sun City is renowned as one of the most gorgeous resorts in the world. And it was also segregated, just like all of South Africa at the time. As tremendous economic pressure was put on the apartheid government, "Sun City" became the theme to the world's frustration, featuring everyone from Joey Ramone, Afrika Bambatta, and Hall & Oates. Sun City, like the country it was in, fully integrated in 1994.
Kerzner saw the tremendous potential on Paradise Island and chose to buy it himself, developing an eponymous real estate company in the process [6]. From 1994 to 1998, the newly branded Atlantis became home to hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements, capping with the construction of the monumental Royal Tower, taking the somewhat dated and boxy 60s-style resort buildings and injecting the flair of Disneysea and Islands of Adventure into the resort. A $1 billion dollar expansion followed in 2007, adding yet more rooms, conference facilities, dolphin habitat, water park attractions, nightclubs, and more.
If you haven't managed to keep track to this point, Paradise Island has been owned by:
-some guy named John A. Burrows
-that guy's immediate and extended family
-Maybe Sir Harold Christie?, the man that developed The Bahamas
-Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren, AKA Mr. ALWEG
-Supermarket scion Huntington Hartford
-Some conglomerate that made paint
-Some conglomerate that used to make paint which had Donald Trump as primary shareholder but wanted to build casinos
-Merv Griffin, the guy that came up with Wheel of Fortune
-Some people that bought bad bonds
-Sol Kerzner, the guy that built Sun City and Mohegan Sun
The Atlantis of today is monstrous in size and acts as the second largest employer in the nation of The Bahamas. As has been the case since the day the first casino license was handed out, Bahamian residents are forbidden to gamble inside this palace to sin. All bets are placed by tourists who occupy the nearly 5,000 rooms and arrive by cruise ship seeking somewhere safe and clean to tour.
Looking to restructure debt incurred during the financial crisis, Kerzner sold Atlantis Bahamas to Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) while retaining the contract to manage the properties under Kerzner International (and subsequently inviting lawsuits from furious hedge fund managers. As wild as all these previous owners have been, BAM is not particularly exciting, but poetic. Brookfield possesses a mammoth 226 billion in property acquired via cash from US and Canadian pension plans. In a strange sort of way, it is millions of former social servants, autoworkers, and machinists that own Paradise Island today and they don't even know it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] While not impossible for Sir Harold Christie to have grown up poor, I shant mince my words. The Bahamas, like virtually all of the Caribbean, has historically favored whites who's families operated commerce during the slavery years of the 16th-19th centuries. In the Bahamas, the government was white majority until the late 1960s. He would have had much more access to influence important individuals. He may also have had significant holdings of land from his family, as land claims were passed from generation to generation and are/were not racially specific. Christie's son took over the business from him following his death and is still involved in real estate sales in the islands.
[2] Cited from: Katheder, Thomas. "Purchasing Real Estate in the Bahamas." The University of Miami Inter-American Law Review (1997): 197-252. For what it is worth, this was produced by the general counsel for The Walt Disney Corporation, potentially after the acquisition of what is now known as Castaway Cay (referenced inside). The litigation actually took place in the 1960s following Mr. Burrows' sisters passing away. They had tracts on the island as well and claims to their land were put forth at that point. Those have long since been developed.
Oh, and John A. Burrows? Well, there's not a ton out there to work with to help us understand who he or his family was. There are many, many Burrows in The Bahamas, and a great many of them are of African ancestry. A John A. Burrows was elected to be a pastor in the Abaco Islands as reported in the May 1901 edition of "The Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society."
[3] Oakes was found battered to death, strewn with feathers, and partially immolated. Multiple books and films about the murder and attempted framing of Count Alfred de Marigny have been produced since. Theories about Oakes actual murderer range from the Duke of Windsor (King Edward VII, who abdicated the British throne in 1936) to the Mafia to even Sir Harold Christie himself.
[4] Or did Trump intentionally look to take total control of what would likely be an incredibly profitable enterprise? Well, in any case, it didn't go the way he wanted.
[5] Kerzner also played an important role in the evolution of an industry that has damaged Atlantis' status and caused Las Vegas to turn to nightclubs: the Indian Casino. Kerzner was the force that helped make Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT a reality after the runaway success of Foxwoods (now MGM Grand), also in Connecticut. Mohegan Sun has since expanded beyond the reservation in Eastern CT into the Poconos with an eye to Massachusetts and South Korea.
[6] Kerzner International and Sun International are his two main real estate companies, and aside from the fact that they exist and have separate websites, there's not a lot to tell you about how precisely they operate. Since selling Atlantis in 2012, Kerzner has managed to bring this story somewhat full circle, constructing a casino with his Sun International subsidiary/company/whatever it is inside Trump Ocean Club, a 70 story hotel/condo tower in Panama City, Panama.
Fewer people live in Manitoba than in the state of Maine in spite of being bigger than France, Afghanistan or Madagascar. Over half of the population of the province lives in the Winnipeg metropolitan area. During this series, we've done some sparsely populated places. Manitoba is definitely sparsely populated. The capital city re-entered the spotlight to Americans when the Atlanta Thrashers were moved out of the American Deep South and back to proper hockey territory to become the new Winnipeg Jets. In addition, 2014 saw the opening of the largest museum in the region, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, open to rave reviews for its forward thinking design and impressive content.
Why would you be here though? Well, Winnipeg is a classic stop on the Transcanadian Railway and Highway, so those looking to cut through the entire country are bound to run into it. As one of the more important stops for the railroad, it has a gigantic railway hotel (Fort Garry). Geographically, we're talking primarily prairie land. The highest point in this massive area is Baldy Mountain, many hours north of Winnipeg, and less than 3,000 feet tall. Cities not necessarily thought of as "mountainous" like Oklahoma and Maryland actually have greater elevation changes. But stuff can be wild out here too. Bison are indigenous to the area just as they are America's great plains, and there are many of them on farm land today. But you might have seen that sort of thing prior. I understand.
We'll start then not with an amusement park, but straight up soft adventure tourism. From Winnipeg, Canada Rail will take you north, far beyond where most vehicles would dare venture. Churchill is, in the grand scheme of things, not that expensive to visit. The train fare is usually hovering in the $250 -350 USD round trip zone, which isn't that when you consider that it is a two night journey that takes you within 70 miles of the Nunavut border. Why go there? Well, there's a lot of unspoiled wilderness there, and there are opportunities that abound such as swimming with belugas and seeing polar bears. I'm not going to delve into a lot of the ramifications of global warming and how it is affecting polar bear populations/migration towards permanent land masses, but suffice to say that it is not a challenge for large parts of the year to see polar bears, and you see them via "tundra buggys," which is how this remote outpost is on our list. A Tundra Buggy is basically an airport shuttle like you'd see in much of Europe or at Cincinnati airport to take you between gates/planes with monster truck tires on it. You'll cruise around and see the largest land based apex predators in the world come up to bus and think very seriously about how they might eat you.
In recent years, time has worn down the permanent ride offerings in Winnipeg quite significantly. Grand Prix Amusements dropped its Chance Toboggan, and Tinker Town Family Fun Park's two Herschell coasters bit the dust after the 2011 season. Tinkertown is really the only true outdoor amusement park in the province now, offering a mix of family rides and kiddie attractions. Grand Prix Amusements joins the likes of fellow Winnipeggers at U-Puttz, Thunder Rapids in Headingley, and Meadows Golf and Amusements in Winkler as regional Family Entertainment Centers with the usual mix of arcade games, go-karts, and mini golf.
Assiniboine Park is home to a rideable miniature train and toboggan run in addition to the main attraction of a zoo. For those unable to make the adventurous journey north to Churchill, the Churchill-themed polar bear exhibit may scratch at least a little bit of that itch. Manitoba Live Steamers also run trains for the public during the weekend prior to Labor Day Weekend each year in Winnipeg.
For less permanent excitement, there's little doubt that the Red River Exhibition in Winnipeg is the biggest event in the province. The midway is brought in as part of the old Conklin Shows route now serviced by NAME, and will feature a nearly identical lineup as what is seen in Regina and at Calgary Stampede around this time frame. Come October, scares of a more ethereal nature may be found at Six Pines Haunted Attractions which seems to meet the basic criteria for a rural based haunt.
In a world where all news is breaking, none of it is. Our resident existentialists Joe and Sean are joined by Nick to discuss all the rumors from Universal and Disney that broke this past week. We cover patents, Dry 'n Tame, Dragons Challenge replacements, WDW resorts hiking prices and planning to sell out, VR Sugar Rush, Tron coasters, World Showcase pavilions and rides, Cars in Test Track, The Great Mickey Ride, Rivers of Light 2.0, Pandora Annual Passholder previews, *catches breath*, and much much more.
Dragon Challenge entrance. Photo from Wikipedia, creative commons.
Universal was in a bad spot during Hogsmeade's design, they couldn't afford to remove Dueling Dragons due to financial issues under Blackstone. WB and JK Rowling agreed to let the coaster remain as part of a Tri-Wizards tournament attraction tucked behind an archway in a wall. Ever since then the attraction has not hit capacity despite Hogsmeade being a resounding success. After metal detectors were installed the situation became worse as guests waited more in queues for lockers than getting on the ride.
We've been hearing about a Dragons Challenge replacement for quite some time now, for obvious reasons. Friend of the site Richard Bilbao is reporting sources indicating the attraction will indeed disappear sooner than later. In it's place will be a new dark ride concept combining indoor and outdoor segments, but unlike Reign of Kong across the lagoon, it will not feature 'mixed media' or movie screens.
Acreage of Dragon Challenge. From AlexShow.
Dragons Challenge takes place on a parcel of land slightly smaller than Diagon Alley, making it a good option to expand Hogsmead.The Harry Potter Studio Tour just announced a new expansion featuring the Forbidden Forest, which is very likely also to come to Islands of Adventure. Based on Diagon Alley construction timelines it's probable that Dragons Challenge will close later this year or early next year for it's replacement opening in 2019 or 2020.
Paul Brinkermann at the Orlando Sentinel reports that Universal Orlando Resort has field with the city to add 4,000 hotel rooms and three parking structures to the former Wet 'n Wild water park and parking lot, cheekily naming the project 'Dry 'n Tame'.
The "Project 566" codename for the former Wet 'n Wild land made me chuckle ... pic.twitter.com/sc3GX1MK9W
At least one hotel is expected on this property, with up to three based on how many parking garages are present in the plans. To put it in perspective these one to three hotels will nearly double the hotel capacity at Universal Orlando Resort. It is likely a portion of the lake is filled in for the resorts and many insiders have suggested Universal has plans for retail, restaurants, and entertainment on the property too.
Lobstah! Uhhh, being north! Yes, those are things Maine is primarily known for across the North American continent. New England's biggest and least population dense state, it features a rugged coast, rocky interior filled with glacial lakes. Its biggest city, Portland, ranks 519th in the nation. Capital city Augusta has the third smallest population of any state capital, only larger than Montpelier, VT and Pierre, SD. There's not a lot of people, OK? But Maine likes to call itself "Vacationland," and for many many years it has served the good people of the Boston Metro area in much the same way that upstate NY serves the 5 boroughs, Sulphur Springs, WV the DC area, or Northern/Western Michigan for Chicagoans and Detroiters. With this sort of resort demand comes amusements. It just always does.
The three most well known amusement facilities in the state are all found within a rough 25 mile radius of one another around the I-195 branch south of Portland. Biggest of these is Funtown/Splashtown USA, which opened in 1960 as a drive-in restaurant with a few amusements (kinda like the current state of Didley's Place in Illinois, previously detailed here). As time went on, new rides were installed, and eventually, you get what is there today: a midsize amusement park featuring some decent rides, most notably the CCI wood coaster Excalibur. It's never been a top contender at any point of the great coaster wars of the 2000s, but it is a really fun ride with a couple standout spots of airtime. The park also features an S&S drop tower (with above average decoration), antique cars, log flume, a Maurer Sohne Wild Mouse, and a full water park with all the fixins'.
3 miles away is a beachside park - Palace Playland. The park has operated on this spot since 1902, and was part of a much larger seaside resort area until fires and hurricanes wiped out the larger rides in the 1940s. The present park is jammed packed with rides and attractions across its microscopic 4 acres, and there are also some excellent arcades around to hit up. Finally, there's York's Wild Kingdom. For many years, this park was ignored by most people because it didn't have a roller coaster. It did, however, and still does have, 4 walkthrough attractions. 3 of these are trailer based, but there is the very permanent Haunted House in addition to those. In 2010, the decision was made to add a Wacky Worm kiddie coaster, ensuring it an RCDB entry and slightly more attention. There's also zoo enclosures here to see and an array of flat rides.
Now, were one to do their research, they could go to those old amusement park listings in Billboard and find that back in the 1950s, Old Orchard Beach and York's Wild Kingdom were the only amusement parks then too. If one delves much deeper - say, the 1917 list - the parks found are extremely rudimentary, often lacking in actual amusements. Maine's amusement history is, effectively, a living one. Living history is of course the goal of many open air museums, which 19th Century Willowbrook Village was one of. I say "was" because it closed after the 2016 season, citing that it had been running in the red for years. The carousel there, an 1894 Armitage-Herschell, is the most complete of its sort. Red slatted running boards, animated Sambo figure cranking it; it is from a totally different universe than almost anything in you can find today.
As a vacation destination, Maine pushes the outdoors elements heavily. Flat Rock Bridge Family Camping in Lebanon has what appears to be a resurfaced terrain slide which switched from concrete to plastic. Papoose Pond Resort has a Allen Herschell carousel that operates for limited hours on weekends for those staying there. Naples' Maine is home to the Steamboat Landing Mini Golf, which is fully themed over the 18 holes to the state's most well known symbols.
Like most of the states in New England, Maine does not have a state fair. It chooses instead to have a big ol' booth at the Eastern States Exhibition in Springfield, MA. There are county fairs, but none have anything permanent worth noting.
Amelia joins us for her first podcast with Nick, Joe, Sean and Lane! We all talk about Miss Adventure Falls, Geyser Point, Pandora, Volcano Bay, and then close out with Sean's trip to the Jurassic World the Exhibition at the Franklyn Institute.
Louisiana is different. There aren't counties, there's parishes. Louisiana is different. Up until the 1990s, you could effectively drink alcohol if you were 18 (and they lost a lot of federal freeway money as a result). In fact, you still kinda can as long as a guardian buys it for you. Louisiana is different. Their heritage - Cajuns - is derived from French people kicked out of Canada's Atlantic Provinces by the British way back in the 18th century. "Acadian" does kinda sound like Cajuns once you put them next to one another, doesn't it? Louisiana is different.
Louisiana is a place that other things are themed to, not a thing that really needs escapism. Disney and Marriott both dug deep into the architecture of New Orleans' French Quarter for attractions. Alternately, the history of public recreation in Louisiana is not exactly all that wonderful. Early 20th Century Billboard Magazines place more amusement parks in Montana than Louisiana. In 1917, there were only three: City Park and Spanish Fort Park in New Orleans and Shreveport's Fair Park. Shoot forward to 1953, and we find Pontchartrain Beach replacing Fair Park and Spanish Fort in the list. That's it. Two parks. As for the Works Progress Administration, Huey Long and FDR had a falling out over federalism, and because of that, there were few projects in the state other than post offices. And there was racism. Desegregation is sometimes pointed at as a contributing factor for the demise of Pontchartrain Beach, the sole really significant park in the state's history prior to Alfa Smartparks' arrival.
Jazzland, later to be known as Six Flags New Orleans, has in many ways become symbolic of the Six Flags brand and of the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Opened in 2000 and sold in 2002 to Six Flags after attendance had already dropped by half, its then owner was weighed down with debt and in a state of slow motion collapse. Their New Orleans park was to that point a losing proposition: wrong side of town, middling ride selection, reputation for poor service. It would be naive of me to suggest that the factors responsible for Louisiana's poor amusement options weren't a contributor to the demise of Six Flags New Orleans. However, in fairness, the park was under some 20 feet of water. All electronics were trashed. The dark ride and food stations were obliterated. The B&M constructed Batman: The Ride clone (itself a used ride from Japan) was built with a high enough base off the ground to not be affected and was moved. Everything else was pretty much trashed. Regardless of the financial situation, anyone would be hard pressed to rebuild. And so the park has sat for 12 years.
I sometimes note anecdotally that my one trip to the state was in 2002 - I went to three amusement parks on that trip having lacked enough time to go to City Park. Two were modern post-war themers and one built out family run place that seemed comparatively low rent. The themers were Six Flags Astroworld and Jazzland, neither one of which is still operating. The lower rent family run place - Blue Bayou Dixie Landin' - is the largest operating amusement park near the I-10 corridor anywhere between San Antonio and Valdosta, GA. Houston, Mobile, Pensacola, New Orleans: None of these cities has an amusement park larger than Blue Bayou Dixie Landin'.
There's not a lot aesthetically here to get one's blood pumping if you're a hardcore theme park nerd, but they do have a respectable collection of 4 roller coasters. All 4 were bought used; that's kinda unique. They've also managed to create a lineup that offers some variety; A junior coaster for the kids, a spinning coaster and a Galaxi for family thrills, and a Vekoma Boomerang to excite people just a little more. There's some flat rides, S&S tower, antique cars, and a log flume for the dry park, and a fairly standard selection of modern water slides to go with it. Back in New Orleans itself, Carousel Gardens at City Park has been pretty much totally rebuilt since Katrina, and a new junior coaster operates at the site. Thus concludes the major outdoor amusement parks of Louisiana.
Beyond the parks, what else lies in the state? There are some mildly interesting water parks like SPAR in Sulphur and Splash Kingdom in Shreveport. There's the Audubon Nature Institute, home to a zoo and aquarium. Those are pretty normal sorts of things. Prehistoric Park is Henderson isn't the only giant dinosaur display park in the country, but it certainly isn't as typical as a collection of Proslide flumes run by a civic institution. You walk by giant dinosaurs in a wooded setting. Why? Why not? Lafitte also looks into history at the Barataria Museum, which features a movie presentation and animatronic alligators to liven up the much more recent past of Louisiana's colonization.
During the Halloween season, a state known for its proclivity to voodoo should be expected to show well, and 13th Gate in Baton Rouge managed to be the top rated haunt in the US by Hauntworld twice.
After nearly two decades, 8500 performances, Cirque du Soleil 'La Nouba' last curtain call at Disney Springs will be December 31st, 2017. The massive, custom theater was specially created for the show when it opened in 1998 at the then named Downtown Disney West Side. Persistent rumors suggest Disney and Cirque have been working on a new show featuring Disney characters.
Joe had a rough, long day so he had a few fog cutters and sat down with Brian from Orlando United/Inside Universal to talk about HHN dates for a hot second, the merger of OU and IU, and we discuss the first day of soft openings for Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon.
