Coaster Radio: The Original Theme Park Podcast

This week, we bring you a very special podcast as Mike Collins sits by the fire, sipping brandy and smoking a pipe, while he reads passages from the immortal Charles Dickens classic "Great Expectations". Actually, as fun as that sounds, it's not what we're really going to do this week. Instead, each of the CoasterRadio.com guys will pick one thing that we absolutely expect when we visit a theme pa...

We'll kick off this week's show by going through some some of our listeners' picks for the hits and misses of 2005. Then, we'll talk about what could be the New Year's Resolutions of theme parks and amusement parks across the world. After the show, join us in our forums to talk about your opinions. You can also record your thoughts on the CoasterRadio.com Voicemail Line at 206-339-RIDE (206-339-74...

The year 2005 was pretty good for theme parks across the world. We saw the premiere of record breaking attractions, new high tech thrill rides and traditional forms of amusement park entertainment. We'll take a look back at the highs and lows of 2005 with Arthur Levine from about.com. We'll talk about the attractions that were big hits and some of the ones that missed the mark. We'll also preview...

If you've every spent any time watching ESPN, you've probably seen a program called "Pardon The Interruption" (PTI). It's a daily show where Washington Post columnists Tony Kornhsiser and Michael Wilbon debate the the biggest stories in sports for exactly one minute at a time. In these days of short attention spans, it's the perfect format. So, we decided to follow the homage "imitation is the sin...

This year, Hades, the monstrous wooden roller coaster that opened at Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin won the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Award for Best New Ride in 2005. Riders were amazed by it's steep drop (140-feet at a 65-degree angle), two underground tunnels (one of which was the longest underground tunnel on a roller coaster ever), and the extreme 90-degree...

This week, we hit soft-of a milestone and podcast our 30th episode. To help celebrate, we'll play highlights from some of our favorite interviews that we have done over the past seven months. We'll play clips from Disney Imagineers Eric Jacobson and Joe Rohde, Holiday World's Will Koch, Curse of DarKastle designer Brent Young, travel author Kelly Monoghan, backyard coaster designer Jeremy Reid and...

In America, the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year. Everyone crowds into the shopping malls and collectively spend billions of dollars on holiday gifts. If you listen to this show on a regular basis, odds are you're interested in buying presents for theme park and roller coaster enthusiasts. You might be looking to buy for family and friends or maybe, you're interested...

It's the week of Thanksgiving here in the United States. For most people, that means stuffing themselves full of turkey and then passing out while watching NFL football. We decided to celebrate the holiday in a different way. We asked out listeners to let us know what they are thankful for within the theme park industry. We received a lot of interesting responses and we'll share some of them with...

If you're a theme park enthusiast, you've probably had a dream of building and owning your own theme park. But odds are, unless you're very well connected or a multi-millionaire, you'll never get to see your dream come true. If that isn't discouraging enough, most people would probably tell you that your dream was crazy anyway. Heck, people even told Walt Disney that his plans for a new type of am...

There really aren't many rides or attractions that theme park fans won't try at least once. But there are a few rides out there that even the most hardcore enthusiasts think twice about before riding. Some people won't ride certain types of freefall rides while others won't ride attractions that spin you in circles. Some people won't ride skycoasters and some people could never bring themselves to...

All month long, we've been on-location at different theme parks celebrating Halloween. Now that it's finally here, we'll spend this week's show talking about your favorite haunted, spooky or scary themed attractions. We'll talk about attractions like The Haunted Mansion, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, The Exterminator, Revenge of the Mummy, The Beast, The Freezer, Burg Falkenstein and more. We're...

This week, we're on-location from Fear Fest at Paramount's Kings Dominion. It's the 3rd stop on our month-long CoasterRadio.com Halloween Terror Tour. Since Paramount is a movie company, Kings Dominion uses film-like storytelling to create their haunted mazes and attractions. When the sun goes down, they specialize in delivering intense environments that make you scream as much as they make you la...

This week, we're on-location from Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. During the show, we'll talk with park guests and preview the scare zones and spooky attractions at this annual Halloween event.

This week, we had originally planned to bring you an on-location show from Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It was going to be the first broadcast in our month long CoasterRadio.com Halloween Terror Tour. But it was raining so hard on Saturday that we and Busch Gardens decided it was best for the show (and our equipment) to postpone until next week. But luckily, Kevin and Beth (our cor...

Have you ever been riding on a roller coaster for the first time and sworn that you've ridden it before? It probably wasn't deja vu (the feeling, not the coaster). Most likely, you were riding an exact duplicate of a roller coaster from another park. You were probably riding a coaster clone. (Actually, the roller coaster Deja Vu is a coaster clone!) Sometimes if a theme park or a ride designer has...

Theme parks are a great place for families and friends to get together and have a good time. They're fun, loud, colorful and exciting. But are they romantic? This week, we'll talk about whether or not theme parks are a good place to start up a romantic relationship. When you think about it, there are plenty of similarities between a theme park trip and an average date. Instead of having awkward co...

For our first 10-minute show of the Fall, we're going to talk about what's HOT and what's NOT as we finish the 2005 season and head into 2006. As E.B. said during the pre-show, we're lazy. If you'll remember, we didn't plan on doing new, weekly shows during the off-season. So, the topic for this show began when one of our listeners posted a message about it in the CoasterRadio.com Forums. Hey, the...

Labor Day signals the end of summer, the beginning of school and the close of the theme park season. But before we start to pack away our t-shirts and shorts and pull out our jeans and sweaters, it's time for one last summer celebration. This week, we present the 2005 CoasterRadio.com Awards! Over the past month, thousands of CoasterRadio.com listeners have been voting for their favorite parks and...

As we wind down the 2005 Summer Theme Park Season, we wanted to do something special for the thousands of you who listen each week. We decided to put you in charge of this week's show. Over the past few months, we've received hundredsof e-mails and forum postings from listeners all over the world who want us to talk about specific topics. Since there isn't time to get to all of them during our reg...

If you're a theme park enthusiast, you definitely know names like Disney, Universal, Six Flags, Paramount, Busch and Cedar Fair. They are the companies behind the major theme park chains in the United States. They also account for most of the profit made in the amusement park industry. However, when it comes to customer service, cleanliness and value, most of those parks can't compete with America...

Orlando, Florida is the theme park capital of the world. Millions and millions of tourists head there every year for their vacations, but most never venture away from Walt Disney World or Universal Studios to see what else the city has to offer. Most tourists never realize that Orlando is home to a bunch of other theme park and amusement facilities that offer alternative entertainment and big-time...

This week, CoasterRadio.com broadcasts live from International Street at Paramount's Kings Dominion. If you've listened to our show for any amount of time, you already know that Kings Dominion is our home park. This year, they're celebrating their 30th Anniversary. So, we'll spend some time talking about our favorite rides and memories from PKD's past 30 years. We'll be joined by Sarah Lovejoy, PK...

When we first started CoasterRadio.com, we had no idea that people from all around the world would listen. We've been making friends with people in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Austria and other countries throughout Europe. So, even though we don't know a lot about Europe, we're going to do our best to devote this week's show to European Theme Parks. To help us out, Robb from Theme Park Revie...

Fifty years ago on July 17th, 1955...history was made. Even if you're only a casual fan of theme parks, this is the week to pay tribute to a man who had enough imagination to turn a California Orange Grove into "The Happiest Place on Earth". This week, CoasterRadio.com celebrates Disneyland's 50th Anniversary and pays tribute to it's founder, Walt Disney. To help us celebrate, we'll be joined by E...

We're not sure what the weather's like where you are, but here in Washington, DC... IT'S HOT! So, what better way to cool off than with a CoasterRadio.com all about waterparks. Back in the day, waterparks had nothing to offer but a few tame waterslides and maybe a lazy river. Today, waterpark designers are coming up with attractions that go higher and faster than ever before. Today's water rides b...