Eric Wooley

UPDATE: The park announced South Bay Shores will open on June 5! Check out photos from our construction tour below. ? Just announced! South Bay Shores waterpark, located inside California’s Great...

Over the 15 years of Coaster101, we’ve done well over a lot interviews with people from all over the theme park industry. It’s been one of the most consistent features of the site, mostly because we love getting to talk to people in the field. And, the best way to learn more about the industry is to speak with people in it, whether it’s manager of parks, people who design rides, sound designer and lighting designers, costumers, modelers and hobbyists, or other journalists and enthusiasts. I can’…

Knott’s Berry Farm posted an update from park GM Jon Storbeck to their website today. It included one big piece of attraction related news.

The Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knott’s Berry Farm is celebrating its 50th birthday on July 11, 2019. The park is celebrating July 10-14.

We decided to rate every coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain from 1-5. Turns out, there are a lot of really good coasters at this park.

Universal Studios Hollywood revealed the first details of the new “Jurassic World” re-theme of the old Jurassic Park ride that is scheduled to open this summer.The updated ride will “immerse guests in newly themed environments and breathe new life into dimensional animatronic dinosaurs,” according to the press release.

HangTime, the newest coaster at Knotts Berry Farm, has opened to the public! The ride is a first of its kind on the West Coast, and we got to preview it Thursday night. A smooth compact ride, that might be even more fun to watch than it was to ride.

2016 featured two major coaster refurbishment projects. Great Coasters International did both, and they talked to us about them.

In honor of Universal Studios Hollywood’s 50th Anniversary, we talked to the amazing John Murdy about the history of the park.

I’ve long been a fan of Great Coasters International Inc. (GCII), known for their twisting, fast, wooden coasters. I considered myself incredibly lucky when they built Gold Striker in 2013 at California’s Great America, one of my local parks, and that California is now home to three excellent GCII coasters. I recently had a chance to ask GCII’s lead design engineer, Adam House, some questions about how the process of designing and building a GCII coaster works, and what goes into the designs o…

As part of the trip to Disneyland last week, I spent most of the second day at Disney’s California Adventure (and in case you missed part 1 from Disneyland proper, check it out here). Sadly, one of the biggest attractions of the park, the California Screamin’ roller coaster, was closed for a short three day maintenance. The higher chance of a rehab closure is the major downside of going during midweek, but there are still a some great rides at DCA.