While at the park a couple of weekends ago, I went on one ride — despite spending over five hours at the park. The rest of my time was spent walking around the themed areas, exploring Santa’s Christmas Cabin and eating literally every bit of holiday fare I could get my hands on. This is, of course, coming from the perspective of someone who has been on Silver Bullet enough times to last a lifetime and will be just fine if he never hits the Calico Mine Ride again. Knott’s Merry Farm made the park, if only for a day, feel like new.

It’s no secret that this is the intention of a holiday event. The parks want to bring in visitors that feel like they’ve seen it all, that there’s no need to visit the park again. Between egg nog, holiday beer and chocolate cake; I assure you, there’s plenty to see and to do during the Knott’s holiday event.

I know I’ve said “holiday” several times, but if we’re being honest, it’s pretty much just Christmas. There’s no “Happy Hanukkah Snoopy” ice show and Kwanzaa doesn’t have its own pavilion; glossing over these other holidays while pretending the event is anything other than Christmas-themed is, well, not great. That being said, if Santa Claus and Baby Jesus are your idea of a good winter holiday, Knott’s has you covered.

There are 10 shows, including a revamped ice show themed to everyone’s favorite beagle, and of course, there’s Santa’s Christmas Cabin. Inside of the cabin (near the Pony Express and Haunt Museums at the edge of Ghost Town) guests can purchase holiday beer, holiday nuts, eggnog and desserts. Even as someone who doesn’t get too excited about desserts, the cabin was a lot of fun.

Beyond the shows and the food, Knott’s successfully built an atmosphere that has been sorely lacking at the theme park. Seeing what the park can achieve with an event like this gives me hope that they will continue to create and enhance the park’s atmosphere going forward.

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This is Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, had always had an interest in collecting historic objects, and with the huge wealth he acquired from his car company, he was able to indulge that interest. In 1919, he decided to restore the wooden farmhouse where he was born and lived until he was 16, as a memorial to his parents. This restoration was the first that Henry Ford attempted, and began a life-long effort in preserving and restoring historic properties from around the nation and the world.

Mr. Ford also developed life-long friendships with many of the era's most famous and influential inventors and creators: George Eastman (of Eastman Kodak), John D. Rockefeller, and Orville Wright, among many others, but none perhaps was as important as his friendship and near worship of Thomas Edison. Mr. Ford's appreciation of Mr. Edison's contributions, along with his developing passion for historic preservation, led to the creation of one of this nation's most important repositories of historical objects and structures — Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, jointly known as the Edison Institute.

A large tract of land in the middle of several Ford Motor Company facilities was set aside for a massive historic development, one that became what I consider America's first "theme park." It was dedicated on October 21, 1929, the 50th anniversary of the creation of the electric light, and Thomas Edison was there for the dedication. Since then, this remarkable collection of millions of historic artifacts, engineering achievements and famous structures has grown and evolved into one of the nation's most distinguished and popular museum complexes. Even the name has changed — it is now known simply as The Henry Ford.

The first structure seen by visitors arriving at the complex is the massive Henry Ford Museum. Covering 49,000 square meters, or about twelve acres, this structure is one of the largest museums in the country and contains a staggering variety of attractions and exhibits. The main entrance of the museum is a careful recreation of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, flanked by a symmetrical procession of brick colonial-style structures. When the museum was being designed, Mr. Ford sent architects to Philadelphia to study and measure the original Independence Hall, and while there, they discovered that one of the windows was actually off-center. It had been placed one brick too far to one side. The architects told Mr. Ford what they had found and informed him that they would not make the same mistake — and he instructed them to recreate it exactly like the original, misplaced window and all.

Behind this long historic panorama are found restaurants, gift shops, an IMAX theater and many other visitor support facilities, but most important are the wide hallways leading back into the huge main body of the museum. It is difficult to conceive just how large this space is. It is not divided up into galleries or rooms like so many museums are — it is one huge exhibition hall, with massive columns supporting soaring arches that stretch far off into the distance. The size and scope of the hall could be overwhelming if it weren't for the brilliant exhibit designers and their grouping of attractions by theme. Using a plan similar to the now-well-known themed lands in today's theme parks, the museum is organized into sections that allow visitors to explore areas of special interest either in detail or in general, depending on their personal desire and how much time they have.

More than a dozen themed areas, containing thousands of exhibits, are found in the museum. Some are what you would expect in a museum named after Henry Ford, pioneer of the modern transportation industry, but others show the depth and imagination that the museum designers have in showcasing the development of the American way of life and how technology drove that development. A few examples are:

• Heroes of the Sky: The first forty years of powered flight, from a replica of the first Wright flyer to the earliest helicopter.
• Your Place in Time: Here you can rediscover once commonplace artifacts from everyday life, from a 1950 Motorola TV to a window banner hung in the window of WWII solder's home to a 1978 Speak & Spell. These everyday objects have largely been lost but not forgotten and can be found here.
• Automobiles in American Life: Of course there are cars here, hundreds of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and every other type of transportation vehicle imaginable, and no, they are not all made by the Ford Motor Company.
• With Liberty and Justice for All: Four important eras in America's quest for liberty and justice are explored: The Revolutionary Era (featuring an original copy of the Declaration of Independence); The Antislavery Movement (featuring both an original copy of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the chair that President Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot at Ford's Theater); the Women's Suffrage Movement; and the Civil Rights Movement, with the actual bus that Rosa Parks was riding when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and thus began the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The Henry Ford Museum places special importance on the preservation and presentation of important historical and cultural artifacts. The following list is just a small sample of some of the priceless historic exhibits that can be viewed here:

• The first Ford Quadricycle, his first automobile, hand-built and powered by ethanol
• George Washington's camp bed that he used during the Revolutionary War
• The 1961 Lincoln Continental, SS-100-X that President Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated in Dallas

Not all of the displays are serious and of historic importance. Many are also displays of popular culture and its influence on our daily life. Some of these displays include:

• A 1976 Apple-1 computer, one of the first fifty built by hand in Steve Jobs' garage and one of the few still operating (purchased on auction this Fall for a record $905,000!)
• An Oscar Meyer Wienermobile
• A full-size Holiday Inn sign and recreations of early motel rooms from the 1930's through the 60's (including the "Sanitized For Your Protection" paper seals on the toilets seats!)
• An actual drive-in movie theater (cars already provided)
• The Golden Arches sign from an original McDonald's Restaurant

Special exhibits are often featured in the museum. Right now visitors can explore "Gridiron Glory: The Best of the Pro Football Hall of Fame" until Jan. 4th, 2015, and past displays have featured artifacts from the Titanic and even a remarkable collection of the artwork of the Disney theme parks. Constantly changing programs for children provide a place for future inventors, designers and artists to discover their inner talents.

Historic airplanes are suspended from the ceiling. Early American furniture from rustic homemade chairs to the finest Chippendale can be seen. A completely restored Dymaxion House, designed by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1946 as the strongest, lightest, most cost-effective house ever built can be walked through (it is the only one still in existence). A visitor would be hard-pressed to not find something to catch their attention somewhere in the seemingly endless variety of displays to be found in this remarkable museum.

As a free-standing museum, the Henry Ford Museum would be a world-class destination by itself, but right next door to it is the place that I truly believe is the first theme park in America — Greenfield Village. Henry Ford wanted to preserve not just objects or things, but in his own words:

"I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used.... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition."

He decided that, to appreciate the importance of the objects he had collected, they had to be seen in the original setting where they were created and used. To this end, he began to assemble structures from all over the nation, and in some cases the world, bringing them to Dearborn, Michigan and creating his own village filled with homes, shops, factories, and even complete farms. The 1920's, when he began this endeavor, was when the concept of historic preservation of buildings was just beginning to be considered important. Many of the buildings that he acquired and brought to Greenfield Village were in a sad state of disrepair, their importance forgotten and their physical structure neglected. Had Mr. Ford not had the vision to see the importance of these structures (and the financial ability to rescue them) many if not most of the buildings now standing in Greenfield Village would have been lost to us.

This collection shows how far-sighted Henry Ford was, and why I would argue that Greenfield Village was the first theme park in America. He designed it as an actual village, centered on a beautiful village green with streets leading to residential, commercial and industrial neighborhoods. The village itself covers 90 acres, with another 150 acres of forest, pasture and river surrounding much of the village and acting both as a buffer against the outside world intruding on the historic atmosphere and providing pasture land for the many farm animals used in the Village. A tall brick wall surrounds the grounds, both for security and to act as a further buffer, much like the famous "berm" at Disneyland protects the park from the surrounding urban sprawl.

Click for a larger, detailed map of the village [PDF]

The similarities of the Greenfield Village layout to modern theme park design is quite remarkable. After passing through the main entrance plaza, where tickets can be purchased, guest services are provided and a large gift shop can be found, visitors pass the tracks of the Weiser Railroad that circumnavigates the Village and proceed down a village street lined with historic structures towards the Village Green (the "hub" of the village) with the beautiful Martha-Mary Chapel standing on the highest spot in the village. The soaring steeple acts as a focal point to the entire village, similar to the use of other iconic structures in more modern theme parks.

The Green is surrounded by historic buildings typical of the kind that would have been found in thousands of villages around the nation. The circ. 1831 Eagle Tavern, the Town Hall, the Logan County Courthouse from Lincoln, Illinois (where, from 1840 to 1847 a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln argued cases, usually involving land disputes), the one-room Scotch Settlement School (which Henry Ford attended), and the circ.1858 J.R. Jones General Store all can be found here, all open to visitors and all designed to bring the daily events of the 1800s to life.

Radiating away from the Village Green are the streets of Greenfield Village, some long, straight avenues that seem to disappear into a rural distance, others that curve and turn as if following a long-forgotten Indian trail, and still others that end at the next cross street — in other words, the streets of a typical American village. This layout is not meant to herd visitors to the next attraction nor to funnel them to the exit at the end of the day — it is meant to encourage exploration and discovery of the village and its wonders. It may sound a bit confusing, but there is something familiar and comfortable about wandering through Greenfield Village, as though a visitor is remembering a time in their past when this layout was nothing special or unusual, just normal.

Here we come to another facet of Greenfield Village's design that predates the "themed lands" of Mr. Knotts and Mr. Disney by decades. Henry Ford grouped his structures together into neighborhoods, where structures with similar functions were often found together. These neighborhoods are now described as Historic Districts, and there are seven of them to be found in Greenfield Village. Each is unique, yet each seems to flow seamlessly into its neighbors. There are no overhead signs, no changes in music, just the normal transition where you subtly realize that you are in a different part of town. I won't list every building in each District — that would turn this article into a guide book — but I will mention the most significant buildings and perhaps something special or unique about their history and significance to Greenfield Village and our nation's history.

Main Street: This area is the Historic District that surrounds the Village Green and was described earlier. Two important structures not mentioned previously are the Wright Brothers Home and Cycle Shop, brought to the Village from Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur and Orville Wright lived in the home from 1870 to 1913. The income they earned from running the cycle shop next door allowed them to finance their early aviation experiments, and the knowledge they gained in understanding mechanics made possible their creation of the first airplane. Also found in this District is one of the most popular attractions in the Village — Gog and Magog, wooden statues that form part of a nearly 150-year-old mechanical clock that once stood five stories above a London street as part of the Sir John Bennett Shop. The new version of this shop, now standing just two stories tall, attracts visitors all day long as they fill the park benches that face the shop and wait for the quarter hour, when Gog and Magog ring the bells that hangs in the middle of the clock.

It might seem primitive compared to the high-tech audio animatronic creations found in modern theme parks, but visitors love the chance to get an ice cream cone from a nearby ice cream stand, sit and rest their feet, and enjoy the historic and entertaining atmosphere.

Railroad Junction: A fully-functional railroad roundhouse from 1884 contains several historic steam locomotives. Nearby is the 1858 Smiths Creek Depot, a train station where a young newsboy names Thomas Edison sold candy and newspapers. This District demonstrates the importance of the railroad system to the creation of a rapidly-developing industrial nation.

Working Farms: Greenfield Village is so large that the fully-functional Firestone Farm was brought here in 1985. It includes the 1828 home ("modernized" in 1882) and the surrounding farm buildings, including a large barn. Fields of crops and pastures for the grazing of animals line a long road as visitors approach this classic example of American rural life. Harvey Firestone, of Firestone Tire fame, grew up in this home, which is interpreted as a living, working farmhouse. You will often find a "family" of living historians cooking and sharing meals in the kitchen.

Edison at Work: This area is not so much a restoration but a recreation of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison's research center, where the great inventor created the electric light, phonograph, and so many other historic inventions. Detailed research on the original site and the salvage of the remaining structures make this one of the most important districts in all of Greenfield Village.

Porches and Parlors: This is the residential district of Greenfield Village, and the list of important homes that now stand here would require an article of its own. The following list is just a sample of what can be found in this District:

• The Robert Frost Home, an 1835 Greek Revival home where the great American poet wrote so many of his best poems while working at the University of Michigan.
• Cotswald Cottage, a stone cottage from the Cotswald region of England, brought here in memory of the millions of immigrants who left their homes to settle in America.
• The Daggett Farmhouse, a 1754 "saltbox" home from Connecticut where historic interpreters cook in the fireplace, weave on the loom and grow vegetables in the kitchen garden.
• The 1823 Noah Webster House, where the famous lexicographer published the first American dictionary in 1828.

This list is just a sample of the many historic homes that line the streets of the Porches and Parlors Historic District. From elegant Colonial mansions to stark slave quarters, the history of daily American life can be discovered in this remarkable area.

Liberty Craftworks: Here visitors can watch glass being blown, pottery being created, wood being turned from logs into furniture, and nearly a dozen other crafts that were so essential to the change of America from an agricultural nation to an industrial power.

Most of these structures are historic buildings brought to Greenfield Village from towns all over Michigan, and many of these craft shops create goods that can be purchased by visitors.

Henry Ford's Model T: The life of Henry Ford can be discovered in this District, including Mr. Ford's first preservation effort, the wooden farmhouse where he was born in 1863. This simple home and some of its surrounding structures were brought to the Village in 1944. Nearby stand replicas of the buildings where Mr. Ford created his first automobile and established the Ford Motor Company and its revolutionary production line method of building cars.

There was one more public area of Greenfield Village, Suwanee Park, that no longer exists as a Historic District. From about 1973 until 2003 this area was an attempt to recreate a Victorian-era amusement park. It contained an ice cream parlor, a 1913 Herchell-Spillman carousel that came from Liberty Lake, Washington, an arcade containing antique penny arcade machines, a large open field used for special events such as Civil War re-enactor encampments, and the dock for a steam-powered paddlewheel boat, the Suwanee, that took visitors around a large island created from a curve of a nearby river.

This area never really grabbed the public's attention like the rest of Greenfield Village did. It was not part of Henry Ford's plan, and had no truly historic buildings. Its location was inconvenient and often overlooked by visitors, and its attractions were of somewhat limited interest. The games in the penny arcade never seemed to work and the food at the ice cream parlor was adequate at best and mostly unmemorable. In 2003 the Herchell-Spillman carousel was moved to a new building in the Main Street Historic District, the Suwanee paddlewheeler was dismantled, and the Henry Ford Academy, a charter school, took over the buildings and now has an enrollment of nearly 500 students.

Many weekends find Greenfield Village taken over by special events, many of which could not be held properly at any other theme park. These events are extremely popular with visitors, and often find the Village extending its hours into the evening (from its usual closing time of 5pm). Some are similar to special events found at other parks, while others are unique to Greenfield Village. Regardless, each event attracts thousands of families from throughout the region to enjoy and experience them. Some examples of these events include:

Holiday Nights: Visitors find the entire Village adorned with period-appropriate decorations, an ice-skating rink, lanterns lining the streets, carolers performing, and fireworks celebrating the holiday season. A Christmas tree in the Wright brothers' home recreates one found there from a photo taken while they lived in the house.

Old Car Festival: This event is the longest running antique car show in the world, featuring hundreds of automobiles from the 1890's to 1932.
Motor Muster: Complimenting the Old Car Festival, the Motor Muster features vehicles of all types from 1930 to the 1970's including muscle cars, vintage trucks, motorcycles, and just about every other type of motorize vehicle that can be imagined.

Ragtime Street Fair: This celebration of ragtime music features live performances throughout the Village and special foods not found any other time of the year.

Historic baseball: Most weekends find baseball games being held between area baseball teams that use the original rules of 1867: The "Striker" (batter) told the pitcher where he wanted the ball to be thrown; gloves were allowed (but frowned upon as being "unmanly") and didn't have fingers; there was no pitcher's mound. Every year the World Tournament of Historic Baseball is held on the Walnut Grove baseball field (located near the old Suwanee Park) and attracts dozens of historic baseball teams from around the world.

Much is discussed about the quality and variety of food in theme parks. Greenfield Village has a claim for some of the best and most unique food choices of any park. From a nearly two hundred year old stagecoach stop and tavern to an early food truck, the variety, selection and quality of the food items available here is unmatched. Some examples of these choices are:

• Eagle Tavern (1831): Diners are served by costumed re-enactors who bring them into a recreation of dining in a stagecoach tavern of the 19th Century, with a period-appropriate menu
• Mrs. Fisher's Southern Cooking: BBQ, sweet potato cheesecake and sweet potato tots
• Owl Night Lunch Wagon (1890): This food stand is believed to be the last horse-drawn lunch wagon in the nation, and serves coffee, pastries and other snacks to visitors
• Cotswald Cottage: Guests can enjoy an English tea with sweets served in a garden created by Clara Ford (Mr. Henry Ford)

Greenfield Village almost begs to be explored on foot, but the size of it can take a toll on the feet of many visitors. It is appropriate that a theme park made possible by the automobile industry has a variety of transportation choices to increase the fun of a day at the Village and give tired feet a rest. For an extra charge, visitors can travel around the Village using:

• Model T automobiles
• 1931 Ford Model AA buses
• Horse-drawn Omnibus shuttles
• The Weiser Railroad

Each of these transportation methods make stops throughout the Village.

Greenfield Village is open daily from mid-April until the end of October, on Fridays and Weekends until the first of the year, and is closed during the winter from January until mid-April. Hours are usually 9:30am to 5 pm, with some extended hours on selected evenings for special events. Admission includes all open structures and Historic Districts.

The Henry Ford is a remarkable institution. The Henry Ford Museum is a world-class facility that celebrates human ingenuity and creativity. Greenfield Village shows how that creativity was used in everyday life, transforming America from an agricultural nation to an industrial powerhouse while improving the lives of its citizens. A visit to this historic place, America's first true theme park, is a unique experience, one that is educational, enlightening, and most importantly, fun.

You Might Also Like:

• Attraction of the Week: The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois

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From the outside, the restaurant is rather unassuming, especially when compared with the grandeur of Cinderella's Castle. Once guests arrive and check in with the host located just outside the restaurant, they are then escorted inside to meet Belle for a photo opportunity.

The photos are available through Photopass/Memory Maker — the complimentary printed photo is being phased out, unfortunately. After taking photos, guests are escorted to their table in the inviting dining room. The dining area is separated into a number of smaller rooms radiating from a central room with a vaulted ceiling. Wood accents and exposed beams highlight the interior architecture, but it does feel more like the inside of a traditional European castle than the subdued exterior would suggest.

Akershus serves food with a Scandinavian flair. Unlike Cinderella’s Royal Table, Akershus is a combination dining experience with a cold buffet and hot plated entrees. The buffet includes a limited selection of salads and toppings, various cheeses and cured meats, and a number of cold Scandinavian appetizers such as smoked salmon, pickled herring, and whitefish. The buffet may have a few items that some guests may turn their nose up at, but there are enough items to please even the picky eaters in the family. Personally, I would be more than happy to graze at this particular buffet with all of the delicious fish items, but Akershus, unlike other character buffets, has more to offer.

When seated, guests are presented a menu of choices for their hot entrée, which includes sliced prime rib, smoked salmon, traditional Kjottkake (Swedish Meatballs), roasted chicken, pork chops, and more. On our most recent visit, I ordered a seasonal selection, a venison stew with red cabbage and mashed potatoes,

while my wife got the prime rib served with green beans and mashed potatoes,

and our son ordered the meatballs with mashed potatoes and corn.

Other kid’s entrees include grilled chicken with pasta, pizza, and grilled salmon. I really enjoyed the savory venison stew, and my wife’s prime rib was well prepared. On our last visit, I ordered a short rib entrée that also was quite good. The desserts also were quite tasty, which choices including chocolate mousse, rice pudding, and apple cake. Overall, the food is quite good, and the entrees are very filling even without the all-you-care-to-eat cold buffet.

Like most Disney Character meals, guests are visited by the characters while they dine. At Akershus, Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White, and Aurora (or other princesses on occasion) make their way through the dining room to visit with guests. It takes between 45-60 minutes for the characters to make a complete circuit of the room, which is just about perfect for the amount of time it takes to eat a meal. The princesses also conduct a parade with guests through the dining room typically at the top of the hour.

For guests with a need for a princess themed character meal, Akershus can be a great alternative to the more expensive and more difficult to reserve Cinderella’s Royal Table. The experience includes much of the same perks as the Magic Kingdom’s most popular restaurant. The food is just a slight notch below what is served at Cinderella’s Royal Table, but at an average cost that is $20 less, or half as many table service credits on the Disney Dining Plan, Akershus can represent a much better value. Additionally, the buffet at Akershus may be a superior option to the appetizer choices at Cinderella’s Royal Table (shrimp cocktail, salad, cheese plate, or soup).

The one drawback of Akershus is that the dining room is not nearly as ornate or exclusive as the one inside of Cinderella’s Castle, so if you have a child that simply must eat in the castle, Akershus will simply not suffice. However, those who just want to experience a princess character meal, EPCOT’s princess meal is a very good alternative with very good food, and excellent character interaction.

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Well, Disney has another up-sell opportunity for you.

As detailed in a new Disney Parks Blog post today, Disney Floral and Gifts is offering two new upcharge add-ons to the Cinderella's Dining at Citricos that starts next month, when Cinderall's Royal Table at the Magic Kingdom is down for refurbishment.

We already told you about the Citricos alternative to the wildly-popular Cinderella Castle character meal. (As well as the more affordable and easier-to-book alternative at Epcot.) But if your little princess (or your self-conscious fear that you need to impress your little princess) won't be satisfied with just meeting the official Disney princesses and getting some pictures, Disney is offering some extra loot you can buy for delivery at the event.

"First Wish" is $92 package that includes "a pixie-dusted rose and silver wish charm bracelet enhanced with a Swarovski ® crystal 'wishing star'," delivered to your table before your arrive.

Photo courtesy Disney

But if you really want to show that you're a high roller, "My Disney Fairytale Proclamation" includes "a sparkling tiara, light-up crystal slipper, princess robe and her very own personalized proclamation signed by her favorite fairy tale princess." All for $286.

Remember that these prices are in addition to the $50 for adults and $32 for kids ages 3-9 for the character dining meal. (If you're on the Disney Dining Plan, you'll have to spend double credits for it.)

At some point, doesn't it just become cheaper to buy a small country someplace, declare yourself king or queen, and therefore automatically make all your daughters princesses? Of course, one probably shouldn't suggest this, lest Disney decide to start subdividing Castaway Cay into "Your Own Disney Kingdom"s.

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And here is your video, featuring a rare fireworks display at the park:

The lighting kicks off the annual holiday festivities at Universal Studios Hollywood, which run weekends on December 6-7 and 13-14, then continue daily from December 19, 2014 through January 3, 2015. The event, which is included with park admission, includes meet and greets with the Grinch and his dog Max, musical performances and story times with the Whos, and cookie and ornament decorating in the Universal Plaza.

Previously:

• Highlights from Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
• Knott's Celebrates Christmas with its 'Merry Farm' Makeover

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But which of these theme songs is the best theme song? Let's leave out the many songs composed for various live shows, area soundtrack loops, and opening ceremonies. We're talking about theme songs, with lyrics, written specifically for theme park attractions, and that did not appear previously in some associated movie.

We've got so many candidates for you today that we're splitting the choice into two votes: one featuring theme songs written before 1970, and another for songs that debuted after that date. To help you pass the time on this Friday in December, we've also selected video clips of each of these songs, so you can kill a half an hour at your computer enjoying some of the best music ever written for theme parks.

So, please, listen to the tunes, pick your favorites, and vote! We will put the two winners up against each other in a champion's vote next week. Here are the candidates:

Vote #1: What's the Best Theme Park Attraction Song from before 1970?

The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room
From The Enchanted Tiki Room
Music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman (theme song starts at 1:48)

It's a Small World (After All)
From It' a Small World
Music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman

There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow
From Carousel of Progress
Music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman

Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)
From Pirates of the Caribbean
Lyrics by Xavier Atencio, Music by George Bruns

Grim Grinning Ghosts
From The Haunted Mansion
Lyrics by Xavier Atencio, Music by Buddy Baker

Vote #2: What's the Best Theme Park Attraction Song since 1970?

If You Had Wings
From If You Had Wings
Music and Lyrics by Buddy Baker

Golden Dream
From The American Adventure
Lyrics by Randy Bright, additional lyrics by Lynn Hart, Music by Robert Moline

It's Fun to Be Free
From World of Motion
Lyrics by Xavier Atencio, Music by Buddy Baker

One Little Spark
From Journey Into Imagination
Music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman

Compass of Your Heart
From Sindbad's Storybook Voyage
Music and lyrics by Alan Menken

Debate the choices in the comments. And thank you, as always, for being part of the Theme Park Insider community. May you happily be humming these tunes all week!

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Photo courtesy Disney

Most of the events will be happening in the Hollywood section of Disney's California Adventure, where The Muppets are giving up their theater for a Frozen sing-along show. The soundstage next door will become a snow-filled Olaf meet and greet, with an indoor snow play area to occupy kids while they wait their turn for a warm hug with the enchanted snowman. There will be a Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post store, too, and an Anna and Elsa meet and greet in the Disney Animation building across the street.

In the evenings, Frozen will provide the replacement for the now-departed Mad T Party, with "Freeze the Night! A Family Dance Party." Disney's describing this as a family-friendly event, so we will see if the focus moves away from the club-like atmosphere and abundant "adult beverage" stations that the park featured in its previous versions of this evening dance event. And, if so, if the event will remain as popular with its local fans.

Over at Disneyland, a Frozen-themed show will replace the Tangled and Beauty and the Beast shows in the Fantasy Faire Royal Theatre near Sleeping Beauty Castle, starting January 7, 2015. Disney's also adding a Frozen display to Storybook Land, starting later this month. That will be the first change to Storybook Land since the addition of Aladdin's Agrabah in the mid 1990s.

The events over in California Adventure will soft-open on Dec. 20, to soak up the overflowing holiday crowds, but Disney will wait until Jan. 7 for an "official" opening and media event, in an effort to boost attendance after the holidays. The Disneyland Fantasy Faire show won't start until the official opening on the seventh, however.

All of these events are listed as being for a limited time, with all but the Storybook Land addition expected to close sometime in late spring.

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10. Arthur
Europa Park

We will start with an attraction we missed earlier this year — Arthur, based on Arthur and the Invisibles. This Mack inverted coaster takes riders through the Kingdom of the Invisibles in Europa Park's new Minimoys Kingdom land. We didn't cover this one when it opened, so if you've been on the ride, please give it a rating and review so we can catch up on our coverage.

9. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened in May and might be the most beautiful attraction in the history of the Magic Kingdom. You ride what look like hand-carved wooden carts, which will respond to your movement by rocking gently from side to side as you roll through lush forest and past detailed rock work. With just over two minutes from dispatch to the final brake before the unload station, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train offers a better-than-average ride time for a roller coaster. But since the visual experience, coupled with the relatively mild ride itself, so strongly suggests “dark ride” than roller coaster that those two-plus minutes instead feel frustratingly brief. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

8. Zumanjaro Drop of Doom
Six Flags Great Adventure

Hailed as the world’s tallest and fastest drop ride, Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom opened at Six Flags Great Adventure on July 4, the park’s 40th anniversary. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

7. Ratatouille: L'Aventure Totalement Toquee de Remi
Walt Disney Studios Paris

Some six years in the making, and at a reported investment of €150 million, “Remy's Totally Zany Adventure” opened in July. It's a trackless 3D dark ride that shrinks you to Remy's size for a wild chase through a Paris restaurant kitchen, inspired by the Pixar animated film. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

6. Firechaser Express
Dollywood

This dual-launch family coaster travels forward then backward on a 2,427-foot track, and is themed to firefighters protecting the forest of the Great Smoky Mountains. With plenty of wacky gags, too, of course.

5. Goliath
Six Flags Great America

Great America's Goliath opened in June as the world's fastest wooden roller coaster, with tallest and steepest drop for a coaster with wooden components. Goliath features an 85-degree, 180-foot, 72 mph drop, followed by a zero-G roll and two overbanked turns, taking the fastest and steepest wooden-coaster titles from El Toro at sister park Six Flags Great Adventure. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

4. Banshee
Kings Island

This Bolliger & Mabillard roller coaster opened in April as the the world's longest inverted coaster, at more than 4,124 feet of track length and a two-minute, 40-second ride cycle. The coaster features seven inversions and a top speed of 68 mph. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

3. Falcon's Fury
Busch Gardens Tampa

Falcon’s Fury opened a few months late, but it is absolutely worth the wait. The revolutionary drop tower measures in at 335 tall, which puts it in the record book as the tallest freestanding drop tower in North America. (Both Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom at Six Flags Great Adventure are taller, but are mounted to existing roller coaster structures.) In addition to its record-breaking height, Falcon’s Fury plunges riders down its mammoth drop face down instead of in a standard seated position, which is a unique feature among drop rides. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

2. Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
Universal Studios Florida

The centerpiece of Universal Orlando's wildly successful Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Diagon Alley invites you into Gringotts Bank to meet with Bill Weasley and tour the underground vaults before, perhaps, opening your own Gringotts account. However, you just happen to be visiting on the same day that Harry, Ron, and Hermoine have disguised themselves to break into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Before your tour can begin, Bellatrix finds you and attacks, soon to be joined by Voldemort. Will you ever escape from the "safest place on Earth"? Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

1. Hogwarts Express
Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure

Universal Orlando connects the two Wizarding Worlds via this faithful visual recreation of the Jacobite locomotive and coaches featured in the Harry Potter films. It's a revolutionary experience that breaks multiple walls in establishing a new standard for theme park attractions, and quickly has become a favorite with many fans. Read the full Theme Park Insider review.

What was your favorite new theme park attraction in 2014? And which new rides and shows are you most looking forward to experiencing for the first time in 2015?

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Although there is some truth to both characterizations, I discovered that Everland bore the strongest resemblance to Busch Gardens Williamsburg, both in its mixture of animal and themed attractions and in its stunning beauty. As for the latter, it certainly helped that my wife and I chose to visit in the autumn, as the tree-covered slopes of Yongin's rolling hills were beginning to light up in a fiery array of colors. Its surroundings aside, Everland is plenty gorgeous on its own terms, with intricately detailed and impressively scaled theming throughout the park, as well as plenty of real estate devoted to perfectly manicured European-style gardens.

Money doesn't seem to be a problem when it comes to grooming Everland, which is operated by Samsung Everland – a division of South Korea's Samsung conglomerate, best known to most people for its televisions. The investment has paid off. Everland began life as Farmland in 1976, but has since become one of the most-visited theme parks in the world. In 2013, it ranked 15th in attendance with more than 7 million visitors, just behind fellow Korean park Lotte World.

How to Get There

Everland's vast expanse of beauty (unthinkable within population-dense Seoul) comes at the cost of travel time. It's a mighty long journey south to this park, especially if you require public transportation. Although a newly constructed light rail line connects the Seoul subway system to the park, we found that sticking only to trains would take much more time than if we used a combination of the subway and bus systems. The good news is that both are ultra-reliable. The bad news is that the quickest route available from downtown Seoul to Everland still lasted about 90 minutes. 

For those curious about specific details, we took a subway train to the Gangnam station, then went above ground to catch the 5002 bus to Everland. The bus makes only a few stops on its way to the park, and the route is mostly highway. Buses run every 15 minutes (both ways) from early in the morning until past midnight, which is why we found this option better than the more expensive chartered buses (which still take 90 minutes and offer strict return times). All told, the round-trip journey cost us the equivalent of about $7 U.S.

The bus dropped us at one of the Everland parking lots (the same one that serves as the terminus for the rail line), where we were able to board a free shuttle to the park entrance. It was during this winding journey that we began to appreciate the enormity of the Everland complex, which includes the Caribbean Bay water park (not operating in the chilly fall weather) along with hotels and an art museum.
 
Buying Tickets

Once we arrived at the actual park gates, we found the ticket booth specifically created for foreign visitors (which tend to speak English, Chinese or Japanese). Not only did Everland ensure that an English-speaking worker could communicate with us about our tickets, we were also given a discount. A print-out coupon on Everland's English-language website gave us 20% off admission (just for being from a country other than South Korea), lowering the ticket price to 37,000 Won. That's about $34 each for a full day at one of the best-attended theme parks in the entire world – not bad.

Park Layout

After purchasing our tickets it was just a few minutes before park opening at 9:30 a.m., and we waited with a few hundred visitors outside the park's entrance land, called Global Fair. The area is a mish-mash of mostly European architectural styles, with Russian spires placed across from Italian bell towers (such as a replica of St. Mark's Campanile – just like Epcot's). And in the Disney tradition of entrance lands, Global Fair is light on attractions, but heavy on shops and restaurants. After turning left and out of the area, you see the rest of Everland in the valley below, with a giant Ferris wheel (that no longer works, but still lights up at night) in the middle of it all.

Beyond this multi-ethnic gateway are four lands that slope into the valley below. There's American Adventure, which highlights frontier elements in one portion and, elsewhere, emulates a modern-day urban atmosphere with American street signs, stoplights and diners. There's a double Viking ship attraction called Columbus Adventures and some extreme spinning rides that reference rock 'n' roll. I particularly enjoyed the New York-themed Hurricane attraction (too soon for Sandy survivors?), which inexplicably included a painted picture of Epcot's Spaceship Earth in the midst of Manhattan landmarks.

On one side of the park, just past American Adventure, is Magic Land – mostly devoted to kiddie rides. The area is home to the painstakingly designed Aesop's Village, a pretty little fairy tale land with a children-friendly coaster to boot. Magic Land takes on its share of public domain fantasy characters, including Peter Pan (a spinning ride featuring boats as ride vehicles) and the Wizard of Oz (an old-timey, slightly beat-up carnival fun house). 

In a nice touch, Magic Land also features moving walkways, which makes the journey back uphill much easier for little ones (or, more likely, their exhausted parents). In other areas of the park, visitors can ride ski lifts as an alternative to descending or ascending the steep inclines that pervade Everland.

Everland's other side is home to Zootopia, which – as the name implies – is something resembling a zoo, with an impressive variety of animals on display (including tigers, bears and elephants), camel rides and live shows featuring predatory birds. Amidst all that are the land's marquee attractions: two rides that take you into the animal habitats (which I will discuss in more detail below).

At the bottom of the valley is the park's largest, prettiest and most impressive, area: European Adventure. From one end to another, this land emulates the look of a number of different countries, ranging from a German alpine village to the streets of Holland to a Greek landscape. The area claims huge, seasonally themed gardens as well as Everland's world-class roller coaster, the T-Express.

Attraction Highlights

T-Express: If there's one reason to visit Everland, it's the T-Express, South Korea's first wooden roller coaster that's frequently ranked as one of the best in the entire world. Constructed by Intamin (with an assist from Rocky Mountain Construction), the gargantuan coaster opened in 2008, and its park's attendance levels have been skyrocketing ever since. For those interested in stats, the T-Express ranks in the Top 10 in every extreme category. When it comes to wooden coasters, it's the world's second tallest, third steepest, fifth longest, tenth fastest, and has the seventh-longest drop.

Those rankings are impressive on paper and even more so when you're on board this massive attraction. At an angle of 77 degrees, the T-Express's first drop is insane, and then comes and endless run of dips, turns and drops. There's just no quit in this ride. Plus, like Six Flags Great Adventure's El Toro (one of the main inspirations for this coaster), the T-Express features a prefabricated track that ensures the smoothest of rides.

Although a sign listed a 90-minute queue, we actually waited for about 2 hours to take our turn on the Express. We were happy to find that it delivered. If I hadn't been so curious about the rest of Everland, I would have considered waiting in line again. 

Side note: Everland offers the Fastpass-esque Q-pass reservation system for T-Express and some other in-demand attractions. However, we visited on a Thursday and – even though it seemed to be a high attendance day to me – the system was not in operation. The park appears to save it only for weekends, holidays and summer weekdays.  
 

Safari World and Lost Valley: The marquee attractions in Everland's Zootopia are these two rides, in which visitors board a vehicle for a trip through the park's animal habitats. Safari World is the older of the two experiences and was the first one we queued up for, waiting about 40 minutes to board a bus painted like a white tiger. Then we were off to various gated areas featuring lions, tigers and bears. Oh my – I wasn't prepared that a number of these creatures were essentially trained circus animals. 

At one point in the ride, our bus driver stopped at a series of brown bears who had been taught to stand or sit in place (all day, I'm guessing?) and perform their designated trick for bus after bus, as each driver tossed them a few crackers. These huge creatures made praying motions, walked next to the bus or put their paws on the driver's open window as our fellow travelers laughed and clamored for snapshots. 

I do not consider myself an animal activist. I do not have any issues with animals being in captivity – as long as they are treated with the care and respect they deserve. But my trip into Safari World was a soul-crushing experience. I left feeling sad for the animals and upset that the park can't showcase the natural behaviors of these bears instead of making them perform for visitors.

I approached Zootopia's other animal ride, Lost Valley, with more than a little trepidation. Fortunately, we discovered a much more worthwhile (and much less disheartening) experience there, beginning with a well-designed queue that winded around various small animal exhibits, making the 40-minute wait time feel shorter. At the ride station, we boarded a DUKW (or "duck," which makes me think of the Wisconsin Dells) that would take us through the attraction's land and water-based track, past elephants, zebras and giraffes.

Kilimanjaro Safaris it's not, but Lost Valley is an ambitious undertaking with wide areas for the animals to wander, some well-crafted temple theming and a little extra excitement in regard to the amphibious ride vehicle. At one point the ride worker did interact with a giraffe, but it was merely to feed it a few leaves of lettuce and not in exchange for any carnival tricks.
 

Global Village: As with Seoul's Lotte World, Everland is no stranger to Disney imitation, the most obvious example being Global Village, an indoor boat ride that takes visitors on an international journey with lots of little dolls all singing one gleeful, repetitive song. I guess it really is a small world after all. For a total rip-off, the attraction is impressively scaled and beautifully detailed. But the real fun comes in the form of bizarre additions to the "Small World" theme, including trips to outer space and the North Pole as well as little German kids joyfully swilling beer. But how do the Koreans represent the U.S.? Cowboys and football players, of course.

K-Pop Hologram: We let the wonderful weirdness continue by visiting this theater show, in which some of Korea's biggest pop stars "perform" as "holograms." The filmed, 15-minute shows, which sort of look like 3D without the glasses, rotate among three acts, including Psy, most famous for the international novelty smash "Gangnam Style." We happened to be near the theater in time for the boy band BigBang – a fivesome so flouncy, they make the Backstreet Boys look like N.W.A. There were some impressive digital effects (in the course of performing two songs, the members seem to gain control of the Matrix), and if you can stand the sugary sweet ballads, you might enjoy the goofy spectacle of it all. The K-pop fans in our audience certainly shrieked their approval. And then we got the opportunity to buy a bunch of Psy merchandise.

Rotating House: With a name as plainly descriptive at this, there's not a lot of mystery as to what's going to happen inside this ride. You're going to go into a house and it's sure going to rotate. (What if Space Mountain was called Rolling in the Dark – wait, is than an Adele song?) However, the experience is not as Spartan as the title. The attraction is designed as a wizard academy – perhaps the Title 1 version of Hogwarts’s – in which an evil wizard and a good wizard take the guises of animatronic gargoyles and then battle it out by turning the main hall forwards and backwards. The main effect of the, ahem, rotating house, is pretty cool. Sets of benches swing back and forth in time with exterior walls that swivel, to create the illusion that the entire room is being turned topsy-turvy. 

Rolling-X Train: For being a park that appeals to Seoul teens with its thrill rides, Everland only claims four working roller coasters, and two of them are kiddie rides. (Eagle's Fortress, which was South Korea's first suspended coaster, sits rusting at one end of the park.) After riding the wonderful T-Express, most thrill junkies seek out this steel coaster with four inversions, built in 1988 for the Seoul Olympics. Unfortunately, any time I was in the vicinity, the posted queue length for the Rolling X-Train was a prohibitively long 90 minutes. Having found that most of the wait times were longer than what was posted, I chose to skip this one – consoled by the complaints I had read and heard about the coaster's short length and rickety feel. But, as the (distant) second-best coaster at Everland, it deserves a mention.

Food Options

Now here's where Everland's comparisons to a Six Flags park are appropriate. No, that isn't a compliment. 

It's not that the park doesn't offer a variety of cuisines, it's just that most of the options looked greasy and unappetizing to us. I was forced to ask myself, "Do I want a gross version of Chinese food, a gross version of an American burger or a gross version of spaghetti and meatballs?" 

On this day, the last option won. We ate dinner at Venezia Restaurant, a counter service Italian restaurant that was out of half of its items at 6 p.m. We settled for the aforementioned spaghetti and a pizza that bared little resemblance to the pictures or plastic food display outside the restaurant. It seemed to us that the cooks had thrown whatever was left in the kitchen on the pizza, including a balsamic reduction that didn't really mix with the other ingredients. The best thing I can say about our food – which, including side salads and soft drinks, cost us the equivalent of $23 U.S. – was that we were able to eat enough to keep us going until we got back to Seoul later that night.

Instead of sitting down for a meal earlier in the day, we had grabbed small bites as we went – some popcorn here, a mummy-looking bagel dog there (it was just before Halloween after all). My wife passed up some fried squid strips in favor of what looked like a corn dog, but was actually dipped in batter that tasted like bread. Maybe it should have been called a flour dog. Other than that, the "standard" park foods tasted fine, but were unremarkable.

Halloween Fun

Everland is big on seasonal celebrations. In fact, they have an entire garden (which must be as big as a football field) that they change multiple times a year to suit different holidays and seasons. Seeing as we were there during October, the giant garden was festooned with pumpkins and skeletons, along with many guests taking advantage of the various goofy and spooky photo opportunities. The area got altogether ookier after dark, when the flame towers lit up and the fog machines kicked in. 

But that's not all that Everland does to celebrate Halloween. The seasonal festivities also included a pair of haunted houses (helpfully called Horror Maze I and Horror Maze II) and a scary version of Zootopia's Lost Valley ride (which, I believe, does not include wild animals). All of those attractions featured an additional charge – about $5 U.S. each. That's not awful, but given my general stance on paying even more money for experiences once I'm already in a park, we skipped those in favor of things that didn't cost extra.

And there were plenty of Halloween-y events that didn't force you to take out your wallet, from a dance party geared to teens to stage shows geared to kids. One area definitely not for kids was the area around the T-Express entrance, which was transformed into a foggy, darkly lit zombie village. Many signs and logos told us that the area was supposed to be themed to 'The Walking Dead' (which, yes, also airs on Korean television), but our hopes of seeing park workers portraying Rick and Michonne were dashed. Instead, we got a bunch of zombie-fied townspeople, including decaying policemen and nurses. The makeup and costumes were pretty good, the ambiance was fabulous and more than a few hundred shrieking Korean teens certainly were having a blast walking with the zombies.

Many of the Everland workers were having just as much fun in the spirit of Halloween, from costumed parade members who took opportunities to interact and dance with the little kids along the route to one ride operator who made up his own Halloween song. Yes, as we exited the T-Express, we were greeted by a man on the P.A. system singing, “Hap-py! Hallo-ween! Holy, holy Hell!” Needless to say, it became our private chant for the rest of the day.

One of the more family-friendly Halloween features was the Happy Halloween Party parade, a short little presentation that mixed cartoony, purple and orange floats with some pretty creepy monsters – from classics like Dracula and Frankenstein to relative newcomers such as Jigsaw from the 'Saw' franchise.

Evening Parade

Speaking of parades – as the park continued to get frightfully cold, we decided to cap our day with Everland's nighttime Moonlight Magic parade. Like many after-dark parades, this one certainly owes some inspiration the Main Street Electrical Parade, seeing as it’s loaded with floats and performed covered in tiny lights. But I found Everland's version more creative than most imitators, who tend to depict Disney-esque fairy tale characters in versions just slightly different from their famous animated counterparts. Sure, there was some of that (like the 'Alice in Wonderland' section), but there were also a host of fantastical floats, including one that showed a futuristic, Jetsons-like city in the mountains and another that depicted a Roman warrior's battle with a three-headed dragon. During a different portion, glowing fish zoomed past us – thanks to their roller-skating puppeteers – to the tune of the parade's music, a techno version of 'The Nutcracker Suite.'

In a way, the Moonlight Magic parade was like Everland itself: hardly original, but beautifully crafted and featuring enough surprises and excitement to make the whole experience worthwhile.

Previously:

• Lotte World: What to Do at the World's Biggest Indoor Theme Park

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After last year's media blitz, the resort hosted a much more low-key media day last weekend, and we took the opportunity to take a closer look at one of the elements we didn't focus on so much last year: ¡Viva Navidad! on the Boardwalk at Disney California Adventure.

During ¡Viva Navidad!, the Paradise Garden Grill switches its menu of Mediterranean-inspired skewers to feature Mexican holiday favorites. There are a few changes this year: The Torta al Pastor is up 50 cents; the Chicken Mole no longer comes with a side of tortillas, and the Mahi Veracruzano is gone, replaced by a Ceviche Plate.

For dinner, Laurie and I chose the Chicken Mole ($12.99),

and the Ceviche Plate ($8.49).

I couldn't help but compare this chicken to the rotisserie chicken dinner I ate last month at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe during Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

1/2 Rotisserie Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans ($10.99)

Disney World offered more chicken for two dollars less (a half versus the quarter dark at Disneyland), but Disneyland's meal delivered far more flavor, with a decadent, slightly spicy and chocolatey mole sauce covering the meat. The corn salad and achiote rice blew away the simple mashed potatoes and green beans from Disney World, too... which should be no knock on the Disney Word sides. They were well seasoned, and tasty, but just one-dimensional compared with the much more pungent spices in the Disneyland accompaniments. (Potentially interesting side note: I conned my nearly-two-year-old, French-fry-loving nephew into eating several handfuls of the WDW green beans by telling him they were "green Christmas fries." Hey, whatever gets the job done.)

I missed last year's fish entree, but enjoyed this year's ceviche. With a cool, spicy flavor not unlike a gazpacho, the ceviche included mostly bay shrimp with a smattering of white fish. On a cool California evening, I preferred the mole, but wouldn't hesitate to cool off with the ceviche on a warmer weekend afternoon.

Oh, and here's one more big difference between the meals at Disney World and Disneyland: At Disney World, all that chicken balanced on a flimsy paper plate, and we had to eat with those weak plastic utensils you find at all of Disney World's quick service restaurants. Yet here at Disneyland, we ate off real plates with metal flatware — much better for helping your food keep its heat, while also helping you to enjoy it.

Also helping us to enjoy our meal? The live entertainment.

Insiders know that the stage next to the Paradise Garden Grill hosts some wonderful musicians throughout the year, so I was pleased when I saw Adelaide come to the stage for a set as we were walking to a table, food in hand. Hey, that Cosmic Ray animatronic might be cute (the first time you see it, at least), but it's no match for a hot band laying down salsa classics that had other diners up dancing in front of the stage.

The holidays are supposed to be a celebration, a party. With ¡Viva Navidad!, Disney's found the right mix of spicy food and fun music that should put local fans in a festive mood to fit the season.

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Concept art courtesy London Resort Company Holdings

The deal means that BBC properties such as Doctor Who, Top Gear, and Sherlock could be made available to join Paramount Pictures IP such as Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and The Godfather in the theme park, which is planned for a site on the Thames River east of London, in North Kent, adjacent to the Ebbsfleet International train station.

This is a "development agreement," rather than a final contract, so no specific attractions are yet approved for the project, which has been conducting "public consultation" meetings in the London area as part of its permitting and approval process. A final decision on whether to approve the park is expected from authorities in 2016.

Concept art for a Star Trek-themed attraction at the park. Image courtesy London Resort Company Holdings

The London Paramount Entertainment Resort is now planned for an Easter 2020 opening, and would include 12 major rides in its theme park, as well as an indoor water park, hotels with a combined 5,000 rooms, and a 2,000-seat live-performance theater.

Previously:

• Developers look east of London for new theme park plan

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Disney had given the green light for a Star Wars Land in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, to be built around the characters and locations from the original three films (and maybe, a bit from the prequel trilogy, too.) The development was code-named "Project Orange Harvest," and Disney even teased the plans at 2013's D23 Expo in Anaheim. But with Disney banking on Abrams' new film becoming a worldwide phenomenon, Disney CEO Bon Iger said the he pulled the approval for Star Wars Land until new characters and locations from the new films could be included.

And with Abrams not sharing any of that information during development, work on Star Wars Land stopped.

Not mentioned in the Variety reporting, but also having an effect on Star Wars Land? Diagon Alley. Disney's Imagineers have toured Universal Orlando's project, and they came back with a fresh perspective on what they will need to do accomplish with Star Wars Land to come out ahead of Universal, creatively. We've mentioned the inherent problems with creative an immersive environment based on an IP that's spread across a galaxy. Perhaps there might be some iconic new location in the upcoming films that will solve that problem for Walt Disney Imagineering, and provide a compelling setting for Star Wars Land that will satisfy both dedicated and casual fans of the franchise?

Iger might be suggesting just that, having told Variety, "what we come forward with will have a blend of the past, present and maybe the future."

Previously:

• The empire strikes back: Disney readies a major Hollywood Studios expansion at Walt Disney World
• Disney's Imagineers tease Star Wars, Avatar projects at D23 convention
• Disney's Hollywood Studios expansion update: Cars Land parked
• Grokking Star Wars Land: How will Disney bring more 'Star Wars' to its theme parks?

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We've got T-shirts for men and for women with our "Follow Me, I Know What I'm Doing" design. This year, we've also added a hoodie with that same design, too, for those colder-weather theme park trips.

To get you ready for your next theme park vacation, or just to keep the warm memories of your last one flowing, we have three Theme Park Insider books: Our new 2015 Orlando guidebook, "Theme Park Insider Visits Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando," our booklet on Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter lands, and our original "Stories from a Theme Park Insider."

Please consider ordering one or more of these as a stocking stuffer, or a as a nifty way to announce the gift of a theme park vacation to your family.

Where to Buy Gifts for Your Theme Park Insider:

• Shirts and hoodies: themepark.spreadshirt.com
• Theme Park Insider books and eBooks from Amazon: amazon.com/author/robertniles
• From Barnes & Noble: bn.com/s/theme-park-insider
• And from iTunes (eBooks only): itunes.apple.com/us/artist/id450803891

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Explorer's Reef at SeaWorld San Diego

Let's look at the attendance numbers for the four largest parks in the chain since 2009, the year Atchison took over and the parks spun off from the Anheuser-Busch companies. (Data are from the annual TEA/AECOM Global Attractions attendance report.)

SeaWorld Orlando
2009: 5.8 million
2010: 5.1 million
2011: 5.2 million
2012: 5.3 million
2013: 5.0 million

SeaWorld San Diego
2009: 4.2 million
2010: 3.8 million
2011: 4.2 million
2012: 4.4 million
2013: 4.3 million

Busch Gardens Tampa
2009: 4.1 million
2010: 4.2 million
2011: 4.2 million
2012: 4.3 million
2013: 4.0 million

Busch Gardens Williamsburg
2009: 2.9 million
2010: 2.8 million
2011: 2.7 million
2012: 2.8 million
2013: 2.7 million

See a trend here? Attendance has dropped significantly at SeaWorld Orlando, while remaining essentially flat at the other parks — up slightly in San Diego and down slightly in Tampa and Williamsburg. But this has happened during a five-year period that's brought significant growth to the other major parks in the theme park industry. Since 2009, the SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment parks are the only North American parks listed in the annual TEA/AECOM attendance report to see a drop in attendance over this period. Let's look how some other representative parks have fared:

Knott's Berry Farm: Up from 3.3 million in 2009 to 3.8 million in 2013.
Cedar Point: Up from 2.9 to 3.3 million
Hersheypark: Up from 2.8 to 3.1 million
Six Flags Magic Mountain: Up from 2.5 to 2.9 million

Market leader Disney's biggest park, the Magic Kingdom, saw its attendance rise from 17.2 million visitor a year in 2009 to 18.5 million visitors last year. But the real story lies in comparing SeaWorld with what was once its closest competition in attendance, the Universal theme parks.

SeaWorld competes with Universal in both of Universal's U.S. markets: Southern California and Central Florida. While SeaWorld San Diego limped from 4.2 million annual attendance in 2009 to 4.3 million last year, Universal Studios Hollywood surged from 4.3 million a year to 6.1 million. And in Orlando, well, it's been a total wipeout. Fueled by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Universal's Islands of Adventure grew from 4.6 million annual attendance in 2009 to 8.1 million last year, while SeaWorld Orlando dropped from 5.8 million visitors a year to 5.0 million.

Why have the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens parks performed so poorly? Were they really that dependent upon the free beer they poured when Anheuser-Busch owned them? (Actually, it appears that they might have been.)

While other theme park companies have moved aggressively to develop new attractions and intellectual property in the wake of the Great Recession, the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens parks have stumbled through one challenge after another. The debuts of the two Manta roller coasters, in Orlando in 2009 and San Diego in 2012, provide the few bright spots during this period. Otherwise, the parks have suffered through construction delays on multiple new attractions, including missed projected open dates for major new drop towers in Williamsburg and Tampa.

Looking back through our Theme Park Insider reader ratings, I can't find a single example of a new show debuting during this time period at any of these four parks that scored a higher reader rating than the show it replaced. In 2013, SeaWorld Orlando made what it called the largest capital investment in its history in opening Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin. An effort to compete with the engaging and immersive environment of Universal Orlando's Harry Potter land, SeaWorld chose to go with depicting what might be the most inhospitable environment on Earth: Antarctica. Sure, people love penguins, but SeaWorld's technically innovative Antarctica ride left visitors spending too much time spinning around in low-light caverns with there were no penguins in sight, rather than spending time with cute new penguin character SeaWorld had created for the attraction. At the end of the ride, SeaWorld crafted a new, open display environment for its penguins, but doing show required keeping the guest areas in the exhibit so cold that few visitors could stand spending more than a moment or two looking at the pavilion's most compelling attraction — the live penguins themselves.

In early 2010, SeaWorld suffered its greatest tragedy when trainer Dawn Brancheau died after being dragged underwater by the orca Tillikum in Orlando. The accident understandably left many in the SeaWorld community in shock, but there comes a time when corporate leadership must move forward. Instead, SeaWorld appeared flat-footed when anti-animal captivity activists used Dawn's death to develop the movie Blackfish. It took SeaWorld months to put together a rebuttal that exposed the film's deceptive edits and falsities. Instead of hosting a media campaign with movie critics and reporters when the film first debuted, which could have mortally wounded the film's credibility, SeaWorld stuck its head in the sand, as if it were hoping the whole thing would just go away. When SeaWorld finally did respond, it was with a PDF posted online.

Since then, SeaWorld's primary promotional focus has been on its laudable efforts in animal husbandry and environmental conservation. But, guess what? Zoos don't attract the visitor levels that theme parks do. And the organizations running zoos don't make anywhere near the profits that theme park companies earn. If SeaWorld wants to be a zoo, then it will watch its attendance level continue to fall to the levels that top paid zoos attract. (The top-visited non-theme-park zoo in America, the San Diego Zoo, brings in a little more than three million visitors a year.)

If SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment wants to catch back up to the rest of the theme park industry, though, it needs to get aggressive again, building (or licensing) IP that connects with audiences in well-themed attractions that engage them. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Chairman David D'Alessandro will take over as interim CEO. But SeaWorld doesn't need interim help. It needs a long-term vision for what the company and its theme parks will be — a vision compelling enough that it would make more theme park fans eager to book a visit to a SeaWorld or Busch Gardens theme park over visiting the formidable competing parks the company faces.

What would make you feel that way about the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks again? (Note: Given our past experience with this subject, we will not be approving anonymous comments for this post.)

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The votes are in and your picks were...

Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)
From Pirates of the Caribbean
Lyrics by Xavier Atencio, Music by George Bruns

and...

One Little Spark
From Journey Into Imagination
Music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman

Now it's time to crown an overall champion. Which is the best original theme park attraction theme song of all time?

Thanks for listening along with us, and we hope that you'll campaign for your favorite in the comments and by using the social media links below. As always, thank you for being part of the Theme Park Insider community!

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Next week, we will follow up with my list of the Top 10 theme parks I have visited and most want to visit again, with an opportunity for you to submit your own personal Top 10 theme parks list. And since that will be our Christmas week Top 10, we will offer a year-end thank you to one lucky respondent, so be sure to register now if you haven't yet, to be eligible for that giveaway.

So let's get to this week's list: I've been to a lot of theme parks (33 to be exact), but I have a lot left to go. Here are the Top 10 theme parks I haven't yet visited, but want to, someday.

10. Six Flags Great Adventure

Home to some of the world's most notable roller coasters, including our Theme Park Insider Award-winning El Toro, Six Flags Great Adventure is the only theme park in the TEA/AECOM annual attendance report's top U.S. theme parks that I haven't yet visited. With all my roadtrips and other travel over the years, I have visited 45 of the 50 U.S. states, missing at this point only Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and... New Jersey. I have no idea how I managed that.

9. Tivoli Gardens

Denmark's Tivoli Gardens isn't known for individual world-class attractions, but its legacy shaped the theme park industry, proving a model for a themed entertainment space that influenced Walt Disney's development of Disneyland, among many other designers and visionaries over the decades.

8. Port Aventura

Once aligned with Universal Studios (though no longer), this Spanish theme park lures Europeans with top-quality roller coasters and abundant sunshine.

7. Ferrari World

Home to the world's fastest roller coaster, Formula Rossa, Abu Dhabi's Ferrari World is one of the world's largest indoor theme parks, appealing both to the worldwide Tifosi of Ferrari faithful as well as to theme park fans.

6. Ocean Park

The world's most popular theme park not branded to either Disney or Universal, Hong Kong's Ocean Park offers a mix of thrill rides and marine mammal exhibits. Like Universal Studios Hollywood, the park is separated into two sections, one atop a mountain and one below. However, the separation at Ocean Park is much larger, and the two sections are connected by a funicular railway instead of a series of escalators.

5. Alton Towers

Featuring one of the world's best theme park castles (by virtue of actually being a castle!), Alton Towers blends theme with thrills to draw theme park fans into the English countryside. It's also located in my ancestral home of Staffordshire, so I probably ought to be ranking Alton higher than this!

4. Europa Park

Europe's most popular non-Disney theme park is a showcase for attractions designed and built by its owner, Mack Rides. With a centerpiece geodesic dome that evokes Epcot's Spaceship Earth, surrounded by roller coasters and other thrill rides, Europa Park offers a blend of themes and thrills should put this park on many fans' wish lists.

3. Hong Kong Disneyland

Mystic Manor. I really, really want to see Mystic Manor for myself. Plus, visiting Hong Kong Disneyland would allow me to say that I've visited every Disney theme park on Earth, as it's the only one I'm now missing.

2. Universal Studios Japan

The Osaka park is the only Universal theme park I've not yet visited, and offers the world's only opportunity to ride Back to the Future one more time, as well as to experience Jaws, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter all in one theme park. And the park's Hollywood Dream: The Ride from all reports seems to be the delightful high-speed thrill that Universal Studios Florida's rough Rip, Ride, Rockit should have been.

1. Efteling

Anton Pieck's masterpiece is home to several of the world's best dark rides not found in a Disney theme park, including Theme Park Insider reader favorites Fata Morgana and Droomvlucht. And I would love to experience its themed dive coaster, Baron 1898, which opens next year.

What are the Top 10 theme parks you haven't yet visited, but wish you could?

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Photo courtesy Disney

In other Disney World restaurant news, the resort has confirmed that the STK steakhouse chain will be joining the dining lineup in The Landing area of Disney Springs in 2015. STK Orlando will occupy 14,000 feet across two floors, making it one of the chain's largest locations. STK Orlando joins the previously announced Morimoto Asia and The Boathouse in opening next year in Disney Springs.

Previously:

• Trattoria al Forno reservations and menu
• Disney Springs Construction Update
• Two New Restaurants Confirmed for Disney Springs in 2015

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E.T. SAID MY NAME

— Brad (@midnightsky82) December 17, 2014

Listening to other followers on Twitter, the reaction to this news seems to be split between "Wait a minute, E.T. can say people's names?" and "Wait a minute, there's still an E.T. ride at Universal Studios Florida?" E.T. is the last remaining unchanged original attraction from the 1990 opening of the park, save for the coming and going of the namechecking, of course.

The use in the attraction of "passport" cards to E.T.'s home world, which then allowed E.T. to say each visitor's name at the end of the ride, represented one of the first widespread uses of interactivity in a major theme park attraction. Director Steven Spielberg recorded the preshow for the attraction, which makes a point of emphasizing the passports that visitors would collect as they told a ride attendant their name upon entering the inside queue. Ride attendants at the load area would collect the passport cards, which would be associated with each rider's name and would provide the input that would prompt E.T.'s farewell at the conclusion of the trip.

Of course, much fun was to be had in trying to come up with the most outlandish (and borderline inappropriate) names that you could get the USF team members to input. Over the years, though, the namecheck interaction on the ride became more and more inconsistent, adding to a general feeling among many fans that E.T.'s days in the park might be numbered. Universal Studios Hollywood closed its E.T. ride in 2003 and its show building is now used for that park's version of Revenge of the Mummy. Japan's version closed in 2009 to make way for Space Fantasy: The Ride.

Here's an on-ride video of E.T. Adventure that I recorded in Orlando last month. E.T. did not say my name, or anyone else's.

Have you ridden the E.T. Adventure? Did E.T. say your name?

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When we walked up to the podium, it was deja vu all over again. People were lined up hoping that they could possibly get someone's canceled reservation. It was all for naught. Once we checked in, we were sent over the bridge and as we were walking, our name was called for seating. One of the new aspects (at least new to us) was that along with the castmember, we were given a special individual to guide us to our table. Lumiere was given to my boys to hold along the path to our table. His softly lit flames and smiling face set the mood as we left the foyer and made our way into the ballroom.

It doesn't matter how many times I enter in here, the ballroom still takes my breath away. It is as if we have stepped out of reality and into one of the loveliest scenes from Beauty and the Beast. The ballroom was decorated with garland, wreaths, and a Christmas Tree. When you examine the decorations, you see stained glassed figures of Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, and Chip. It wasn't the characters that struck me as unique, it was the fact that they were in the same design as the stained glass window in the restaurant and of course the movie. That attention to detail that is sometimes overlooked and taken for granted adds to the uniqueness of this dining experience during the holidays.

For dinner, the boys and I had the grilled strip steak. It came with pommes frites with mayonnaise for dipping and steamed green beans. The steak was cooked perfectly and the pommes frites were just an added bonus.

Chuck decided to branch out away from steak and seafood. He ordered the herb-crusted lamb rack. The lamb has a stone-ground mustard demi-glace and comes with vegetables. Chuck found that his lamb was cooked well and stated that this is something he would recommend.

While eating, the Beast made his appearance in each of the dining areas. He then awaited his guests for pictures in the study. During your meal, it is hard to not notice the carts that the waiters are pushing about filled with desserts. Our cart was soon pushed for us to decide. This is always the difficult part of the visit. I have had their triple chocolate cupcake, the master's cupcake, and the lemon-raspberry cream puff in the past. All of these are excellent. This time, I ordered the Grey Stuff. This is a crisp chocolate cookie with the infamous grey stuff on top. It was good, though in my opinion not to the same level as the cupcakes and cream puffs. The guys ordered the triple chocolate cupcake for their dessert. It is still as rich and delectable as usual.

All in all, Be Our Guest is still an excellent addition to the Magic Kingdom's dining options. Dinner here will not disappoint if one is able to get a reservation. The ambiance itself is well worth a visit during the holidays.

Previously:

• Where to eat: Lunch at Walt Disney World's Be Our Guest (Nov 2012)
• At Be Our Guest, Disney solves the problems with counter service ordering
• Be Our Guest dinner review... and yes, the Grey Stuff is delicious! (Dec 2012)
• Where to Eat: Lunch at Be Our Guest, with a Fastpass+ reservation (May 2014)
• Reader Ratings and Review for Be Our Guest

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Can you imagine a Universal Studios T-shirt depicting Voldemort on the Caro-Seuss-el? Or Minions in wizard robes? It's impossible to imagine J.K. Rowling allowing such trivialization of the Wizarding World and its inhabitants.

But George Lucas long has shown a great acceptance of irreverence toward his Star Wars characters. After all, you can't greenlight the Star Wars Holiday Special if you're taking your characters too seriously. Let's not forget other examples of Lucas and his team poking fun, or at least allowing others to poke fun, at the Star Wars universe: the Stand Up to Cancer spoof, Death Star PR, Spaceballs, and possibly the most irreverent officially-blessed Star Wars take-off ever, Disney's Hyperspace Hoopla. There's some great stuff about Lucas' tolerance, and even enthusiasm, for spoofs in the new book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, and author Chris Taylor talked in an interview with The New Yorker about how a desire to be more serious in the prequels weighed down the "effervescent giddiness" of the original films.

In contrast, perhaps the closest that J.K. Rowling, with her drier British wit, has come to satirizing her creation was a guest appearance on "The Simpsons" that made fun of her fans more than her works. Sure, there's abundant humor in the Harry Potter world, but even when a gag takes you out of that world (hello, "spell-o-tape," a joke that about 1 in 100 Americans gets), it's never reduces the Wizarding World to tropes like putting Darth Vader in a Space Mountain rocket.

The irony, of course, is that traditionally it's been Universal that's been known for abundant irreverence and sarcasm in its theme park attractions while Disney has properties with much more earnest respect. If there were any doubt that we're living in a moment when franchises dominate the theme park industry, let's consider these examples of Star Wars and Harry Potter — franchises so powerful that they made Disney irreverent and Universal take something seriously.

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