Theme park news: Thomas Town kiddie land; Universal Studios fire aftermath; Disney World in 3-D

Magic Mountain opens Thomas Town
The new Thomas Town kiddie land debuted at Six Flags Magic Mountain this week with a train ride and a junior coaster themed to the children’s television show “Thomas & Friends.”

Theme Park Review offers a nice round-up of the grand opening with video and a photo gallery.

I had my doubts about the need for a second kiddie land at Magic Mountain, but I must admit the cute train and adorable coaster look like a ton of fun for the toddler set.

Universal Studios Hollywood back lot fire
In the wake of the back lot fire that destroyed part of the New York sets and King Kong attraction, Universal Studios Hollywood offers a “Salute to Firefighters” with free admission to fire personnel (with badge and photo identification) during the month of June. Up to three family members or friends get in at half price.

Westcoaster found an aerial photo of the 1990 Universal Studios back lot fire that burned virtually the same area — save for King Kong. (Go to page 6 of photo gallery to see 1990 photo.)

Mice Age columnist David “Darkbeer” Michael toured the fire-damaged back lot and offers a photo gallery of the devastation. (Times photo gallery)

Hard Rock Park grand opening
Screamscape provides complete coverage of the grand opening ceremonies at Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with links to interviews, photos and video.

The new theme park’s innovative Maximum RPM coaster with the giant revolving lift wheel isn’t expected to open for another month or so.

Costumed walk-around characters include: the Banana Splits, Winston the Bulldog and the Heavy Metal Bears.

Disneyland’s customizable mouse ears
Mouse Planet offers a photo gallery of the new create-your-own mouse-ears hat process in Toontown’s Gag Factory gift shop at Disneyland.

Theme park visitors can build their own one-of-a-kind ears by choosing from 19 dome-shaped bases, 19 sets of snap-on ears and an array of heat-pressed appliqués.

Disney World + Google Earth = 3-D Magic Kingdom
Disney teamed with Google Earth to create a navigable and zoomable 3-D rendering of Walt Disney World. You’ll need to download the newest version of Google Earth to get it to work. (Hat tip to Laughing Place)

Find the latest amusement and theme park news at the
Los Angeles Times Funland blog: www.latimes.com/funland

— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Photo: Six Flags Magic Mountain]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 7:25 am by Brady MacDonald and is filed under Caribbean, Disneyland, Family & Kids, Frequent Flier, Islands & Beaches, Los Angeles, Magic Mountain, Orange County, Summer, Theme Parks, Travel Photography, Universal Studios Hollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.