Category: Member Vault

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Beyond the Blacklight: The Scores, Scares, and Stories Behind the Industry-Changing SALLY DARK RIDES

Who doesn’t love a dark ride? One of the longest-enduring and most beloved amusements on Earth, dark rides have existed since before the electric lightbulbs. From humble origins as darkened, waterwheel-powered “Tunnels of Love” and “River Caves,” dark rides have become some of the most technological storytelling tools in theme parks’ arsenals – from ghost blasting to soaring with superheroes…

But have you ever wondered who’s making the magic? Welcome to the Industry of Imagination, a new series in which we’ll peel back the curtains to explore some of the real organizations who design, develop, fabricate, and install the rides we know and love.

Image: Sally

One of the more enduring, widespread, and successful design firms in the industry today is known by a single name: Sally Dark Rides. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, Sally has spent nearly five decades creating dozens of dark rides found across the globe. From boardwalk, blacklight ultra-classics to innovative, interactive, tech-driven trackless rides, chances are that you’ve seen a Sally creation firsthand… maybe without even knowing it.

Continue reading “Beyond the Blacklight: The Scores, Scares, and Stories Behind the Industry-Changing SALLY DARK RIDES”
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A Timeline of Disney Parks’ Annual Promotional Campaigns from the Millennium Celebration to “100 Years of Wonder”

No one knows how to throw a party quite like Disney.

That’s probably why, for the last quarter century, some of the most spectacular celebrations in the industry have actually been housed right in Disney’s theme parks. In fact, it’s something of an annual tradition for Disney to run year-long promotional campaigns centered on the Disney Parks, where grand decor, astounding entertainment, and special offerings abound.

When they’re done right, Disney Parks’ annual campaigns can leave the kinds of lasting memories that are cherished for generations. And sometimes, they don’t exactly live up to the hype… Today, we’re exploring Disney’s best (and sometimes, weirdest) campaigns from The Millennium Celebration to the World’s Most Magical Celebration and beyond…

Continue reading “A Timeline of Disney Parks’ Annual Promotional Campaigns from the Millennium Celebration to “100 Years of Wonder””
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The Disney100 Road Trip: A Cross-Country Checklist of Landmarks Celebrating Walt Disney’s Life and Legacy

With iridescent platinum decor dripped across Disneyland, the Disney100 celebration has officially launched. Commemorating “100 Years of Wonder” (since the 1923 founding of The Walt Disney Studios), Disney100 is something more than another entry in Disney’s tradition of annual theme park campaigns; it’s a company-wide initiative meant to reflect on Disney’s past and re-orient it toward a new tomorrow.

Of course, born in the era of recently-former CEO Bob Chapek’s franchise-focused era when the synergy flywheel spun, it’s worth stepping back from the modern, mega-sized standard of the Walt Disney Company and remembering how it all started.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Disney Parks Quiz: Can You Identify These 15 Disney Coasters Based Only On Their Layouts?

Walt Disney might not have expected it himself, but today, more than 50 years after Disneyland opened its first one, roller coasters have become integral elements of every single Disney Park on Earth. Seriously, some of the most iconic, beloved, and classic rides at Disney’s theme parks are – fundamentally – thrill rides.

Between its dozen theme parks, Disney operates a substantial collection of coasters – 34 in all. Today, we wanted to dip our toes into the world of Disney Parks’ roller coaster by quizzing you on fifteen of them. For each of the selected coasters below, we’ll show their layout (hand-drawn by me, complete with the direction of train travel), then provide three hints… When you think you know, check out the “Answer” for each one.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


Log In or Join Now
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Islands of Adventure: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Build-Out of Universal Orlando’s Storied Second Gate

When I started Park Lore, I really hoped that this site would become the place on the Internet to read in-depth but accessible theme park and ride histories; a sort of deep dive library where you could get lost in the interconnected stories of Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, never-built Possibilitylands, and more… I’ve also written hundreds of quick-read Extra Features, and dozens of in-depth Special Features reserved just for those who support this project with Memberships.

Three years and hundreds in-depth stories later, I’m still proud of those evolving stories… but I think I see a bigger picture now. As simple as it may seem, my Park Paths series and my Comparing Kingdoms diagram seemed to make a lot of people happy, and change the way they thought about the parks they know so well. Then, I hand-drew over a hundred detailed ride layouts, trying to create a cohesive, colorful collection that would help “paint the picture” of the parks in a new way.

Continue reading “Islands of Adventure: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Build-Out of Universal Orlando’s Storied Second Gate”
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Discovering Lost Island – An Opening Year Expedition into the Country’s Newest Major, From-Scratch Theme Park

It’s not every day, year, or even decade that a legitimately new, independent, and master-planned theme park opens in the United States. It makes sense. In the eyes of many industry enthusiasts, the North American market is, for all intents and purposes, saturated with theme parks; they say that – like a sponge that can hold not one more drop of water – the industry is “mature”; that every metropolitan area that can support a theme park already has one, and that the future of the industry lies in the boundless markets of Asia and the Middle East.

But right here in this country, a new park has risen to challenge that. Look – Lost Island Theme Park in Waterloo, Iowa isn’t exactly in a bustling metropolis. It’s also far from the tourist centers of New York, Orlando, and Los Angeles. And to be fully transparent, this new-for-2022 park is also not quite complete. With a few (major) rides’ openings postponed, attendance lower than owners had hoped, and more freshly-set soil than full-grown trees, it’s clear that Lost Island has some settling and growing to do.

But let’s be clear: no true fan of themed entertainment or amusement parks would point at Lost Island’s shortcomings and laugh. Rather, this is a park every single one of us should be rooting for. Unimaginably, Lost Island has dared to transform the vast soybean fields of Iowa into the makings of something more interesting, ambitious, and original than Disney or Universal would attempt at their respective scales. Lost Island is an underdog the likes of which we should admire and support; a surprising hidden gem of the industry; and a clever example of just how far a little storytelling can go…

Continue reading “Discovering Lost Island – An Opening Year Expedition into the Country’s Newest Major, From-Scratch Theme Park”
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The Coaster Crown Countdown: Which Parks Have The Most Coasters? Maybe Not The Ones You’d Expect…

For decades, few rivalries could top that of the battle for the “Coaster Capital of the World” crown. Seriously, in the ’90s and 2000s – with the Coaster Wars raging and park operators at their hungriest for new thrills – it was anyone’s guess which park would tout having the most roller coasters on Earth any given season. That record was batted back and forth between Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks, each racing to build taller, faster, steeper, and – most importantly today – more roller coasters.

Now that the chaos of the Coaster Wars have largely subsided, it’s probably a good time to pause and look at the industry today. Which parks actually ended up with the biggest coaster counts? You may be surprised… 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


Log In or Join Now
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The Bob Swap: Parting Words to Chapek’s Short-Lived Stint as Disney CEO, and Essential Reflections on What Happened

It happened. The unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unprecedented… In a late-evening announcement on Sunday, November 20, 2022, it was made official: beleaguered CEO of The Walt Disney Company Bob Chapek was gone. Less than three years after he was hastily elevated into the position (replacing long-time predecessor and beloved industry visionary Bob Iger) and just days after announcing he intended to launch waves of layoffs and hiring freezes in his data-oriented, revenue-maximizing approach to leading the world’s largest entertainment company, Chapek had been given a pink slip himself…

The unceremonious exit of the war-torn CEO was long a daydream of Disney fans – who largely detested Chapek’s management style and the strictly-financial lens through which he seemed to view The Walt Disney Company. Dreamier still, though, was Disney’s replacement. In an internal email to Cast, retired CEO Bob Iger announced with “gratitude and humility – and I must admit, a bit of amazement” that he would return to his former post, officially becoming the CEO of Disney once more.

Continue reading “The Bob Swap: Parting Words to Chapek’s Short-Lived Stint as Disney CEO, and Essential Reflections on What Happened”
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Lights, Camera, Action!: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Redesign of Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park

What is Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and what should it be?

That question has hung over decades of Disney Imagineers like a dark cloud. It makes sense… after all, you have to remember that when Walt Disney World’s third gate (then called the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park) opened in 1989, its purpose was twofold: externally, to whisk guests away into the real, behind-the-scenes filmmaking of Walt Disney Pictures, and internally, to scare competitors at Universal Studios out of their plans to build a version of their world famous Studio Tour in Orlando. Long story short: neither endeavor was successful.

Image: Disney

As a result, Disney spent decades laboring over the park, stuffing it with one-off E-Tickets to draw in guests. The park’s “studio backlot” theme was a scapegoat of sorts, allowing designers to abandon the standards they’d set at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT and instead mash piecemeal IPs into beige studio soundstages, focusing on promotion over permanence. Even by the early 2000s, the park’s “studio” style had soured. In an era defined by immersive, timeless projects like Islands of Adventure and Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios looked like a cop-out.

In the mid-2010s, Disney began polling guests on potential new names for the park, at last signaling that it might turn away from its “backlot” origins… “Disney Cinemagine Kingdom.” “Disney XL Park.” “Disney Beyond Park.” “Disney Kaleidoscope Park.” None stuck. That’s probably because – especially with immersive, cinematic lands like Toy Story Land and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge topping the bill – it was obvious that Disney’s Hollywood Studios wasn’t a Hollywood Studio… but… what was it?

Continue reading “Lights, Camera, Action!: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Redesign of Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park”
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MEOW WOLF: A Glimpse Into the Colorful, Creative, and Cosmic Future of Themed Entertainment Design

“Meow Wolf.” If you said it out loud a decade ago, you would probably have gotten a lot of concerned looks from family and friends.

But today, this artist collective based in Santa Fe, New Mexico has become a well-known creator in the themed entertainment design space with three permanent art installations spread across the American West. Meow Wolf’s three explorable installations – The House of Eternal Return, OmegaMart, and Convergence Station – are totally immersive, explorable environments; potential puzzles with discoverable backstories and vast lore; trippy, artistic, home-grown, artist-led, locally-sourced, completely-original universes designed for visitors to get lost, climb, slide, dance, relax, feel, and try something new.

Continue reading “MEOW WOLF: A Glimpse Into the Colorful, Creative, and Cosmic Future of Themed Entertainment Design”
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