What Does That Mean?

[Franco]

I think Shane's list of commonly used abbreviations and acronyms has indubitably been helpful to many of the users and readers here. However, it has occurred to me that there can be much more jargon that we use on this board that is not limited merely to abbreviations and acronyms. There are many terms and phrases that can be used that are probably pretty foreign and whose meaning is not known to new users or the more casual fan. Sometimes you may not want to derail a discussion by asking for clarity of a word or phrase, so this can be a place where anyone can ask what something means. Nobody knows everything, but our collective knowledge is pretty vast. You can drop a question in or respond with a definition that you know.

I'll start with a term that gets tossed around this time of year when discussing and speculating future projects: an e-ticket ride. To the common theme park goer, this doesn't mean anything. Maybe you can surmise the definition if you don't know; maybe you can't. At first glance, you might wonder if this is a ride that utilizes some form of electronic ticketing, which wouldn't be a bad guess from the name, though it would be incorrect. An e-ticket ride refers to a high-level attraction that is extremely popular. It is typically the anchor ride of its section of the park, and it is generally, but not always, a roller coaster. For instance, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is most certainly an e-ticket attraction, though it is not a roller coaster.

The term comes from ye olden days of amusement parks past that operated with a different admission system. Instead of a flat admission fee, you would pay for a book of ride tickets. This is somewhat similar to many fairs and carnivals, however instead of requiring varying amounts of tickets per ride, the rides were placed in different categories from A to E. A small children's ride might require an a-ticket, a standard flat ride might be a c-ticket, and the biggest and most popular rides necessitated an e-ticket to board. Even though this antiquated system fell by the wayside, the term stuck, and popular rides and coasters are still considered e-ticket rides.

Hopefully everyone can learn something here. Don't be shy; fire away. There are no stupid questions here!

 

[Nora]

I would also like to add to this post that all you folks out there watching and afraid to join in.. we all would love to hear from you!

Also - we may reference the "Purple Thing" from time to time. This was the source of a great number of laughs during the spring. It is a giant purple European info kiosk that was painted lavender and was oddly placed near Bistro 205. No one really knew what the purpose was and thus became a regular topic of jokes- much like the aptly nick named "Oscar Argo" which was a giant pink- snail. :huh:

If you hear this reference "It's the next Purple Thing" It means another addition that doesn't make sense.

 

[Party Rocker]

Thanks Franco for that slight history lesson, I knew what e-ticket referred to as far a s a ride, I didn't know the history behind where the term came from.

 

[Shane]

Since BGT and BGW are really two separate communities it is not really fair or wise to clump things that have happened at BGT into a group who's name was made up by BGW fans. While there are a few of us who co-associate with both parks the majority of people will latch on to just one of the parks we cover. While it is slightly our (Zach, Gavin, and myself) fault for some of this cross contamination occurring we really need to let BGTFans and KDFans grow themselves. In the next few months I hope we can further separate them but its currently a limitation of our software.

That being said you can't really say Rhino Rally and BGT's eateries are in that "club" its really a blight across the entire SeaWorld chain that didn't even start with Europe in the Air.