Testing a 360 photo here on this blog… You should be able to click and look all around in this image. To see it full screen, click the “VR” logo on the bottom right of the image.
Photos from a 100+ year old haunted inn…
…and more, added to the Misc gallery. The count of photos from the Branson, Missouri area is now over 10,000. New this update:
- Ye Olde English Inn – built in the early 1910s, this historic hotel is still open for business. And may be haunted.
- Hollister, MO (home of the inn and other businesses)
- Silver Dollar City’s Showboat – the renamed Branson Belle, with an all-new show.
- Classic Rock Icons – tribute show at the newly opened Showroom at Branson Meadows. See the guy who plays Johnny Cash playing … Gene Simmons!
- Made in the USA General Store – this place tries to only sell items made in America… and the store is LOADED with stuff. We stop by every time we drive down to see what is new.
- It’s Magic – fun shops are rare these days, but we found one. (I only did VR inside of this place, but I wanted to post it here to see if I can get it to show up in search engines. They have no website or Facebook page, but have been in business for over 20 years.)
- Butterfly Palace construction – they are expanding. It is always hard to tell when the economy is bad or when it is good when you see large scale expansion projects like this one (and the new Silver Dollar City Resort, that we forgot to stop by and see the progress of).
- Retromania – we go for their escape rooms, but that gives access to the arcade/”museum”/mini golf/haunted house and some VR rides. They have a new Star Trek-inspired escape room, that we lost.
- …”and more.”
Some new VR stuff will be uploaded to Google Street View (of Silver Dollar City with two new area updates), and dozens of VR photos have been posted to Branson in VR on Facebook and also uploaded to various business Google entries.
Also, all of the Branson galleries have had some more organization done, splitting things into Attractions, Lodging, Restaurants, Shows, and Shops. If you are like me, you are mostly interested in seeing what the attractions are, so this makes it easier to find them.
Full gallery here:
https://www.disneyfans.com/photos/misc/OtherPlaces/index.html
Iowa’s Lost Island theme park bans cameras on rides.
Per a post to their official Facebook page, Lost Island Themepark (as they refer to it) in Waterloo, Iowa is the latest park to ban on-ride recording.
🚨 On-Ride Photo/Video Update 🚨
At Lost Island Themepark, we love the fact that our guests want to capture their day, sharing it with friends and family. For the safety of all guests and guides, we are updating our on-ride camera policy.
Moving forward, there will be NO cameras allowed on rides, no matter their securement method.If you are a content creator and want the chance to collaborate with Lost Island, we encourage influencers/media to contact us before your visit by filling out this form on our website. https://www.thelostisland.com/park-info/contact/influencer/
This is really only a minor change. Since opening year, recording on rides was not allowed unless the camera was physically harnessed to the rider. They were quite strict. I couldn’t even ride their Ferris Wheel one time because I was carrying a camera bag and did not want to leave it on the ground. 😉
Of course, even with these changes, many folks will still disregard the rules. You can find plenty of videos online from folks who don’t think rules apply to them.
The new policy matches what other larger parks have been doing for years. For example, Silver Dollar City only allows cameras on two rides: Flooded Mine (a slow moving indoor boat ride) and the steam train.
We just hope there wasn’t an incident that caused this new policy. If you have ever been to Universal Studios Florida, you will note how extreme they take their rules. You have to pass through metal detectors to board certain thrill rides and can’t bring anything with you. But, they had an incident where a guest was blinded by someone’s cell phone years ago.
What has your local park done?
America’s #1 aquarium photos added.
Ever notice how so many theme parks and other places state they are the “#1” in America? There are so many polls from places like USA Today that are referenced. Well, here is another one… According to whatever poll they use, the #1 aquarium for many years is … Wonders of Wildlife in Springfield, Missouri.
This is operated by the “Walt Disney of nature attractions”, Johnny Morris. He started Bass Prop Shops and is no stranger to elaborate theming. Even their restrooms are highly themed/decorated. Remember when top-dollar theme parks used to do that?
Photos from Wonders of Wildlife, as well as the nearby ride-thru Fantastic Caverns, have been added to my Misc gallery in the Missouri section:
https://www.disneyfans.com/photos/misc/OtherPlaces/Missouri/Springfield/index.html
Indiana Jones Adventure original warning sign photo wanted
Well, we are on a quest today… Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure has a warning sign just before you turn to go up the stairs over to the other side of the ride track to board. It was a nice, authentic looking wooden sign, but it did not last. Within a few years of opening, the sign was replaced with a mode modern-looking sign with lots of extra warnings. Here is a photo of the updated sign from 2003:
Since my first digital camera (first taken to Disneyland in 1996) had very limited storage, I never used any of that storage for a photo of the original sign. Had I known the sign was going to be replaced, I probably would have.
Do you have a photo of the original version of the sign? Please leave a comment if you do, or send me an e-mail: allen@disneyfans.com
Why does this website exist?
ParkHopping.com is over 22 years old. I registered this domain on January 1, 2004. New years day? Really? That seems weird, but that is what the WHOIS record says…
I always think of my original DisneyFans.com site as much older than ParkHopping.com, but it was only registered four years earlier in 2000.
The GeoPages Years (1995-1996)
www.geopages.com/SiliconValley/1842
However, my original site started in 1995 as a part of my “personal home page” at GeoPages.com. GeoPages, which was later renamed to GeoCities.com, offered a whopping 512K (if memory serves) of web page storage free! This, and a few similar free web hosting sites, were how quite a few of the “now ancient” theme park sites started (though few of us are still around, it seems).
I called my website “Al’s Place“. It contained sections for my local Iowa amusement park (“Al’s Adventureland InfoPages”), a section for the U.S. Disney parks, as well other sections for various hobbies and interests (such as laser tag).
Time Machine: The Internet Archive has a copy of that site, but the earliest copy they have is from January 1999:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990202065140/http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/1842
In 1996 I bought my first digital camera – an Epson PhotoPC. This let me take up to 16 “high resolution” 640 x 480 photos, or 32 at 320 x 240. At 55K (or so) per image, there was no way I could host very many photos on my free GeoCities site. Instead, at night I ran an FTP server on my laptop. Folks could dial in to the internet and “surf” to my laptop via a link on my personal home page and then download the photos I took from my trips… slowly…
Ah, current edge technology.
The Delphi Years (1997-1998)
people.delphi.com/os9al
At some point, GeoCities went away and I moved my site Delphi.com. Delphi started out in the 1980s — long before there even was a World Wide Web. It was a dial-up text service, similar to CompuServe or General Electric’s GEnie.
Side Note: GEnie was the first national text service I was on back in the late 1980s. It was through the GEnie Destination Florida RoundTable (messages, files and chat) section, which had a Walt Disney World and Disneyland section, that I learned about the coming Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. While I went on many many summer vacations to Disney World with my family (starting in the early 1970s), I had not been to Disneyland since Big Thunder Mountain was brand new. (Or maybe it was Space Mountain, and I saw Big Thunder in Florida for the first time.)
Time Machine: The Internet Archive has a copy of my Delphi site, and goes back to 1997 (with a 1996 copyright). This tells me I probably only spent two years at GeoPages/GeoCities:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970303031312/http://people.delphi.com:80/os9al/
The Simplenet Years (1998-1999)
disneyparks.simplenet.com
After buying an expensive memory upgrade for my camera that let me take up to 99 640 x 480 images, my photo gallery really began to grow. I realized I would have to pay for a hosting service to properly share my photos. That service ended up being an “unlimited” hosting provider known as Simplenet. I created a new site called “Al’s Media Archive Site.” Thanks to “unlimited” storage, I was able to share my entire gallery of thousands of theme park photos for the first time. I kept my Delphi site around for my non-theme park content.
Welcome to the temporary index page for the all new Al’s Place photo archive site. Here you will find over SEVEN THOUSAND digital photographs taken at theme parks and other amusement places such as Disneyland, Walt Disney World (Epcot Center, The Magic Kingdom, Disney/MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom), Universal Studios Florida, Six Flags Over Georgia, Paramount’s Great America, Kennywood (Pittsburgh, PA), Winchester Mystery House (San Jose, CA), Adventureland (Des Moines, IA), Various Renaissance Festivals (Iowa & Kansas), Color Computer Fests, …and more!
At some point, Yahoo! (if I recall correctly) purchased Simplenet and removed the unlimited hosting plans. This would make it cost prohibitive for me to share my galleries there. I needed a new hosting provider, and I would finally register my own domain name.
The StG Net Years (2000-200X)
April 23, 2000 – My photo archives are now hosted at www.DisneyFans.com and my renaissance festival pictures can be found at www.AtTheFaire.com. Please visit these sites and add them to your bookmark list.
A Letter from the Webmaster…
In the past few years I have been happy to share my photo album with many of you. Simplenet has served me very, very well and I cannot thank them enough for being a great high-performance, low cost web space provider. I have absolutely zero complaints about them and would recommend them in an instant.
I now find it time to move on to the next phase of things, and thus my photos have migrated to the new DisneyFans.com domain (with my renaissance festival pictures being hosted by AtTheFaire.com). I hope you will take a moment to visit these two sites and let us know what you think. Both are still under construction, but all the photos are uploaded and in-tact (or at least they seem to be — I haven’t verified all 11,000 of them myself).
Thanks so much for visiting! If you have any questions or comments about this, feel free to e-mail me. See you real soon! — Allen
This is where a friend I knew from my Radio Shack Color Computer days, Scott G., helped out. He had a dedicated server machine hooked to the Internet and was providing “unlimited” hosting plans for $7/month. I moved my website over to his server and registered the domain name DisneyFans.com. This is where I first became a web host provider, reselling accounts on his server. At its peak, I hosted dozens of Disney fan sites for others. I chose the name DisneyFans with the idea that people could be things like “hauntedmansion.disneyfans.com” and such. Buying a domain name was quite expensive in the early days ($75/year, which adjusted for inflation today would be … more), so offering subdomains made it much more affordable for folks.
Unrelated to this site, a few months after registering DisneyFans.com I also registered a similar site dedicated for digital photos and news from Midwest Renaissance festivals. Using the domain name for that site, I must have hosted close to 200 sites for merchants, performers and even a dozen or so festival webpages. (Though my Renaissance festival partner in crime, Lindsy, did most of the web design, and I just handled the technical stuff.)
Today, I no longer offer this service publicly, but still host over 70 websites. (As of this writing, I am scaling that operation way back, with a goal of having less than 50 active accounts. Hosting fees have been going up the past few years.)
But I digress…
And the Rest (200X-2009, 2009-current)
As some point, I moved to a commercial webhosting provider and spent some good years with them before they became bad years and I had to move everything to yet another commercial hosting provider.
Which brings us up to “modern” times…
Even though ParkHopping.com came into existence just a few years after DisneyFans.com, it was basically just a placeholder until I put up a WordPress blog in 2017 for one special purpose…
And a year later, I decided to start posting retro photo essays. I began going through my oldest digital photos and creating small blog posts discussing what things were like in the parks back in the 90s.
And this leads me to the topic of this post: why does this site exist?
Why does this site exist?
In the early years of the World Wide Web, most folks didn’t have computers. And of those that did have computers, most of them did not have a telephone modem to let them dial in to the Internet. And those that did have modems mostly used services like America Online (AOL), which were graphical national networks that basically killed off all the text services like Delphi and CompuServe. (Anyone remember PC-Link? MSN? AppleLink? Prodigy?)
All of the fan websites back then started out as personal home pages or subdomains. Those that survived eventually registered domain names when they got affordable. I got my first domain name by using a service called GANDI out of France to register my domains for about $12.
Once domains got cheap, we saw a bunch of sites all using “Disney” in their domain name. (Keep in mind, my website predates The Disney Company from having their own website! While Disney had the domain name for Internet use back in 1990, they didn’t put up an official Disney website until 1996!)
Once Disney joined the World Wide Web, they initially left the fan sites alone. But, in the early 2000s, Disneyland (and maybe Disney World too?) reportedly was not inviting any web site with “Disney” in the name to any special press events. This caused many fan sites to rebrand and reregister. This may be why we ended up with sites using Disney-adjacent names such as Laughing Place, Mouse Planet and MiceAge.
For me, ParkHopping.com was my “I better stop using Disney in my domain name” domain name. I had fully planned to migrate my entire site over to that new domain and be free and clear from any problems from The Mouse.
But … I never got around to it, and Disney never asked me to stop using DisneyFans.com
And now you know why this site exists.
It is amazing to think it all started 31 years ago (yipes!) with a free personal home page.
To be continued…?
Disney/Universal ride counts…
As of March 1, 2026…
In the past, it was well-known that the two Disneyland Resort parks (Disneyland and Disney California Adventure) had about as many attractions as all four Walt Disney World parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom). I was curious how things stand today with so many ride closures at Walt Disney World. I was also curious to see where Universal Epic Universe stands in the mix, since the overwhelming opinion I read online is that this new park has far too few rides.
I will dive into this more later, but for now, I refer only to rides with a vehicle you get in that moves — such as a roller coaster, or even a motion simulator. Later, I may do a follow-up post about non-ride attractions such as stage shows, parades and fireworks.
I also did not count double-rides, such as the two Dumbos at Magic Kingdom (it is the same ride, just increased capacity). I also wonder if I should count two-track rides when they are even slightly different – such as the two tracks of Matterhorn Bobsleds (quite different) or Magic Kingdom’s Space Mountain (slightly different though in opposite directions). Universal’s Stardust Racers also has two tracks, but I have not checked to see how different they are. Should these be counted? I think probably, since someone who likes coasters would want to ride both tracks. But for now, that is not included in the totals.
Please let me know if I missed any. I will place the ride data at the end of this article.
Here is my quick count, from most to least actual “rides”:
- Disneyland – 36
- Magic Kingdom – 22
- Disney California Adventure – 18
- Islands of Adventure – 18
- Universal Studios Florida – 13
- Epcot – 12
- Epic Univesse – 11
- Disney Hollywood Studios – 9
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom – 6
Looking at resorts, this breaks down to:
- Disneyland Resort – 54
- Walt Disney World – 49
- Universal Orlando Resort – 42
Yes, Virginia, you could ride more things at the two small parks in Disneyland than all The Walt Disney World parks, or at all three Universal Orlando parks.
Some of you (mostly fans of Disneyland) are aware of this.
For the rest of you, if you like rides, would you consider visiting Disneyland instead of Walt Disney World?
More to come, including a breakdown (and verification) of these numbers…
NOTE: For the pedantic/OCD types out there, some of the names in this list are not the official names. For example, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is just listed as Smugglers Run. I am happy to correct them if you bring them to my attention. (And I see at least one that has changed names since the name I was familiar with, so I need to fix that one at some point, too.)
Rides at Disneyland
- Alice in Wonderland
- Astro Orbiter
- Autopia
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear
- Car Toon Spin
- Casey Jr. Circus Train
- Davy Crocket Canoes
- Disneyland Railroad
- Dumbo
- Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
- Gadget’s Go Coaster
- Haunted Mansion
- Indiana Jones Adventure
- It’s a Small World
- Jungle Cruise
- King Arthurs Carousel
- Mad Tea Party
- Main Street Vehicles
- Mark Twain Riverboat
- Matterhorn Bobsleds (x2)
- Monorail
- Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Pinnocchio’s Daring Journey
- Pirates of Caribbean
- Rise of the Resistance
- Runaway Railway
- Sailing SHip Columbia
- Smuggler’s Run
- Snow White’s Happy Time Adventure
- Space Mountain
- Star Tours
- Storybookland Canal Boats
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- Winnie the Pooh
Rides at The Magic Kingdom
- Astro Orbitor
- Barnstormer
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear
- Carousel
- Disney World Railroad
- Dumbo (x2)
- Haunted Mansion
- It’s a Small World
- Jungle Cruise
- Mad Tea Party
- Magic Carpets
- Peoplemover
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Space Mountain (x2)
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- TRON Lightcycle Run
- Under the Sea
- Winnie the Pooh
Rides at Disney California Adventure
- Critter Carousel
- Emotional Whirlwind
- Golden Zephyr
- Goofy’s Sky School
- Grizzly River Run
- Incredicoaster
- Jumpin’ Jellyfish
- Junkyard Jamboree
- Littler Mermaid
- Luigi’s Rollikin’ Roadsters
- Midway Mania
- Mission: Breakout
- Monsters Inc
- Pal-A-Round
- Radiator Springs Racers
- Silly Symphony
- Soarin’
- Web Slingers
Rides at Universal Islands of Adventure
- Accelatron
- Bilge-Rat Barges
- Caro-Seuss-el
- Cat in the Hat
- Dr. Doom’s Fearfall
- Forbidden Journey
- Hagrid’s Motorbike
- Hippogriff
- Hogwarts Express
- Incredible Hulk
- One Fish, Two Fish
- Pteranodon Flyers
- Ripsaw Falls
- River Adventure
- Skull Island
- Spider-Man
- Trolley Train
- VelociCoaster
Rides at Universal Studios Florida
- E.T.
- Escape from Gringotts
- Fast and Furious
- Hogwarts Express
- Men in Black
- Minon Blast
- Minon Mayhem
- Race Through NY
- Revenge of the Mummy
- Simpsons Ride
- Transformers
- Trollercoaster
- Twirl ‘n’ Hurl
Rides at Epcot
- Cosmic Rewind
- Friendship Boats
- Frozen Ever After
- Gran Fiesta Tour
- Journey into Imagination
- Living with the Land
- Mission: Space
- Ratatoullie
- Soarin’
- Spaceship Earth
- Test Track
- The Seas
Rides at Universal Epic Universe
- Battle at the Ministry
- Constellation Carousel
- Curse of the Werewolf
- Dragon Racer’s Rally
- Fyre Drill
- Hiccup’s Wing Gliders
- Mario Kart
- Mine-Cart Madness
- Monsters Unchained
- Stardust Racers (x2)
- Yoshi’s Adventure
Rides at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Rise of the Resistence
- Rock n Rollercoaster
- Runaway Railway
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Smugglers Run
- Star Tours
- Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania
What did I miss? Please let me know in the comments.
New Epic Universe and SeaWorld photos
I have finally had time to update the photo galleries. New photos have been added to the Universal/SeaWorld gallery including:
- Universal Epic Universe
- Universal Studios Florida – Mardi Gras celebration.
- Islands of Adventure
- SeaWorld Orlando – Seven Seas food festival.
I have also spent some time regenerating all the other galleries to shut off that annoying “cookie” pop-up, as well as updating the main page banner with links to the other galleries.
You can find them all here:
- https://misc.disneyfans.com – Other places, such as Branson Missouri. There are even photos from a Gallagher (R.I.P.).
- https://dl.disneyfans.com – Disneyland Resort in California.
- https://us-sw.disneyfans.com – Universal Studios (Hollywood and Orlando) and SeaWorld.
- https://themeparks.disneyfans.com – non-Disney/Universal theme parks such as Silver Dollar City.
- https://wdw.disneyfans.com – Walt Disney World in Florida.
To be continued… My hosting lease is increasing prices again, so I may need to scale back these huge sites at some point later this year.
Truth Traveller in Branson, MO and more photos
Another small batch of photos has been added the the Misc. gallery. These include images from the new VR experience Truth Traveller, plus restaurants like Steamy Joe Cafe, Hidden Pines, and more.
https://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Missouri/Branson/Branson2025/index.html
Happy holidays!
Wild West World in Kansas
My Park Hopping Podcast sign-off was usually some variation of this…
“So the next time you’re there, be sure to take an extra picture and shoot some extra video because you never know when something you like, love or hate will go away and never be around again…”
Over the decades, there have been many things I decided to skip during a visit that ended up being shut down or removed by the time I made a return visit.
But I never expected it would be an entire amusement park.
In May 2007, we make a road trip to visit the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival. On Sunday afternoon, we headed back on the eight hour drive home. I was aware of the new Wild West World amusement park opening in Kansas, and we considered making a detour to go see it. Due to the long drive home, it would have had to be a short visit so we decided to skip it this time and come back to see it later.
Later never happened. Wild West World closed less than two months after it opened. Here is the Wikipedia entry for the park:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_West_World
This has been one of my regrets. It would have been a visit to an amusement park that few people know about, and even fewer people ever got to see.
Here is the flyer for the park:
If you have ever been to Iowa’s Aventureland, you may spot something familiar. Wild West World used a photo of Adventureland’s River Rapids log flume ride (with the logo replaced) and a photo of Adventureland’s Sidewinder ride. I think the tea cups ride may even be from Adventureland.
When I first picked up this flyer, I recall contacting Adventureland to ask about it. They were aware, and had given permission for this new park to use some photos from Adventureland. Nice.
I am posting this for the search engines… Did you get to visit Will West Park during the two months it was open? Leave a comment and let us know.
Until next time…