Month: April 2024

Recording restrictions at Silver Dollar City

“It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission.”

Grace Murray Hopper

Although there is logic to this famous quote, I prefer to follow the rules when I am at a theme park. Many rules are there for safety reasons, after all. Other rules are there just because that is what the owner wants on their property. Fair enough.

If you do a bit of searching, you will find countless tales of folks getting kicked out of parks — or even having their annual/season pass revoked — for rule breaking. Others, however, freely break rules and share their exploits on YouTube and never get caught.

A big rule that gets broken is “no video recording.” You can find many mainstream YouTubers that frequently share videos taken in attractions that have signs clearly posted saying “no video recording.” Sometimes these are recorded at special publicity events where influencers are invited, or at a special before or after hours “coaster party” where they allow it, but generally they are just rule breaking. And often they know it —they will even include clips of the signs that say “no video recording.” 😉

I have been documenting theme parks through digital photos and video since 1996. When I visit a new park, I reach out to them to get clarification on the photography and video restrictions. Before a recent trip to Silver Dollar City, I watched many YouTube videos taken on pretty much every ride in the park. But, I did not assume this was allowed.

I contactedthe park for clarification — specifically about RiverBlast, a boat/water ride they had which is a version of a ride that is being installed at Universal’s upcoming Epic Universe park.

Thank you for reaching out to us. We greatly appreciate the email.

Regarding your request, River Blast is considered a ride at the park, so cameras and selfie sticks are not permitted on the ride, along with chest mounts and wrist mounts.

We definitely encourage you to take photos and videos of our park in guest-accessible areas. Regarding our rides, recording and photography are permitted only on the Frisco Silver Dollar Line steam train (so long as you keep all parts of your body inside the train cars) and Flooded Mine (same as the steam train).

Monopods and selfie sticks are typically fine while walking around the park so long as they don’t interfere with other families enjoying their day at the park.

Please let me know if you have any other questions I can help you with.

Thank you!

Silver Dollar City Communications Manager

So there you go. The only two rides they allow recording on are the Frisco Silver Dollar Line steam train, and the Flooded Mine shooting gallery boat ride.

If you see other videos that were clearly recorded during normal public hours of the park, you are likely just seeing rule breakers 😉

The more you know…

Lambert’s Cafe in Ozark, Missouri

Updates:

  • 2024-04-29 – Added video.

When I first moved to Des Moines, Iowa in 1995, locals started telling me about a restaurant in town where they would “pour a shake on your head.” That place was Stella’s Blue Sky Diner which had two locations operating back then, but today is long out-of-business.

But not because they “poured a shake on your head.”

Somewhere along the lines, I heard about a restaurant that was famous for “throwing dinner rolls at you.” I was never curious enough to look in to where and what this restaurant was since I assumed it would be another play-on-words like at Stella’s.

However… I have no been there, and now I know what “throw a dinner roll at you” actually means.

Coming soon to a blog near you…

Fantastic Caverns and Silver Dollar City

New photos from Fantastic Caverns will be showing up “soon” in the misc.disneyfans.com gallery. Near Kansas City you start seeing billboards for this place as you head south. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were hundreds of them on the way to Springfield, Missouri. There was one moment where we could see five of them at the same time. This, and tourism brochures, must be where they spend their advertising budget.

For those who have never had the pleasure to see all these billboards, they show a red jeep, loaded with passengers, pulling a red trailer, also loaded with passengers, through a cavern of stalagmites and stalagtites. This is what sets Fantastic Caverns apart from the half dozen or more caves I got to explore when I first visited the Branson, Missouri/Eureka Springs, Arkansas area as a teenage in 1984. All the other caverns you spend walking down (and up) stairs. I had incorrectly throught doing a “ride through” cavern tour would be lame, so I never put forth any effort to go see it.

After finally deciding to put forth effort to see it last year, we spent the extra $5 to upgrade to a yearly pass. This allowed us to see it again this year for free. Bonus.

You can find some photos from 2023 here. As I went to copy that link, I realize I have incorrectly placed Fantastic Caverns in my Branson, Missouri gallery, and it is about an hour or so away from Branson. I guess I’ll fix that when I update with this new batch.

Meanwhile, Silver Dollar City is a place I got to explore in 1984, and I told myself back then I should really do this again in forty years. So in 2024, I did. The three things I remembered from my first visit were still there! The Flooded Mine (though now it is a shooting gallery ride, and was missing one specific scene I was looking for), Grandfather’s Mansion (kind of a tilt house), and Fire in the Hole — an indoor roller coaster dark ride. Fire in the Hole actually closed in 2023, but a brand new one was built elsewhere in the park for 2024. The new remake is great, though I do not remember any specific details of the original to know how close or different it is to the original. (I did notice a female fire fighter mannequin in it, which I expect was not there in the 1970s version.)

The park has very strict photography/video rules, and only allows it on the steam train and Flooded Mine, so those will be the only rides I have any on-ride photos from. (Yep, lots of rule breakers on YouTube, I know.)

There is far too much to see and do at Silver Dollar City in one day, so my photos from this trip will barely scratch the surface of what this park has to offer. I was far more than I expected or remembered.

And all of it was up hill.

Both ways.

More to come…

Yesterland 25th anniversary parade audio leaked!

Ever since I took that vacation to Yesterland for its 25th anniversary, I have had that parade song stuck in my head.

Finally, a semi-decent quality version of the parade audio has leaked. Enjoy!

😛