Family Fun

As a Destination for Adventure and Family Fun it is certainly possible that people see Tuscan River is a place just for people with kids. And to that end we have done what we can to ensure that the Tuscan River experience is terrific for a parent or parents to share with their children.

By Family Fun we also mean to serve an audience broader than Mom, Dad and the Kids. A Family is a group of people with something in common, and includes groups of adult friends, couples, sports teammates and work colleagues.

One great value of leisure time is the opportunity that strengthen the friendships and relationships that make life enjoyable. That's our goal at Tuscan River. We look forward to building these properties for you.

Tuscan River Planning National Network of Entertainment Parks

Tuscan River Corporation is planning an initial group of Entertainment Parks at up to eight U.S. locations. The Entertainment Parks are conveniently located multi-activity leisure venues, designed to provide Adventure and Family Fun to people seeking to enjoy time together with in a festive community atmosphere. These entertainment parks will provide a balanced and varied blend of venues that include four restaurants, leisure oriented retail shopping, sports recreation, movie cinemas and amusements to create an integrated leisure experience for adult and family Guests visiting the parks. These parks will include themes from the Tuscan River series of stories, beginning with Tuscan River: Portal to the Edge of Time, expected to be published in 2010 followed by a major motion picture release possibly in 2011.
The eight locations will be in regions throughout the U.S., including New England, the New York / Philadelphia corridor, the Great Lakes, North Texas, and Northern California. As the Tuscan River development team continues its efforts specific locations in each of these regions will be determined. In New England, the Company continues to pursue a location in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, at the crossroads of Interstate 84 and Interstate 90.

St. Louis Steakhouse

Another reataurant planned for the Tuscan River Entertainment Parks is the St. Louis Steakhouse. This restaurant is not found on the Tuscan River world, but in one the historic Earth timelines the children visit with Lisa during the Portal to the Edge of Time story. Located along the Mississippi River in 19th century Hannibal, Missouri, the restaurant is in a white Victorian building with a red mill wheel spinning as the river flows underneath. In a private dining room the children meet a famous author, and the only 19th Century human privy to the portal technology.

Danza el por Rio

One of the restaurants planned for the Tuscan River Entertainment Parks is called Danza el por Rio. In the Tuscan River stories this restaurant is featured as a favorite hangout of Seep, a bounty hunter who plays a key role in the first story. Danza el por Rio is one of many restaurants on the entertainment metropolis of Tuscan Falls, located on the Tuscan River world. The restaurant specializes in South American and Latin cuisine and features a ballroom dance floor in the center of the dining room for both entertainment and Guest dancing.

25 Cents Buys You a Paper Cup

I had a great time skiing with my 4-year-old daughter this weekend. The lift tickets were extremely well priced - $38 for me and $0 for her. Clearly the ski slope was making an effort to create a place friendly to the family budget. Sure, the grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips, bottled water and diet cola we shared came to $12, but overpiced food at ski slopes is to be expected.

That's why it was a surprise to be charged 25-cents for a paper cup (my daughter prefers to drink out of a cup to a water bottle). We'll be back because overall the place offers a great value despite their odd practice of charging for what should be a courtesy.

Dante's Mediterranean Restaurant

Frequently I receive questions about the Entertainment Park restaurants. People are curious about the type of foods that will be served and how these restaurants compare to their favorite chains.

Each of the restaurants in the Parks are intended to be representative of places found in the Tuscan River stories. One of those places is Dante's Mediterranean, a restaurant in the fictional Tuscan River Village. Dante's serves food from places around the Mediterranean Sea including southern Italy, Greece, Spain and northern Africa. It's interior design blends characteristics of Italian, Greek and Moorish building architecture.

In case you are wondering how food from places on Earth end up in a world a universe removed you will need to wait for the book or movie to learn the full details.

Entertainment Parks Directly Influence $150 Million of Local Annual Spending

Each property will generate between $75 and $80 million in direct spending by Guests on products and services. Through promotional incentives for purchases of products and services affiliated with Tuscan River, each Park is expected to influence a similar amount of off-property spending in its trade market, creating a total direct economic impact of $150 to $160 million of spending.


In many respects, the Entertainment Parks may seem similar to lifestyle shopping centers. The differences between Tuscan River and traditional retail development however make the visitor’s experience between the street and the store very different and much more engaging. Tuscan River provides amusements and entertainment venues for customers, who are treated as Guests at the Parks. The family-scaled amusements are located in an indoor theme pavilion for year-round enjoyment in any climate. Outdoor attractions are also included in the Parks. Vehicle parking is carefully screened from the storefronts and amusements, to establish an emotional separation between the Park environment and the outside world.

All stores, restaurants, amusements, and landscape features are themed according to a set of characters and stories being created exclusively for Tuscan River. The value of this adventure oriented theme is that it strengthens the emotional bonds Guests will develop for the Park, increasing both their enjoyment and the patronage of the Park’s stores and restaurants. The distinct architectural character of the Park properties offers a pleasing contrast to other leisure family destinations. While there is thematic consistency between each of the Tuscan River properties, the stories allow for each Park property to have distinct architectural characteristics reflecting the local character of their communities.

Portal to the Edge of Time Video

The link below takes you to a reading of an early draft of the prologue to the book. Grace Andrews, who is leading Tuscan River's recruiting and training program for the Entertainment Parks, graciously read for the camera this past July.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJ6FdT4kdw

Tuscan River: Portal to the Edge of Time - The Arpiann Confederation

For those who have had the opportunity to read an early draft of the book, one of the improvements Pat Corbitt is incorporating into the script is a much stronger character portrayal of the story's antagonist. The Arpiann Confederation portrayed in the book are a group of almost robotic creatures, one no different than the other. This made some initial sense, since each member of the Confederation is another version of the same being able to circle back in time through the use of portal technology. In other words, two Arpiann creatures standing next to each other are actually the same creature with one more advanced in time than the other. The older creature may be ten year older or ten minutes older, but by appearances they seem identical.

Pat's portrayal of the Arpiann leader in the opening scenes hints that there are differences between the different members of the Arpiann Confederation, at least in rank if not in personality. This makes true sense, as we all change as time passess, based on our experiences. It will be interesting to see where Pat takes this leader of the antogonists.

Authentic Social Networking

Tuscan River Entertainment Park Properties Are Designed to Bring Families and Friends Together in a Spirit of Adventure and Fun

Social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have great utlility in keeping people connected. I especially enjoy the personal Facebook updates posted by my family and friends that keep me in touch with their lives through words, pictures, and videos.

For all its virtues, this virtual connectiveness still comes up short when it comes to cementing bonds and creating enjoyable moments. Not surprisingly there are many people out there not participating in the social networking world. Before they are dismissed as Luddites let's consider the possibility that their lives are already full enough with real world connectivity that they value over doses of electrons arranged into messages.

The virtual world will not replace the need for a sense of shared communal space. Snowboarding video games are fun, but they don't replace carving your way down a mountain in the real world. Tuscan River's goal is to create places where families and friends can enjoy real shared experiences in a real place. That kind of face-to-face interaction is what I call authentic social networking. That's not because the virtual networking is in anyway fake, but rather because it is still a long way from facilitating the rich level of communication between people that immediate proximity allows.

Doug Fleener on MSNBC

Doug is Tuscan River's retail industry advisor and is a veteran retailer with over 25 years of hands-on retail experience with world-class retailers including Bose Corporation and The Sharper Image. He has also owned and operated his own specialty stores.


In his ten years at Bose, Doug grew the Retail Direct Group from four to 100 stores and was instrumental in developing Bose’s unique and engaging retail methods. Under Doug’s leadership, the Bose retail stores became one of the pre-eminent specialty retailers in consumer electronics, known for their highly customer focused approach and multi-media Bose Music Theater Show. Doug left Bose to continue to refine Experience Based Retailing and share with others his passion for customer and employee experiences.

Doug is a consultant, keynote speaker and author of numerous articles. Doug is the author of the book The Profitable Retailer. He has been quoted in Entrepreneur magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, Shopping Centers Today, and numerous other newspapers and magazines.
 
Catch Doug's recent appearance on MSNBC at http://www.retailcontrarian.com/press.html