WoodVengeance

Personally, I would ride Lightning Rod first just so you can get the ride(s) in before it potentially closes because of maintenance issues. After that, I would go to Big Bear Mountain. I personally haven't ridden BBM yet as the last time I've been to Dollywood was 2021. From what I've seen online, it seems to be quite reliable and has pretty good capacity, so it should be much easier to get on as opposed to Lightning Rod.

Right. If a park goes out of its way to hype up a coaster removal, it probably means they have a replacement ready for it.

There was a funeral set up for Haunt 2019 shortly before they announced Vortex was getting removed.

That's what I was thinking. My speculation was that Kings Island knew they wanted to do a Camp Snoopy overhaul for the back portion of Planet Snoopy and also wanted to put in a new family coaster to round out the expansion, but they didn't know which specific coaster type or manufacturer they were going to go with yet. Multiple choices were probably laid out on the table, including a clone of Snoopy's Racing Railway at CW, but ultimately decided on the Vekoma family boomerang. Personally I like the idea of Vekoma Family Boomerang more than SRR so It's completely fine with me, and it might also open the door for Cedar Fair to do more projects with Vekoma later down the pipeline.

Possibly, though I doubt it would tell us anything new if it's just for 2023-2024 as we already know what's coming next year. The notice of commencement that was filed last year was posted before Adventure Port was officially announced, and we had a bit of speculation on it as Zamperla was listed as a company on it. Now, if we get a new notice of commencement that's labeled for 2023-2025, that would be a different scenario, especially if a new ride manufacturer is listed on it.

I admit I'm not an expert on this type of stuff, but this is just what I've observed from reading the last serveral Notice of Commencements. The Notice that was filed back in 2018 that pertained to the construction of Orion was labeled 2018-2020, which would make sense since the duration of construction would've taken place during that period of time. If SSBR was on that Notice from last year, I feel it would make more sense to have it labeled as 2022-2024, not 2022-2023. It's possible Kings Island didn't have SSBR fully planned out yet during this time last year, hence why it may have been excluded.

Vekoma likely isn't on there because SSBR is a 2024 addition and this pertains to 2022-2023. I'd also like to add that it seems apparent that some companies on there like B&M and GCI appear to be leftover from previous notice of commencements, so O'Rourke being on there might be a result of that as well or they might've been contracted to demolish Slingshot last year. Also, Kings Island has not been teasing any sort of removal for a coaster as far as I'm aware.

That's more-so an issue with Kings Island in general, not just Haunt. I can't even begin to describe the amount of sexism, racism and other derogatory behavior that I've seen teenagers take part in at Kings Island, and apparently it's still an issue even after the chaperone policy has been in-effect.

If you plan on getting to the park around opening for Haunt this year, be prepared to wait. They moved the chaperone checkpoint towards the front entrance and caused a huge bottleneck going in. I don't want to make it sound like I'm complaining that the park has a chaperone policy, as it is ultimately done for the safety of everyone and I do appreciate that the park is taking these steps to improve its security, but the delay getting into the park is definitely worth noting.

Not that I'm aware of.

Yes. It was added in the last year or two.

They said in the video that the high speed chain is being designed so the train goes over the first hill at the same speed that it did when it was launched. Everything after the launch, including the quad down, should remain the same after the transition.

I think if they wanted to do a retheme of BLSC the same year as Vortex's replacement, it will highly depend on how expensive the new coaster will be. I don't think the park would want to do a multi-million dollar renovation to BLSC if they're already spending $25+ million for a new B&M or Mack the same year. The idea I was thinking of would be to have a two-year renovation plan for Coney Mall. The first year focusing on a BLSC retheme and some new flat rides placed in the section of the park between BLSC and Diamondback. Then build a new coaster in Vortex's plot for the second year, ideally a coaster model focused on inversions.

Was that pun intentional or not?

I saw on social media that yellow arrow track was spotted pretty close to Kings Island. It makes me wonder if Clermont Steel Fabricators is going to be responsible for producing the new track. I know they produced the new track for Bat last year after the derailment, so it wouldn't be the first Arrow to get new track from them.

Maybe they're reusing old Wolf Pack props for Abandoned?

It's possible, but I doubt it's going to be for 2025. I'm about 70% certain that 2025 is going to be for Soak City.

CCI Son of Beast would've been sick.

It seems possible to just take out Invertigo and have an out-and-back style coaster that utilizes the land between Action Zone and the parking lot.

I do think it's nice that we're seeing a thrilling new-gen Vekoma opening up in the states next year. However, I really don't think The Flash: Vertical Velocity going to fit Great Adventure all that well, primarily because of capacity and I know others have raised their concerns over this as well. Looking at Vekoma's website on the Super Boomerang, they state that the Super Boomerang with one train has a theoretical capacity of 800 r/h. Knowing how Six Flags ops can be, the actual average capacity could very well be lower than that. Keep in mind that Great Adventure is one of Six Flags's most popular parks, serving the Newark, New York City and Philadelphia areas. Given its capacity issues and also the fact it's being built towards the front of the park, I imagine The Flash: VV is consistently going to have the longest wait times in the park, maybe even exceeding 2 or 3 hours on busier days.

If that is something the park wants to do for 2026, then we'll know by next year. Invertigo and Congo Falls would have to close in 2024 so the park can start construction in 2025.

Well, Six Flags used that name in the 90's, so...

Sometimes it's not that simple. If Invertigo and Congo Falls become too expensive to maintain and operate, then it's very likely Kings Island will make the decision right then and there to remove those rides, even if nothing has been planned to replace them. I'm certain the park would have preferred to keep Vortex operational for several more years until a replacement was planned. Clearly, that's not what happened and that plot still sits mostly vacant to this day. Yeah it stinks seeing that hole in the back of Coney Mall, but it's understandable why the park chose 2019 to remove Vortex. I'm hoping the park can at least keep Invertigo and Congo Falls operational long enough for Vortex's spot to be filled, as I don't want Kings Island to gain a reputation for removing coasters all the time. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but if Kings Island made the announcement tomorrow to get your last rides on Invertigo before it closes for good, I would not be surprised. I speculate Invertigo has about five years left at-most, and Congo Falls may very well go with it.

I like the idea of re-theming Action Zone with some haunted dark forest theme. Banshee and Bat already fit this theme well, so they can be left as-is. re-theme Drop Tower to Demon Drop and the other rides in the area too like Delirium and Congo Falls.

Are Railblazer and Patriot out-of-the-question?