TombRaiderFTW

Obviously I don't know anything official, but I have a very, very strong suspicion that the end of LNM's service life drawing near is exactly why any of this is happening in the first place. "Service life" is a fact of engineering, not fancy jargon some marketing person made up to get rid of Vortex and Big Bad Wolf.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think the marketing was very a straightforward and uncomplicated attempt to market something different from the norm of what the last 10 years of ownership had offered. It was a themed roller coaster, not just the tried-and-true Cedar Fair "coasters and concrete" approach--and what's more, it was a marketing approach that proved very successful 15 years earlier for Tomb Raider: The Ride. They told us something was coming, but they didn't exactly tell us what. What Marketing said: "There's a new roller coaster coming next year with a mysterious shed at the end of the ride. That's all we'll say until April!" How Marketing advertised the ride: A new roller coaster with a spooky theme and a mysterious shed at the end. "Come ride our new ride and discover the mysteries awaiting you!" How enthusiasts took it: "There must be a backwards launch*! Or a drop track*! Or a whole second half to the layout that's not shown in the renderings*!" Enthusiasts, the following April: "What do you mean it's a themed alternative to sitting on the brakes under the sun?! It should've been so much more! I can't believe the park hyped this up so much!" * = These, verbatim, are things that enthusiasts across the Internet were saying at the time. I'd wholeheartedly agree with you if the park spent time on social media or elsewhere making hints about elements to expect within the shed, but they didn't. That's why I have a hard time agreeing with enthusiasts who were disappointed with Mystic Timbers--I kinda feel like they played themselves and are blaming the park for it. I don't feel like the public at large had nearly as much beef with the shed as enthusiasts, either.

Ooooh. Yes please. As grateful as I am that it got new paint, I really hated the all-brown paint job.

It's 4:54pm and I wish I was asleep: Why is it called Flight of Fear if the fear is being introduced, not alleviated?

[enthusiast voice] But if they do that, they'll have to say nice things about the Paramount era! What's next, saying something nice about Six Flags?! [brain explodes]

I don't dislike the idea, but I wonder if this could be accomplished just as successfully but not as narrowly by having a Concepts subforum. I'm assuming that the kinds of things that would be debated would be changes to the park. As has been mentioned, that kind of stuff gets debated anyway when brought up, but in doing a Concepts subforum instead of specifically a Debates subforum, you'd also open the doors to non-debate ideas, e.g. "Here's my concept for a new area of Kings Island!" It creates room for debates AND gives a new platform for people's creativity. It'd also open the doors to more NoLimits/Planet Coaster/RCT-based ideas, which used to have considerably more presence here (and I miss them!) The existing Multimedia subforum works well enough for that, but it's not specifically geared towards creativity--you could just as likely (or more likely, in recent years) encounter a conversation there about the latest Call of Duty than anything amusement park-related. I'm glad those conversations are happening here, too, of course, but I'd love to see NL/PC/RCT creativity make a return here. I realize the internet has changed a lot over the last 20 years and forums are somewhat taking a back seat to things like Reddit, which I think is a big contributor for why that creativity has disappeared, but I also think you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. The trade-off (which I don't particularly worry about here, but it's worth mentioning) is that in creating a spotlight for ideas and creativity, it becomes somewhat easier to critique or put down those ideas. The last thing I'd want is for people to feel like their ideas don't matter or feel picked on because they suggested something that someone else doesn't like. But, I think we generally have a decent culture of respect here, so I wouldn't expect that things would devolve into that on their own.

Correct. Much like this year, when announcements get 24 hours' notice, it's usually a smaller addition that enthusiasts don't like and put shady quotation marks on but families enjoy.

Very weird to me that KillMart and Slaughterhouse might leave before Madame Fatale's... Aren't both younger than Fatale's? Anyway, if the park had an interest in theming its houses to the areas they're located in, Slaughterhouse would be an interesting spot for a house themed to haunted woods or something supernatural, wooded, and "outdoorsy" (that could benefit from actually being inside.) Had Wolf Pack not already run its course, I'd say that's a good place for it to go. Not immediately sure of what to do with KillMart's spot.

I was! That was a really fun event. The Banshee announcement and the Thunderbird announcement the following year were some of my favorite park events I've been to.

It's almost like, and hang with me here, the park needs to stop entirely catering to season passholders. This really only becomes acceptable if someone in charge goes, "Oh well, most people will just come back another day." As a Paramount Parks fan, I cannot begin to explain how much it pains me to compliment the Kinzel era, but this kind of stuff was basically unthinkable then, as far as I'm aware. Ditch the constant nostalgia as a growth plan, ditch the meal plans, ditch the "tack on a million benefits to make the season pass experience what YOU want, even though we can't sustain our promises" model, get serious about the experimental food offerings, competitively pay your employees, and start running an amusement park again, instead of a large adult daycare with roller coasters.

How weird and refreshing it is to see Dorney Park doing a teaser campaign. I'm excited for them.

I don't care, as long as they're good. Good clones: Premier Sky Rocket II's, KI's Bat and Wonderland's Vortex, Racer 75 and Thunder Road, the B&M Batmen, the Hurlers (fight me), KD's Grizzly and Wonderland's Wild Beast, and more. Bad clones: Vekoma Boomerangs, Vekoma SLCs, the B&M Supermen, etc.

Concept #1 definitely seems like it'd require Wonder Mountain's Guardian and possibly Vortex to be removed. I wonder if they're already being considered for removal...

That's not an apples to apples comparison. Car accidents typically don't cause people to question the safety of cars as a genre of machine. If a car is unsafe, people will at most not buy that model or make again. The amusement industry does not work the same way (with non-enthusiasts, anyway.) The car industry is not nearly as dependent upon each other the way the amusement industry is. I don't think Tr0y deserves hellfire and brimstone for their post, and I hope I didn't come across that way. There's a lot of ways that Tr0y's kind of response makes sense when compared to how online PR often works nowadays. I just think "throwing shade at Carowinds" (which IS what was original post said) isn't the right approach for the amusement industry, and I decided to explain why.

Ice cream machines being down aren't perceived as a threat to human lives. That's the difference. McDonald's ice cream machines being down doesn't make Wendy's customers wary of buying a Frosty. Amusement parks don't exist in a vacuum the way fast food, for example, does. Yes, a nationally publicized park incident makes the whole industry look bad. What you are missing is that organizations like the ASTM F24 committee, IAAPA, etc. exist to help professionals support each other and improve safety for everyone. Company lines have no meaningful presence in those places, because a loss for one is a loss for everyone. I know nothing, but I guarantee you that Fury is and will be discussed heavily there so that this does not happen again. The industry is much, much more of a family than various Twitter feeds would lead you to believe.

Why, though? The amusement industry is already perceived as being unsafe by many Americans. How does publicly throwing a major player under the bus do anything besides make that negative perception worse for every park in the country? Remember that the general public neither knows nor cares to know the difference between a Fun Spot and a Cedar Fair. Enthusiast perception is not the reality of the market. It's also not like Cedar Fair or Carowinds are in the business of being negligent. Obviously, this wasn't anticipated. If you make a big production of throwing one park under the bus and then it happens to you as unexpectedly as it did to them... Where does that leave the public perception of the industry then? You've sold your colleagues for a shot at more ticket sales, and it wouldn't have even paid off for you.

I honestly don't feel like any of the Fun Spot parks make sense within any major seasonal operator's portfolio. They're closer to roadside tourist attractions (like miniature golf, Ripley's Believe It or Not, etc.) than traditional amusement parks, in my opinion. That being said, if I had to choose, Fun Spot Orlando has the closest aesthetics to a Cedar Fair or Six Flags park, so probably them. If Disney or (especially) Universal were to buy it, I think it'd be to shut it down and sell the assets. But I also think it hardly dents the attendance at either, so it's a moot point on that front. Fun Spot Kissimmee is closer to that roadside attraction aesthetic than the Orlando park. Honestly, if I were to pick someone to buy it, I'd probably choose the family that owns ZDT's Amusement Park in Seguin, Texas. The Kissimmee park feels like a moderately bigger version of that park. I haven't been to Fun Spot Atlanta, but based off what I understand secondhand of it, it seems pretty similar in size and aesthetics to the Kissimmee park.

This is a minor point, but Boo Blasters is actually an out-of-the-box concept from Sally called "Ghost Blasters II" that exists at other parks. Like, "out-of-the-box" to the point that Sally's website refers to Boo Blasters as Ghost Blasters II: https://www.sallydarkrides.com/dark-rides/ghost-blasters-ii Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle was, I suspect, originally based on the Ghost Blasters II concept--or, at least, they were very similar. (Sally lists the SDatHC's as their own listing in their portfolio.) Either way, it kind of tracks for Kinzel's Cedar Fair to choose a theme that's both premade (i.e., cheap) and close enough to what's already there.

Formula Rossa is in a desert. You wear goggles because of sand. I would be shocked if the max height or speed of Top Thrill Dragster increases at this point. I would imagine that you don't just tack on 30 mph to a ride's speed without reprofiling the climb up. And that part is already being painted.

I agree that they should make the code unique to each person--but as a way of nullifying this issue altogether. Doing it as a generic, enter-the-code-and-receive-it promo code (which, reading between the lines, is what I speculate happened here) is an oddly low-tech way of handling this, with the risk being exactly what happened. Kings Island already has a passholder portal, both in their app and on their website. Is the technology not already there for issuing passholder-specific ticket offers...?

At the time, Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular was a neat enough change. At least when it first opened, anyway. It was in pretty sad shape towards the end--lots of burnt-out or unlit strands of lights. I think to today's crowd, it'd be somewhat underwhelming. Just about anything done with lighting at Winterfest, Haunt, or even the closing fireworks these days is more impressive. It's really nice to be on this side of the Kinzel era.

I love your picture! It makes Sol Spin look like a flower. I wonder if KI is talking with Zamperla at all about modifying the restraints so that this won't continue to be the case, if that's even an option. Purely from an operational standpoint, every other ride in the park with OTSRs has you pull down your own restraint. You can't fault people for expecting the exact same out of Sol Spin. If people pulling on the restraints is causing downtime, modifying the restraints to eliminate that would make better use of everyone's time, and there's a cost savings that could be attached to that.

I'm glad someone else is saying this, because I've always thought Screamscape "rumors" and "leaks" out of Holiday World were a little too specific to be picked up by most enthusiasts, let alone the general public. Nobody's watching chain theme parks that closely--and as great as Holiday World is, I have a hard time believing anyone is watching them even more closely.

Literally begging y'all to stop seeing Cedar Fair as an unchanging monolith who has always done things the same way and always will. People at the top have changed heavily. You just described how KINZEL ran CF. We're a full decade past that era.

Not to simp, but the thing JUST opened. I think some downtime and awkward/slow operations are to be expected right now.