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Despite the weather earlier in the day, opening night turned out to be quite pleasant! While it's easy to miss the scope of the event in the earlier years, it is wonderful to have Grand Carnivale back at a time when offerings like these are not guaranteed.

The first day of Grand Carnivale is complete! Lets use this thread to talk and review Grand Carnivale in 2025.     Video of the event:  

MAJOR props to the Entertainment performers and crews on Saturday night! Despite a very iffy forecast and rain right before 6PM they pulled off an amazing (and oh so humid!) opening night of Grand Carnivale. 

SFGAm TR This was the most relaxing of my 2 days in Chicago.  Shorter drive with less hectic drivers.  Downtown Chicago is pretty stressful.  I got to Gurnee just before park opening (they open at 10:30), from there, I acquired Flash Pass Unlimited and did my first journey around the park clockwise starting from Superman.  The idea was to make Whizzer #175, but a combination of Triple Loop being down at IB and Maxx Force being down at SFGAm made me be one short of that, so that'll now occur at Cedar Point (likely Siren's Curse).  Little Dipper was 165 and Wrath of Rakshasa wound up being 170 for me.   I walked in with kind of medium expectations.  I give SIX parks a handicap with some of their reputations at some other parks, but I always hear good things about Great America where I had a bit of a medium bar.  It completely surpassed that.  It's a great park altogether.  Very clean, the theming of the different sections came out pretty strong and were well separated, staff was great (except a very lackluster Demon crew taking forever to dispatch during single train ops).  Caught a little bit of the tracked parade they do which was pretty nice.   Ate at the walking taco stand by Raging Bull, which, the meat was a bit heavy, but it was alright.  Food didn't have any standouts, but it all looked, at the very minimum, adequate.   SFGAm also has a thing for long queues, especially among the older rides.  Raging Bull, American Eagle, Viper, and to lesser extents Batman and Superman, have very long queues.  I wound up doing a mini Viper marathon, which, was kind of a bad idea given it feels like the better portion of a Flight Deck queue in length.  Bull is even longer and American Eagle the longest.   Luckily most of the newer rides were much better in that department (X-Flight is a bit sus).  I also think the park overall could use more shade, only a few bits by Demon, Whizzer and the entrance were any bit shaded.   However, even given that, I actually like Great America more than Kings Island.  Kings Island may have a better ride selection, but I feel SFGAm does a lot of the other stuff well.   The theming was great through the park, even if it was just subtle bits like a few snake hunting props at Viper, and then you have the decked out queues like Batman, X-Flight and Dark Knight.   I also like the color pallet of the rides and buildings a bit better.   Very colorful park without overdoing it.  I will say Bull and Eagle could use paint though.  Ride Reviews Non Coasters- Scenic Railway- Only did half the route from the entrance back to Goliath.  It sounded electric or gas, but it moves quite slow.  The coaches look pretty good though. Giant Drop- 2nd Gen Intamin Towers are freaky to me as there isn't a good way to anticipate the drop and they really haul you up there. Aquaman- It kind of cheats you getting wet by having upward nozzles shoot water on you at the bottom of the drop, but fun.  Pretty tall for a flume, too. Sky Striker- This thing is really tall, a bit longer of a ride cycle than Delirum as well Coasters-  American Eagle- Ran both sides.  Pretty comfy all things considered.  The red side has a few more hills while the blue side has a big of a speed section as it crosses over.  The helix at the far end has really good speed and laterals, the air was ok but nothing special, and the last helix is very meh as its braked to death.  Wish they could fix it up to race (I know why it can't).  I don't quite get the padding to the sides, though.  Batman: The Ride- The OG inverted coaster.   For whatever reason, this one felt special compared to the SFGAdv version.  First off, they really went all out for the queue.  Pumps the 1989 soundtrack in the queue and station (Danny Elfman and Prince are always welcome).  It has a sick lighting package in the queue, they really sell this sucker.  I'm always impressed with the early B&M's for being ahead of their time and this was no exception.  I felt it runs a bit more intense than the SFGAdv version and it has some nice close flybys of the queue.   Dark Knight- Its a mouse in a box themed to the Bale trilogy.  The audio isn't very coherent on the ride.  Ran with no brakes on before the station, I think GAdv's is braked a bit more.   Demon- So, the first drop, the loops, the drop off the MCBR and pull up to the brakes was alright.  I really liked the low clearance tunnel, too.  But boy it has a death head bang in that transition to the corkscrews.    Flash Vertical Velocity- Pretty standard impulse, though it felt more compact than Wicked Twister and Possessed.  I wish I could ride one with the holding brake still in tact.  Goliath- My 2nd favorite coaster in the park.   Really smooth, has that RMC forcefulness without overdoing it.  Probably about my 2nd or 3rd favorite RMC.  The head choppers and the stall were really nice.   Joker- Completely insane.  Relentless flipping as soon as it left the chain.   Little Dipper- pretty standard jr wooden coaster.  Fun for what it is.  Raging Bull- My favorite coaster in the park.  The compact course is a nice change from most of the B&M hypers I've ridden being out and back, though, the out and backs' more focus on air makes them a bit better.   Has insane air in the back, especially off the first drop and off the MCBR.   The 2nd half is a nice fast paced figure 8.  Superman: Ultimate Flight- Could be recency bias, but it felt more compact and faster paced than the SFGAdv version.  I prefer Vekoma restraints on flyers, but B&M's use of pretzel loops is always nice, even with a bit of weightlessness at the apexes.  Viper- Probably the best new wooden credit I get this summer.  Also, my first clone of the Coney Island Cyclone.  Really good twister course, great head-choppers, decent air (especially the back on the double-down), decent laterals.  Definitely upper mid-tier to lower good tier for me. Whizzer- the biggest surprise of the trip.  Very comfortable and smooth, the spiral lift goes faster than I thought in a good way (probably me playing RCT2 too much where its a slow lift there), did find it weird that the anti-roll backs sound like PTC's.  I rather like the more gradual first drop, has great speedy turns at the bottom, all very close to the ground for a good sense of speed.  I can see the love it gets, especially for the way they saved it.   Wrath of Rakshasa- Surprisingly fast paced for a dive coaster, and despite an awkward kind of shimmy, it might turn out my favorite dive coaster.   X-Flight- The first bits are good, though its a bit slow paced, but then it gets a bad rattle as it curves around for the key-hole inversion that lasts until the end of the ride.  My least favorite wing coaster out of it, T-Bird, Wild Eagle and GateKeeper.    

It’s trippy. Things are the same… but different. It’s hard to orient yourself because the all the markers you are used to are totally off. I’d definitely say make the 8 hr treck. It’s really like a step back in time at KI in a lot of good ways. This is actually the view from the queu of the waterfall switchback of their white water canyon  amazing this is man-made.