Leaderboard

I'm glad I decided to take that side trip to Great Adventure back in July (I had already planned to revisit Hershey, Dorney and Knoebels, and decided I might as well do Great Adventure while I was in the area since it's 9½ hours from Cincy). I got two rides on Kingda Ka and at least two on Green Lantern as well.

Imagine if Kings Island was planning to close The Beast after 2024 and kept it a secret from the general public. Then imagine walking into Rivertown at the start of the 2025 season and The Beast is completely gone. The pathway to The Beast is completely blocked off and you didn't get a chance to get a final ride in 2024 because you assumed it was still going to be there and thought "it's the park's most famous ride, so why would they get rid of it?" Could you imagine the immense backlash that would occur on social media and on this very forum if the park did something like that? That's what the general public at Great Adventure are currently dealing with. Kingda Ka, arguably their most famous ride, as well as Green Lantern are getting removed without a peep from the park. Again, I understand that rides will eventually close for one reason or another, but why on earth would you keep that a secret and not let people know to get their last rides in? There have been influencers and YouTube creators that have went through the effort of spreading the word about the recent ride removals, but not everyone who goes to parks like Great Adventure or Over Texas will watch those videos.

Are you proposing a Giga or something like KI’s “Giga” for SFGA?

My opinion and my opinion only. With the merger ongoing, they are trying to eliminate duplicated costs and other "unnecessary" costs in order to prop up the financial reports. Also, merging two different companies into one is a daunting task. Cedar Fair and Six Flags had many shared values but vastly different cultures. People are fighting to stay in or move up the food chain. This can lead to upending of cultures as now there are 42 entities vs 11 or 12 as before. Cedar seems to be running the show at the top and so Six leaders are probably fearful for their immediate and long term future. Cost cutting can be very detrimental in the long term, but seemingly beneficial in the short term. As far as Great Adventure, that park has a huge potential. But after what appears to be a very bungled 50th anniversary, I think upper management wants to start the new direction. If the Golden Kingdom ride removals do happen, it would likely lead to a huge investment in a massive expansion, most likely with a B&M GiGa. Or they might add another high capacity model and renovate Kingda Ka while removing Chang and Twister. The old Six Flags model of low capacity lower tier coasters in these massive parks will likely go to the wayside...GA should rival Canada's Wonderland and Dorney combine in attendance numbers. But I think with all the jockeying around of the companies, the underbelly of weakness will be exposed. Communication from both chains, as a whole, has historically been weak. So let's say they are going to do this massive reno at GA, I think the park comms team might be reticent to rock the boat lest they jeopardize their positions in the company. I haven't heard anything about Carowinds, but they rebuilt a significant portion of Hurler last year. Cyclone should be a relatively low cost machine, unless it is near the end of service life and requires costly upgrades. But, if they removed those two coasters and possibly the Drop Tower, it would open up some space. But it would make more sense to me, as an armchair enthusiast, to work with the available space where the whitewater ride was, or from a financial standpoint, remove the Borg Assimilator. That's a low capacity expensive ride to run. I don't think this will ever be a park to rival CP as a flagship, they have poured money in there and it's still a "meh" park. (Subjective, I realize). It would need resort amenities and whatnot would be difficult to justify as the park is in an industrial area and the draw in that region would gravitate towards Asheville. Subjectively, if I were going to Asheville, I'd choose Dollywood over Carowinds every time.

I have been campaigning for something similar to this path since they removed those decorations to another area after the 2nd year....glad to see there will be something more than just random lights and deer.

Racer at WinterFest? That's awesome! I NEVER thought Kings Island would have that as a ride option!