Rivertown Rider

As of right now there are less than yesterday. The park has sold a lot of ponchos in the last 90 minutes though.

^ Just an FYI but Carowinds is a park that gets very hot and there isn't a ton of shade. The Wisteria tunnel over by Vortex is nice because they do have some seating in there but shadewise Carowinds is more like CP than KI.

As an FYI, to get your drink bracelet or your funpix, have them scan your Coasterstock ticket.

It's time for the train photo opp.

I was at Dollywood last weekend. One thing I would say I noticed more is that coasters weren't always opening with the park. Lightning Rod in particular seemed to still be having issues off and on. One good thing is that Lightning Rod now has a single rider line. They were also testing a single rider line for Mystery Mine near the exit of the ride so who knows if that will be still be occurring when you are there or not. I did ride a couple new mountain coasters at Rowdy Bear Pigeon Forge. They have a deal where you can get 3 rides on the coasters for $30. So you can ride both coasters they have and then choose whichever one you want for the third ride. I liked the Laser Gun one a little more than the Powered coaster but both were fun.

^ On BLSC that is where I am. I actually enjoy the coaster for what it is. Yes I would have much preferred that Les Taxis and Flying Eagles stayed where they were. The ride would have been great in Action Zone as that area needed another family attraction but at this point the ride has been there 17 seasons at this point. As far as the area that needs the most help it is Action Zone. It needs a complete retheme and some additional family flats.

^ I agree. Also there are the capacity issues that they have.

^ It is new for this season, the park said that they reprofiled to help make it smoother.

Probably even more sponsorships. Six Flags, proud to present our new ride: Twix the Coaster. Are you left or right?

Seeing the sheer amount of families and the consistent waits for the 48 inch rides yesterday I agree that the next coaster should have the 48 inch height requirement.

I completely agree about using the Crypt building and the more flats piece. Something that could work in the Crypt building is a Flying Theater like Soarin'. That would be a space they could also do a custom built Phantom Theater redo as well. A Tilt a Whirl would be a nice compact ride for Area 72 and the basketball game between Jukebox Diner and the Drink stand would a great spot for a Musik Express.

If you get to the park at opening then I would probably start first thing with Lightning Rod because it suffers from low capacity and downtime. From there you can either do one of two things you can either go reverse clockwise around the park and hit the rides that way or go back to the front of the park and hit them clockwise. If you don't get there at opening I would suggest going clockwise.

I had the Pub Burger for my first meal and it was fantastic. It may be the best theme park burger you'll eat. I had the Sirloin Roast for the second meal. It was better the two previous times I had experienced it, today it was a little dried out. It was good to see Coney BBQ have both sides open today though.

Orion is now open.

I think the Smokies is a little unique because they are very much a regional destination and as Dollywood has grown and expanded they have become a destination as well. Dollywood competes with all of the various go karts, hiking, shopping malls, restaurants, dinner shows, and theaters in the area. We have been passholders now for the last 7 seasons. I can tell you just from observing that the demographics that come to the park have definitely expanded over that time. It used to be that it was mostly senior citizens going and enjoying the shows but with the additions of more thrill rides like Lightning Rod and Wild Eagle they have certainly gotten more of a younger family oriented group coming. The park still also has a ton of senior citizens as well so the park has gotten more and more crowded. Times of the year like the fall festival used to ghost towns at night but now with Luminights they are packed most nights. The park really does need to figure out how to improve capacity in the park though. Wildwood Grove was a great addition but none of those rides are capacity eaters. They need to figure out a way of expanding the park footprint to open up some development areas so they can increase their capacity. I would love to see the 2023 addition be something like Time Traveler but I think a high capacity hyper or giga is probably what is going to happen.

Something like Time Traveler or Copperhead Strike would both fit the bill for what the park needs. A modern multi-launch with inversions, family-friendly, non-maintenance heavy, and not a B&M. The only hard part with either of those coaster types is they aren't very tall so they make more sense in Action Zone than they would in The Vortex plot. From a pure variety standpoint if money were no object I would put a Mack over where Invertigo is and put a Gerstlauer like Hangtime at KBF in The Vortex plot. But obviously that is 5-10 years down the road to get our next two coasters.

I had the chicken salad a couple weeks ago and thought it was really good. The portion size could have been a little bigger but overall it was very good. I also tried the sirloin roast at Coney BBQ and thought it was good as well.

The website does show the updated hours now.

Having more full time positions should hopefully help with a little more consistency in food and beverage. The park (and chain) does need to find more ways to make things more efficient. Every one of the big parks should have a Harmony Hall type location. Festhaus could pretty easily be redesigned with those efficiencies in mind.

BGW also has the advantage of having a major tourist destination a stones throw away. Doswell isn't exactly Williamsburg and the area around the park didn't expand like Mason, Charlotte or Vaughan. I really enjoyed my visit to KD a few years ago but I just don't think CF is going to put the money into it when they have other parks that are more of a priority.

I got to ride it for the first time this year (after three rides last year). It rides much better with a full train than it did last year. Fury is still my favorite of the gigas, but I would encourage anybody who wrote it off last year to re-ride it.

It ended up being about 40 minutes for Orion.

I think there are a few things at play. 1. Isn't CP the park that depends on international visas the most? All of the other major CP parks are within 20 to 30 minutes of metro areas so they have a bigger domestic workforce population to pull from). 2. Operationally they struggle for whatever reason. It isn't just the Intamins either. Valravn and Raptor seem to have a lot of issues. KI, Wonderland, and Carowinds don't seem to have this issue. 3. I have joked that CP is the park you date and KI is the one you marry.

I waited about 20 minutes at Coney BBQ and 15 at AE. In line for Orion now so I'll keep you all posted.