WoodVengeance

The first drop height of Orion (300ft) is the same height as Millennium Force's first drop (300ft), so yes. Orion is as much of a giga as Millennium Force is. You'd think we'd get over this after five years.

I'm personally waiting to see what their next major addition is before I plan a trip there. It's definitely on my bucket list for the next several years as well as other parks I'd like to hit up as well.

Also, Silver Dollar City is still making an announcement on the 17th for something else.

If it doesn't reopen, Top Thrill 2 easily. Say what you want about Son of Beast, but at least that was open for more than a week. I'm at least hopeful Cedar Point and Zamperla can get Top Thrill 2 fixed for 2025, so it's smooth sailing from there, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

I'm bringing these up because I know they were brought up in past discussions. I can confirm that the eternal flame for Son of Beast in Banshee's queue was lit as of tonight. Also, there was no visible light coming from the casket in front of the Son of Beast grave.

Seems like the Bengals coaster went to the wrong Kings park, lol

My thoughts exactly. If RMC was actually contracted to work on a new project for Kings Island, wouldn't there be a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent them from making posts like this before a potential ride announcement?

I agree that Kings Island doesn't really need a dive coaster. Personally, I feel if Kings Island were going to go with the route of a ground-up RMC or Gravity Group/GCI, it would be best for it to have a steel structure as opposed to a wooden one (see Arieforce One or The Voyage) That way there shouldn't be as many structural issues compared to if they kept the structure wooden. I know that's been one of the primary issues plaguing Steel Vengeance since a lot of the structure for that was reused from Mean Streak.

If I were to guess, either Magic Mountain or Carowinds.

It was also heavily rumored that Six Flags Mexico was going to theme their tilt coaster to Harley Quinn, as they used her in one of the teasers they released before they were supposed to make their announcement. It would explain why Siren's Curse has a red/gray color scheme if that was originally supposed to be themed to Harley Quinn. Also adding to this, it would also explain why the trains have a green and purple color scheme if those were supposed to represent Joker, who is also heavily tied to Harley Quinn.

Even still. If it was just a thing where the flame was out for a maintenance issue, that wouldn't explain the decorative plants they have covering the top of the tombstone.

That could just be for repaving the lot if I had to guess. Even if there was going to be a new coaster using the SOB station (not saying there is, just a theoretical scenario), there's plenty of other land they could use for it. I doubt they would need to use part of the preferred lot for it.

Interesting. Was the Son of Beast casket the only one that was lit up like that? Or were there others?

I was thinking this too for whenever Cedar Point got their next coaster. Though it would be funny, considering this coaster is themed to a screaming mythical creature, just like another certain coaster that resides in the same state that also has a purple paint scheme.

If we use a Lantern near The Vortex plot, does an Extreme Spinner show up?

I know this coaster wasn't originally intended for Cedar Point, but looking back to the surveys Cedar Fair put out a few months back, I did find it strange that Cedar Point was the only park that had the Tilt Coaster as an option on their survey (Kings Island and Carowinds did not have Tilt Coasters on their surveys). It makes me wonder if there were talks of bringing this coaster to Cedar Point back then.

That and Siren's Curse literally has the Firehawk paint scheme

For right now, I believe Six Flags only has access to the Looney Tunes and DC IPs and they would probably have to pay extra to get any more IPs from Warner Bros. If you're curious about Hanna Barbera, it seems Six Flags did have access to the Hanna Barbera IP at one point since Six Flags Great America had a Hanna Barbera themed section named "Camp Cartoon" between 1998 and 2017.

It's crazy how fast Kings Dominion has been throughout the construction progress of Rapterra. In comparison, I think Orion's trackwork was only completed around the station, final brakes and the base of the lift hill this time five years ago.

"Snake River's future thrills won't be bad, we surely are not joking!" Is this implying that whatever is replacing Snake River Falls is still going to have the Snake River theming?

I'm also thinking that this was mostly likely done as some sort of publicity stunt (like Beast 2.0) to get people talking about a potential new coaster themed around Son of Beast. I wouldn't hold my breath about this leading to a more significant project unless we start seeing any of the following pop up within the next several months: Attraction removals around Outpost 5 (Xtreme Skyflyer, Timberwolf, The Bat) Survey markers appearing in the area of Outpost 5 Construction vehicles appearing near Outpost 5 Notice of Commencement for 2024-2026 Even with that all being said, I do think it's still very possible we could see our next coaster in 2026, but I would put more stock into it going in The Vortex plot as opposed to reusing the Son of Beast station. But then again, crazier things have happened in the amusement industry so who knows.

One key contributor to that is whether or not the landscaping/theme of a ride fits in with the area of the park that the ride is placed in. To go back on Backlot Stunt Coaster, that coaster is officially placed in the "Rivertown" section of Kings Island (a rustic riverside themed area) and is also really close to the "Coney Mall" section (themed to a early-mid 20th century theme park). Given the theme of Backlot is that you're driving a stunt car through an L.A. back lot, it really doesn't fit Rivertown or Coney Mall at all. Now if Backlot was placed in Action Zone instead, I think it wouldn't stand out as much over there given that the original theme of Action Zone from the Paramount era was based on a giant movie set.

Although Firehawk did definitely have its problems, I think it could've been possible to keep that coaster running for a bit longer if the park really wanted to, but when the opportunity came up to put in a giga coaster, it was a pretty clear decision for the park to replace a problematic coaster with a more reliable and popular attraction. I think the "reached the end of its service life" reasoning definitely applied more to Vortex than it did for Firehawk. I'm certain Kings Island would've preferred to keep Vortex in operation until a replacement was ready for construction. It seems the problems with Vortex were significant enough for Kings Island to pull the plug on it well before such a replacement was even conceived. Unfortunately, I think the problems with Vortex just came at the worst possible time. Not just because Firehawk's replacement was still under construction, meaning it would take at least another three years before Kings Island's next major coaster, but also because of the pandemic which delayed that project even further until we're still talking about what could go into that plot five years later.