JimParker85

I think Twisted Timbers and Steel Vengeance were the high point of airtime focused RMCs. Untamed went heavy on inversions, Zadra and Iron Gwazi look to be more focused on high speed large scale transitions, all while still offering great inversions and some airtime as well. They continue to evolve. With their cost being relatively lower, I think a ground up RMC in The Vortex plot would be, by far, the best use of that space. An RMC also fits in really well for the park's lineup and that area of the park, in my opinion.

Just from their respective POVs, I prefer the layout and elements on Zadra. I'd love to be able to ride both by the end of 2022. Steel Vengeance is my #1, both of these look like outstanding rides as well.

It's crazy/sad how close Wonderland came to opening. They lost a LOT of money on it. Ride testing went on for over 3 weeks and significant hiring was done for an early July opening. At pretty much the last minute, the rules were adjusted to exclude theme parks in Ontario. Amusement Insiders YouTube channel had a lot of content in late June about it, showing the whole park doing ride testing.

I think it makes too much sense. If Ohio has been so pleased with how Cedar Fair handled the crowds and pandemic rules, as has been said, and the chain is planning to do a modified version at KD and Carowinds, why not also Kings Island? Hope very much it comes together.

I don't see a way they'd be able to sell one day FLP at Cedar Point next year if they are forced to operate in the same way with the half full trains, top 4 access pass and 30 min interval clean and run empty (which was much more time consuming than the Kings Island method). On all 4 of our visits, 3 of which were mid week in August before end of daily ops, lines for pretty much everything were late august/halloweekends Saturday levels. If they added in a large volume of Fast Lane instead of the tiny amount of pre sold and all season that we experienced this year, the in park experience at CP would be even worse than it was for standby line guests this year.

Pretty much all parks in Western Europe are now closed once again or will be by Thursday in the case of the UK. Blackpool I saw cancelled the entire holiday schedule even though the UK lockdown can end as soon as 12/2. It's all sad, but a 2 year duration of this situation, which now seems more likely than not, is going to really hurt the industry and probably be the end of at least a few parks. It's hard to put into a fair context in comparison to all the deaths and cases from Covid, but it still really sucks.

Bad weather luck. Next weekend high 60s low 70s predicted for the weekend. I've never seen them extend a week like Kings Dominion has done in the past, or have they?

Please keep Viper at Magic Mountain, I loved it when we visited in April of last year.

If pressed, they could operate only using South Carolina, but the problem is that cuts the waterpark in half and excludes Fury. However, it includes Camp Snoopy and their next 3 major coasters. It would suck, but they could do it, especially since they still have (but rarely use) the old secondary entrance under AfterBurn.

Copperhead and AfterBurn open, glorious!

I agree with that, so awesome to just sit and watch it cycle. Loved the color scheme and the inversions. My fondest memory will be our last trip when it was open, in July 2019. Obviously we didn't know yet that it would be closing, but that trip we had many rides on it, the most I'd ridden it in years, including a ride at dusk.

Great POV, thanks for posting. Four rides over two days in early June 2009, less than a month before it closed forever. The big double helix in the back was so jarring, and the rest of the ride was so bland. Only thing that stunk about the removal was the long gap between it closing in early 09 and Banshee finally coming online in 2014. It was fun at least to say we rode Diamondback and SoB on the same trip, like those very few Kings Dominion guests who hit Twisted Timbers right when it opened in 2018, in those first two weeks before Volcano closed forever.

1. Parking lot 2. Boo Blasters/Crypt Building/Action Theatre building all renovated or removed 3. New coaster in The Vortex plot 4. Action Zone re-theme with at least one new ride 5. Soak City re-theme with at least one new slide complex or a water coaster That would be my top 5.

The script, the name, the colors, it's my favorite no question.

It's half a world away but I saw today that Energylandia is being shut down for the year (they had open dates through December) because their district in Poland was put in a certain zone due to Covid. Seems to be on the rise all over the place right now.

With the predicted weather next week and it being Columbus Day weekend, they are in for an insane crowd if they don't force reservations. Even when CP turned them back on for yesterday and today, they gave it a 2 week notice. We were at CP yesterday and it was busy, but not crazy High 50s, no rain. About the same as our late August days. Ended up just driving home today with the rain.

June 7-9, 2009 trip. My friends and I, at age 24, made a trip to KI to ride Diamondback. Being from Buffalo, NY, i hadn't been to the park since 1997. From 92-97, I went every year as part of our yearly August vacation that also included Kennywood, Geauga Lake and CP. Parents broke up in 98, trips ended. When Diamondback opened, it was enough to convince my friends to add KI to our CP trip. Firehawk, Backlot, Invertigo and Son of Beast were all also new credits for me, and you guys know we JUST made it in time for SoB, as it closed forever later in the month. We had an awesome time, and I've been back with friends and/or my wife every year since. Also, this year would be up there. Two visits, July 4 and late August Saturday, great weather days, 10 rides on Orion, the park really did a nice job with the Covid rules/adherence and it just felt so much more "complete" than our experiences at Hershey, Great Adventure or even CP. The Fast Lane was a huge help this year with how few fast lanes have been in the park, but it was, without question, our favorite park this year. That even includes Silver Dollar City, which was great as well, but KI beats it for us.

Hugos was a HUGE let-down for a new place at CP. Indoor seating, large space in a great spot for it in the park and the menu was a total miss. We tried twice, different items each time and both were close to throw-away-awful. I hope they change course on it in short order and make it a cantina style, bringing back burritos and bowls, adding standard tacos and nachos.

On our 3 mid week visits during the final 2 weeks of daily ops in early August, CP was nearly "full" for what it could handle given the current operations. We observed 60 minute waits on the app for Corkscrew and Blue Streak all 3 days, and I personally waited in a 45 minute line for Rougarou and Magnum, 90 minutes for Valravn. The parking lot on those days I would characterize as slightly over half full. I can't imagine how it must have been this past Saturday, i saw one pic of the lot nearly full down the center. With how they have to operate, I'm suprised it took this long to turn the reservation system on again. Since its apparently not needed for this coming weekend, i bet Saturday the 26th is packed. Weather looks good, too.

Chef is great. The quality and variety has been excellent. In the shadow of the flagship park in the chain, Kings Island has blown past Cedar Point in food choice and overall quality. We look forward to using our dining plan at KI, this year was a struggle at CP for our 3 visits, especially with the inexplicable removal of a Burrito/Bowl option and the excellent Frontier Foldover.

Orion is also really flying with operations when possible. No bins helps, but they are also dismissing the entire train at the same time, unlike the row by row style in use on other coasters this year. It's almost Fury 325-like.

I think the money on the table is to find a way to stay open daily through Labor Day. Cedar Point has been (2020) excluded, very busy in the last two weeks of August, even mid week. The passholders renewal/new passes push helps with that, especially in the last 3 years with "buy now, get the rest of this year included" perks. People trying to get in one more summer trip or family activity, plus some schools in the surrounding areas starting later. With maybe 12-8 hours or similar, I think they'd do well. Could add a theme to make it more interesting.

I agree on the 2 year point. Even Disney and Universal are in trouble. Six Flags and Cedar Fair won't survive in their current state if they lose 2 years of operations for large parks in their chain. It's awful. It's crazy to think about how many lost operating days happened this year. And with Carowinds and Wonderland, Cedar Fair hired, trained and tested rides. Significant cost and ended up never opening either park. Wonderland was days away from announcing when Ontario removed them from phase 3. It's all relative and minor from a societal perspective, but speaking about the industry itself, this could be fatal to more than a few parks.

We had 4 rides yesterday with fastlane, 2 in row 1 and 2 in row 8. I found the rattle to be much less than I was fearing, a bit at the bottom of the first drop and at the bottom of the pretzel loop, but we loved all 4 rides. It's fantastic in row 1, very intense in row 8. Its among the elite inverts for me with Montu (#1), Afterburn and Raptor. Still haven't ridden Flight Deck or Patriot, however. I doubt Patriot would rank very high but a lot of people speak highly of Flight Deck despite how short it is.

Lines very busy today. Fastlane was worth it for our 2nd and final trip of the year. Great day so far