johnjniehaus

For some reason the midway carousel at CP hasn't done much for me in the past. The pavilion is super ugly which doesn't help. I have never ridden the kiddy kingdom one. Will have to check it out next time I'm at the park

Did they run Sol Spin during Winterfest last year?

Any more updates on moonlite gardens?

Just an update on the carousels, I did get to ride the one at Santa Cruz about a month ago and while I did enjoy it very much it's hard to place. The clown mouth is definitely more difficult to throw a ring into than the Knoebels lion. The carousel itself looks a bit more dated and less pristine as the Spokane Looff Carousel. I did enjoy the fact that it was 4 across and all were jumpers Another pretty one I rode recently was the PTC at Elitch Gardens. Had very beautiful artwork and jumpers that were pulling the chariots

If it's running at full staffing and all the coasters are open like the day I was there it's a very enjoyable park! Their PTC carousel is very petty as well!

So is this the dude from that old rollercoaster movie that blows up the rides? Lol. Sorry I'm glad nobody got hurt and law enforcement acted

Firehawk 2.0 in Vortex plot...

100% this. You don't get that whip over the airtime hills on a 4-accross train like what they put on Mako and Candymonium

I'd say Gwazi is my #2 RMC after SteVe but I don't criticize anyone who puts it at #1. I think steVe ending going through the support structure is unrivaled but Gwazi does have relentless pacing and doesn't have the somewhat painful bunny hops Montu is my favorite invert as well for sure I actually ended up liking Griffon at BGW better than Sheikra. I like the bigger trains and the layout was better with the extra inversion but sheikra is for sure the #2 dive over any of the ones with vest restraints. I think BGT is a decent park but I've always had issues with multiple coasters being down when I visit. For example first visit it was Gwazi and Shiekra that were closed all day, second visit it was Shiekra and Kumba, and this visit it was cheetah hunt and Grover. I also think that park suffers from a lack of flat rides. I personally do prefer the Williamsburg park as I think their ops, ride collection, and food is all superior. I think I'd like BGT better if it actually performed 100% but it always seems like it's running at 80% when I visit

Some friends and I went down to Orlando for the Halloween weekend on a trip we'd been planning for about a year and a half. We bought two days at Epic Universe and one night at HHN (seeing as some of us aren't super into scares). One of our friends loves that stuff so they bought an HHN pass and went every single night. They rest of us hit other parks in the region like Fun Spot and BGT. So I'll break down our experience mainly focusing on HHN and Epic Universe but also mentioning the Halo-scream Event at BGT. Epic Universe Lands Celestial Park: despite not having a movie IP theme, this area of the park is home to arguably the best coaster in FL and a very unique carousel. I much prefer this area at night when the fountains are colored and the lights twinkle on the carousel pavilion. HTTYD Isle of Berk: honestly this was my favorite portal. They just did the theming so well and it looks great at night too Nintendo: this area has a lot going on and I thought that it was a bit overwhelming with how much was moving around and all the different pathways and people. The donkey Kong area was a bit more calm. Dark Universe: unfortunately the windmill was broken and had the blades removed during our visit. The other areas such as Darkmoor looked great. I did think the area by Curse of the Warewolf was lackluster Harry Potter Paris: beautiful area with good attention to detail. Looks great at night but unfortunately doesn't have as many things to do as the other lands. Epic Restaurants 1. Mead Hall: located in HTTYD, this place had the atmosphere, the delicious food, and reasonable prices. I don't like alcohol much but the currant boysenberry mead was REALLY GOOD 2. Le Gobelet Noir: located in the Paris section, I had the baklava and the lentil soup and both were very good. Nobody else in our group ate here because they don't like supporting JK which is their personal preference but they missed out on some good food 3. Das Steakhouse: in dark universe this is the main restaurant. My meal was very good but others in the group seemed less satisfied with theirs. This one did have a great atmosphere with a live musician playing the violin during dinner 4. Oak & Star Tavern: this place in Celestial Park would have been at the top of my list based on flavor but the portions and prices left much to be desired. I had a brisket sandwich with the best cauliflower of my life (which was 3 tbs in a tiny bowl for $5) 5. Toadstool Cafe: so all my friends loved this place but I thought the food was not great with the exception of the princess peach cake. It had a fun atmosphere but my meal was arguably worse than most fast food Epic Universe Rides Ranked 1. Stardust Racers: really really good coaster. I wish it had IP theming but it's such a solid ride even without it. The yellow side is slightly better than the green side to me personally because the twist inversion is going down the drop instead of going up. This ride rarely had more than a 30min line and was a really good night ride. Very re-ridable 2. Monsters Unchained: thematically and ride experience this is the best ride in the park. Has the same ride system as forbidden journey but this one has such great new technology of blending animatronics and screens. It's a decently long ride too. This one also rarely had a wait longer than 45min and sometimes was only 15-20min wait. But one must ask, who's the true monster? The monster or the one who puts them in chains? 3. Mario Kart Bowser Challenge: by far the best shooter I've done. You aim with these VR headsets that allow you to still see the physical sets and props in each room. Again a great blend of practical and digital. This ride had a solid 90min wait all day until about the last hour when it would drop to 15-20min 4. Harry Potter Battle of the Ministry: another fun one that is like a blend of tower of terror ride vehicles with forbidden journey technology. This one brings Delores Unbridge to trial. We rode this twice. Once we waited about an hour because of a break down and the other time the cast member running single rider gave us an escort to the front of the line and let us all go together which was very nice of him and seemed more like a Disney moment than a universal one. This ride gets lines of 2 - 2.5 hours but it also closes early to avoid crowds at the end of the night so if you ride it about two hours before park close the wait is significantly shorter. Usually around 30 minutes. 5. Donkey Kong Mine Kart Madness: this was a cool concept and I enjoyed the ride but it is a bit shorter than I'd hoped and it also jostles you around quite a bit. This ride had a 2-3 hour line all day and would drop down to 45min for the last hour the park was open. We did not get a day ride on this as we rode it at night both times. 6. Hiccup Wing Gliders: excellent family coaster by Intamin with a fun tour of the HTTYD land. This is also an underrated night ride. Usually the wait time was about an hour for this but you could get it around 20 minutes at Park opening or closing. 7. Constellation Carousel: I actually loved this ride as it's a combination of a slow teacup ride and a carousel. It had great music and a nice lighting package. The wait time for this was usually always under 30min 8. Curse of the Warewolf: this spinning coaster seemed lacking on theming and also was super short. In the morning you can get on on about 20-30min but during the later afternoon and evening it soars to 70min. 9. Fyre Drill: this was my first water battle boat ride and I thought blasting the targets and getting hit with geysers was alot of fun. I've heard ones at other parks are better but I have nothing to compare it to. This ride always seems to have a wait under 45 minutes. 10. Yoshi Adventure: average wait time was about an hour during the day but early morning and evening could see it as low as 10-15min. This is an Omni mover type ride that is pretty short. It's cute but not something this is worth an hour long wait 11. Dragon Rally Racer: this is the typical glider ride where you try and flip except this one has an extremely short ride cycle and you usually have to wait 20-60min for a ride on it. Overall wasn't impressed HHN: since some in our group had a ticketing issue that caused a 45 minute delay and we got stuck in Disposable Me Mayhem resulting in an Evac we received 4 skip the line passes per person for the HHN houses which helped us successfully do all 10 as well as grab rides on Men in Black, Mummy, Gringotts, and transformers after seeing a showing of nightmare fuel. I'm going to rank the houses based on my personal enjoyment knowing that others would have vastly different opinions 1. La Artista: A Spanish Haunting - this one was my favorite for its elaborate sets, good costuming, and good amount of scares. A classic haunted house with a twist and it worked wonderfully 2. Galkin Creatures of the North - I also really enjoyed the concept of this one and it final scene was the best one of the night with you being consumed by the witch who had transformed into a monster and when you go into her stomach it's full of skeletons and other monsters. 3. Five Nights at Freddy's - I actually didn't think this one sounded interesting in the description but I ended up loving it. Not as scary as some of the others but still very fun 4. Dolls - this one surprised me. It might have looked a bit cheap but the concept was cool, had some good scares, and the entire vibe of the house was like toy story demented 5. Fallout - also not as scary but a really fun concept. Others in my group didn't care for this one as much but I was told it included alot of iconic scenes from the show 6. Jason - this one was perhaps more boring in set design but it had some really good scare sections. 7. WWE - this was one of the darker houses and it also smelled like sweat and p!ss I got one really good jump scare in this one that made me scream much to the amusement of our friend group 8. Hatchet and Chains - this was like a Western demon apocalypse of some kind. Overall this one wasn't as scary and the theme was odd to me. Just an ok house. 9. Grave of Flesh - this one had a cool concept of what happens after you die but it was dark and sometimes hard to figure out where to go. Also harder to predict where the scares were going to come from. I'd say this was actually the scariest house based on the unpredictability and the number of jumps 10. Terrifier - ok so this house was very well done in terms of set design and being faithful to the films (which I've never watched but have done a bit of research on after seeing the house). I put this one at the bottom because I enjoyed it the least. This one did make me nauseous from the intense gore. So to be fair I love the concept of art the clown and the actors did a good job at bringing him to life. I was honestly doing ok even with the girl cut in half (which was just a video of a shadow and then a mannequin around the corner) and also the corpse that Art was rubbing with bleach. However when I got to the bathroom scene I wasn't feeling well. Something about smelling poop and seeing sinks full of it as well as seeing art taking a chainsaw to a victim's body was too much for me. (Upon research this was the death scene of Cole and Mia from Terrifier 3). This maze also had water affects that mimicked getting squirted with blood. It was ultra gory and that was more unsettling than any of the scare actors. BGT Hallo-Scream So we happened to hit BGT and I FINALLY got the credit on Shiekra which is my second favorite dive coaster. We also lapped Kumba which is running good as new smooth since the refurbishment. We also grabbed rides on Montu and iron Gwazi. We did the Mars haunt and the stranglewood haunt and both were good. Since it was Halloween night the park wasn't very busy and the longest line were in was 50min for Gwazi because of the one train ops.

I'd take that. I just think we need another story show when most of the entertainment is music based

We NEED what the Dickens back or some other old English style Christmas show. That one was hilarious

I was thinking the same thing. I never realized that it was basically just resting in the floor beneath it and was actually not nearly level with the floor in the building.

Cedar Point needs to bring back a new version of the pirate ride considering they still have the old building for it over by blue streak.

https://www.fox13now.com/entertainment/lagoon-retiring-jet-star-2-roller-coaster-after-end-of-2025-season Honestly, I know we've lost some special coasters the past few years but this one hurts because it was running so well when I was there in May. Super smooth, such a great compact layout, and awesome color scheme. I honestly think I'm more upset about this one than I was about Kingda Ka or the Vekoma Flying Dutchman... Probably the worst I've felt about a closure since La Vibora

I love to see the bright colors on the pad. I think even if it doesn't come back this season that Kings Island is going to try and do this project right. Monster is such a classic and I think they know it still has its fan. Out of curiosity, with the new colors on the pad, does anyone think they will repaint it any color besides black? I know black is the classic color for the model but I'm just curious if maybe it'll change...other rides on Coney Mall such as the scrambler and troika have gotten new paint colors through the years... Even racer got spruced up a few years ago... If they do decide to go with a different color, what color scheme do you all want to see?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPgd0V5k_bZ/?igsh=Zm5id3FybDU1MHNi Looks like there's some painting on the pad now?

You are correct sorry if I worded that poorly - I meant that family owned parks close for reasons other than corporate greed or profit driven decisions. ZDTs wasn't a victim of a large cooperation it was simply another factor such as the family wanting to retire and not finding a buyer. Some family parks can't survive hard financial times or other things happen like big competition moves in etc. My comment was only to encourage folks to value and visit their mid size and family owned parks because they might not be there 10-25 years down the road

Such it goes with mergers and combinations of chains. The lack of competition usually results in parks closing because the same management company has other properties in the area or just doesn't want to invest in an older run down property to get it up to par. I'm not blaming Herschend or Six Flags for making decisions I'm just saying that there is no "good chain bad chain" anymore. Everyone is guilty of poorly managing or closing properties at some point. As much as we all loved legacy Cedar Fair, we shouldn't forget that they closed geauga lake and basically sealed the deal for CGA. Six Flags has a bad track record of closing or mis managing parks but they aren't the only ones guilty of some of this stuff. Kings Island is thankfully never going anywhere but anyone who has a small to mid size park as their home park please enjoy it while it lasts. The current climate isn't great for some of those parks either because of cooperate decisions from the big chains or sometimes family owned parks close too for other factors - look at ZDTs

So maybe we actually don't want hershlend purchasing additional parks? Just think it's ironic that the company everyone praised to the sky is doing the same thing six flags is. What it comes down to is that any of these big corporation chains are not afraid to close parks they don't feel represents their goals. It always comes down to money. I'm not saying that independent ownership is always 100% fail proof as we've seen plenty of small independent parks close over the years but at least most family owners do care about their parks and fight for them till the very end. I love Herschend and think they have done a lot of good for some of their parks but it always makes me worried when we start to see closures like this. Maybe it is also a testament to the economy and that some people just don't go to smaller parks anymore

So due to extremely cheap flights on frontier, my partner and I met up with two of our friends in Denver for a short two day weekend trip to hit up what was originally supposed to be Elitch Gardens and Lakeside Amusement Park. However, turns out lakeside's last weekend was the weekend before we were scheduled to go so our group decided we would rent a car and drive out to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. Elitch Gardens - I had heard horror stories about this place to be honest. Lots of closed rides, bad staff, bad food, anything bad you can think of, I've heard it about this park. Funny thing is while I'm sure others have had horrific experiences at Elitch, we had quite the opposite! So to be fair 2025 is the first time all over the coasters at the park have been operational for over 3 years. With the reopening of both Twister and Sidewinder we couldn't not go to the park and we were surprised that most everything was operating that day (the Drop Tower, breakdance, and water rides and water park were closed). We hit up all 6 coaster credits and walked away with mixed impressions. The half pipe and SLC had some pretty bad headbanging but their boomerang is definitely one of the better ones. The kiddy coaster was decent and the two big credits (twister and Sidewinder) were both running great! Sidewinder was my first shuttle loop coaster and I enjoyed the airtime on both drops and got a grey out on the loop. Twister was also fun albeit not quite as good as the Knoebels version but definitely the #1 coaster in the park for me personally. Elitch has a solid flat collection including a beautiful PTC carousel, an Eyerly Spider, a giant wheel with a fantastic light package, arguably the best troika we've ever ridden (got airtime on that thing), Tilt-A-Whirl, and a super rare Vekoma Wave Swinger. We also rode the MeowWolf Kaleidescope ride and it was probably the worst permanent dark ride I've been on to be honest. Overall the ops were not super fast but the dispatches were decent and everyone had a good attitude which goes a long way sometimes. The food and beverage places were all open and everything we purchased in terms of food tasted good. I actually liked Elitch Gardens so much that I'm afraid to go back because I don't want to ruin my wonderful memories of the park if in fact it sucks on other days or years. As I said, I was shocked when everything at the park went basically perfect because of how much hate I've heard about it through the years. Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park was one that I have mixed feelings about. First of all the pros is that it has a stunning setting and some solid flats including the Crystal Tower (indoor underground Drop Tower ride). The coasters however were not all they had been cracked up to be. The Cliffhanger coaster was the underrated gem of the park that we lapped about 4 times. Defiance unfortunately was quite a headbanger and very uncomfortable. The kiddy coaster was fine but the mountain coaster had a lot of trims and was definitely not as good as the ones down in pigeon forge. The park in general is pretty expensive but it does include cave tours which we participated in one. The tour we took was Kings Row and while pretty it was much shorter than some other tours I've done done at other caves. Even one of my friends said that it was a lame version of the cave tours at SDC. So all in all we are glad we visited Glenwood Caverns but none of us are in any hurry to return. Well that's a wrap on our short but sweet trip to Colorado. I have heard rumors that Lakeside might get the Cyclone running again next year so I might be heading back there for those credits in 2026!

As in they are working around the base? What type of activity are we talking about? I wouldn't think they would attempt to get it running this year at this point

To be fair we did not thoroughly explore the zoo section as we had approximately 8 hours at the park. From what I saw of it, I did look decent. The snake displays in the que for sidewinder Safari were a nice touch

I have been very busy and haven't gotten time to write up a trip report on my travels to the bay area parks over Labor Day weekend. My partner and I decided to spend the holiday weekend in the bay area as we wanted to get to California Great America before it possibly closes in the near future. More on that later. 8/30: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom was the first park in our list. We joined ACE Northern California for an informal meetup to celebrate the reopening of Flash Vertical Velocity. This was definitely my favorite impulse coaster and they were a great bunch of folks! Highly recommend you check out some of their future events! The Boomerang was closed this particular day and my partner rode Batman (s&s free spin) without me because I was dehydrated and not feeling well. I got all the other credits including Medusa which is arguably in my top 3 floorless coasters and Joker which was an ok RMC. Fun and a good fit in the park much like Storm Chaser at KY Kingdom. Definitely not SteVe or even Twisted Timbers. I did ride Kong (the SLC) and it was definitely one of the worst. It was relocated from opryland so that was the only significant thing about it. Superman (the original skyrocket 2) was running fantastic and didn't have the stupid comfort collars making it a much more enjoyable experience. Two hidden gems in the park are the flat rides Thrilla Gorilla and Monkey Business. Both are older zamperla flats and both kick butt. Definitely check them out. 8/31: In the morning we drove down to Gilroy Gardens for about 4 hours. The Morgan mine train coaster was pretty amazing. Definitely one of the better mine train coasters. We also loved the variety of vegetable and fruit themed flat rides. The train was cool considering it went through a conservatory area and provided transportation from the front to the back of the park. One ride that is not to be missed is the 1920/1950 auto car ride. This one has an electric rail but you still get it steer (much like Dollywood) the course is about 4 minutes long and has a tunnel on both tracks. Definitely one of my favorite car ride attractions. They also had a gorgeous Illions Supreme Carousel that we enjoyed very much. That afternoon we made our way to California's Great America. We had decided to buy fastlane because we knew we didn't have an entire day to spend at the park. We started with Berserker which is the Schwarzkopf Byrne kurve. It was fun but definitely one of the weaker Schwarzkopf rides I've experienced. We hit up railblazer which was definitely not as good as stunt pilot at Silverwood but still enjoyable. Next was demon which was running better than it's clone in Chicago. We rode the Drop Tower and the redwood rally rides before getting on Grizzly. We rode front row so we didn't notice any roughness but rather that the ride is just plain boring. Up next was Phyco Mouse which reminded me why it's a shame Arrow never built more of these. They have good laterals, smooth profiling, and a few airtime pops. Hope this ride finds a new home after the park closes. We then grabbed the skyride to the front of the park and got a ride on Rue le Dodge which is one of the better dogems style rides because it still has the old fast moving cars. Flight Deck is definitely the best of the older inverts. Such an underrated ride! Super forceful and I got a grey out for several seconds. We rode Mass Affect New Earth which was cool considering I never got to experience Days of Thunder at Kings Island. Next we tried to ride Centrifuge but it broke down and we were told it would remain closed the rest of the day. We grabbed the Woodstock Express credit and rode the kiddy breakdance (Peanuts Pirates) before moving back towards the front of the park for a ride on Orbit which was a stunning Schwarzkopf enterprise and the only one currently operating in North America. We snagged a ride on Patriot and then did a wonderful night ride on Gold Striker. We watched the fireworks as it was a special show for the holiday before heading out for the night. 9/1: On Labor Day we drove down to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to spend about three hours at the park before our flight home. The Giant Dipper was running fantastic as were their other coasters, we enjoyed numerous flats including a rock o plane and their Looff Carousel with the brass rings and iconic clown. What surprised me about the boardwalk was their good dark rides. All 3 were fun and well executed in their own ways. The ghost blasters was better than any boo blaster ride I've ridden, the cave train had a Hanna Barbara feel to it, and then the haunted Castle ride did have some pretty grotesque animatronics and jump scares. All I'm all we enjoyed our short time at the boardwalk and definitely want to return in the future!