johnjniehaus

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!

I know right! To be honest they could just be ripping out boo Blaster at the moment, no clue if there's any more progress on phantom or not

We're about to have SoB all over again. I don't wanna cast doubt on the woman if she really did get hurt but why are we just now hearing about it? There is unfortunately a trend in the amusement park industry that as soon as someone hears "free money" they all decide to get involved and try and get a piece of the pie. Again if you didn't seek first aid or go to a hospital, I don't think you should be entitled to anything. Just my opinion

Anyone noticed that the concept video for the new coaster has the conquistador in it which they just announced is going to be removed? Makes me wonder when they decided to pull the plug on their swinging Ship? Were the animation guys just having fun or was that not the original plan?

Cedar Point needs to bring back THE PIRATE RIDE! I believe the building is still there it's it?

Hey if M&Ms sponsorship keeps it running for a good many more years I'm all for it. I think it would look cool if the main ride was black and then there was a red, yellow, green, and blue pod on each arm

Yeah harassing the park and faking emails is definitely an issue... Don't blame the park there I hope that if they're not going to run it for haunt that they do take time to give it the proper treatment and get everything fixed on it so that it's good to go for a few years without anything major. I do think that a new color scheme might be cool. I mean black is classic but I do wonder if adding a second color on the pods could look nice.

Did someone get banned?

I unfortunately don't see the light at the end of the tunnel with how much their stock keeps dropping and their attendance is crashing too. Cutting events at parks where they aren't the most profitable is probably the right move unfortunately. Selling off land around some of the larger parks I think is smart. However they are in so much debt that I think history is probably going to repeat itself and they will be facing a bankruptcy situation sometime in the future. Big parks like CP, Kings Island, Magic Mountain etc with be safe but smaller or mid size parks may not survive. All I can say is, enjoy the parks while you can. I just visited CGA and actually really enjoyed it and it sucks that park is going to get closed. Six Flags America has sucked for a long time so I wasn't surprised nor too sad to hear it was closing but CGA was arguably the best park in the bay area market and it's unfortunate that they are going to lose it

Anyone got any monster updates recently?

Firehawk was more reliable than batwing! I think batwing is at the end of its service life and has been for the past 3 years just six flags America hadn't pulled the plug on it

I agree they are mostly for bragging rights and don't mean much outside of the enthusiast community. As for the investment side of things, I think we know which park gets more investment than any other park in this chain and it's worth noting that park took home ZERO golden tickets. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Cedar Point hater (it's my favorite park) I'm just saying they have potential to be better than they already are. I was once told that you never profess to be the best because you can only go down from there and you should always look for ways to improve. SF seems to have a motto that is always looking for ways to make cuts

Well that's quite the accomplishment considering that they got 3 out of a chain that includes over 40 parks while some individual parks like Dollywood took home three all by themselves. So great job SF, you'd think that with 40 properties you would be able to beat out Dollywood

Not shocked at all. They don't want to spend the money on rebranding all the kids areas at 10 parks right now. I was 99% sure they would renew considering that parks are already planning new additions for 2026. If they didn't want to renew peanuts, Kings Island wouldn't be getting a new phantom theater, we'd be getting a new looney tunes bugs Bunny National park. That would be the new addition for next year. If they don't really want to keep Peanuts around long term, they will rebrand after 2030 when they have time to plan and market the switch as a "new" attraction for 2031

Anymore news on the Pantherian wheel situation?

Simple answer - YES

I NEED them to bring back the 7 LAYER CREPE CAKE at Grain and Grill. That thing was the best amusement park dessert I think I have ever had other than Dollywood cinnamon bread!

I absolutely love Intamin and their rides are still be best to ride in my opinion but yes the delays of opening new rides and getting replacement parts for old ones would make people want to stop working with them. For example all the straddle coasters went down, Pantherian was waiting on a part for half the year, I think Millie had a lengthy wait for a part, the river rapids rides at numerous parks have been down for 6 months or longer the past few years at numerous parks waiting on Intamin to get a replacement part

New characters animatronics looking good! Glad to see the park giving real updates and keeping people engaged again

All I'm going to say is that I think liquidation of some parks is inevitable at this point. They can't afford to keep running the ones not bringing in high profits. Unfortunately, instead of giving another company the opportunity to right their wrongs, Six Flags will most likely close any and all parks that are within any potential competition distance of their other properties. It makes sense to eliminate the competition but it SUCKS for everyone else! Why not sell SFA? Well because it's too close to KD and Dorney Park. Why not sell CGA? It's too close to SFDK. Six Flags doesn't care if all of your memories go to heck when your park closes or if you have to drive 2-3 hours to your nearest park. Both companies were in a lot of debt pre merger and their issues have only continued. It's very disheartening to think about more parks closing. SFA sucks so I'm not too upset about that one but I was just at CGA and there's no argument that it's better than every other park in the Bay Area.

Anyone think these shirts will be in the KI online store or will it be a buy in park exclusive?

So does this confirm the suspension that this ride was planned after the 50th and has been delayed a couple years?

Hope so! Yes there is no way to tell but I do wonder considering that PT encore I think was sort of a test to see if the fanbase was still around - and it was