johnjniehaus

I'm an enthusiast and proud to be one. I think enthusiasts can be picky but they are also the ones devoting much of their time traveling all over the country and in some cases internationally and in general hold the industry to a very high standard. I think the addition of river racers was needed, it was good, but it could have been better. Other parks have clearly done it better. I often judge how successful an attraction is by if any of my family mentions it or if people at work or church walk up to me and mention it. For example when Mystic Timbers was announced literally everyone was asking me if I'd heard about the new coaster Kings Island had announced and then when it opened everyone wanted to know if I'd ridden it and what I thought. In 2018/2019, again there were many people asking if I'd heard that they were bringing back the antique cars. Then the Orion announcement dropped and everyone was sending me povs and news articles and asking me what I thought about it. When adventure port was announced I had less people approach me but people were still interested. So far I've only had one person bring up the new water coaster to me... I'm not sure if that speaks to everyone I know being uninterested or maybe the park hasn't effectively reached them and they are uninformed. Keep in mind these people I'm talking about are not enthusiasts. My family members, coworkers, and friends go to KI maybe once a year and CP every couple years and never go to parks outside of Ohio. It doesn't take an enthusiast to tell you Diamondback and Orion are similar rides or that the park needs to have ice in their soda machines. Heck everyone I know was upset about The Vortex closing and they probably couldn't even tell you what year it opened or who manufactured the ride. I think the general public has feelings about things they just don't always have the platform that an enthusiast might have to make their thoughts known.

I think that Don has a very valid point which is that while the additions to the water park are much needed, they might not draw people from out of town... As it has been pointed out, holiday world has a superior water coaster and I've heard great things about Dollywood's water park as well. I can also see the side where maybe Kings Island doesn't care about drawing in people from out of town with this addition and it was only meant for the home crowd. Either way I think the general public will be happy with it. If it's great or if it sucks really won't affect me personally because I never go to Soak City. Also I think it could be an assumption to assume the park was only wanting to target the Cincinnati market with this addition the same as some would assume they wanted to target a wider market that includes neighboring cities like Columbus, Louisville, and Indianapolis.

As I look back to my original post about this topic, I have never once stated that intamin had a flawless history. I have always used words like problematic to describe them. So I don't know what you mean by "concede that they have a troubled history" as I have always acknowledged the fact they do have a history of producing rides that have had issues. Back to the question at hand, everyone knows that no manufacturer other than intamin typically builds coasters to this magnitude. My point is that Zamperla while having a reliable history has produced very small scale rollercoasters such as wild mouse models, motorbike coasters and the Volare. As I have said before I do not profess to know which manufacturers were considered (perhaps some of them refused to even touch the project) but a manufacturer such a B&M has experience building 300ft rollercoasters that hit 90+mph. B&M has some of the most reliable rides out there. Vekoma has come a very long way since the 80s and 90s when they built worse versions of all the Arrow products. Today they are building world class large scale thrill coasters. Maybe not 400ft and 120mph but they are building bigger more ambitious rides than Zamperla. Look at the new Vekoma coasters at the Disney parks and in Europe. Tell me that Vekoma isn't innovative and that they aren't producing high quality coasters. Even Premier Rides... Haven't they been building launch coasters for almost 30 years? Looking at AlpenFury it might not be 400ft tall or 120mph but it looks really solid. At the end of the day we can speculate if the situation would have been different had CP done this or that but that doesn't change the fact that Zamperla was the chosen manufacturer, the ride from all accounts was amazing based on reports I've heard from those lucky enough to ride it during media days and the first week and a half it was open to the public, and that there is some sort of undisclosed issue/design flaw that has resulted in it being closed since mid May. I do hope that everything is resolved and they are able to open the ride by or before opening day 2025. I don't want to see the situation get ugly between CP and Zamperla as sometimes a flawed ride leads to bad relationships and lawsuits...

I know that intamin pushed the limits and that their rides historically have had many issues sometimes leading to fatal and life altering disabilities. However, some incidents are due to park operator negligence and/or improper maintenance by the park. I understand why they declined to bring intamin back into the picture but I question why they went with a rookie manufacturer such as Zamperla who had no history of producing an attraction to this magnitude. It was a risk they decided to take and so far that risk has not paid off.

I get that Cedar Fair is apparently on rocky terms with Intamin and with RMC but I do question the decision to give Zamperla arguably the most important contract of the year. I questioned it the day they announced they were going with Zamperla. I think Zamperla is a good company and has built some good rides but they had no experience in this area at the time. I don't know if intamin was considered but instead of giving a project to a problematic manufacturer they decided to give it to a novice essentially. I thought last year before the ride ever opened, if this works, Zamperla is going to become one of the high demand manufacturers and if this doesn't work, CP and Zamperla are both going to get screwed. I am still holding out hope that all the issues will be resolved and the ride will reopen (probably next year at this rate) and all of these issues will be just a memory of the past, however, I think the entire situation sucks for both parties and the guests who of course wanted to ride this and possibly bought passes with the thought of riding TT2 this year. Hopefully AlpenFury and Rapterra both open on time and prove to be much more reliable attractions than TT2

Maybe I'm just stupid but what is the deal with spitting? Like what are we talking about? Are we talking about everyone coughing up phlegm and spitting it out? We talking people chewing tobacco and spitting? People spitting off the Eifel Tower type spitting? Or just spitting for the sake of spitting? I've never experienced that as an issue at a park before

I think it's hilarious that the fans argue over things like this...makes for very lively conversations! River Racers isn't a a water coaster and Orion isn't a giga coaster.

Interesting! It wasn't smooth but I didn't think it was bad. I've ridden much worse in terms of roughness

Can you explain? I went to wonderland last year and thought the park was very well run and the food options were pretty good. I had a wonderful time. What seems lacking this season?

A friend of mine from ACE and I decided to meet up at Michigan's Adventure to check out what is often considered the worst legacy Cedar Fair park. I unfortunately had some delays during the 6 hour drive and arrived 30 minutes after park opening. My friend was able to rope drop the Mad Mouse coaster which was the only credit that I didn't get seeing as I refused to wait an hour+ for a wild mouse. I had already ridden the arrow mouse at Valleyfair and while it stinks to not have gotten the credit, I don't think an excessive amount of time in line would have been worth it. However,my friend said Mad Mouse is definitely one of the best wild mice she's ridden. I met her at the entrance after her ride on Mad Mouse and we got in line for Wolverine wildcat. I never realized that the park only has one train for certain coasters but this one was one train ops. Took about 30 min to get on. This was when we realized that while the ops at Michigan's Adventure are very friendly, they are not concerned with quick dispatch times. Which considering the park was pretty busy, became kind of frustrating. Anyway, Wolverine Wildcat was actually pretty good. Titan track first drop was glass smooth and the Gravity Group sections were also very comfortable. The Dinn sections definitely were rough but not uncomfortable (given we were not in a wheel seat). We came back later in the day and got a second ride on Wolverine Wildcat waiting nearly 40min and had a similar ride experience. The next coaster was Shivering Timbers. After about a 30min wait we got in line for the front row which added about another 15min to our wait time. This coaster does run two trains thankfully so the line did move a bit better than some other coasters in the park. I got 3 additional rides on Shivering Timbers throughout the day waiting around 25-40min each time. Rode in the middle and in the back too and it's a great ride no matter the seat. The coaster is slightly rough but not to the point of giving one a headache or being unrideable. Just had some healthy woodie bite to it. The airtime and sense of speed were amazing and there were also some very intense lateral sections. Definitely a top 5 woodie for me. I still prefer the Voyage and The Beast but I might have to put Shivering Timbers over the Pheonix at Knoebels and The Boss at SFSL. Definitely an elite rollercoaster and makes the trip to this park absolutely worth it! Up next was thunderhawk, the relocated Geauga Lake SLC.. I have ridden 3 SLC coasters (T3, Flight Deck, and Mind Eraser) and all 3 were a rather painful experience where I was just trying to defend my head from the restraints and survive long enough to get off the ride. So my expectations for t-hawk were rather low. I must say that the pain looked fresh and the purple trains were really eye-catching. After waiting 45min we got a row near the back and after we hit the final breaks I told my friend I thought that was the best SLC I'd ever ridden and she had to agree with me that while we both rode extremely defensively, there wasn't a single headbanging moment. I actually got to enjoy (can't believe I'm saying that word) the intense layout and inversions of the SLC and walked away thinking that it was actually not the worst coaster in the park. My friend got lunch with her all season dining (I wasn't hungry so I got another ride on shivering timbers). She said that the food service was abysmal and that the food itself was in fact terrible as well. I had heard a lot of bad things about the food at the park and she said everything I heard was true. Unfortunately there are no restaurants or infrastructure around the park so they kinda have you over a barrel so to speak on eating lunch. After lunch, we saw that the massive line for corkscrew had finally died down. We waited about 20min due to the one train ops. Corkscrew looked great, ran pretty smooth, and had two forceful inversions. The downside is it lasts a meer 26sec after it drops off the lift. Extremely short ride but it does pack in some good forces. Nice to see a classic Arrow still running pretty well considering it age. We waited about 20 minutes for Zach's Zoomer which looked like a PTC clone of Woodstock Express until I started looking closer and noticed a few layout differences. My friend informed me that it was built by CCI which got us both excited as neither of us had ever ridden a baby CCI coaster and we really enjoyed it. It actually rode like a CCI not like a PTC which just made us laugh the entire ride. After we got off, we decide to see if they would let us ride the smallest kids coaster Woodstock Express. After a 10min wait we were able to ride it and agreed that it was very janky for a kiddy coaster. Definitely some very rough transitions. After knocking out the coasters we decided to hit a few flat rides which surprisingly had minimal lines. We did the balloon ride in camp Snoopy which apparently adults are allowed to ride. Then we did the flying trapeze yo-yo model swinger. Finally we rode the trabaunt which of course brought back all those old memories of my childhood riding the trabaunt that was at Coney Island during the mid 2000s. They appeared to have a good variety of flats but we wanted shivering timbers re-rides and a opted to not ride things like the scrambler, Ferris wheel, and merry go round. It's worth mentioning that Michigan's Adventure has a pretty good looking miniature railroad train ride in the back of the park that connects both sides of the lake however we never got around to riding it. They also have 3 pretty good looking water rides (log flume, rapid ride, and boat chute). I originally planned to ride the water rides but when I realized the weather was going to be a high of 70 and cloudy the entire day, I didn't feel like getting cold and wet. So is it the worst park Legacy Cedar Fair park? Probably yes because of the slow operations and the horrible food situation. The coaster lineup is actually decent and shivering timbers is elite but other parks just have more to offer. To say all of that, Michigan's Adventure still provides a better experience than what I had at Six Flags America. Like Michigan's Adventure, SFA has horrible food and terrible ops but unlike Michigan's Adventure all the employees are super hateful and rude, many of the coasters are so rough they are just not enjoyable, half the rides are closed, and the park just looks and feels dirty with trash and half eaten food all over the walkways. Don't get me started on their bathrooms! Michigan's Adventure was clean, had good rides, and friendly but slow employees. If they could get the operations up to speed and improve the food, Michigan's Adventure would definitely become a more desirable destination. I don't see myself making the 6 hour trek up there again for a few years but it's definitely a park I would revisit!

To be honest, while Orion is a great ride I've even had non enthusiast friends tell me they thought "isn't it just another Diamondback?" Even a member of the GP can tell when two rides are similar. I get that KI took over a project that CGA abandoned but at the same time I do feel like the park needs something more unique the next time around. Don't get me wrong Orion is a great coaster and I'm not knocking it or saying it's a bad ride. I'm very glad we have it. However the next time around we need something that will please the enthusiasts crowd but also something that will get the GP excited and thinking "wow I've never seen anything like that!" Unfortunately with current communication slump the park seems to be in, the next coaster project probably will have very uninteresting teasers and promotional material. I think it's bad when you see billboard ads for Dollywood in Cincinnati and not for Kings Island...

I'm not sure how it works with insurance and legal aspects but if CP was going to turn a coaster backwards, I'd say flip one side of Gemini backwards or flip the back three cars on iron Dragon backwards. I believe XLR-8 at astroworld had 3 forward and 3 backwards facing cars for a few seasons...

I was blown away at how much Kings Dominion looked and felt like what I imagine a taft park experience to have been. I of course only have archival photos and footage to go off of as I was born near the end of the paramount era but it is true that Kings Dominion has a vibe that is unlike any other parks I've been to. Kings Island has a very good vibe of a hometown crowd that loves the park. You don't get that everywhere. Even people from out of town recognize that Kings Island has a unique fan vibe. But getting back to Kings Dominion, the vibe I felt was one of age and royalty. The international Street felt as if it hadn't changed in 50 years as the massive trees branch out over the shops and fountain. The park looked amazing and felt very special to me for some reason but maybe it's just my imagination. Regardless I love that park and can't wait to get back there next year to ride rapterra

I don't think we'll see those masks again until a charity auction 10 years from now... I don't think the park is going to improve anything else about the ride. It was a great concept, the station looks amazing, and last year the effects were all working beautifully. This season I've noticed that the spears aren't timed properly in the second tunnel and the fist pounding dudes are also off time in the final tunnel as in the entire train has already started climbing the lift before they start up and the guy at the top dumps the lava on the back cars not the front ones. Unfortunately I think they became rushed and missed some fine details that would have taken the ride from a B+ to a perfect score. There was probably a lot of pressure to get Adventure Express open asap last year and they just started cutting corners to achieve a deadline. Looking back on it they probably should have just finished the job and it would have been ready when it was ready and it would have been done right.

I never thought about it until you said it... You are absolutely right that Backlot is their only launch coaster which isn't great. Canada's Wonderland has a pretty good collection of coasters (some of which aren't very good... looking at you, Flight Deck & Time Warp) but others are very good. The arrows are both classics, I personally love thunder run and wonder mountains guardian. The Bat is the best Vekoma Boomerang I've ever ridden (perhaps because it runs an arrow train?), and the two woodies should not be underestimated! They both will need some re-tracking in the next few years but they have amazing layouts. AlpenFury will be a great addition to the park and also showcase a different manufacturer other than B&M. I love B&M like everyone else but I do feel like many of their coasters have similar elements and after a park has 3-4 B&Ms perhaps it's time to utilize the strengths of a different manufacturer.

This has probably become my most anticipated new coaster for 2025... I still can't believe how they managed to cram yet another rollercoaster inside wonder mountain. Does anyone know if any rides are being removed to make space for this coaster? I couldn't think of anything that I saw missing from the POV but perhaps there is a flat they removed for the station area that I am just not remembering at the moment? 9 inversions is pretty sick and I think this really has the potential to be their best coaster. Of course the 3 B&Ms are really really solid so it'll have some competition but from the video this looks absolutely amazing!

Out of curiosity, I still wonder what ever became of the sphinx heads that were on the first lift of Adventure Express? I remember an Instagram post showing they had been repainted but they have never resurfaced. I actually thought the new "Mayan" look to them was really cool and it puzzles me why they were never put back up...

Thanks for the update. As we have seen, some refurbishments or repairs can take some time if they are waiting on specific parts or whatnot...for example Invertigo had an extended closure this summer at KI, the Condor and Roaring Rapids at Great America in Gurnee have been down for awhile now, the Skyride at Great Adventure, the carousel at SFSL, the list goes on I'm sure. I really hope that Great Adventure keeps their skyride as that was a really cool attraction that I thoroughly enjoyed during my visit in 2022. After the took out the parachute drop (much to my disappointment) I'd hate to see them tear down another classic ride.

https://wobm.com/update-farewell-to-a-ride-we-all-love-at-six-flags-great-adventure-in-new-jersey/ https://nj1015.com/the-sky-ride-at-six-flags-nj-not-permanently-closed-heres-the-scoop/ I'm not sure if anyone else noticed the conflicting stories published about the skyride at six flags great adventure permanently closing but I find it interesting. Is it closing or is it not? Also if this is a duplicate forum please direct me accordingly. However, if this is the first anyone has heard of it, what are your thoughts?

I was there in Oct 2023 on a slightly rainy day and nobody was there. Could lap anything in the park but unfortunately I already had a cold and the weather didn't help me feel any better. I was constantly having to blow my nose and was getting chills so I only stayed maybe 3 hours. Got all the major credits (of course good gravy wasn't open yet). Voyage instantly became my #1 woodie knocking The Beast off its long time pedestal. I loved the legend as well and didn't think it was too rough. Not as smooth as voyage but I didn't find it uncomfortable in any way. The Raven on the other hand was a piece of garbage it was so rough. Only did it once and said that's enough. I don't understand why people love it so much...its super short and rough. Maybe it was better years ago when they first built it but in its current state, it's pretty bad!

SFA was a very interesting experience for me... Loved superman and the wild one. I was the second train of the day on batwing which was also the final train of the day on batwing. The ops on jokers jink checked all the lap bars before the lock mechanism was engaged and then after the lock was engaged never rechecked before sending the train. I knew I was safe but it was a really really bad operations moment to be sure. Idk if the ops were so incompetent that they literally checked an entire train of unlocked bars and then thought nothing of it or if they didn't care enough to check after the lock was engaged. Very strange and slightly unnerving experience. Roar might be one of the roughest Woodies I've ever ridden but at least it's got great curb appeal! One of the hidden gems is that they still have a flying Dutchman ride (flying shoes) called pirates flight that was a pleasant surprise. Overall KD and BGW are FAR SUPERIOR parks to SFA. I hope that SFA can improve their ops and their food options in the coming years. I know that Great America in Chicago has made amazing strides in improving their food offerings and I hope SFA can get better. Oh and maybe they can actually get a ground up rollercoaster instead of someone's leftovers...

Anyone been up to Cedar Point in the past week or two? Anyone know if TT2 is still testing? At this point maybe it should just become their new ride for 2025!

Carowinds desperately needs a water ride...not sure why they don't run their River rapids ride anymore but that park was super hot when I visited and there's no relief whatsoever. I am not a water park guy but I do welcome a log flume or some other water ride to cool off

Of the options they sent out, my vote is for the infinity coaster. However if the mack extreme spinner was full circuit and not a shuttle coaster with terrible capacity I'd vote for it instantly! Giga dive would be cool but I also think that after the first drop, the ride wouldn't be anything too special... unless they find a way to make a dive coaster a 3 min ride with a drop track...now that would be amazing!

It would be interesting if PT showed up at other parks... I'd be interested in how popular it would be elsewhere