Oldiesmann

I wonder if Carowinds will have the "no adults without a kid" restriction that Canada's Wonderland has (or had? I can't find anything on the park's site about that). I probably won't make it to Carowinds next year anyway (even though I love that park and haven't been in 3 years), but I am curious about that.

I really like Carowinds' Snoopy area. Great to see them adding to the area. I'm sure the new attractions and the splash area they also announced will be a big hit with families.

I saw the first article earlier, but given that they don't cite a source for their info I didn't really believe it. When I was there last month there was a sign up saying they were refurbishing it for their 50th anniversary season. I didn't see any work being done on it, but I was all over the park as well so I might have just missed it. Wikipedia says the sky ride was made by Von Roll, a company that's still in business, so I wouldn't think finding parts would be that difficult.

I was at Cedar Point for a couple of days in late July last year and the ride wasn't open at all the entire time I was there. It's sad to see it go but as others have said that's prime real estate, so it will be interesting to see what they do with the land.

The building is still there. The hotel is now a "Delta Hotels Marriott", but the water slide complex outside the portion of the building that housed Coco Key has been demolished. I don't know if that portion of the building is used for anything or not.

I'll have 4 as I haven't been since 2019. Might have even more if I decide to add SFA to the itinerary.

8½ years between posts. Holy topic bump, Batman! I believe The Beach's main problem was they never really expanded/updated anything, and then KI kept expanding/updating the water park (which actually opened 5 years after The Beach). The location probably didn't help since you had to drive right past KI to get there, but it was a cool place nonetheless, and they had things that you didn't find at KI (dive-in movies before KI did it, plus a teen dance night every Tuesday during the summer among other things). I think Coco Key's main problem is they weren't much more than an indoor water park attached to a random hotel in the middle of the suburbs. I attempted to go there once only to find out that that was the one day of the week they were closed, and never made it back before they closed for good. I'm not sure a different location would have helped them much, unless they had been near the aquarium/Newport on the Levee (since there isn't much else in northern Kentucky to draw people from north of the river down there - unless you live down that way, know someone who does or are passing through on the way back east, there isn't much to draw people outside of Devou Park and the Levee).

It's great to see CF starting to focus on some of its more minor parks now (I realize KD isn't a minor park compared to something like Dorney or Michigan's Adventure, but it still isn't one of the company's biggest parks in terms of fame, especially with Busch Gardens Williamsburg being just an hour away). A major coaster addition just in time for the park's 50th anniversary season is an excellent choice in my opinion, especially one that they can say is "record breaking" to appeal to the general public. It'll be interesting to see what else the park has in store for their 50th anniversary as well.

I really need to remind myself to slow down and see things other than amusement parks while on vacation. My recent trip was fun but I regret not having time to see other things. I haven't done the trolley tour in Hershey nor have I seen the museum there. I found a few things I'd like to check out in the Pittsburgh area that I didn't have time to do when I went to Kennywood (fortunately Pittsburgh is a relatively easy drive from CIncinnati - unlike Hershey, which is 7+ hours not counting stops). I am definitely going to take that into account when planning next year's trip. I definitely want to hit KD and BGW, but at least plan on splitting the drive up over two days this time around (last time I was at KD I drove up from Carowinds so I didn't realize how far the drive is from there to Cincinnati until I headed home at the end of the trip), and hopefully throw a day of exploring Williamsburg in there as well.

I'm already planning to visit Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg next year. With this announcement I might have to throw Six Flags America in there as well (only two hours from KD). I'll have to see how much vacation time/floating holiday hours I end up with by next summer.

Quite an adventure at Dollywood today apparently. Even parts of the parking lot were flooded.v

Nights of Lights is moving to a new location this year - the Clermont County Fairgrounds in Owensville. A bit of a hike from Cincinnati... https://www.citybeat.com/arts/coney-islands-nights-of-lights-holiday-show-to-live-on-in-new-location-17865347

Two other legacy SIX parks have also implemented this policy - Six Flags America (about 35 miles south of Baltimore) and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (about 29 miles north of Oakland, CA). It will be interesting to see if the rest of the SIX parks implement a similar policy. I can't really picture Great Adventure doing this as it's so far from any major cities to begin with (Philadelphia is the nearest big city; Trenton, NJ is closer but has less than 100,000 people), but some of the other suburban parks like Great America might.

Six Flags Over Georgia is implementing a chaperone policy.

I posted that in the other topic about said surcharges. Of course this would happen a couple of days after I visit Great Adventure. Would have saved me some money.

Reports are now coming out saying that the $1.30 surcharge is being dropped from all parks.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. IT stuff takes a lot of work in situations like this - they have to work with Accesso and/or other vendors to migrate data from one system to another, figure out what software/hardware updates are required at each park, figure out how to pay for all the necessary technology changes... As I recall it took a couple of years for CF to get all that straightened out after they bought the former Parmount parks. They'll also need to figure out how they're going to do mobile apps. I actually prefer having a separate app for each park, but developing/maintaining 43 apps for each platform (Android, iOS and any other platforms they may support) could be hard to do.

An interesting program developed by Hersheypark. https://www.hersheypark.com/hpgo.php From what I could tell by looking at the options at one of the kiosks when I was there on Saturday, you can also add your dining plan to the band (at least the all day one - I assume passholders would just scan their pass for that like usual). It certainly simplifies things.

Having visited Hershey and Great Adventure the past few days, I've been spoiled by good interactive dark rides. Resses Cupfusion at Hershey in particular was good, but I also enjoyed Battle For Metropolis as well. Technology has changed so much since Boo Blasters and the park really needs to do something with it. I'm sure they could even develop a Peanuts themed dark ride to put in there if they tried hard enough.

Looks like an interesting event, and I'd assume the cost covers the staff needed, but it's too much, even for members (my sister and her husband are members and it would cost them over $50 to go with their two kids). If it gets you access to all the standard zoo exhibits (like what you can do during Festival of Lights), it might be worth it to some, but I don't see this being very popular at those prices.

After two days at Great Adventure, I wanted to post my thoughts on the park. It was my first visit to any Six Flags branded park, so I didn't know what to expect. It's a really odd park. Once you turn into the park it's a good 5 minute drive winding around the huge property before you get to the parking tolls. The water park is completely separate, to the point where you turn off for that before you get to the parking tolls for the regular park (they have a free shuttle to get you between parks, but you have to leave the main park and walk a bit to get to the stop). The good thing is it's a nice clean park and, for the most part, very well run. They have an impressive collection of coasters (S&S 4D free spin, indoor Mack wild mouse, 5 B&Ms (hyper, standup, floorless, inverted and flying), the two famous ones (El Toro and Kingda Ka), an indoor dark ride/coaster combo (Skull Mountain), a kids coaster and a 50-year-old Arrow runaway mine train). It also has a nice selection of flat rides (carousel, bumper cars, swinging ship, etc). Staff was friendly, security was around the few rides where absolutely no loose articles are permitted to help enforce the policy, etc. Security at the entrance was excellent as well - they have metal detectors similar to the tall open ones KI has, but someone is monitoring them and you might get sent to secondary screening. If you do, you put your phone, keys, wallet and bags in a tray, and everything is sent through an airport style x-ray screener. However, the layout of the park is just odd, and it seems at times they couldn't decide what to do with it - there's a Boardwalk section with games, boardwalk-style buildings, a frontier area, a couple of DC themed areas (Metropolis, which is where the two new rides will be, plus another area with two Batman themed rides), two restaurants that look like they're straight out of a fairy tale (and both the carousel and bumper car buildings match), then random rides scattered about. There are two kids areas, which seemed nice. The swinging ship in particular confused me. It's the same model as Viking Fury, but the ride cycle is so short it's barely enjoyable (ride lasts 90 seconds at most). Then there are the SBNO rides. They're working on renovating some classic rides for the 50th anniversary this year, but none of them were ready yet (though it appears the giant wheel will be open soon - a sign nearby says they're waiting on the state to finish certifying it). There was no sign of any progress at the sky ride or log flume, nor at the site of the new coaster and flat ride which are still being advertised as "opening in summer 2024". Twister, their HUSS Top Spin, was SBNO both days, with no sign explaining why (though I wouldn't have been able to ride it anyway as a sign at the ride says they don't allow sandals or any other open toed shoes). Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth (similar to Delirium) is closed for manufacturer required maintenance. Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom is closed for the same reason and so they can get the state to certify it again. There's also a large empty structure near El Toro that appears to have been a stadium of some sort at one time. The prices seemed to be on par with typical amusement park prices, though there's that famous "surcharge" they add on to every purchase ($1.30 to combat rising costs supposedly). Overall I had a great time (not a bad coaster in the park - I'd even venture to say that Batman: The Ride is better than Banshee), but it just seemed a bit neglected, and navigating the park was challenging at times (the navigation feature in the app is all but useless). I didn't venture over to Hurricane Harbor or do the safari (it was closed today and I was focused on getting coaster credits yesterday, especially after a storm rolled through and shut down rides for a good hour due to lightning in the area after the storm passed), so I can't comment on that part. The park could be a lot better if Six Flags put more effort into it. I was particularly surprised that the new rides for 2024 weren't even open yet (and they still have a construction fence around them).

There's an interesting discussion going on about that over at X from parkfans.net as well: https://x.com/ParkFansNetwork/status/1811084132857921696

I would assume the ads help offset the cost of hosting. On a related note, if we ever did want to do a KIC cruise, BB Riverboats here in Cincy has group outings as low as $26 a person for a sightseeing cruise as long as you can guarantee at least 50 people (or you can get a discount on a public cruise if you don't want to have the entire boat to yourself)

The desktop version on mine does not show the park's birthday. It shows "Joined in April 2009" just like the original photo.

In the original post it shows "Edit Profile" when viewing the KI feed (exactly what you see when you login to X and click on "Profile" on the left side, with your own info in place of KI's) and both screenshots also show the correct account info in the lower left corner (not just a KI logo like yours do). It is of course entirely possible for someone to manipulate images to make them very difficult to distinguish from the real thing, but why would someone go to all that trouble and make up a lengthy story about how things happened, when there are plenty of others who could quickly verify whether said events actually did happen?