Dvo

Sounds like they may be sanitizing trains between cycles.

The posted picture is still a lot better than pictures I've seen from Holiday World and Indiana Beach last week. At least "some" people are being somewhat conscious of distancing. And nearly everyone is wearing masks at least to some capacity.

^agreed. Cedar Fair's lawyers (I assume) are just as precautionary as Six Flags'. This is an unfortunate event, but more than anything I hope it shines a light to Six Flags to take a look at Magic Mountain and do a better job of upkeep of the park. I was there last October, and if I'm being honest, the place looked quite terrible. There are numerous plots of land that formerly had rides on them, only to just be neglected and abandoned. They put basically no effort at all into maintaining a good looking park, even though it's a year-round park. Rather than focusing on securing their "most coasters" crown, I'd really like to see them invest some money into cleaning the place up. Someone send a moose over there with that message for me.

Oh hey, I'm back. Been a while... I'm glad to see Kings Island continue to add new attractions to their haunt event, but after experiencing Halloween Horror Nights (both Orlando and Hollywood) and Knott's Scary Farm, I have a hard time saying that any of the midwest haunts are good. I enjoy them, and it's great to see the parks with all of the creepy decor, but beyond that, the mazes are mediocre at best and the crowds are beyond crazy most of the time. The funny thing is that when I was at Knott's Scary Farm last year, they were having a meeting with all of the GM's in the Cedar Fair chain. I'd imagine they were all trying to take notes from the KBF book of knowledge, but understandably you don't build a haunt like that in a year or two. We'll see what comes down the pipeline for these parks...

^You definitely should. And agreed on the Calico Mine Ride aka Witch's Keep. That ride is very unique and neat even when it's not haunt season, but the added haunt effects took it to another level. And faeriewench, no doubt. For a first maze design, that's a great accomplishment. Really solid stuff the whole way through.

Been a while since I posted anything on here, and I hope it's not frowned upon to post a link to an external report, but I posted my trip report for Knott's Scary Farm and Universal HHN on my blog. Keep in mind this link is primarily just a review of the haunts. Here's a link. I'll try to summarize quickly though. In short, this was an incredible trip. I grew up going to Cedar Point's and Kings Island's haunts, so I was expecting a better, but similar experience at Knott's. WRONG. Knott's has phenomenal mazes with incredible detail in them, and a crap ton of scareactors. Great stuff. And Halloween Horror nights at Universal Hollywood is fantastic as well. The park itself is quite the labyrinth, as it is literally on a mountain. But their mazes were on par with what we expected, which is to say some of the best mazes you'll see. The Insidious maze was... mind blowing. Anyway, feel free to check out the blog for the full review. We also did some coasters out there at Knott's and SFMM. I'd been to Knott's, but Xcelerator and Timber Mountain log ride were both closed on my first visit, so these were new to me. And wow were they both a blast. Knott's is a wonderful park. Probably my 2nd favorite in the CF chain behind Cedar Point. SFMM was also very fun. Unfortunately X2 was closed, but YOLO Coaster was running. We did this as our second ride of the day, and I must admit, it was actually pretty fun. The loop is cool, and you get some crazy airtime going over the tophat in the back. Last time I was at SFMM, Superman was running forward, and didn't think too much of it. This time it was running backward, and that makes all the difference in the world. It's very very fun screaming down that track at 100 mph, and then the view you get climbing the tower is fantastic. Next ride of note was Green Lantern, the Zacspin coaster. That was... very strange and unusual, and not really what I expected. The ends of the track provide crazy moments of free fall, and it's more intense than I imagined it would be. Didn't love it, but didn't hate it. Then we went to Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom. Oh. My. God. Hands down the most terrifying drop ride I've been on. The restraints are extremely open, so there's nothing directly above your shoulders. And then if Superman launches while you're on Drop of Doom, you can literally feel the entire tower shaking. That combined with the sheer height, and the seemingly never-ending freefall makes this an unbelievable ride. And then the noteworthy night rides.. First is Revolution. I love this ride during the day, but at night it's just pure fun diving through the dark on the hillside. And finally, Tatsu. My goodness, Tatsu. I loved this ride during my first visit, but this time I got to ride it at night during Fright Fest. No Flyer will ever come close to matching those rides. Simply phenomenal. So yeah... did I mention I had a good time? Haha. Southern California has some great parks if you enjoy coasters and haunts, and I'm certain I'll be making this trip again.

Sounds like a good night to ride the other stuff, haha.

Sound the alarms!!!!!111111

With less than 3 hours to go, and 445 pages of more-or-less junk to go through, here's some of my favorite parts of this thread (from about the 50 pages I've actually seen)... 1) People REALLY love Don. Even when he quite literally does nothing at all, it's the most genius PR move in the world. Don't get me wrong, Don does a great job. But let's be real... all he's doing is a) not telling anyone what it is, and b. giving some subtle hints which may or may not be true. 2) Despite zero announcements being made, it was a PROVEN FACT even last week that it was an invert. *sigh* 3) Parking in a random parking lot can create some incredible/hilarious uproar around here. -Dvo, grabbing popcorn and going into hiding

I'm going with resorts renovation. Breakers is looking pretty shabby on the outside these days.

Yeah but don't worry. There will be thousands of complaints because the ride won't be exactly what people want. And endless amounts of construction coverage to banter over.

I would love a launched lift with a wing-over drop at the top. One can dream

You're all wrong. It's an Intamin Flume ride. Kenton's Revenge!

I'm loving being a fly on the wall here. Some "possibly true" blueprints get leaked, and all of a sudden everyone is an expert and knows everything about the ride. Settle down, 15 year olds -Dvo, patiently waiting for Thursday.

Based on that, it's quite apparent what's going on. With the success of Six Flags Great America re-locating and re-branding Iron Wolf as Apocalypse, they are again moving a ride to make room for future expansions. So get ready, boys and girls. "NEW" for 2014 at Kings Island... BATMAN THE RIDE.

^Strongly disagree. X2 and Tatsu are both well above The Beast and Diamondback in my rankings. Though I do agree that in recent years, they've taken the quantity over quality approach.

You mean like Flight Deck? Or Whitewater Canyon?

As much as I like Gatekeeper, I really hope you're wrong about this. Those vests are pretty brutal.

^^ https://www.visitkingsisland.com/hours-directions/kings-island

Yup, I do. Just wanted to show you he wasn't a butt saying hey, "everyone it happens all the time bolts fall out and they don't get replaced, it's totally cool." Haha. The Smiler is the worst case that I've seen. Like Nemo said, you should check out Flight of Fear inside the bowl. His general positive attitude really shines through his comments. -Dvo, submitting his resignation from coaster riding.

^That doesn't necessarily mean it's acceptable though. I would hope that if a bolt in fact falls off of a ride, the maintenance team replaces it upon discovery. Especially considering the significant gap that is showing in that picture of the Smiler track. That probably wouldn't feel good while riding.

I see what you did there. Really? I thought it was fantastic. The first drop from the holding brake is fantastic. Granted it's a redundant/short layout, but still a thrilling two minutes.

Intamin. Unreliable? Maybe a bit. But great rides? Definitely. I'd love to see KI put in a giga coaster.

$Texas. Yeah, I have no idea, but if I'd have to guess, somewhere in the ballpark of 50 or 60.

Very cool review. I went to this haunt a few years ago and to this day it's the best single haunt I've ever been to. They really scared the crap out of me, haha. A lot of fun. I think I enjoyed Halloween Horror Nights better as a complete event, but this is definitely my favorite haunt.