[Six Flags Wrapped 2025 Ridership Totals]

1 hour ago, Timchat2 said:

The ridership number for Six Flags New England seems surprisingly high. While it certainly sits in a densely populated part of the country, the park doesn't seem to come up often as a major player in the chain.

Maybe they've changed since I was there in either 2016 or 2018, but my jaw dropped when I saw that. Before COVID, SFNE had a solid enthusiast reputation (that my visit fully confirmed) for taking 3-5 business days to load and send a train.

[Herschend Signs Deal to Acquire Silverwood Theme Park]

On 11/13/2025 at 10:14 PM, SonofBaconator said:

Any working theories? Also would they all be Six Flags or former Cedar Fair parks as well?

While the CGA closure decision predates the merger, I think we technically have two examples of there being two parks (at least one of which isn't a top performer in the chain) in the same market and one of those parks gets shut down.

I have no insider knowledge and I'm definitely not an expert, but I'd keep an eye on Six Flags St. Louis/Worlds of Fun and Six Flags Great Adventure/Dorney Park. My money would be on WoF and SFGAdv staying. Whether that means SFSL and Dorney would get demolished or sold, it's hard to say. Herschend is the only domestic chain that seems like it'd be willing to purchase a park of that size, but neither of those parks make a ton of sense in terms of the kind of experience Herschend typically offers**. Would a European or Asian chain be interested in them?

I don't lump Knott's and Magic Mountain together because LA, in my mind, operates like Orlando in that destination parks are more able to coexist because of the large local population and high tourism.

I don't lump Michigan's Adventure and Cedar Point together because Michigan's Adventure is a large FEC and surely isn't pulling people from anywhere other than central/northern Michigan. It's a local destination whose pre-CF ownership overinvested in it and it wouldn't be able to sustain becoming any bigger than it currently is, which is why it doesn't get new additions.

Texas is an odd one. SFoT and SFFT have both been heavily invested in recently. San Antonio is able to sustain both SWSA and SFFT and has done so for years. The Dallas area is about to get a Universal park. (Meaning, there's competition for SIX to pay attention to in both cities.) I wouldn't count on either Texas theme park going anywhere, but I'm curious to see if there will be a change in the investment in either park going forward.

I feel like the smaller parks without much competition (Michigan's Adventure, Valleyfair, Great Escape, La Ronde, Frontier City) could go any direction. If the chain is HURTING hurting for money, I expect we could see them either get demolished and have their land sold (if they're in locations where the land is valuable) or sold to another chain. Otherwise, they seem to be able to sustain themselves and bring in money without needing frequent or big investments, so there might be an argument for keeping them.

If I were to take a stab at what I think will happen with the smaller parks: Michigan's Adventure and Great Escape will stay open, La Ronde will be demolished, Frontier City will be demolished or sold to a chain like IB Parks & Entertainment, and Valleyfair will either stay open or be sold to whatever chain might be interested in a park that size.

(**Neither does Kentucky Kingdom, though, so it's hard to say.)

[Herschend Signs Deal to Acquire Silverwood Theme Park]

Herschend's recent expansion combined with Six Flags's announcement that they'd like to offload more parks makes me wonder which Six Flags parks we might see become Herschend Parks. And if those parks have "Six Flags" in their name, what those parks' names become.

[Concrete Work Under The Beast]

I'm glad to see this happening. I hope the work extends into the turn off of lift 2. That turn has always tracked really poorly with age and always seems to devolve into two big, uncomfortable jerks to the left, just before the track straightens out. I assume that's an issue with the support structure. Maybe we can even lose the trims on that drop...?

My biggest hope for one of the next few off seasons is that they have Gravity Group reprofile the last turn before lift 2. I assume that the suddenness of that turn is a big reason why the first half of Beast has as many trim brakes as it does even now. (Think Magnum's reprofiling of the valley before the turnaround early in its life, where riders would go from airtime to positive G's very quickly and were getting hurt.) If that turn was less abrupt, it could potentially ditch some trims or even the whole "MCBR."

[Diamondback with 4 across trains?]

Diamondback would be less forceful with the 4-across trains.

The layouts of all modern coasters are initially designed around the forces at the center of the train, so the farther you are from the center (e.g. the front or back rows) the more forceful the ride is. The forces have to stay within certain limits for the ride to be safe, so longer trains require the ride to be more drawn out so the forces at either end stay within the limits. Compare how small the radius of the top of the lift on Orion is compared to Diamondback.

If you swapped out the staggered trains for the 4-across trains, everyone would sit closer to the center of the train, so the ride would be gentler. See also: Voyage being more extreme in the front and back rows with the original 7-car trains than with the current 6-car trains.

The inverse is true with Orion: If you put an 8-car staggered train on Orion, the forces in the front and back would likely be way too high for people to safely ride.

[Retheming The Racer to The Boss]

Was really hoping you meant the one at Six Flags St. Louis.

Disappointed.

[Herschend To Acquire Palace Entertainment]

It's almost like, and hear me out, casting some chains as "the impossibly good ones" and others as "the irredeemably foolish ones" was never the appropriate lens for enthusiasts to view the industry through. Not least because the largest "irredeemably foolish one" is, at the moment, operated by a large majority of people from a former "impossibly good one." Theme park chains don't operate how y'all play RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled "[park with slow ROIs] deserves a new coaster."

[If Son of Beast was different]

36 minutes ago, Maddog said:

So now expectations of this ride are always based in comparison to the OG.  It never had a chance to stand on its own merits.

I feel like almost the inversion of this is more what I've noticed--Son of Beast profits unfairly in the enthusiast zeitgeist from being the "child" of a well-established ride. I think many, many, many "what was it like"/"who got to ride it"/"was it as awesome as I imagine it" conversations post-closure, including this thread, would not have happened if it was simply a terrible ride with a standalone name. It was given unearned rose-colored glasses from the moment they decided on that name--which is personally a bit annoying when that weird reverence is coming from someone who otherwise unequivocally has negative opinions of the Paramount era. Paramount did such a good job in marketing a bad ride that we're still somehow talking about an almost universally disliked ride. Had they given it a Cedar Fair-type standalone name, we'd probably talk about it no more or less than we talk about Firehawk or Screamin' Demon.

Anyway, to respond to the original prompt: I think Twister at Knoebels does a better and more interesting job of being a "sequel" to The Beast than Son of Beast ever was. Given the era in which SoB opened, it could've been interesting to see CCI do their take on Twister.

[Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor To Close After 2025.]

On 5/17/2025 at 11:34 PM, Tr0y said:

Honestly I view this park being closed and sold for redevelopment as an act of mercy from Zimmerman by putting this place out of its misery. A park that in its heyday had potential but was ran so poorly that it cannot be saved.

I'm not about to pretend that SFA was some underloved gem--I went once about 10 years ago and have never craved a return--but it's worth pointing out that the widespread downtime you experienced really doesn't seem to have been a thing prior to this year. You're judging a store based on its "everything has to go" sale.

Also, the fact that an amusement park is having the maintenance equivalent of an "'everything has to go' sale" is its own issue, but that's for another post.

[The Beast PART 2]

The question here is if this is the actual Jeff Putz or not, lol.

[Best Food Item at Kings Island?]

Respectfully, I can't figure out if the tone of this thread is sarcastic or if someone loves them a muffuletta with a side of theatricality.

[River Town Mining Company]

15 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

Would be a good opportunity for Diamondback's 20th anniversary in 2029. 

I am so old.

[Kings Island to add “family thrill” attraction in 2026]

4 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

I honestly want the building gone.

Well, yeah. Also that.

[Kings Island to add “family thrill” attraction in 2026]

17 hours ago, Vortex1987 said:

What should go in the building?

A Vekoma Madhouse.

[The Bat Removal Rumor]

1 hour ago, Tr0y said:

There is a whistleblower thread still here claiming about things KI PR did / didn't do during the Banshee incident. So, I wouldn't say KI PR was a factor as far as putting pressure on KIC to having The Bat thread removed.

The issue with The Bat removal thread is that it is presented in the context of its removal being fact. Yet, there isn't any indication of removal. No markers, no heavy machinery present, literally no activity that would indicate something going on other than routine end of season maintenance. At least the Congo Falls speculation thread has photos of activity with some of signage missing:

 

I'm not trying to be difficult here--there's every possibility that you're 100% correct--but you do have to admit that there have been many posts over the years that claimed to factually have insider knowledge of what's coming and going that are still active posts on this site. Not to mention that if the person claiming The Bat is on its way out is correct, there wouldn't be equipment on site in December 2024 if it's being removed in late 2025 or early 2026.

You've got me as far as the whistleblower thread goes. I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to be sure of myself here, but there's a part of me that wonders if, since the ride removals are allegedly being done without warning in order to minimize loss of season passholders, the park would have a vested interest in not letting that story gain a lot of visibility. It IS odd that one thread stayed while the other disappeared.

[The Bat Removal Rumor]

5 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

Hold up? Is is confirmed Bat is leaving in 2025 or is it just speculation by another thoosie?

Neither. A post was made here claiming to have insight that, much like how Kingda Ka's, Green Lantern's, and Nighthawk's removals were handled for SFGAdv and Carowinds this year, The Bat will be quietly removed in the 2025-2026 off-season. It could easily be someone making something up, but it does track for how things are currently being handled by SF corporate, which is why I think it's reasonable to expect a statement from either KIC leadership (e.g. "we have asked the park for confirmation and will share responses"), KI's PR, or both.

Instead, the thread was quietly deleted. I've been around here long enough to know what pressure from KI PR often smells like.

[The Bat Removal Rumor]

^ I agree so much with your post, but I do want to talk about one thing:

5 minutes ago, coastergoblin said:

You have out of industry people running this company, who don’t have an understanding of the value of an extra hour of two at the end of the night to ride some rides or get a snack with less waits. All they see is the spreadsheet with the overhead cost of keeping labor another hour or two, delaying third shift maintenance, etc.

These people do not care about you or the experience you have at the park, is this true at a park level? Absolutely not, but down in Charlotte those C-Suites don’t care what this means to you or your family, and each year it’s going to get increasingly noticeable that they are cutting anywhere they can.

Where is the idea that outsiders are making these calls coming from? I was under the impression that the leadership team of the new Six Flags was entirely made up of legacy Six Flags and (especially) legacy Cedar Fair execs.

[Cedar Point releases 2025 calendar with some pretty major differences]

Love this new era for the industry, where the biggest seasonal park operator is operating under the notion that selling a season pass means only vaguely selling access to a theme park. Don't worry about the fine print. You'll receive what experiences and availability they determined is financially good for them during yesterday's meeting, effective immediately, integrity be darned.

Heaven forbid any kind of stink gets raised about a ride being quietly removed so people don't notice until passes are bought and it's a dirt pile.

[RIP Nighthawk?]

To me, the interesting question out of all of this is, "What happened to the situation at Six Flags to where they needed to axe their most maintenance-heavy and/or least reliable and/or less-popular older rides rides across the chain in the course of a single winter?" That's what's happening--La Vibora, Kingda Ka, Nighthawk, SFGAdv's Twister and Sky Ride, Snake River Falls, and potentially our Invertigo and Congo Falls all meet those criteria.

It's a bad look at any park to remove rides without warning. It's an especially bad look to remove some of the most well-known and unique rides without warning. It's a colossally bad look to knock down a quarter of Great Adventure and the only way anyone knew beforehand was rumors on Reddit.

And the Six Flags management team is smart enough to know that. So what happened financially behind the scenes to force this to happen?

Surely this wasn't the plan the entire time, right? Isn't maintaining the status quo with fewer people the entire shtick with a merger line this? I was braced for a decade or more of all parks but the top of the top performers to get small flat rides every few years until smaller properties get unloaded--not this.

EDIT: And like that, context was provided: https://KICentral.com/forums/topic/49150-the-bat-closing-in-2025/

[An apparent “leak” suggesting Kingda Ka is getting the axe]

1 minute ago, Vortex1987 said:

Cedar Fair wants Cedar Point to stay king and they're going to do what it takes to ensure they stay on top.

Cedar Fair does not exist. And no, they don't. Six Flags doesn't operate how YOU play Planet Coaster. You didn't read what I said.

[An apparent “leak” suggesting Kingda Ka is getting the axe]

11 hours ago, Vortex1987 said:

Look how Cedar Fair has treated other parks. KI for example, got a "lackluster" giga so it couldn't surpass Cedar Point, Canadas Wonderland got a lackluster giga so Mille could be better, Kings Dominions RMC wasn't nowhere near as big as SteVe so Cedar Points can be king, KI always has gotten 'OK" additions since Cedar Fair has purchased them from Paramount. They want Cedar Point to be the top park and now that Cedar Fair management is in charge with this merger, they're going to do whatever it takes to keep Cedar Point king. Even if it includes Demo-ing Ka. Also, for example, Cedar Point is getting ANOTHER new coaster AGAIN for what, 3 or 4 years in a row? Complete crap. They want Cedar Point as the flagship and  they're going to do what it takes to ensure it stays the flagship. 

 

Man I HATE Cedar Fair.

Yeah, it's definitely weird favoritism for literally no reason (the current Six Flags CEO was GM of Kings Dominion from 1998 to 2007, a.k.a. a time in which Paramount Parks was in competition with Cedar Fair and in which Kings Dominion added things like Volcano, Hypersonic, and Tomb Raider: Firefall, which were big deals at the time) and not because Cedar Point is the closest thing to a destination park in North America outside of Florida and California.

YOU think Orion and Leviathan are lackluster, and YOU think getting a smaller RMC is a sign of disrespect or whatever. That you think those things does not make them correct. Coaster enthusiasts do not know how to run amusement park chains.

Intamin hydraulic launches are unreliable and always have been. They've shredded launch cables multiple times and injured riders. They have more moving parts than any other launch type in the modern era. Intamin's spare parts availability seems atrocious. That they've lasted as long as they have is honestly surprising--I think if the upfront cost wasn't as large as they were, we'd have seen them go away sooner because parks wouldn't have bothered trying. Note that when a train on TTD shed a part that hit a rider, CF didn't bother with, for instance, building barriers between the ride and the adjacent guest areas, which surely would've been cheaper.

Cedar Fair tried an alternative on Top Thrill 2, the ride they sold passes and tickets based on the promise of riding, that worked so well that it operated for a few weekends in May and then closed for the rest of the year. I think that, very understandably, was the last chance for the industry to try to make the stratas sustainable. I expect that SF will do what they can to make TT2 work for 2025, but if something major comes up, it'll get removed and fall into that The Bat-Son of Beast-Hypersonic XLC category of rides where in 10-15 years, people on social media will incessantly post things like, "Who here got to ride TT2 while it briefly existed? What was it like compared to the original? Don't you think Six Flags should've tried harder to make it work/shouldn't Cedar Point rebuild TT2?" In the meantime, I honestly understand the decision to remove Kingda Ka, and I think Xcelerator is ABSOLUTELY on borrowed time.

Amusement parks are businesses.

[What should be Kings Island’s next coaster? (2024)]

I dunno, I'm not really on board with the whole "Vortex's replacement has to be an inversion-heavy coaster" thing folks have been saying on here for a bit. I'm not judging because I am FULLY guilty of doing the same thing, but I think it's easy for us to fall into a pattern of wanting certain things to not change, even when it might not make business sense to keep them the same. I feel like whatever goes in a well-loved attraction's place has to be marketable as a distinctly new ride from what was there before. (Not to mention, the next coaster doesn't necessarily HAVE to go in Vortex's spot... but it does seem the most obvious place, right?)

Problem is, without jumping into theming-heavy stuff that already wasn't Cedar Fair's schtick, ever, and especially probably wouldn't be Six Flags's thing right now with the legacy CF parks, I don't know of anything that jumps out particularly well for the park. We're more than good on wood coasters, and I think our bases are more or less covered on launches, inversions, and anything inverted. The trend right now for most big names in the industry? Intamin's and Zamperla's and Gerstlauer's and Premier's multi-launch coasters, Vekoma's new looping coasters and family inverts, GCI and Gravity Group's new wood coaster technology and designs with inversions, RMCs with inversions, Mack's launch coasters, and B&Ms with launches (and sometimes also inversions.) We don't have a lot of those things exactly, sure, so we COULD add them, but I fear they'd end up a bit lost in the lineup.

So like, if I HAD to choose something that actually seems semi-likely for the state of the chain right now, I'd probably pick a 10-across B&M Dive. I'd put a first drop facing towards the walkway around where Vortex's batwing was, tunnel it under the path, and come up into an Immelman over the walkway right about where the basketball game currently is. I have no idea what to add to it after that point to make it stand out, though--we've already got a B&M with a splashdown, and I don't know that there are many other quirks that B&M does these days that aren't already represented on our other B&Ms. I'd hate for us to get something unremarkable.

We've got lots of quality supporting players in our lineup, but I think it's important to also take a few risks to make some headliners, lest we develop what I lovingly think of as "the Canada's Wonderland problem." So, what I'd rather see happen, if we're sticking to coasters, is a Firechaser Express-like ride that's debatably more theming-heavy than Mystic Timbers. We've got the bases covered as far as base models go from most manufacturers, so it's time for something more than a fresh-out-of-the-box coaster. That's not me just really liking theming--I think doing Dollywood-level theming on a family coaster, which aligns with KI's current target audiences, would be the right move for a standout attraction in both the park and the market. Unless I'm forgetting something, no major players in the seasonal park world except United Parks and Herschend are doing themed coasters right now. Heck, you could even go so far as to have a drop track like Verbolten.

(If we're considering options besides coasters, I'd absolutely put a themed log flume in Vortex's spot. But that's not this thread, so I'll keep that to myself! )

[Universal Studios Orlando Resort General Discussion (USO, IOA, Epic Universe)]

Intamin and Universal have been working together a lot over the last 10+ years, so I wouldn't be shocked to see it happen again.

As far as what it could be or where, I feel like the only thing semi-certain is that it won't be for Epic Universe if something is getting built in the next 3 years or so. All the other details are anyone's guess.

There's been extra speculation elsewhere recently that Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit will be removed in the near future. A lot of people on social media want it to be replaced with an Intamin with a vertical launch. While I get that draw, putting something like that on HRRR's footprint would result in something that seems like it'd be difficult to market as a different experience to HRRR to people who don't know coasters intimately.

I thiiiink Blue Man Group stopped performing in their residency sometime mid-pandemic, which means there's a large empty building immediately adjacent to HRRR's footprint. That's a lot of potential new space that also has a lot of "storefront" within CityWalk. I don't immediately know of anything in Intamin's catalog that comes to mind to put on the front doorstep of USF that would be exceptionally showy on its own, but it's Universal. I'm sure they'd think of something and use it well.

If I'm tossing in pipe dreams here, it'd be neat to see some additional buildings between USF and IOA moved and that space used for some kind of dueling coaster where one side loads guests from IOA (in the Lost Continent) and the other loads from USF, somewhere along HRRR's footprint. Yeah, I know Stardust Racers is opening at EU next year, but this is MY pipe dream, dang it.

[Kentucky Kingdom commits to major capital in the next two years]

I love that Herschend is at least aware of the area around Mile High Falls in future planning. I made it back to KK this year for the first time since 2014, and yeah, the triangle between the carousel, Storm Chaser, and Thunder Run has definitely suffered from a lack of master planning over the years. Focusing there is smart.

[Which Single Element on a Kings Island Coaster is Your Favorite?]

I don't know how to name which turn it is, so here's a mental picture: You come off of lift 1 on Adventure Express and head down the long, sweeping drop. You cross under the lift and turn left. You then drop into a CCI-like swooping turn to the right that ends with bonkers laterals. My answer is that turn.

Honorable mentions go to the turn into The Bat's brakes, Banshee's heartline roll, Backlot's drop off the MCBR, Beast's double helix + the drop into it, Mystic's trick track, and the drop out of Son of Beast's station.