TombRaiderFTW

I've missed trip reports. Yours certainly didn't disappoint. Thanks for sharing!

He was involved in operations at Six Flags. I find that interesting, and I'm curious to see how that plays out at the SeaWorld parks. Six Flags operations can be a mixed bag, in my experience over the last decade. The Texas parks have been on par with present-day Kings Island. Six Flags New England had the most maddening ride operations of any park I've ever been to, but their food service operations were fine. Six Flags America was bad at everything. In my head, inconsistency like that comes from not enough oversight at the corporate level. Other chains have been more consistent in my experience. What I don't understand, though, is whether the good operations were the standard and the other parks were falling flat, or if the bad operations were the standard and the other parks were exceeding expectations. And that begs the question of whether or not Tom Iven plans to tweak operations at SEAS at all, or if he's focusing on other things. I'm curious what his strategy will be going forward. It'll be interesting to watch SEAS over the next few years, assuming they don't fire him in a year, too.

I'm gonna say The Bat. Adventure Express is up there, too, but I feel like it at least gets recognition in enthusiast circles, whereas The Bat goes almost completely unrecognized.

Diamondback, with Beast as a close second. I like Beast, but it gets a liiittle more love than I feel it deserves. I don't particularly love Diamondback. I don't hate it; it's just fine.

Fast forward 13 years... The park added some elevators where there weren't some a couple years ago, and now the International Restaurant is in semi-regular use, including functioning as an actual restaurant for Winterfest. I'm curious where that leaves things re: the 50-foot platform, if the park were to build some other way of accessing it than the existing elevators. I do like that cafe suggestion that @hans1208 mentioned in 2008.

Poor thing. It's a wonder how he got by at all last year.

^ Oh, duh. That would make more sense, haha. I didn't notice which subforum it's in. Carry on!

Can someone explain what this is in reference to? I'm not sure I follow. Since @beastfan11 is talking about "removal of the rides," I'm assuming this is about Kennywood?

She's the exception. She's allowed to mess with Adventure Express.

^ I have no horse in this B&M versus Intamin race, but I don't think Universal ever said why Dragon Challenge was removed. However, speculating based on Hulk's track replacement, I'd speculate that any B&M operating basically continually for 18 years would probably have reached the end of its service life, and the park had to make the decision between replacing the track and putting in a whole new ride. If we roughly approximate a seasonal park as operating for 6 months a year, that's the same as a B&M operating for 36 years--a very reasonable lifespan for a steel coaster.

If this is your version of help, don't bother. You're being rude.

Can you please describe these effects for those of us who can't make it to the park in the immediate future?

...Did you want to follow that up with actual reasoning, or...? I'm just not sure how you expect people to engage with what you have to say here.

I agree with the sentiment that front-of-the-line passes like Fast Lane are unpleasant for locals but a definite interest for out-of-town folks. Systems like FL are intrusive to the overall guest experience, but the trade off is that there is minimal overhead. People buy them and have a near-instantly improved park experience, but it's also extremely noticeable when you see the same people ride the ride 5 times while you stand, frustrated, in the standby queue. I'm a huge fan of systems like Six Flags's Flash Pass instead. There are multiple tiers, and NONE of them guarantee you instant access to the rides. The base one has you wait just as long as everyone else, but you don't have to wait in the queue. The mid-level one reduces wait times by 50%, and you don't wait in the queue. The top-tier one reduces wait times by 90%, and you don't wait in the queue. If someone comes from out of town, the base level is affordable and offers a benefit but doesn't heap people into a front-of-the-line queue. If they're willing to shill out the dough for much faster access, they can, but it can be priced to keep it from becoming a common thing. I think it's a clever system, and I wish more parks would use it.

And I would submit that if Raptor is bad, then Alpengeist is even worse. It's the only B&M I begrudgingly ride, and that's if I'm with someone for their first BGW visit and they want to ride it. Apart from that, it's a hard pass.

Diamondback is fairly forgettable as a roller coaster, and its addition did more to lessen atmosphere in the park than anything Paramount did.

New theory: Sally is Sandor Kernacs.

I wonder if he has any interest in Fantasy Island. I'm curious to see what his ownership style is. He's made some good first impressions with Indiana Beach.

Pre-ordered! I love the cover, and that endorsement from Dennis Spiegel definitely has my interest piqued. Can't wait!

To be fair, we don't actually know that answer anymore. It might be sinking in whatever scrapyard it's in. Or maybe someone dropped their track slice in some quicksand, so a little bit of it is sinking.

But they don't have an Intamin!

The Cinema 180 theater was standing until sometime between 2009 and 2011, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong, but I want to say it disappeared when WindSeeker was built. I DO know for a fact it was there when I started my coaster enthusiasm in 2008.

Can they even do that? I don't know the details of how HIPAA works, but that feels like the kind of thing HIPAA would prevent.

I'm not necessarily saying they were right, but a couple people were vocal before and during 2014 about how much of a salesman Ed Hart can be. If you look at facts, he DOES have a history of "flipping" parks and selling them to chains. So, if that's his MO and if that's what he's looking to do with Kentucky Kingdom a second time... I mean, I wouldn't market the park I'm looking to eventually sell as anything less than highly successful, either.

If you're trying to do literally everything at both parks, which I feel like your post implies, I'm not sure exactly how much time to allot to each park. However, for me, I tend to hit up all the major coasters, a few flat rides, and nothing in the water park(s) and call it a day. Under that plan, I'd say both SFFT and SFOT are one-day parks--maybe two if it's busy. IF you want to allocate for an extra day under that plan and you have to choose between the two for some reason, I'd suggest SFOT. It's the bigger and busier park of the two, in my experience. Also, a word to the wise: if you get to SFOT at opening, hit La Vibora first. If I remember correctly, it has the worst capacity of any coaster in the park, and it'll get and keep a line quickly. If you're at SFFT at opening and are in the mood for punishment, hit their Boomerang first. Don't go to Goliath, even though it's right at the front gate; it'll have a line at opening and nothing by mid-afternoon, much like Raptor at Cedar Point. I can't speak to the Six Flags membership question. I've only ever had a season pass, and it's been a couple years since my last one. Going off of the plan I mentioned earlier, it's rare for me to feel like I need more than one day at a new park. Let us know how your trip goes! I love those parks and feel like they're never discussed as much as they deserve. If you're in the mood for Arrow-style airtime, I can't recommend the last row of Shock Wave enough.