TombRaiderFTW

Finally. Someone with VISION.

^ To clarify, the Suspended Top Spin is a model that has been offered by HUSS longer than the Giant Top Spin ever was. Kings Dominion's Tomb Raider: Firefall (later The Crypt) and Knott's Riptide were both Suspended Top Spins. At this point, Cedar Fair has removed all variations of HUSS Top Spins from their parks--KD's Crypt was the last to go. Wonderland has a similar ride, but it is from Mondial (makers of WindSeeker), not HUSS. HUSS continues to offer the normal Top Spin and the Suspended Top Spin; Cedar Fair just doesn't own any of them.

Like... I'm not defending Chad, but after 7+ months of folks going after him and Elizabeth and the quality of their individual work, why wouldn't you cut off folks' ability to discern whose work is whose? Surely the criticism wears thin after a bit, regardless of the fact that there does seem to be consistent patterns in what has been observed about Chad's work. Like, yeah, maybe this is just changes from the top... but the merger has not happened yet. And there is a nonzero chance of it being rejected in the SIX vote--remember that a big shareholder for SIX was against it. Adjustments in preparation of that seem pretty premature.

^ I'm not implying you're wrong, but I'm curious: What site(s) is your data based on?

Yeah, but be sure to look at ground level for them--they've cut them way shorter than they used to be.

I'm not suggesting this is a good practice, but let me add some perspective to hopefully help keep this thread from falling into more anti-Six Flags hysterics: This comes after a couple years of the SeaWorld parks doing a 5% surcharge on all transactions, for similar reasons. What I'd like to know is why chains see this as a better move than to simply raise prices. Who's going to notice that prices at Six Flags jumped $1? Why is $0.99 the point at which leadership goes, "We've got to blame the economy and our workers for this to save face?" Unless, of course, this surcharge actually has nothing to do with the economy and is actually about increasing revenue...? I wonder if there's some value in being able to point out increased revenues to their shareholders when it comes time to vote on the merger. But like, I also get that the economy isn't great right now, so it could just be what it says on the tin. But I still want to know why adding the surcharge makes more sense than increasing prices. EDIT: Just to corroborate this entire situation, here's a tweet with a picture of a menu at SFoG showing the surcharge: https://twitter.com/OnlineHyde/status/1726370435510497582?t=oBC0V9GgssWl1iwiuUJNIQ&s=19

There's a slight difference between what I said and what you asked. I don't think he has ruined the brand--that's your word. I think Six Flags has a niche presence in the market and Bassoul has attempted to break out of it and redefine what Six Flags is extremely quickly, which (based on SIX's quarterly reports) has presumably done some damage to how Six Flags is perceived. Whether or not doing that was a smart move is a matter of perspective. I'm purely going off of vibes here, but I do wonder if he was intentionally trying to position SF to seem more attractive to CF or other prospective buyers.

Saying nice (and truthful) things about Six Flags?! Burn the heretic! How dare you interrupt a perfectly good collective meltdown! Listen, are there reasons to be concerned with this merger? Sure. But everyone judging this situation based on Six Flags of 20 years ago ("Everything is going to get a Six Flags name! Parking lot coasters!") hasn't been paying attention to how Six Flags has handled its most recent acquisitions and additions. And much as homestar said, I think the chain is being judged off its worst examples. The Texas parks, for example, are fantastic, as are Great America and Great Adventure (though admittedly I haven't been to the latter in 10+ years.) Not to mention, as much damage as Bassoul has done to Six Flags's branding recently, the president is still Zimmerman and the board is still half Cedar Fair. IF people at the top are thinking about doing y'all's worst nightmares and transforming Kings Island into Six Flags America Part II: Electric Boogaloo, there are people with a lot of say who seem to understand branding better. I'm not saying that's impossible; I AM saying that y'all have a precise count on how many chickens you'll have when the eggs haven't hatched yet. And yeah, Six Flags's FoL system is, as far as I'm concerned, objectively a better system than Fast Lane.

Respectfully, I think this largely would only matter to enthusiasts.

Rivertown Funnel Cakes had them its first few years. I don't think they do anymore.

I disagree. I think this expansion is 10 years overdue. The SeaWorld parks especially need to shift towards being more theme park than zoo/aquarium--their goodwill with the public as a zoo/aquarium is tarnished, and whether or not they can reclaim that goodwill is a moot point now. And they're dragging the Busch parks down with them. They're doing this one year at a time, not attempting to radically change from one extreme to another overnight (see: Six Flags Ohio in 2000.) SEAS is being aggressive, for sure, but there is at least SOME time to gauge between additions if things are going to plan. Adding 4 coasters to one park in a year did not provide that for early 2000's SIX.

Because SEAS in the 2010s was trying to pretend the Blackfish backlash would just blow over without a meaningful response on their part, and it was doing a lot of damage to their bottom line in the meantime.

I had similar thoughts. My bet is that this is just coincidental wording and it will just be a typical family invert.

Nope. The park has done lights-on tours during the day during Haunt before, but that was the exception, not the norm. The houses are otherwise closed during the day and open for scares at dusk. Presumably, if they decide to offer lights-on tours again, they will make mention of that on social media and/or the KI Blog.

I'm fairly sure the LSMs have always covered the ~3/4ths of the launch they currently do. They've just been tweaked over the years to launch more slowly.

Obviously I don't know anything official, but I have a very, very strong suspicion that the end of LNM's service life drawing near is exactly why any of this is happening in the first place. "Service life" is a fact of engineering, not fancy jargon some marketing person made up to get rid of Vortex and Big Bad Wolf.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think the marketing was very a straightforward and uncomplicated attempt to market something different from the norm of what the last 10 years of ownership had offered. It was a themed roller coaster, not just the tried-and-true Cedar Fair "coasters and concrete" approach--and what's more, it was a marketing approach that proved very successful 15 years earlier for Tomb Raider: The Ride. They told us something was coming, but they didn't exactly tell us what. What Marketing said: "There's a new roller coaster coming next year with a mysterious shed at the end of the ride. That's all we'll say until April!" How Marketing advertised the ride: A new roller coaster with a spooky theme and a mysterious shed at the end. "Come ride our new ride and discover the mysteries awaiting you!" How enthusiasts took it: "There must be a backwards launch*! Or a drop track*! Or a whole second half to the layout that's not shown in the renderings*!" Enthusiasts, the following April: "What do you mean it's a themed alternative to sitting on the brakes under the sun?! It should've been so much more! I can't believe the park hyped this up so much!" * = These, verbatim, are things that enthusiasts across the Internet were saying at the time. I'd wholeheartedly agree with you if the park spent time on social media or elsewhere making hints about elements to expect within the shed, but they didn't. That's why I have a hard time agreeing with enthusiasts who were disappointed with Mystic Timbers--I kinda feel like they played themselves and are blaming the park for it. I don't feel like the public at large had nearly as much beef with the shed as enthusiasts, either.

Ooooh. Yes please. As grateful as I am that it got new paint, I really hated the all-brown paint job.

It's 4:54pm and I wish I was asleep: Why is it called Flight of Fear if the fear is being introduced, not alleviated?

[enthusiast voice] But if they do that, they'll have to say nice things about the Paramount era! What's next, saying something nice about Six Flags?! [brain explodes]

I don't dislike the idea, but I wonder if this could be accomplished just as successfully but not as narrowly by having a Concepts subforum. I'm assuming that the kinds of things that would be debated would be changes to the park. As has been mentioned, that kind of stuff gets debated anyway when brought up, but in doing a Concepts subforum instead of specifically a Debates subforum, you'd also open the doors to non-debate ideas, e.g. "Here's my concept for a new area of Kings Island!" It creates room for debates AND gives a new platform for people's creativity. It'd also open the doors to more NoLimits/Planet Coaster/RCT-based ideas, which used to have considerably more presence here (and I miss them!) The existing Multimedia subforum works well enough for that, but it's not specifically geared towards creativity--you could just as likely (or more likely, in recent years) encounter a conversation there about the latest Call of Duty than anything amusement park-related. I'm glad those conversations are happening here, too, of course, but I'd love to see NL/PC/RCT creativity make a return here. I realize the internet has changed a lot over the last 20 years and forums are somewhat taking a back seat to things like Reddit, which I think is a big contributor for why that creativity has disappeared, but I also think you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. The trade-off (which I don't particularly worry about here, but it's worth mentioning) is that in creating a spotlight for ideas and creativity, it becomes somewhat easier to critique or put down those ideas. The last thing I'd want is for people to feel like their ideas don't matter or feel picked on because they suggested something that someone else doesn't like. But, I think we generally have a decent culture of respect here, so I wouldn't expect that things would devolve into that on their own.

Correct. Much like this year, when announcements get 24 hours' notice, it's usually a smaller addition that enthusiasts don't like and put shady quotation marks on but families enjoy.

Very weird to me that KillMart and Slaughterhouse might leave before Madame Fatale's... Aren't both younger than Fatale's? Anyway, if the park had an interest in theming its houses to the areas they're located in, Slaughterhouse would be an interesting spot for a house themed to haunted woods or something supernatural, wooded, and "outdoorsy" (that could benefit from actually being inside.) Had Wolf Pack not already run its course, I'd say that's a good place for it to go. Not immediately sure of what to do with KillMart's spot.

I was! That was a really fun event. The Banshee announcement and the Thunderbird announcement the following year were some of my favorite park events I've been to.