TombRaiderFTW

Battle for Metropolis at Six Flags St. Louis. Kings Dominion. Great Adventure.

^ Especially at Six Flags St. Louis. I like Haunt, but leaving the arcade set up for Haunt is excessive. Unfortunately, I think they're going to leave it that way, as I'm pretty sure they repainted the actual front of the building. Better add the Action Theater to that list, too. I don't think it shows anything during the regular season anymore. I used to look down on Kings Island in 2008 for not being the same as it was during the Paramount years, but at least Action Theater showed Spongebob 3D, The Crypt existed, Son of Beast's station served an actual purpose, the arcade was an arcade, etc. I realize that there are reasons that those things aren't around anymore, but there are now more and more buildings in plain sight that are empty and not accessible by guests for all but the last five or six weeks of the season. I agree--it looks tacky at best. It didn't bother me as much at first, but I don't think I like the level it's at now.

I'm not pretending to know better when it comes to operating an amusement park, but isn't the weather a risk every park takes when operating a Christmas event? It just doesn't seem like a realistic reason not to when places like Kennywood and Hersheypark operate in December every year.

This is probably the attraction at any park that I'm most excited for in 2015 (which isn't to say that the rest are bad--I just really liked Cirque Imagine!) Will it be the same show, or will it be different? As far as I'm concerned, there is no wrong answer to that question.

I had forgotten/hadn't really paid attention to the fact that the park had double decker buses in its early days. I realize there are reasons the park probably wouldn't be able to use them these days (gasoline prices and handicap accessibility come to mind), but that is such a neat, unique touch. It really accentuates the international feel the park had in those days. If I had the money, I'd be tempted to buy one of them and restore it for fun. It would be even more neat to see the park buy/restore one and find some use for it within the park (or even just park it inside Tower Gardens for people to see and reminisce about.) Between the buses and Queen City Discovery's piece about the Kings Island Inn, the more I'm convinced that I would have really, really liked Kings Island in the 1970's. It truly was a unique place. What I've seen of it in pictures almost reminds me of a more majestic take on Busch Gardens Williamsburg, except Kings Island came first and seemed to more draw from the history of the area than strictly from various areas in Europe. I'm very glad I finally got the chance to stay at the Inn the night before Banshee's media day. The QCD article makes me wish I'd looked around the property a bit more. It's one of only a few parts of Kings Island that looks similar to the way it did when the park opened.

I can't choose between Verbolten and Curse of DarKastle. My first visit to Busch Gardens Williamsburg forever changed my perception and expectations of so much in the industry. It's an absolutely amazing place. Honorable mention goes to Banshee (and Cirque Imagine, if I can toss that in, too) for strongly changing my opinion and expectations of Cedar Fair. The future is indeed bright. Also, I have to give a shout-out to Timber Wolf at Worlds of Fun for being the first-ever Dinn that I can truthfully say I enjoyed from start to finish. What a great ride!

How about Skeleton Crew? Are they doing any shows today? They weren't on Friday, which is why I ask.

A guess: Flying Scooters. This short of a notice before an announcement screams "small flat ride." WindSeeker had only a week or so between the announcement of the announcement and the announcement itself. Not that I'm getting my hopes up, but wouldn't it be neat to see the original Eagles return to KI? Or perhaps they'll just cover additions that don't warrant a large announcement on their own. Fountain upgrades like at KD or Wonderland, the "sequel" to Cirque Imagine, and/or another equally significant feature could, all together, be a decent announcement for tomorrow. Whatever it is, I'm definitely interested!

And then there's Knoebels's set, which, regardless of what Terp thinks of them ( ), snap so easily that they can and do snap themselves when no one's riding in the tub. If I didn't still like their set so much, here I would say, tongue-in-cheek, "Carowinds, Schmarowinds." I personally find Cedar Point's set of Flying Scooters the clunkiest and least snappable set I've ever ridden. Holiday World's set of scooters look like Carowinds' compared to those things. Even Conneaut's were better.

At this point, I've realized that getting a new Cirque Imagine-esque show for next year is more than enough of an addition for me. FTW, hoping Cedar Fair and Les Productions Haut-Vol do lots of business for many years to come.

At least SFA's response could, theoretically, be chalked up to issuing a response before all the facts were reviewed. They denied the rumors, then retracted the statement and acknowledged that the incident(s) had occurred. And then they responded by allegedly increasing security. Canada's Wonderland is saying, "Yeah, it happened. That's life: sometimes you get stabbed in an amusement park parking lot." What? No.

Uh... did he just insinuate that Canada's Wonderland can't control and isn't responsible for controlling what goes on in Canada's Wonderland's parking lot? Isn't the whole point of park security to prevent things that "could happen anywhere" from happening wherever they are? Does Wonderland not patrol their parking lots the way Kings Island does?

^ That's actually the most logical reasoning I've ever heard for why parks like Canada's Wonderland and Cedar Point don't offer a mid-level Gold pass. They're pricing pass holder access to Haunt sky-high to keep undesirables out. I'd never thought of it that way before. That's pretty effective, too, based on the crowds at Halloweekends last weekend. I wonder why Kings Island doesn't adopt a similar system.

If they remove "great" and "to have fun," then yeah, I totally agree.

That's a neat idea. I like it. Just don't get rid of the paper maps, okay, Kings Island?

I have no comment on the quality of management at Kentucky Kingdom. I don't particularly like the way they've handled almost every issue they've dealt with this year. I think they're approaching each issue that's come up this year like it's never, ever happened in the industry before. But I'm not going to comment of the quality of the management.

Screamscape's latest update has a link to a Theme Park University article about the creation and design of Phantom Theater. It's a very interesting read, and it includes several pictures of Phantom Theater's various stages of design and fabrication, as well as an interview with Rick Bastrup of R&R Creative Amusement Designs. I think I've seen some of the pictures around here before, but there are a few (like one of a miniature painted model of the ride) that I haven't. Here's a link. According to the article, there will soon be a follow-up with a scene-by-scene analysis of the ride. That should be an interesting read, as any YouTube videos I've seen (or even the DAFE article about Phantom Theater) don't seem to get into much detail. EDIT: Actually, the follow-up has already been posted. Here's a link. There are actual pictures of the ride, and they're really great. Enjoy!

I've been there a few times within the last few Saturdays, arriving within a few hours after the start of Haunt. To give you an idea of how busy it was: the places we've parked were just about the closest you can get to Great Wolf Lodge in the Kings Island parking lot. That being said, both ride operations and house/trail operations were handled extremely well. The houses and trails would let larger groups of people in at one time, but the scareactors tended to break the groups up into smaller groups along the way by getting in people's ways. It was more effective than letting in a continuous conga line like the park has done in the past, as there actually was time for the actors to set the scares up between groups. I don't know that it worked this way for all houses since I haven't done them all each time, but Madame Fatale's Cavern of Terror, CornStalkers, and Tombstone Terror-tory seemed to handle it like this the most consistently and effectively. This seems to help capacity significantly. (Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever had to wait in the second queue for TTT, and I've done it just about every Haunt visit I've had this year.) The ride ops were just doing extremely well; Beast's line never seemed to have long periods of standing still involved. That being said, most of the first, all of the second, and half of the station queues were filled, so it was still a significant wait (i.e. 60-70 minutes, according to FUNtv.) Fast Lane never really seemed to negatively affect operations, but your mileage may vary.

If they can get that plan working, more power to them. If that's where I think it is, that's awfully rural area... There really isn't anything else drawing people to the area apart from Indian Lake itself. I'd think a mall would do better than an indoor waterpark, unless I'm assuming the waterpark would be bigger than it actually would be.

I chuckled at your TR... You and I have almost identical feelings towards SFGAm and Chicago, except Goliath wasn't there when I went, Viper and Batman were backwards and subsequently unpleasant, and I didn't like Demon as much. I'd probably say I liked American Eagle about the same as Racer, but definitely not better. There isn't much about the place that justifies a drive through Chicago for me, either. I'm curious to know what you'd think of Apollo's Chariot. That thing delivers abnormally violent airtime towards the end. It's better than Raging Bull for me.

^ I would check with the park to be sure, but I would think you'd be considered a new customer. You didn't have a 2014 pass at all, right?

Wasn't aware of that. I always thought Missouri Jane was just the name of the ghost that people claim to have seen at the park. I didn't watch the Ghost Hunters episode since that sort of thing doesn't do much for me. Yeah, trying to incorporate her into a ride would be disrespectful. Nix my idea.

I wonder how many people said the same things of Phantom Theater. I know it scared the pants off of me when I was of the age to want to stay in Hanna-Barbera Land all day. At this point, I'm of the opinion that Boo Blasters ought to be something more kid-oriented, and an adult-oriented dark ride should be added somewhere else in the park. As I understand it, the ride systems for Curse of DarKastle and the new Justice League dark rides will be similar (if not identical.) If those types of dark rides take off at SFStL and SFOT, I'd kill to have something like it at Kings Island. Obviously, Cedar Fair isn't about to spend Curse of DarKastle-magnitude funds on theming, but it would be neat to see Phantom Theater reimagined in the Action Theater building with that system. Heck, they could even make a dark ride based on the Fort Coney/Missouri Jane myth that they mention on the KI & MVRR.

Unfortunately for that park, I doubt it will keep people from booing the awful ride that is Ninja. Nor would it help me from boo-hooing as I leave Boss. (I really like Six Flags St. Louis.)

Adventure Express, because Adventure Express. International Street, because it's the only area of the park (besides Coney Mall) that's managed to maintain its original theme. A few years ago, I would have said Rivertown, just for the HUSS Giant Top Spin located there. I'm split between Vortex and Monster, so I voted "Other" on the third question. Monster is based on the removal of similar (albeit not identical) rides at Holiday World and Camden Park. Vortex is based on the removal of similarly-aged Arrow looping rides at NJFTP and Worlds of Fun.