TombRaiderFTW

You're not wrong, and it's making me wonder if something is going on behind the scenes at KI, CP, CF corporate, or all 3. The late announcement of Adventure Port plus the fact that it's not looking like it'll be ready for opening day makes me think that something shifted at the last moment in 2022 that made AP happen. Racer is getting a significant retrack and not much has been said about it, which is odd for the park. The International Street Skyline and Chick-Fil-A, which have been there for many years, are being replaced with... something, and that has never been truly addressed except passively by updating the food options on the website--Coney Bar-B-Que got more coverage, despite being announced super late, IIRC. It's like every change for 2023 has taken KI by surprise. Meanwhile, CP just had an enthusiast event where most of the announcements were, "Remember [thing]? Well, [thing] is going away!" If the oddity of 2023 had just been limited to CP, I would sooner guess it's something to do with their new GM... but it's not. I wonder if someone at the top of the chain changed recently.

If I remember correctly, this was basically how the original version of Fun Perks worked back in 2012... I think. I remember there being some confusion about what your point total was--I wanna say you'd semi-randomly get an extra receipt when making a purchase in-park that would give you a free cotton candy, a discount on Slingshot or Skyflier, etc.

The part of me that remembers growing up at KI in the 90's and early 2000's loves Backlot as it is, as it's basically the only remaining remnant of that era, for better or worse. The rest of me had a daydream the other day of Backlot being removed and a new Swan Lake being put in its place as part of a reimagining of that area, in preparation for whatever is coming to Vortex's plot of land. I like the thought of it getting a full retheme, though. Even post-Mystic, I'm not holding my breath that Cedar Fair would give it the Verbolten-esque theming it would need... but it's a nice thought. Genuinely curious: If y'all had to choose between getting a Vortex replacement first or getting a top-to-bottom retheme of Backlot first, which one would you choose?

What am I supposed to take away from this? That it's a bad idea because Six Flags did it? Y'all act like Six Flags has not successfully been in business longer than Cedar Fair has existed.

Six Flags Great Adventure, which is roughly the same size as KI, runs on solar power. If they can do it, I don't see why KI couldn't. More: https://www.nj.com/news/2019/06/six-flags-is-now-one-of-worlds-1st-solar-powered-theme-parks-more-clean-energy-is-on-the-way.html

I don't think I've ever seen a full-size suspended coaster do a corkscrew, but there is a miniature version in this video:

This is pure speculation: I think the idea that inspired the suspended coaster concept was that, instead of having to bank the track, the train would bank itself. As has been pointed out here many times, both the original Bat and Arrow's suspended coaster prototype had the unbanked track. It was only after 1981 that Arrow started banking its suspended coaster track, presumably due to lessons learned at Kings Island. All that to say, I think the existence of the suspended coaster as a concept is inextricably tied to the build and failure of The Bat. The Bat or a ride like it, warts and all, was always where that concept was going to end up, unless someone at Arrow was going to build and continuously operate a full-sized prototype for years and track how the thing aged (which seems unlikely.) Let's pretend for a minute that Arrow designed an unbanked track that could handle what the trains were doing. I wish I could remember who it was, but someone (possibly Jeff Gramke?) said at Coasterstock 2015 that the 6 dampeners that exist at the rear of each suspended coaster car were added on the fly while trying to troubleshoot The Bat. They eventually became standard on Arrow's suspended coaster cars. Those dampeners serve to... well, dampen the swinging of the cars so they go back to their "resting" position under the track more quickly. The more those dampeners have to move, the more quickly they wear out. On the post-1981 suspended coasters with banked track, those dampeners barely move, apart from moments like the swing up into the brakes on the 1993 Bat. On the original Bat, the wild swinging of the cars made them move like crazy. If the track could take the forces, I think the next issue would be parks not wanting to have to replace the dampeners. In other words, I think banking the track was always a likely future for suspended coasters, and the one(s) that had unbanked track probably wouldn't have had as long of a life as the later ones. I don't think The Bat would have been around for, say, 30 years in this scenario. Let's pretend that the track and the dampeners both aren't issues, somehow. Arrow's prototype contained a corkscrew. I've never heard officially why that never worked out, but many have speculated that it might be hard to guarantee consistent and safe navigation across all temperatures and weather. (The train takes the corkscrew too slowly because it's cold or windy? The car/cars presumably might fall to one side or another, which might not be comfortable and/or safe for the riders.) Eleven years after The Bat, B&M made their first inverted coaster. It's a similar concept (you hang below the track) but they can do inversions, which is a big selling point. Sure, as coaster people, we know that inverts and suspended coasters are of course very different rides, but that's not a nuance a lot of parkgoers are concerned with. Flashiness is the name of the game and always has been with coasters. All that to say: Had the original Bat had a track that worked and the dampeners somehow weren't a deterrent, I think it wouldn't have made a massive change to KI's future or the industry's future. Perhaps Arrow would have sold more suspended coasters elsewhere in the 1980's if their first big showing of the model hadn't flopped. And if we already had a functioning suspended coaster in 1992, perhaps we would have gotten a B&M invert when all the "cool kids" were getting them instead of 20 years after the fact like we did. At most, maybe Arrow would have beaten B&M to the punch on inverts and Banshee would have been an Arrow invert located where the current Bat is. I think suspended coasters are a neat, unique glimpse into a pre-CAD bit of coaster history, and we are unlikely to ever see anything quite like them again--Vekoma has/had their own version, yes, but they're very different layouts compared to Arrow's and haven't been sold in several years. But that's just my opinion!

Per Tony, the Sunrise Tours will return in 2023.

Boy, have I got news for you about how businesses work. I don't know if this was true in every presentation or just in mine, but Tony did admit in ours that part of some of the decisions that were made for 2023 were based in staffing and trying to consistently offer quality in what remains. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with, "We're trying to save money." I've had kind of a vibe from Cedar Fair recently (minus Kings Island and Carowinds) that they aren't particularly sure of what they are right now, and WCO 2023 only solidified that feeling for me. Cedar Fair post-Ouimet is giving me Disney post-Walt vibes--they seem to know that what was done 7-11 years ago worked but don't fully understand why, so they keep doing it in hopes that it'll keep working. I think that's why rides keep disappearing at Cedar Point and restaurants pop up in their wake, and why live entertainment hasn't moved past music revues (which has been standard amusement park fare since the 70's) and circus acts (which appeared circa 2012.) LARP-style attractions (Ghost Town Alive, Forbidden Frontier) were an interesting step in the right direction with a lot of potential, but CP was always an odd choice to me for one, and they basically hid it from plain sight. You had to look for it, unlike at Knott's, where you'd easily stumble into it (since Ghost Town is effectively their International Street, for the purposes of this conversation.) I'm not shocked it wasn't pulling numbers (Tony's words, not mine) and it's gone. It's a shame that Forbidden Frontier seems to have put a bad taste in CF's mouths about the entire concept. Cedar Fair circa 2012-2017 was redefining what the seasonal amusement park experience was, and it seems like we've faltered. Cedar Point's 2023 strategy being "we're adding a wild mouse and removing a bunch of other stuff" makes me feel like no one knows what to do with where things stand. Putting Tony Clark in the spotlight to have to break that news in person to a bunch of enthusiasts was an odd move at best, and at least in my presentation, it showed. Tony was very subdued and even the littlest bit sharp with people. It's unsurprising to me that they did a "text your question to this number" system for the Q&A, because that gave him the ability to ignore disgruntled questions.

The water effects can be seen in that video. There's a real-life POV after the animation.

I'm excited to see more. I appreciate the detail work that has gone into them already, but they did seem a bit "clean" compared to the overall vibe of Adventure Express.

Or even paint it. Not shades of blue like the Royal Fountain, but a deep blue, aqua, or even black would be a nice change from the concrete, whose light gray shows the gunk easily.

I expect that Fast Lane will be sold at a higher price this year. Frankly, this seems like another decision rooted in them selling too many Prestige passes for 2023. That, and selling too many of the all-year Fast Lanes. Gotta cut down on FL demand somehow.

That's too bad. If Knoebels, Dorney, and Kennywood didn't already have their respective Whips, I'd hope for it to go their way. If KI wanted to, say, reimagine Coney Mall to be more like the Coney Island of old and kick that off by snatching this up, I sure wouldn't mind!

So sorry to hear this. Ed was a crucial part of the park's history for years, across many additions. He will be missed.

Yeah, it won't be Fun, Fireworks, and Fifty. It'll be Fun, Fireworks, and Fifty One.

Incredibly happy with the color choices. This is what I'd hoped for when we first saw that swatch on the brake run support. That will look SO much better in Rivertown.

Adam Sandy is the guy in the video. Formerly a higher-up for Ride Entertainment, the firm that handles sales for Gerstlauer and SkyCoaster, among others. Now the Sales and Marketing Director for Zamperla. As someone whose career is built on keeping promises, I expect that he chose his words very specifically. You don't toss out "200 kph" without being sure that you can do it. To be clear, IF I'm on the right track at all, I really, really, really don't think Adam is part of Cedar Point's marketing. In other words, I think this might be an interesting piece of the final picture, but it is NOT a hint. I've been around these parts long enough to know that someone's gonna take an unrelated company's video as a hint from CP's PR department, and so help me, I'm not gonna feed that monster. For the record, this isn't me pretending to know something when I don't. Because I don't know anything about what CP has planned. I'm just offering what perspective I can.

Unless, of course, the mods decide to close it due to low attendance.

I know exactly which prop you're talking about--it caught me by surprise in Holiday Horror and is unique enough that I usually end up taking note of it each year. I did see it this year in Cornered, and I really want to say that it was operational.

Very, very interesting. I can't think of a reason why the blocks between the final brakes and the station would need to be removed. Or why the supports halfway through the brake run to just after the station would need to be removed. The launch track and brakes make sense to remove, if the rumored launch conversion is actually happening (and I speculate that it is, though I question if Zamperla or Intamin is doing the conversion.) It's basically a given that new track would need to be fabricated. I could mayyybe understand needing to replace the supports to make that happen instead of being able to make the track work with the existing supports... maybe. But removing the footers, which is what appears to have happened on the back side of the station? I don't want to stir this into a bigger deal than it actually is, but that makes me think this won't simply be a track replacement. Someone speculated elsewhere that TTD will be converted into an Ice Breaker-style multi-launch. That seems a little far-fetched to me, but the footers going away makes guesses like that seem slightly more realistic. If the park is going to THIS much bother, it makes sense that they might choose to "plus" the ride somehow as a part of rebranding it, to help distance it from being That Ride That Hurt Someone. I don't know that I'd necessarily agree that simply painting New TTD as a new ride is the best move, if that's what they choose to do--it lends itself to the GP idea that amusement parks are unsafe and run by schemers who care little about safety and will slap paint and a new name on something that has had an accident just so they can keep taking your money--but I'm not sure what a better move would be. It's a tough position to be in. Winter Chill Out is gonna be an interesting one in 2023. Even with the second day being added to it, I expect that it will sell out immediately, and people will be expecting TTD news. And surely Tony Clark knows that.

I have a vague memory of someone from the park during the early stages of Diamondback's construction (maybe during Fall Freak Out '08?) saying that they didn't want the area around Diamondback to be clear-cut the way the area around Backlot was. I would argue that that still kinda ended up happening. The best time to fix that issue would have been in 2009; the next best time is now.

I like the new support color so much! If they want to go ahead and make all the supports that same brown, too, instead of having different colors on the lift hill, I'd be okay with that, too. It fits Rivertown so much better and removes a bit of that Kinzel era "red track, yellow supports" sterility of the early Cedar Fair years. EDIT: It looks like they might be repainting the lift supports yellow. Ah well, the brown in place of the tan is still a win!

Wow, thank you so much for sharing! This is extremely cool! If you would be okay with it and if the admins are interested, I'd love to see these saved and preserved somewhere on the site. These are some really cool pieces of history that I would really hate to revisit down the road only to find every link broken. That's happened a lot here over the years, and I hate it every time I see it. @IndyGuy4KI @malem @Dane @CoastersRZ

I'd love to hear more when the time is right! Oh yeah--to be clear, I think the fact that this pin series is happening at all is really above and beyond. I don't mean to be backhanded, but prior to Mike Koontz, I kinda expected the 50th anniversary to pass by with about as much fanfare as the 40th (which is to say: without much fanfare beyond some commemorative merch.) The pin collection is a cherry on top of a fantastic and exceptional season. ...I just don't like the artistic choices around this particular release. But it's easy for me to criticize behind my keyboard when I don't know just how intrusive the rules behind this one were.