SonofBaconator

How does one define intense? I always felt that that honor was given to I-305. If this thing is more intense than a low to the ground giga then wow

People tend to lose their heads over these types of rumors

If I was Cedar Fair and I was interested in acquiring BGW, I would push platinum passes where they could also hit up Dorney and Carowinds that are a few hours away. That or I would create a special pass for the Virginia parks that gets you access to just Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I still think just pushing Platinum passes would be the better route. In terms of diversification I think that if both Virginia Parks were under the ownership of Cedar Fair one of the parks would have to change. These two parks have competed with one another for decades trying to outdo each other so I think that it would be hard to have them coexist in the same chain without one of them changing. Hypothetically speaking, if Cedar Fair had control of both parks, I think Kings Dominion would be the one to change since it has already changed a lot over the past couple decades. They lost Volcano which was arguably one of their best coasters, and the rest of their coasters, with exception to Intimidator 305 and Dominator, are on the smaller side. I don't think there would necessarily be a need to close Kings Dominion considering how populated the east coast and mid atlantic regions are but one park would have to be dominant. They could give Kings Dominion more unique rides that you wouldn't find at Busch Gardens. They would not have to be extremely thrilling but just unique enough to make Virginians want to travel to both parks multiple times.

Sorry but I don't want anything crossing over or coming near to The Beast's land. Orion has been the only coaster to come close and that's as far as I would like it to go. Personally whatever replaces Vortex, I hope they use the cleared land and nothing more. Vortex had a low angle lift hill which took up a lot of space where as most manufacturers nowadays incorporate steeper lift hills to save space.

Here's a scenario- the amusement park industry has been deeply affected by Covid-19 forcing chains to look into mergers. What two chains would you merge together and why? This is purely hypothetical and not meant to be taken seriously- although I ask that you be realistic. I'll start- Herschend and Sea World Entertainment Herschend now operates 4 amusement parks in the southern US: Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, Wild Adventures, and Kentucky Kingdom. This chain is trying to grow. Now look at Sea World Entertainment who operates 6 parks: SEA Orlando/San Antonio/San Diego, Busch Tampa/Williamsburg, and Sesame Place. This chain is trying to recover from the animal rights controversy that has painted them in a negative light for years. Combining the chains would bring a grand total of 10 parks (as well as their water parks and Herschend's other attractions and hotels.) This chain would become more dominate the southern market with 6 parks (7 if you include SWSA) and have a steady presence in both east and west coast markets. Platinum passes would allow people to visit multiple parks throughout the southern US.

Instead of a double station, how about an unload station like you see on Millennium Force, BLSC, or Flight of Fear? The trains could unload in the unload station and the cars could stay vertical when entering the station to board passengers.

An interesting trend- parks with Intamins are getting more B&Ms and parks with B&Ms are getting Intamins. Its a balance of sorts

Some more stills of #12s old look Notable differences: larger stack, blue domes, blue headlamp brackets, and the name "Tecumseh"

I honestly think the Paramount era has been the closest we've gotten to Six Flags

Add a few B&Ms

I mean when you hire a company to build rides that break 300 and 400ft as well as 100mph, you're going to draw in crowds; that's pretty much a given. The issue is when those said rides suffer maintenance wise because of their innovations and people can't always ride them.

I agree, that was super underwhelming. It would be cool to see them go all out one year. Paramount did a cool show where a soldier would come home for the holidays

I could see an argument for that honestly. The most maintenance stricken coaster we ever had was SOB. I could not imagine what ops would be if we got an Intamin coaster. At Cedar Point it was pretty much a given that Dragster and Maverick would experience downtime with Wicked Twister and Millennium Force always being on the table. Love their rides, hate their downtime. RMC can be thrown in the same boat. Look how long Steel Vengeance was down to one train ops in 2018, look what's happening to Lightening Rod, I think even Twisted Timbers had some issues. The risk/reward ratio tips towards safety and reliability. Enthusiasts might get underwhelmed by parks that don't have Intamins or RMCs but GP, the people who make the parks the most money, could care less. Universal most likely went for Intamin because they can afford the downtime. Their parks are open year round so it hurts them less if one of their rides goes down vs if they were seasonal. With a chain like Cedar Fair, they can't really afford to purchase rides that could experience maintenance issues because they're only open few months out of the year. Everytime a ride is down, its hitting their wallet. When it comes to rides that experience downtime, the ROI is much greater for year round parks than it is for seasonal parks. As for Pantheon at BGW, I feel like they're just trying to outcompete with KD. If Cedar Fair operated a Kings Island sized park in a warm climate year round, I'm sure Cedar Fair would look to Intamin.

I believe I heard that correctly somewhere. The boilers have to be inspected every year- I know Disney World's are inspected by the state once a year and once by their own people. The train did operate during Fear Fest and Winterfest back in '05 if my memory serves correctly. The solution would be to not operate it on slow days, operate one locomotive for haunt and one for Winterfest (they did run one train for Winterfest back in '17), or simply spend thousands of dollars to aquire a 3rd 36" gauge steam locomotive and expand the railroad shed; the rail fan in me wants the ladder. I'm sure from an operations standpoint its just easier to run the trains during Winterfest, especially when there's more attractions open during Haunt.

I would love to see the train return for haunt. I wouldn't have the passengers disembark halfway through like they used to. I would have the train go past a ton of spooky scenes and live actors.

@jsus I was referring to the actual campsites for rvs being close to $109

As much of a B&M fan as I am I personally would be happy without a B&M flyer from an ops standpoint. I'd be concerned with the downtime due to the censors

Cedar Point charges around that much

2021 will essentially be make-up for 2020 I think. I could see them doing a 2 year 50th anniversary celebration from 2022-2023. Unless they already paid for a ride pre-covid I don't think we'll see a ride of any sort this season.

I would honestly prefer a B&M mini dive over a Gerstlauer Infinity coaster. I only say this because I personally want all that Vortex land used and I don't think Gerstlauer makes rides that massive

Demonic child, the old school baby carriage, a Paramount movie. How did I not make the connection?

I think there's a bit of leniency when it comes to outdoors as long as there is still distancing and PPE is still on someone's person. There are scenarios, however, where outside PPE should still be strongly encouraged. You have places where its harder to safely socially distance oneself without a mask, like cities with large population densities, outdoor sports and event venues, amusement parks, and so on and so forth.

I disagree. I think if there was ever an opportunity, Herschend would take it. Hershey is huge because it has the Hershey brand and it is on the east coast close to large cities like Philly, Baltimore, DC, etc. Like I said it'll never happen for the reasons @CoastersRZ said but I think Herschend has the money for such an enterprise. If Sea World Entertainment ever attempts to sell off their Busch properties I could see Herschend and Cedar Fair putting in bids.

I do wonder if Holiday World is on Herschend's radar. They do sort of fit the Herschend park theme and they could push a platinum pass system so people can go to both HW and KK I always had Hershey park in the back of my mind but I know Hershey Entertainment and Resorts would never part with their beloved park