Kenban

Earlier this year the blueprints for a coaster at BGW leaked after someone pulled the plans the same way this layout did. Enthusiasts realized it was a GCI due to the ride having a separate maintenance building. Since then the park has announced the ride, confirming it will be a GCI and it will be called InvadR. The plans for Kings Island clearly show something which appears to be a separate maintenance building. Beyond that this layout just looks like a GCI to me.

I always look forward to your posts. They frequently come with colorful pictures.

I do wonder how small do you think this attraction is going to be? I scaled the ride in that picture to be what I would estimate somewhere around 3500 feet in length. One side of The Racer is 3415 feet. Also we should be able to get a decent idea of the scale based on the size of the station and maintenance building. In that picture the station is already shorter than the station for The Beast.

I have to believe the hot, humidless climate kills wooden roller coasters. Ghostrider was rebuilt this year, Apocalypse is very rough, Psyclone before it was horrible and Colosus was RMCed. Goldrusher is great, but brand new. Grizzly, not so much. Seems like a California problem. All that being said, while I wanted a Giga i'm not the least bit disappointed. A new coaster is a new coaster! Enjoy! Mean Streak has a sprinkler system installed which they use on hot dry days and at night. Although with the water shortage in California I doubt this is an option.

No matter what the park gets someone will be disappointed. It is impossible to make everyone happy. Personally I am not disappointed in the slightest. I still hope this is an RMC and not GCI but that is because RMC has been making some amazing rides and I have a few ideas that they could do which would be just incredible. Once I see detailed blueprints it should be obvious who is building the attraction. I am positive it will be good either way and I can already say that I will have an annual pass again next year and will be lining up to ride it. But I am an enthusiast and happy to admit it. The park already has a great selection of attractions, I do wish several of them were smoother, but it could just be me getting older. I would be getting an annual pass next year even without a new coaster. For me the biggest questions are. Do I get another drink cup next year because I am just getting sick of carting it around the park. If the park had some locker plan which I could add to my annual pass that would make a difference. Should I get the dining plan again? The service at Kings Island has just been horrible, but the rest of the chain appears to be fine.

I have to agree with Apocalypse but when the ride opened it was smooth. My guess is the problem is with maintenance at Magic Mountain not replacing bad sections of track. It really has not aged well. At the same time I would look at Thunderhead at Dollywood. That ride is five years older than Apocalypse and is fantastic. I think how the park treats the ride is more important on a wooden coaster than a steel coaster.

Why? The track is wooden, so wouldn't that make it a wooden coaster?Sent from my SM-G530T using Tapatalk The supports are wood, the track is steel. Personally I feel it is a steel coaster, if you want to call it hybrid go for it but I do not consider it a wood coaster.

I think screamscape is wrong. I actually do think that Mean Streak will get work done but I suspect the package deal is with GCI.

Here is my attempt at laying it out. I think I am close on this one. The 90 degree turn out of the station is to go around the log flume. The only problem I have with this is that I am having trouble scaling the layout so I am not on top of the train tracks next to the water reservoir for WWC. But it makes sense to me and would not require the removal of any more buildings or attractions. Entrance and exit are where the funnel cake stand used to be and follows next to the log flume between it and the train tracks. There has been clearing in this area and I was surprised at how much space there is.

Required by law to do work. Both Diamondback and Banshee blueprints were available long before the announcements.

One of the great things about Waldameer is that it is affordable. The parking and admission are both free. You only have to pay if you want to ride the attractions. I recommend the all day wristband which is currently $27.99 for just the amusement park rides and $35.99 for a combo wristband good for both the rides and the water park. It is possible to pay for each ride individually but it adds up quickly. If you are anything like me, once you have ridden Ravine Flyer II you will want to get back in line and ride it again, and again, and again. When you ride the drop ride I recommend a seat which looks out over the lake. Also right next to Waldameer is a state park called Presque Isle. I would at least stop in, could also be a good break in the day. It is a peninsula that juts into Lake Erie. It has a number of beaches, miles of trails, and at the very least is worth just driving through, although it would be a shame to not get out of the car.

I wish people would stop just looking at only the coasters and deciding how good a park is based on a handful of rides. I would like to think an amusement park is a lot more then just coasters. Start watching the shows, ride the flat rides, and just walk around. The whole experience is how parks like Dollywood have become so popular and successful. None of this can be experienced through google maps. Don made a great comment at Coaster Stock. I do not remember exactly what he said but he asked us to go do everything else in the park and not just the coasters. Ride the flat rides because if people keep just walking past them to get to the coasters then we will be stuck with a small number of parks with a bunch of coasters. Parks look at ride counts and decide what to add or remove based on how many people ride them. I really do hope the future is not parks like Six Flags Magic Mountain, a park which I view as completely overrated, and feels like a park with nothing but a kids area and a large number of coasters. I have to agree with a lot of others I feel Waldameer is underrated. I rarely see people discuss it on enthusiast sites but it has a good collection of attractions.

Have not ridden it yet myself. But everything I have read has been good. The MCBR was totally removed, although it still has some trims in areas. The ride is comfortable, but you can tell it is still a wooden coaster, and has some good airtime. The banking on turns has been changed so people think it has less laterals. The biggest complaint I have read is some people wanted it to be an RMC.

I believe Mean Streak is having major work done. While I want it to be RMC I have my doubts. I still think that it is more likely we will see GCI. The stake which says RMC on it is just too obvious. Cedar Fair has stated more than once about the company's relationship with GCI. Also at CoasterMania, Rob Decker was talking about how good the Ghostrider changes came out and that the CEO had recently been riding it and thought that they did a fantastic job. He then asked the audience how many people planned on going and riding it with the modifications.

The old SOB station is basically unusable for a new coaster. The location was never good to begin with, it is a bad idea to have dead ends in theme parks. Beyond that there is no longer anywhere for the coaster to go. If you look at a satellite view on Bing maps (google still shows SOB) you will see just how close Banshee comes to The Bat. There is just simply nowhere for the ride to go. If the park wanted to put a new coaster in this area it makes a lot more sense to replace the Skyflyer which would allow an easy path between The Bat and Timberwolf. You are pretty much correct the park does want to spread out the rides so that they can spread out the crowds.

So has anyone been the GM of Carowinds for the last six months?

I hate to see a coaster company go out of business or stop making coasters. I have only ridden two of their rides but enjoyed both of them. Steel Dragon at Waldameer is a great ride, the cars are not that comfortable but it is a lot of fun. The problem is that Rip Ride Rockit is fun, but was a total disaster. It likely killed sales in the US. The ride opened late because of construction issues, which included, having to build the lift hill twice, for several years after it was built the station loading did not work correctly, the ride used to be frequently down, and the linkages between the cars have already needed to be replaced which caused significant downtime. Universal has made the ride work, but it took large amounts of money, which most parks cannot afford.

It comes down to money. This is directly from an investors presentation by Cedar Fair and shows the profits produced as a percentage of the whole chain. Take a look at the chart and you can see why certain parks get more money to spend. According to investor reports after Fury 325 the chain pointed out that Carowinds got the ride early because of the response from Intimidator. Also the chain has announced it is planning on $150 million in capital improvements next year. Assuming a B&M giga Kings Island would get $30 to $40 million of that still leaving more then one hundred million dollars for the rest of the parks. When Banshee was built I believe it was the GM of Kings Island who said it would take three years to pay off. The investments need to match the size of the park. A large expensive coaster or two could easily push a smaller park into the red due to maintenance and operating costs. Cedar Fair is investing in the parks which earn the most and parks which have the most potential for growth. Knott's is stuck with little space to expand, also I wonder what percentage of the money comes from Scary Farm, that event is just huge and is a hard ticket event. It is hard to compare it to anything I have seen at any of the other Cedar Fair parks, I think it is even better then Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa.

I am starting to wonder if it will be called Centurion. The theme will be of a warrior or protector towering over the park. I doubt Cedar Fair would have bothered to extend the trademark unless they have a use for it.

http://www.trademarkia.com/centurion-86094874.html Lists the extension as 5/2/16 You can also check out the list of everything under Cedar Fair. Which is where Fury 325 is located.

I am surprised Don has never tweeted a picture of him stirring a pot. For example him standing in front of a huge pot of Skyline chili stirring it. It would likely even have a pretty normal text which means nothing important to us at least. I could see him using "While you are at King's Island check out our local favorites like Skyline Chili".

During the Q&A part of the event a kid asked Dennis Speigel if the park was getting a Giga coaster next year. Instead of answering he said something like I think this would be a better question for Don and basically dragged him to the mic. Don as you can see in the video responded "I can neither confirm nor deny that a giga coaster is coming to King's Island in the future." I will say this it is obvious that Dennis is shaking his head yes as Don walked away. The assumption and it is likely true is that Dennis knows exactly what the park is getting.

I was sitting like 10 feet from him and totally missed the "It's coming". I had to listen to the video several times but I will admit it does sound like it. Although are we certain who said it?

I remember a very busy night two years ago, the park was directing people down Cedar Point Rd. I left at closing time and the park had employees who were directing part of the traffic down the side road. I know the causeway was open and the majority of the cars were leaving in that direction. It is the only time I have ever driven down the road. It was a very busy Saturday night during Haunt but I thought it was really strange at the time.

is there a tunnel/new covering on WWC's new queue? If so then it's pretty clear that they have plans to protect the crowd from SOMETHING going over them... There is a wire mesh covering sections of the new queue which the park is growing vines on. I believe that if the ride goes under the train bridge it would pop up over the WWC path where one of the two wire mesh, soon to be vine, tunnels are.